Dunwich

The sea had not yet entirely engulfed Dunwich. The constant coastal erosion – which would cause the town to become one of the most notorious of all ‘rotten’ boroughs – had claimed most, though not all, of the old town. A thousand years earlier, Dunwich had been one of the major towns of East Anglia and for the two centuries from 673 had been the seat of a bishop. However, well before 1298, when it began sending Members to Parliament, the disadvantages of its location were apparent. The soft chalk cliffs, regularly battered by the North Sea, easily disintegrated and the action of the tides then deposited the debris, creating the shingle bars characteristic of the Suffolk coast. This subjected the town to the double curse of a silting-up port and encroachment by the sea. Even more so than at Orford further down the coast, the unpredictably shifting coastline was slowly destroying what prosperity the town had once enjoyed. In the middle years of the seventeenth century it was just about managing to survive. Most of the land on which the thirteenth-century town had stood was gone, but it had always been possible for the inhabitants to move inland. It was not until the following century that the sea eventually consigned Dunwich to near-total oblivion.1 J.A. Steers, ‘The Suff. shore’, Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. xix. 9-11; T. Gardner, An Historical Acct. of Dunwich (1754), 40-1, 93-6; R. Parker, Men of Dunwich (1978), 142.

The town’s only substantial landowner was Thomas Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe, Norfolk, who had bought the manor of the Temple in 1628. Any influence he may have hoped to assert was, however, being literally washed away; at about the time of his purchase the buildings from which the manor took its name (having once belonged to the Knights Templar) fell over the cliffs.2 Gardner, Hist. Acct. of Dunwich, 54, 94; Copinger, Manors of Suff. ii. 60. Knyvett probably did not even attempt to sway any of the Dunwich elections, leaving electoral patronage within the borough to the major gentry families of the surrounding hundred. The Bedingfields of Darsham, the Brookes of Yoxford, the Cokes of Thorington and the Rouses of Henham had all provided MPs for the town in the past and were still in position to lay claim to the two seats.

In 1640, however, the two surviving candidates from the previous election in 1628, Sir Robert Brooke† and Sir John Rous†, were unpopular figures in Dunwich. Brooke (who had three times represented the borough before 1640) had only recently lost his long-running dispute with the corporation over the ownership of Walberswick Common.3 CSP Dom. 1639, p. 205; 1639-40, p. 408. Rous (who was defeated in 1628 but who had also been elected on three previous occasions) had similarly clashed with the town when, in 1633, a sluice he had built on his land caused the port to become blocked.4 PC2/43, ff. 337, 352, 492-494; Trinity House of Deptford Transactions, 1609-35 ed. G.G. Harris (London Rec. Soc. xix), 128-9; CSP Dom. 1633-4, pp. 453-4. His service as sheriff of Suffolk during the 1636 Ship Money collection probably did nothing to enhance his electoral chances in 1640. This left the Bedingfield and Coke interests with a clear field at the election on 23 March. As had happened 20 years before, the result was the election of a Coke-Bedingfield pairing. This time those elected were the younger brothers of Clement Coke† and Thomas Bedingfield*, the successful candidates in 1620. The steward of the borough, John Bedingfield, instead of claiming one of the seats for himself, nominated his younger brother, Anthony, a London merchant. Henry Coke, son of the late lord chief justice, Sir Edward Coke†, whose seat at Thorington was only about four miles inland from Dunwich, gained the other seat. Both were elected unopposed.5 Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/3, f. 115v; C219/42/2, no. 18; Harl. 298, f. 148.

In the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640 Coke and Bedingfield stood again, although this time they may have faced a challenge from Sir William Playters*. Playters was a close associate of Thomas Howard, 21st earl of Arundel and the owner of substantial estates at Sotterley, Uggeshall, Willingham and Ellough, most of which were no more than ten miles from Dunwich. He was easily the social equal of the families who had hitherto meddled in the borough’s elections. His admission as a freeman of the borough on 17 October 1640 – only six days before the election was due to be held – has the appearance of a last-minute move to qualify him for the seat.6 Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/3, f. 118. There may have been a tradition in the borough restricting the franchise to the resident freemen.7 Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/159/2, f. 2. However, that did not prevent Playters turning up on election day to vote. His hopes of being elected there were soon disappointed because Coke and Bedingfield were re-elected ‘by the greater number of voices’.8 Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/3, ff. 118v-119; C219/43/2, no. 170. The defeat was not too inconvenient for Playters as he had been elected at Orford the day before.

By distancing himself from the conduct of Parliament once it had begun to organize for a war against the king, Henry Coke made certain the decision by the Commons on 7 September 1642 to disable him from sitting.9 PJ iii.336; CJ ii. 756a. Three years later, on 2 September 1645, within a fortnight of the first recruiter writs being issued, the Commons moved to replace Coke by ordering that a writ be issued for a by-election at Dunwich.10 CJ iv. 262a. The meeting of the freemen held on 22 September to elect the new MP was poorly attended and the 11 freemen admitted beforehand might, if necessary, have been able sway the outcome. As it was, the only candidate was Robert Brewster, one of the 11 new freemen and a fervent parliamentarian.11 Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/3, f. 152.

Brewster’s election marked the beginning of his family’s secure hold on the borough which survived intact until the Restoration. It was to Robert Brewster’s advantage that he lived at Wrentham, just eight miles to the north. But his influence was further strengthened by the temporary weaknesses of possible rivals. Sir Robert Brooke died in 1646, leaving an heir, Robert†, who was still a minor. Just before his death, Sir Robert had appointed Robert Brewster and Thomas Bacon* as trustees of his estate, Hinton Hall, on the outskirts of the town for the duration of his son’s minority.12 Suff. RO (Ipswich), HA30/312/267. Some of Brooke’s influence may therefore have passed to the Brewsters. Death in 1651 also removed Sir John Rous, whose son, John†, had the disadvantage of being a royalist. Henry Coke continued under suspicion of royalism and, by the early 1650s, there were similar suspicions involving Playters. Whereas Robert Brewster served in the Rump, Anthony Bedingfield found himself excluded at the purge of December 1648 and he died in 1651.

Perhaps surprisingly, in view of its decayed condition, Dunwich was allowed to retain one of its parliamentary seats by the Instrument of Government in 1653. It is not completely inconceivable that this was done as a favour to Brewster. Its survival was anomalous enough that this would be queried by the next Parliament, when, in reviewing the Instrument of Government, it considered transferring this seat to Aldeburgh, which had been completely disenfranchised. The division on 6 December 1654 resulted in that proposal being rejected (by 72 votes to 59).13 CJ vii. 396b. In the two elections held under the Instrument, the results at Dunwich were the unopposed returns of a Brewster. Robert Brewster was first re-elected on 24 June 1654.14 C219/44/2, no. 28. He would probably have been re-elected again in the election held on 22 August 1656 had he not, two days earlier, been returned for one of the ten county seats. His son, Francis, was chosen at Dunwich in his place.15 Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/4, f. 66v; C219/45, no. 3. The restoration of the old franchises in 1659, reducing the number of county seats to two, made it futile for Robert Brewster to hope to become a knight of the shire for Suffolk a second time. Having lowered his sights, he found the Dunwich electorate as compliant as on previous occasions. The second place was given to John Barrington, a second cousin of the then lord protector, Richard Cromwell*, and a former servant in the protectoral household. Barrington’s lack of connections with the borough makes it likely that he owed his election to Brewster. As only eight of the freemen were present for the election meeting, bringing the Brewster influence to bear could not have been difficult.16 Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/4, f. 74v; C219/18: Dunwich election indenture, 3 [Jan.] 1659; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 439; Mercurius Politicus no. 548 (30 Dec. 1659-6 Jan. 1660, E.773.42).

Out of step with the restored monarchy, the political influence of the Brewsters vanished after 1660. The control over the Dunwich seats which they had come to expected was destroyed by the Corporation Act and by the wholesale traffic in the status of freeman for profit. In the years immediately following the Restoration the Members for the town were, once again, a Rous, a Bedingfield and a Coke.