Thirsk

Thirsk lay on the York-Scotland road at the point where it crossed a tributary of the River Swale, about 25 miles north-west of York.1 W. Grainge, The Vale of Mowbray (1859), 41, 80; VCH N. Riding, ii. 59. A market town, Thirsk was also noted for its leather and saddle-making and for the brewing of ‘good ale’.2 R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 252; Grainge, Mowbray, 75, 148. The borough contained approximately 220 householders by the mid-seventeenth century, suggesting an overall population of about 1,000.3 E179/216/461, mm. 83-4; N. Yorks. RO, ZA282, Bell of Thirsk mss (mic. 1704); PR/TH 3/1/1, Thirsk churchwardens’ rates and assessments (mic. 1704); Grainge, Mowbray, 148. The town was governed by the borough bailiff, two constables and by numerous trade and market searchers.4 Grainge, Mowbray, 91; VCH N. Riding, ii. 61. Although first enfranchised in 1295, Thirsk had not returned Members to Parliament on a regular basis until the 1550s.5 VCH N. Riding, ii. 61. The franchise was restricted to the owners of burgage properties (of which there were 52 by the early nineteenth century), although the size of the electorate tended to fluctuate from one election to the next, probably because the qualifications for voting were sometimes not rigidly enforced. The number of voters was usually somewhere between 20 and 40.6 CSP Dom. 1675-6, p. 95; Grainge, Mowbray, 109. The returning officer was the borough bailiff, who was chosen annually by the burgage-holders at the manorial court.7 VCH N. Riding, ii. 61; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Thirsk’. The manor of Thirsk belonged to the Stanleys, earls of Derby, but they had little influence on borough politics in the early Stuart period.8 Grainge, Mowbray, 69; HP Commons 1604-1629.

The borough’s principal electoral patron by 1640 was Thomas Belasyse†, 1st Baron Fauconberg – the foremost landowner in the Thirsk area. The Belasyses, who had been leaders of the Yorkshire opposition to the earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), were related by marriage to several of the county’s most prominent ‘disaffected’ gentlemen, notably Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*, Sir Hugh Cholmeley* and Henry Cholmley*. Members of the Belasyse family had represented the borough in almost every Parliament since 1614.9 Carroll, ‘Yorks.’, 230; HP Commons 1604-1629. In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, the burgage-holders returned Fauconberg’s second son John Belasyse (the younger brother of Henry Belasyse, who was elected a knight of the shire for both the Short and Long Parliaments), and a neighbour and close friend of the Belasyses, William Frankland, of nearby Thirkleby, who had sat for Thirsk in the 1628-9 Parliament. The indenture, dated 25 March, was signed by 26 of the burgage-holders.10 C219/42/2/98.

John Belasyse retained his seat in the elections to the Long Parliament that autumn and was joined by his brother-in-law Sir Thomas Ingram, who replaced the ailing Frankland. Ingram, whose owned little or no property in the vicinity of Thirsk, owed his return to the influence of the Belasyses. On this occasion the indenture was signed by 25 burgage-holders, all but two of whom had signed the March indenture.11 C219/43/3/128. If the acquisition by Robert Stryckland* (an ally of Strafford’s) of a burgage in Thirsk in October 1640 had been intended to provide him with an electoral foothold in the town, it had proved a poor investment.12 D. Scott, The Stricklands of Sizergh (Kendal, 1908), 146.

Both Belasyse and Ingram sided with the king during the civil war and were disabled from sitting by the Commons on 6 September 1642.13 CJ ii. 754b. In September 1645, the House ordered that writs be issued for new elections at Thirsk, and on 6 October 1645, the borough returned Colonel Francis Lascelles of the neighbouring town of Northallerton, and William Ayscoughe of Osgoodby Grange, which lay just outside Thirsk.14 CJ iv. 259b, 266b. Of the 20 or so burgage-holders who signed the indenture (which has been damaged to the point where some of the names are indecipherable), the majority had also voted in the previous two elections.15 C219/43/3/130. With the royalist Belasyse family a spent electoral force by the mid-1640s, Ayscoughe had been able to build a strong interest in the borough as a prominent local landowner and as lessee of the rectory of Thirsk.16 Infra, ‘William Ayscoughe’. Although Lascelles certainly owned property near Thirsk after the Restoration and perhaps earlier, he may have owed his return to Yorkshire’s most powerful family by the mid-1640s, the Fairfaxes of Denton, under whom he had served as an officer in Parliament’s northern army. At the time of his election, Lascelles was commander of the parliamentary forces besieging Bolton Castle, which lay about 15 miles north of Thirsk.17 Infra, ‘Francis Lascelles’; Carroll, ‘Yorks.’, 309. Despite his Presbyterian sympathies, Ayscoughe was not secluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648, but abstained from sitting in the Rump. Lascelles, a firm Independent, sat in the Rump, although to little notable effect.

Disenfranchised under the Instrument of Government in 1653, Thirsk regained its seats in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659, which saw the return of Colonel Thomas Talbot II and Major William Goodrick. As the owner of property near Thirsk, Talbot may have enjoyed a proprietorial interest in the borough. Equally, as a loyal officer in the Cromwellian army, he may also have enjoyed the patronage of his fellow colonel, the protector’s brother-in-law Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg.18 Infra, ‘Thomas Talbot II’. Goodrick was an officer in Fauconberg’s regiment and almost certainly had his colonel to thank for his election.19 Infra, ‘William Goodrick’. The borough was represented in the restored Rump by Lascelles, although he does not appear to have resumed his seat until mid-January 1660. In the elections to the 1660 Convention, the borough returned the royalists Barrington Bourchier (son of the regicide Sir John Bourchier*) and William Stanley, a son of the 7th earl of Derby, who had been executed for treason by the Rump in 1651.20 HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Thirsk’.