Old Sarum

By 1100 Old Sarum, which had ancient origins as a hill-fort, boasted a castle, a cathedral and a mint. By about 1130 it had a market and a charter. The latter was renewed in 1229, but the town had already begun an inexorable decline. Nine years earlier the bishop had moved his seat to Salisbury, where water was easier to come by. In the sixteenth century no vestiges of the cathedral or episcopal palace remained and the castle was in ruins, while the town walls were demolished in the early seventeenth century.1 VCH Wilts. vi. 60, 62, 63, 65, 67.

Even as the settlement contracted, it became established as a parliamentary borough, returning Members intermittently from 1295 and regularly from the early fifteenth century. The franchise came to be held by the owners of freehold burgage tenements in the old city. Although there were briefly 10 or 11 voters in the mid-1620s, there averaged a mere handful for most of the seventeenth century, including during this period when, excepting in 1658, all signed the election indenture. The number of residents was negligible and the borough already notorious for inappropriate enfranchisement.2 VCH Wilts. vi. 667; ‘Old Sarum’, HP Commons 1604-1629. Commenting on political representation from royalist Oxford in 1643, Sir John Spelman chose Old Sarum as his example of inequality, pointing out that it had ‘as many votes in Parliament as the City of London or the county of Wilts.’.3 J. Spelman, A View of a Printed Book intituled His Majesties late answers and expresses (1643), sig. D2 (E.245.22).

In the later sixteenth century the dominant electoral patrons had been the Herbert earls of Pembroke, seated three miles away at Wilton House. Their hegemony was undermined, however, following the grant of the freehold of the castle and grounds to Robert Cecil†, 1st earl of Salisbury in 1606. Since this also conveyed the right to nominate the borough bailiff, who in the absence of any other borough officers acted as returning officer, the Cecils acquired a significant influence on elections. In the 1610s and 1620s relations between William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke, and William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, deteriorated as they both sought to court the burgesses, especially the puritan lawyer Henry Sherfield†, recorder of Salisbury. At some elections Pembroke managed to get two candidates returned; at others, including in 1628, he only secured one of his nominees.4 VCH Wilts. vi. 65-7; ‘Old Sarum’, HP Commons 1604-1629; L. Stone, ‘The electoral influence of the 2nd earl of Salisbury’, EHR lxxi. 394-9. The rivalry continued after Philip Herbert* succeeded his brother as 4th earl in 1630. Although both he and Salisbury broadly speaking adhered to Parliament in the civil wars and indeed sat in the Commons after the abolition of the Lords in 1649, an uneasy relationship which had more to do with personalities than with politics complicated the already complex electoral history at Old Sarum.

The three burgesses who signed on 23 March 1640 the indenture returning MPs to the Short Parliament – John Bowles, John Young and John Orchard – appear to have accepted a compromise.5 C219/42, pt. ii, no. 63. Edward Herbert I*, solicitor-general, had sat seven times previously, including on several occasions for the Wiltshire seat of Downton through the influence of his kinsman the 3rd earl of Pembroke. A supporter of crown policies, he reflected the 4th earl’s court loyalties at this juncture. Also nominated for Reading – by Archbishop William Laud – he waived this on 17 April in favour of Old Sarum.6 CJ ii. 4b. His partner Sir William Howard* was another experienced (if usually inconspicuous) MP, this time with his own court career, but apart from being a member of the powerful Howard family his link was to Salisbury.

A similar balance of interests was apparent in the autumn. On 1 October the same trio of voters as in the spring, with three others, again chose Herbert, but this time with Salisbury’s second son, Robert Cecil*, who had failed to gain a seat in the family’s heartland of Hertfordshire.7 C219/43/3, no. 16. Despite his youth and lack of experience in public office – he was no more than 20 and recently returned from France – Cecil rapidly became an active Member. Herbert, on the other hand, was soon promoted to attorney-general and a seat in the Lords; a writ to elect a replacement was ordered on 29 January 1641 and was presumably acted upon a fortnight or so later.8 CJ ii. 75a. It is more than usually unfortunate that the indenture does not survive since the choice was potentially contentious. The successful candidate, gentleman of the privy chamber Sir William Savile*, was unsurprisingly an associate of Pembroke and he had some property in Wiltshire, but on 4 February he had been sent for by the Commons to answer allegations of breach of privilege in connection with remarks made the previous year about colleagues in the Short Parliament. On his arrival at Westminster he was apparently committed to the serjeant-at-arms, only escaping imprisonment in the Tower, by the estimation of some, by the assistance of powerful friends. Depending on when it took place, the election may have been partly intended as a ploy to avoid, to delay or to mitigate punishment or to gain a platform from which to fight back. Savile was released in June, after debates raising questions about Pembroke’s patronage had finally proved too sensitive for direct confrontation. He was only visible in the House from December 1641 and, after briefly identifying himself with opposition to the king, abandoned Westminster and joined Charles at York before the end of March 1642.9 ‘Sir William Savile’, s.v.

Pembroke’s interest at Old Sarum disappeared with Savile. An order for a writ of election to replace him, issued on 30 September 1645, registered that he was disabled from sitting, although he had actually died early in 1644.10 CJ iv. 295b. A second resolution on 15 June 1646 noted both facts.11 CJ iv. 576a. A fortnight later five men (four of them voters from October 1642 and the fifth a kinsman) returned Salisbury’s receiver-general, Roger Kirkham*.12 C219/43/3, no. 18. Although he sat in the Commons long enough to accrue two committee nominations, before 30 November he too was dead. Following a warrant ordered on 21 December, at an election on 7 January 1647 a quintet of experienced voters chose in Kirkham’s place another Cecil client, Hertfordshire gentleman Sir Richard Lucy*.13 CJ v. 21a; C219/43/3, no. 20. Lucy survived Pride’s Purge to sit in the Rump, while Robert Cecil apparently withdrew.

Like many Wiltshire boroughs, Old Sarum did not send Members to Parliament again until January 1659. On that occasion the electors and their choice reflected the considerable shifts in landownership and political influence that had taken place in the area over the previous decade. One signatory to the indenture, William Bowles, belonged to a family which had voted in every election during this period; the other five were newcomers. The successful candidates were Richard Hill*, a member of the Salisbury corporation who had acquired first the lease and then the freehold of Stratford Dean manor, former dean and chapter land adjacent to Old Sarum castle, and William Ludlowe*, cousin of the regicide Edmund Ludlowe II*, who lived at nearby Clarendon Park, a former royal estate. Both had been active in the militia or army and in local government; both were likely to have had support from the protectorate regime. Hill reached London only to die there. A by-election was announced on 12 February, but no conclusive action appears to have been taken before the Parliament was dissolved.14 CJ vii. 603a. Both Cecil and Lucy, who had in the meantime sat for Hertfordshire, came back to Westminster with the Restored Rump. Thereafter the traditional order was largely restored, although Ludlowe hung on to some of his property and Cecil’s younger brother Algernon failed to gain election for the borough to the Convention.