Malmesbury

Situated as it was on a rocky peninsula formed by two branches of the River Avon, Malmesbury’s strategic position on the route from London to Bristol meant that it was probably already a privileged borough in 1086. First summoned to Parliament in 1275, its charters date from 1381.1 J.M. Moffatt, The Hist. of the Town of Malmesbury (1805), 153-4; VCH Wilts. xiv. 127, 129, 133, 149; M.G. Rathbone, Wilts. Borough Recs. (Wilts. Rec. Soc. v), 29. Even before the dissolution of its ancient abbey in the sixteenth century, the chief source of its wealth and reputation had been the manufacture of woollen cloth, but the town reached the height of its prosperity at that point thanks to the celebrated clothier William Stumpe†, who bought the abbey lands. Although Malmesbury still had ‘a great name for clothing’ in the 1650s and continued to produce other commodities such as gloves, by the seventeenth century there had been a relative decline in its main industry.2 VCH Wilts. xiv. 131, 134, 146-7; Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Wilts. ed. Ponting, 112; Ramsay, Wilts. Woollen Industry, 3. Compared with its neighbours like Chippenham or Cirencester, just over the county boundary in Gloucestershire, Malmesbury’s population was never large – 860 adults in 1547 and only 1,107 in 1801 – even as it remained an important market town.3 VCH Wilts. xiv. 132, 148.

By the early seventeenth century government was vested in an alderman and 12 other capital burgesses (fewer than had previously been the case), with the ‘Twenty-four’ or assistant burgesses. Access to such positions came to freemen via the acquisition of particular allotments in King’s Heath, commons allegedly held by the borough since the reign of King Athelstan. Disputes over the rights in these allotments of the assistants and of the two other classes on the corporation, landholders and commoners, prompted a commission of enquiry in 1631 as to whether they were in fact crown lands. One result was the granting of a new charter in 1635. This left the composition of the corporation little changed but introduced the new office of high steward and consolidated the pre-eminence of the alderman, who was also made a justice of the peace, coroner and clerk of the market. It reinforced a trend towards concentration of power in the hands of the few, apparent in the small number of signatures appended to election indentures (for example, eight in 1604).4 Wilts. Borough Recs. 28; VCH Wilts. xiv. 150. Indeed, the franchise had probably been restricted to the capital burgesses before 1600.5 VCH Wilts. xiv. 154; D. Box, Malmesbury Borough (Malmesbury, 2007), 36, 43.

Formally outside the borough until 1685 – but within the walls – were the precincts of the former abbey, although the corporation seems to have shouldered the burden of the many poor who lived in the 60 or so households there in the 1630s.6 VCH Wilts. xiv. 132, 134, 153. After the dissolution the advowson of St Peter’s, as the abbey church became, was held by the crown, which also owned the substantial Cowfold estate.7 VCH Wilts. xiv. 140, 155. Another major external player was the lord of the manor, by 1628 Henry Danvers, 1st earl of Danby, who also owned Whitchurch, just outside the walls, and from 1642 Rodborne, in addition to much land elsewhere in the area.8 VCH Wilts. xiv. 139, 142, 166. Leading gentleman Sir Edward Hungerford* of Corsham owned the manor of Corston.9 VCH Wilts. xiv. 162. Others with influence from the 1630s onwards included Walter Norborne* (steward from 1635 to 1640), Thomas Estcourt (steward from 1641 to 1659), Francis Hobbes (uncle of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes) and members of the Hobbes, Arch and Grayles families who dominated the aldermanic office and made local benefactions.10 VCH Wilts. xiv. 159-61; Box, Malmesbury Borough, 127, 162, 289.

On the day Malmesbury selected its representatives for what became the Short Parliament, the earl of Danby’s brother Sir John Danvers* had already been returned for the prestigious seat of Oxford University, leaving voters free to look elsewhere. According to the indenture returned by alderman William Tull on 26 March 1640, the election was with the assent of ‘all the burgesses’. Among the six witnesses who signed on the verso was Anthony Hungerford*, one of the successful candidates. He had little experience of public life and was based in Oxfordshire, so probably relied heavily on the interest of his elder half-brother Sir Edward, who the previous year had refused the loan for the bishops’ wars with the Scots. The other choice was Sir Neville Poole*, who had represented the borough in 1614, and who also had a record of resistance to the fiscal policies of Charles I’s personal rule, as well as an interest in the wool trade. 11 C219/42, pt. ii, no. 62.

Neither made any recorded contribution to proceedings at Westminster, but both were returned on 20 October to the next Parliament. This time alderman John Arnold appended a mark rather than a signature and there were only two witnesses.12 C219/43/3, no. 10. While Hungerford proved little more active than before, Poole demonstrated a keenness for reform of commercial abuses and redress of fiscal grievances in the early months of the Long Parliament. Both took the Protestation in May 1641 and both promised horses for the support of Parliament in June 1642, but while Poole stuck by his resolve Hungerford, whose estate was the sooner under the shadow of royalist headquarters at Oxford, tried as long as possible to remain neutral.

From the beginning of the wars Malmesbury – defensible and well-positioned – was an obvious location for a garrison and a rendezvous for militias. Consequently it was much fought over, changing hands at least six times. Sir Edward Bayntun* of nearby Bromham, who was appointed in October 1642 commander-in-chief of parliamentary forces in Wiltshire, took control without visible trouble. However, any initial advantage was soon dissipated by incompetence and feuding. According to Sir Edward Hungerford, who had also adhered to Parliament, at the turn of the year Bayntun suddenly disbanded his soldiers at Malmesbury and Devizes. When Hungerford arrived in Malmesbury to re-muster troops for the defence of Cirencester, he was arrested by Bayntun’s lieutenant Edward Eyre. Rescued from his imprisonment by a party from Cirencester, Hungerford in turn took Bayntun and Eyre into custody. When news reached the Commons on 14 January 1643 Poole, still at Westminster, fuelled criticism of Bayntun, while the incident made fruitful propaganda for the enemy.13 CJ ii. 928a; Harl. 164, f. 276a; Speciall passages and certain informations no. 23 (10-17 Jan. 1643), 191-2 (E.85.9); The kingdomes weekly intelligencer no. 3 (10-17 Jan. 1643), 22 (E.85.15); Mercurius Aulicus no. 2 (8-14 Jan 1643), 17 (E.86.22). Bayntun swiftly defended himself in print, claiming that he had been in control at Malmesbury with a regiment of 500 men until tricked by two officers bribed by Hungerford, and that he had seized the latter because he had been corresponding with local royalist leader Lord Seymour (formerly Sir Francis Seymour*).14 A letter to the Earle of Pembroke from Sir Edward Bainton ([1643], E.85.37). MPs were unconvinced and made Hungerford commander-in-chief in his stead, but in the meantime on 3 February the borough surrendered to the royalists. When it was stormed and precariously occupied by Sir William Waller* on 20 March, Hungerford was made governor, only to surrender it again on 5 April. It changed hands twice more in 1643 before finally falling to Colonel Edward Massie* on 24 May 1644.15 CJ iii. 20b, 88b, 511b; Wilts. Borough Recs. pp. xi, 27.

Borough records make no direct reference to the wars, but the number of commoners reduced significantly, increasing again only from 1646.16 Box, Malmesbury, 44; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xlvii. 323. Placed under the governorship of Colonel Nicholas Devereux, the garrison was perpetuated as a valuable centre for controlling the countryside and for gathering intelligence. Devereux was added to the committee for Wiltshire in October 1644, when Sir Edward Hungerford and Poole were also ordered to repair to the county to oversee the assertion of parliamentarian government.17 CJ iii. 532b, 555a, 555b, 562a, 566a, 656b; CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 86, 112. The two MPs continued to liaise between the locality, the Committee of the West and the Commons.18 CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 245. A preference for holding meetings of the county committee there, together with the vulnerability of the garrison to attack and erupting disagreements between Massie, Devereux and other commanders in the area ensured that Malmesbury remained on the agenda of the Committee of Both Kingdoms.19 CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 301, 308, 320, 322, 354, 394; 1645-7, pp. 55-6; CJ iv. 65b.

One source of tension was the insufficiency of the weekly assessment set for the maintenance of the garrison by parliamentary ordinance of 15 July 1644 and the subsequent decision of the county committee to order Devereux to collect extra money. Finally persuaded of the necessity, on 26 August 1645 Parliament passed an ordinance for further assessments, the expenditure of which during the period October 1645 to March 1646 is recorded in surviving accounts. These demonstrate the complex impact on the local economy of an encampment of fluctuating size. An undated petition from ‘freeholders and other sufficient inhabitants ... dwelling near unto the garrison of Malmesbury’ to the Committee of Both Kingdoms which appears to date from this period complained not only of their ploughs being ‘pressed at all seasons’ and of money and commodities taken without payment by both sides in the conflict, but also of

the insufficiency, timidity, and falsehood of the chief commanders and chief officers of the garrison, who have not only notoriously deceived the state by filling up their musters with hired men, but also have rather applied themselves to excessive drinking, profane swearing, and vicious and riotous living ... their counsels have always been so public that no design of theirs has ever been followed by good success, but those provisions that have been made for our success have always been turned to the advantage of the enemy.

In short, the petitioners had conceived a profound suspicion of local parliamentary leaders, whose fraternisation with malignants hinted at an intention to betray the garrison.20 Wilts. Borough Recs. pp. xi, 28-9. Additional evidence of disaffection is provided by a petition of constables to the quarter sessions in July 1646 which speaks of a place ‘full of troubles’ since 1642, while assize judges learned in August 1647 that several highways and two bridges had been severely damaged because of ‘the great and heavy carriages to and from the late garrison of Malmesbury’.21 Recs. Wilts. 159; Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 260. In July 1646 Devereux and his troops were petitioning to be retained there rather than redeployed to Ireland, but on 14 August Malmesbury was among the garrisons earmarked by the Commons for slighting.22 LJ viii. 426; CJ iv. 644a.

In the meantime, the extent of hostile sentiment is questionable. Since Anthony Hungerford had compromised himself by going to Oxford in 1644 (although he had not signed the declaration from the Oxford Parliament), he was disabled by 12 September.23 CJ iv. 272a. A by-election held on 10 October returned Sir John Danvers, who following the death of his brother the earl of Danby earlier that year had claimed the lands apparently willed to his son, a minor. This time at least 13 parties signed the indenture, as well as several witnesses – a hint of wider involvement in the process than had been the case in 1640.24 C219/43/3, no. 12. Enthusiasm for Danvers and even for the garrison was still evident months later. In a remarkable outburst of civic pride, on 10 April 1648 the borough presented to its MP ‘in acknowledgement of his many noble favours’, a remarkable colour panorama of Malmesbury endorsed with his arms. The caption celebrated a place ‘nationally renowned for its natural strength’ and proclaimed Athelstan’s successful defence when besieged there by the Danes and his consequent testimony of affection. The picture, it explained, ‘shows the direct figure of that borough or garrison as it stood fortified the 23 of October 1646, the day it was demolished by the Parliament’s order’.25 Wilts RO, G221/1/43H.

Malmesbury remained a rendezvous for troops, being occupied for longer periods at times of particular tension. During the invasion scare of 1651 the council of state was convinced that it remained easily defensible.26 CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 353; 1651, pp. 100, 371. While Sir Neville Poole, who had been secluded at Pride’s Purge, played no further part in local or national politics, Danvers remained relatively active at Westminster and consolidated his influence in Wiltshire, holding in tension radical and royalist sympathies. On 19 May 1652 he and Colonel Henry Marten* recommended Robert Harpur for presentation to the vicarage by the commissioners of the great seal, a choice which appeared to find approbation among the burgesses.27 Add. 36792, f. 44; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xlvii. 325.

Malmesbury was not represented again in Parliament until 1659, by which time Danvers and his son were dead and the estates divided between his two daughters and their husbands. On 15 January 1659 one son-in-law, the youthful Sir Henry Lee*, was elected with Thomas Higgons*; the indenture had 12 signatories, two of them using marks.28 C219/48. The choice of Higgons, a Hampshire man whose Wiltshire connections appear to have been exclusively with delinquents or Catholics like the Paulets, remains unexplained. Both used their seats to thwart the government and advance a restoration of the monarchy but Lee died suddenly of smallpox on 27 March.29 CB. A writ for a new election to replace him was issued on 11 April, but it was voided on the 22nd by the dissolution of Parliament.30 CJ vii. 636a. Initially, the Danvers interest was continued by the countess of Rochester (born Anne St John) as she controlled the inheritance of her Lee granddaughters, but in time her influence was overshadowed by that of other local families, most notably the Estcourts, as high stewards.31 HP Commons 1660-1690.