Old Sarum

The site of Old Sarum (Old Salisbury), a natural fortress, had been occupied since the Iron Age, and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries attained some importance as containing a royal castle and mint as well as the cathedral of a newly-created see. Henry I granted the burgesses a charter according them a guild merchant, freedom from tolls throughout the royal demesnes, and the rights to return royal writs and judge felons, but rapid decline and depopulation resulted in the thirteenth century from the decision of the bishops to remove their cathedral from the windswept and waterless hill-top to a site on episcopal land some two miles away on the banks of the Avon. There, the town of New Salisbury sprang up, attracting to its fairs and markets not only the inhabitants of Old Sarum but also increasing numbers of people from all over the country. The guild merchant at Old Sarum soon disappeared, and henceforth the borough was excused taxation because of its poverty. Its population declined to such an extent that no more than ten residents were available for assessment to the poll tax of 1377. By then Old Sarum’s castle had fallen into decay, and after 1399 money ceased to be spent on any repairs.2 VCH Wilts. vi. 51-53, 58-59, 60-62; CPR, 1399-1401, p. 125.

The royal gaol was also in a ruinous condition: the sheriff of Wiltshire asked for it to be refurbished or else that another building might be assigned to him for the custody of prisoners. Accordingly, a gaol apparently remained in use at Old Sarum until well on in the fifteenth century, and royal commissions to deliver it continued to be appointed until 1508. Yet such appointments should be regarded as a fiction to some extent, for actual deliveries came to take place with increasing frequency at the new city in the valley, and the last gaol delivery at Old Sarum itself took place in 1414.3 VCH Wilts. vi. 59; JUST3/130, m. 55; CPR, 1408-13, pp. 90, 94. Similarly, although the Crown continued to present chaplains to serve the parish church of St. Peter at Old Sarum – doing so in 1400, 1413 and 1440 – St. Peter’s was excluded from contributing to the subsidy on parishes collected in 1428 as there were then fewer than ten parishioners.4 CPR, 1399-1401, p. 179; 1408-13, p. 468; 1436-41, p. 425; Feudal Aids, v. 290. Two of the original four chapels in the castle survived into the period under review: presentations of royal clerks to the chapel of Holy Cross occurred throughout the century, and vicars for St. Mary’s chapel were nominated by the dean and chapter of Salisbury cathedral until 1427,5 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 214, 426, 583; E213/407; VCH Wilts. vi. 59-60. but whether the incumbents ever performed religious services there is open to question.

Custody of the castle and gaol was granted by the Crown to a succession of royal servants. Thus, John Chittern was constable of the castle from 1429 to 1442, subsequently holding the post in survivorship with one of the yeomen of the King’s pitcher-house; and John Nayler, a Chancery clerk, was ‘custodian’ by 1459.6 CPR, 1401-5, p. 171; 1408-13, pp. 37, 165; 1422-9, p. 531; 1441-6, p. 81; 1446-52, p. 24; 1452-61, p. 513. Such appointments were sinecures. The ruined castle produced no rental income for the King, who on 17 Mar. 1447 granted it in tail to (Sir) John Stourton II*, the prominent Wiltshire landowner currently serving as treasurer of his Household. Stourton was described in 1462, the year of his death, as ‘occupier’ of Old Sarum castle, and before he died he placed his lands at Old Sarum and Stratford sub Castle in the hands of feoffees.7 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 35-36; C67/45, m. 34; C140/63/55; CCR, 1461-8, p. 126. Whether his heirs ever took possession of the castle is not known; later Kings continued the practice of granting the constableship to their servants.8 VCH Wilts. vi. 56.

Despite the desertion of Old Sarum, the borough apparently continued to have a mayor and bailiff as in times before depopulation became irreversible. Thus, John Avery† was given the title of mayor in 1400, and according to a later parliamentary indenture a namesake of his occupied the office in 1453. In the meantime, Thomas Mason, a former mayor of Salisbury, used the seal of the mayoralty of Old Sarum to authenticate conveyances of land in the neighbourhood in 1423 and 1424.9 C219/16/2; E40/6279, 9217. Even so, there is no sign whatsoever of any continuous administration, and although in the 1440s Edmund Penston took responsibility for holding courts at Old Sarum (as the King’s steward), no records of any judicial proceedings survive. In later centuries those holding property at Old Sarum in burgage were accorded the privilege of returning burgesses to Parliament, but there is no evidence that this had been the case during Henry VI’s reign. In any case, such burgage-holders are hard to identify, save perhaps for members of the Upton family who held land in the ‘town of Old Sarum’ by knight service in chief from the Crown from the thirteenth century until early in the fifteenth.10 CIPM, xxiii. 223; CFR, xvi. 46-47.

Old Sarum had been represented in the Parliaments of 1295 and 1306, and, after a prolonged interval, in 18 of the 28 Parliaments which assembled between 1361 and 1390. From the latter date until 1421 representation was very intermittent, for returns appear to have been made only five times during that period.11 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 708-11. Even though from 1421 for the remainder of the century the borough was represented on a fairly regular basis, returns survive for only 16 of the 22 Parliaments meeting between 1422 and 1460, and on occasion (as in 1426 and 1429), the precept sent by the sheriff of Wiltshire instructing the authorities at Old Sarum to hold elections met with no response.12 C219/13/4; 14/1: there are blank spaces left for Old Sarum’s MPs on the schedules. Very little is known about the conduct of Old Sarum’s elections, but they were recorded in the same way as those of other boroughs in the county. On receipt of a royal writ of summons, the sheriff sent a precept to the chief officers of each parliamentary borough, requiring them to certify to him the names of those chosen. He then listed all those elected on a schedule, which was attached to the shire indenture returned into Chancery with the endorsed writ. If separate indentures were regularly drawn up for Old Sarum alone, none have survived except for the Parliaments of 1453 and 1455. The first, made on 22 Feb. 1453 between the sheriff of Wiltshire as one party and John Avery ‘mayor of Old Sarum’ and ‘the burgesses’ (none of whom are named) as the other, simply states that Richard Joynour and Thomas Freeman had been elected. The other is too damaged to provide useful information.13 C219/16/2, 3.

In the 16 Parliaments for which returns for Old Sarum are extant, 25 different individuals represented the borough. A third of them (eight) only ever sat in one Parliament, and although Fruysthorp and Pakyn were returned for Old Sarum twice, Messager and Wylly three times and Freeman probably four, they were out of the ordinary in securing repeated election for this borough. Nevertheless, it was far from unusual to find members of this group of 25 seeking election for other constituencies. More than half of them (14 of the 25) did so successfully, and seven of these could offer their earlier experience of the Commons to promote their candidacy for Old Sarum. Most of the 14 represented other constituencies in Wiltshire: Calne (Freeman), Devizes (Henry Long and Uffenham), Great Bedwyn (Everard and Hussey), Heytesbury (Joynour), Ludgershall (Spicer), Marlborough (Wylly), Salisbury (Freeman, Mone and Penston), and Wilton (Harleston and Uffenham); and Hussey also went on to represent Melcombe Regis in Dorset. Much more out of the ordinary were Archer and Baron, who before sitting together for Old Sarum in 1459 had previously both represented the Cornish borough of Helston in the Parliament of 1453. Three of Old Sarum’s MPs (Hussey, Henry Long and Sydenham) progressed to the status of knights of the shire, respectively securing election for Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset. As all this makes clear, the majority of those who represented Old Sarum were ambitious men determined to gain a seat in the Commons regardless of whether they had any interests in common with their constituents. They endeavoured to secure election on as many occasions as possible, with the result that Henry Long and Sydenham sat in at least five Parliaments each, Uffenham in seven, Freeman in perhaps eight all told, and Harleston in as many as 12. But it was their own private concerns they had in mind – the few inhabitants of the decayed borough of Old Sarum did not require advocacy.

In their enthusiasm for a seat in Parliament certain of the MPs may have been encouraged by their fathers: Hussey’s had sat in the Commons, as had Thomas Pakyn’s (William Pakyn* who represented Salisbury), and John Yelverton’s (the judge William Yelverton*). Henry and Richard Long were two of three brothers – the sons of Robert Long*, the bailiff of the bishop of Salisbury’s liberty – who all sat in Parliament (most notably doing so together in 1442, albeit as representatives for different Wiltshire constituencies). It can be shown that Old Sarum was represented by two men with previous experience of the Commons in five of the 16 Parliaments for which information is available, and that in five more one of the MPs had sat before. Furthermore, the gaps in the returns make it unlikely that two novices sat together on all six of the other occasions (in 1427, 1433, 1437, 1442, 1447 and 1450).

Given that Old Sarum was all but deserted it is not surprising that none of those returned could be said to have been properly resident there, and only three of the MPs are known to have possessed land in the immediate vicinity. Although he hailed from Hertfordshire, Fruysthorp held an Exchequer lease of the property at Old Sarum inherited by the young grand-daughter of John Levesham†; Hussey could lay claim to the same inheritance; and Penston, who held land locally, was the Crown’s steward in the borough. Yet Penston, like nine of the others returned for Old Sarum (Aylesby, Bagot, Everard, Freeman, Messager, Mone, Pakyn, Scott and Wylly), actually lived at Salisbury, where several of them were active in civic administration. Everard and Scott were members of Salisbury’s council of 24 when returned for Old Sarum in 1423 and 1427 respectively; and Freeman was likewise and a former mayor of the city when returned to the Parliament of November 1449. In effect, in that particular Parliament of 1449 Salisbury had four representatives in the Commons (placing it on an equal footing with London), for Freeman’s fellow Member for Old Sarum (Wylly) was then serving on Salisbury’s council of 48. Overall, in the period under review citizens of Salisbury took at least half the seats available at Old Sarum.

Four of the MPs lived elsewhere in Wiltshire: Harleston and Uffenham at the county town of Wilton, where they participated in municipal government; Bonham probably at Wishford; and Henry Long at his family home at South Wraxall. Others came from further away: Fruysthorp from Hertfordshire, Sydenham from Somerset, and Hussey from Dorset. The latter, Hussey, made his mark primarily as a landowner and member of the gentry in his home county, as too did Mone, who although he owned property in Salisbury and later took part in civic administration, was an ‘esquire’ of some standing. For an absence of any association either with Old Sarum or its county, five of the 25 MPs stand out: Burghill, probably a Herefordshire man; Yelverton, brought up in Norfolk; Joynour, a Londoner born; Archer, who came from Tanworth in Warwickshire and held manors in Shropshire and Leicestershire as well as property in London; and Baron, likewise with London connexions, who hailed from Bodmin in Cornwall. It is significant that these five all secured election in or after 1450.

As might be expected, a number of the many outsiders who represented Old Sarum were lawyers, men who viewed a seat in the Commons as a means of advancing their careers. At least nine of the MPs (over a third) are thought to have had some legal training,14 Archer, Baron, Hussey, Henry Long, Messager, Pakyn, Penston, Scott, Uffenham. of whom three were attorneys in the central courts at Westminster. Archer was a member of the Inner Temple, Hussey and Henry Long were both later appointed to the quorum of the peace commission (in Dorset and Wiltshire, respectively), and Uffenham served as clerk of the peace and a coroner. Others – chief among them the men from Salisbury – were merchants: Aylesby, an ironmonger who also dealt in wine; Freeman, who traded on a very large scale through the port of Southampton; Harleston, probably in the cloth trade; and Wylly, a mercer. Joynour, the Londoner who began his career as a silversmith, entered the Grocers’ Company before emerging as a financier and major creditor to the Crown and assuming the status of an esquire. Armigerous rank was also achieved by Bonham, Hussey, Henry Long, Mone and Sydenham, and with the exception of Bonham, they were fined for failing to take up knighthood as was expected of those with landed incomes in excess of £40 p.a. Indeed, Hussey, Long and Mone became landowners of considerable substance.

Several of Old Sarum’s MPs took on administrative tasks for the Crown. Everard had been a sheriff’s officer in Wiltshire, and five of the ten who were named to ad hoc commissions in the course of their careers had been active as commissioners before their elections to the Commons for this constituency.15 Archer (in Staffs.), Bagot, Baron, Mone and Sydenham. On the other hand, the four who were made j.ps. only served on the bench after their parliamentary service for Old Sarum was over.16 Hussey and Mone in Dorset, Henry Long in Wilts., and Sydenham in Som. The principal offices of county administration were occupied by four of the MPs: Archer was escheator in Staffordshire and Hussey in Somerset and Dorset; while Henry Long and Sydenham were appointed sheriffs, but only Archer had any experience of office prior to his election as Old Sarum’s MP. It was more common for the MPs to have served as customs officials: Fruysthorp was tronager and pesager in Southampton when returned for the second time in 1422; his fellow MP Harleston had been alnager in Wiltshire for six years; Joynour had been collector of tunnage and poundage in London and controller of the mint at the Tower before his election in 1453, when he was currently customer at Ipswich; and Freeman had been controller of customs in Southampton, and was currently collector in Poole when returned in 1455. All of them took the opportunity to combine business at the Exchequer with attendance in the Commons. Joynour, one of the leading creditors of the Crown and frequently a party to complicated financial transactions likely to lead to trouble in the law-courts, probably sought election in order to take advantage of the privilege of freedom from arrest accorded to MPs. Indeed, he sued out writs of privilege while sitting for Old Sarum in separate sessions of the Parliament of 1453.

It may be that in order to fulfill their ambitions to obtain seats in the Commons some individuals looked to the patronage of magnates. Uffenham (1433), Henry Long (1435) and Sydenham (February 1449) all belonged to the circle of Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford, the influential Wiltshire landowner and prominent member of the King’s Council; and Mone (1442) enjoyed close links with the Staffords, including the chancellor John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells. A connexion with John Stourton II, Lord Stourton (who from 1447 had custody of the ruined castle of Old Sarum), may have proved useful in securing the elections of Sydenham (whose wife was Stourton’s cousin) in 1449, Joynour (with whom Stourton, as treasurer of the Household, had financial dealings) in 1453, and Bagot in 1455. While the influence of Hungerford and Stourton may be readily attributed to their dominant position as major landowners in the locality, the return of the Norfolk man, John Yelverton, in October 1450 requires a different explanation. On this occasion there are signs that the schedule listing the names of the representatives of the Wiltshire boroughs was tampered with, in particular where Yelverton’s name was concerned. It may be plausibly suspected that William Yelverton, a judge in King’s bench who had recently been commissioned to hold sessions of oyer and terminer in Wiltshire following the murder of Bishop Aiscough of Salisbury, had seen an opportunity to secure a seat in the Commons for his son. Most indicative of outside interference in Old Sarum’s returns was the election to the Coventry Parliament of 1459 of Archer and Baron, a duo who had first entered the Commons together six years earlier as MPs for Helston. What linked them together was their service to Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, and it was probably in their master’s interest that they secured election to both Parliaments.