Downton

The ancient and heavily wooded parish of Downton was situated a few miles to the south-east of the city of Salisbury; much of its own boundary to the south formed the Wiltshire/Hampshire border close to the New Forest.1 VCH Wilts. xi. 19. The manor had been owned from the seventh or eighth century by the bishops of Winchester and leased from 1551 by the Herberts, earls of Pembroke.2 VCH Wilts. xi. 29, 43. Although it had never received a charter of incorporation, the town had sent Members to Parliament periodically since the thirteenth century and regularly since the fifteenth.3 Hoare, Hist. Wilts.iii (Downton), 66. With only one alderman and a tithing man, the franchise was vested in resident and non-resident burgage-holders, while the returning officer was the bailiff of the bishop’s liberty, in the early Stuart period a member of the Stockman family. Other gentry resident in the parish included the Raleighs, who like the Stockmans had supplied Members before 1625.4 VCH Wilts. xi. 44-5; HP Commons 1604-1629. Industrial activity was on a smaller scale than in the clothing boroughs of north Wiltshire and it is possible that markets were no longer operating, but inhabitants of the parish included weavers (by this time developing heavy duffel among other products), tanners and shoemakers, and the centrally-located White Horse inn, later a focus of local political life, was probably already flourishing.5 E. Kerridge, Textile Manufactures in Early Modern England (Manchester, 1985), 33; VCH Wilts. xi. 24, 41-2.

In the later 1620s the influence of William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke, had been especially evident in the election for Downton of his kinsman Edward Herbert I* (1625, 1626, 1628) and his friend and trustee Sir Benjamin Rudyerd*.6 HP Commons 1604-1629; V.A. Rowe, ‘The influence of the earls of Pembroke on Parliamentary elections, 1625-41’, EHR l. 198 (1935), 242-56. Given the disassociation of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl, from the more unpopular policies of the court of which he was a rather disaffected member as lord chamberlain, it is unsurprising if – as is likely – his interest secured the return to Parliament in spring 1640 of non-Wiltshireman Sir Edward Griffyn*, a recent recruit to the privy chamber. However, with Rudyerd and Sir Edward Herbert accommodated elsewhere, local gentry – albeit men sympathetic to the earl’s stance on religion – could exert their claims. A prominent signatory to the indenture which on 20 March declared the election of Griffyn and William Eyre I*, a prosperous Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, was the latter’s eldest brother Giles Eyre of Brickworth in neighbouring Whiteparish, notable burgage-holder and lessee of Downton mills.7 C219/42, pt. ii, no. 57; Hoare, Hist. Wilts.iii (Downton), 36; VCH Wilts. xi. 40.

Neither Griffyn nor Eyre made any discernible contribution to proceedings at Westminster. None the less, Griffyn was again chosen in the autumn, which tends to reinforce the possibility that it was to oblige Pembroke. The latter’s younger son William Herbert II*, still a minor and travelling abroad, took the senior place at Downton in an election on 20 October. Following his return to England, however, on 20 November he opted to sit for Monmouthshire, prompting by-elections at both Downton and New Woodstock.8 CJ ii. 33a. Giles Eyre, now sheriff of Wiltshire, was on the face of it party to two indentures announcing the results at Downton. The first, dated 20 December, between him and bailiff William Stockman, and carrying at least 22 signatures including that of deputy bailiff William Howe, returned another minor, burgage-holder Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, ward of Edward Tooker*, who was in turn nephew of the Eyre brothers and close associate of William.9 C219/43/3, no. 45; Hoare, Hist. Wilts. iii (Downton), 19. Three days later a second indenture, between sheriff and deputy bailiff, with only ten signatures (of which Will. Howe or Lowe occurred three times), named Richard Gorges, son of Edward, 1st Baron Gorges of Dundalk [I], whose seat was a few miles to the north of the borough at Longford Castle.10 C219/43/3. If this was a clumsy last-minute attempt to procure a favour for another friend of Pembroke, then it was unsuccessful, but resolution had to wait an unprecedented 19 years. Referred to the committee of privileges on 19 February 1641, the dispute disappeared from view, notwithstanding Cooper’s claims that there had been a decision in his favour.11 CJ ii. 89a; s.v. ‘Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper’.

For the time being, Griffyn remained as Downton’s representative, as inconspicuous as before. But perhaps as early as the summer of 1642 he adhered to the king; having attended the Oxford Parliament, he was finally disabled on 4 February 1644.12 s.v. ‘Sir Edward Griffyn’. Given parliamentarian reversals in the county in 1643 and uncertainties thereafter it is unsurprising that, as elsewhere, a by-election to replace him was delayed. On 27 October 1645 an indenture between Stockman, William Howe junior and 18 other ‘burgesses’ on the one hand, and Colonel Edmund Ludlowe II* on the other, recorded the election of Alexander Thistlethwayte* the younger, a friend of Cooper and leading member of the county committee, whose seat at Winterslow was only a few miles away.13 C219/43/3, no. 2; J. Waylen, 'Notes from the diary of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper', Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxviii. 23-4. The same day Thistlethwayte was also chosen by Parliament to replace Ludlowe as sheriff.14 LJ vii. 628a; CJ iv. 323b, 324a. Irregularly, but clearly with deliberate sanction, he retained both offices. He took an active part in quelling further disturbances in Wiltshire and appeared at Westminster to take the Covenant only on 9 December 1646, by which time Cooper had replaced him as sheriff.15 CJ v. 7b. Even then, Thistlethwayte proved an intermittent, if occasionally significant, attender at Westminster, being frequently called home on business. Almost certainly a Presbyterian in the mould of his friends Sir Edward Hungerford* and Henry Hungerford*, he was absent from the House for much of 1648 and did not sit after Pride’s Purge.

Directly affected by the confiscation of episcopal lands, those with an interest in Downton seem to have experienced some disadvantages from a lack of representation in Parliament. In February 1647 a William Eyre (plausibly William Eyre II*, whose military career put him in an advantageous position) bought the lease of the mills for £257 5s – a probable indicator of the area’s considerable potential.16 Hoare, Hist. Wilts. iii (Downton), 36; VCH Wilts. xi. 40. The existence of wood and timber on the manor valued at £5,850 was complicating the earl of Pembroke’s attempts to buy out his lease when difficult cases encountered by the contractors for the sale of bishops’ lands were reported to the Commons on 29 August 1648.17 CJ v. 691a. The possibility that the wood might be useful to the navy, accessible as Downton was to the south coast, subsequently detained the council of state on several occasions: discussions were apparently inconclusive and the manor remained unsold.18 CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 50, 53; 1655-6, pp. 291, 305. In the meantime, however, someone – perhaps William Eyre II or William Coles* of Woodfalls, another manor in Downton parish, who was on the local committee of triers and ejectors – obtained an augmentation of £30 in the income of the minister from the committee for the maintenance of ministers.

Members were not summoned from Downton to the Parliaments of 1653, 1654 and 1656. Damage to the indenture obscures the circumstances surrounding the election to the 1659 Parliament of William Coles and his erstwhile brother-in-law Thomas Fitzjames*, although it appears that a majority of eligible voters signed.19 C219/48. Coles, a justice of the peace, had already established his local credentials – the stronger since other gentry such as the Raleighs were disqualified through their former royalism.20 A. and O.; C231/6, p. 266; C193/13/4, f. 109v; C193/13/6, f. 96v; C193/13/5, f. 116; Wilts. RO, A1/160/2, pp. 41, 47, 73, 107, 135, 165. Essentially a central government officeholder, Fitzjames had interests in and around the New Forest; these, alongside his potential reliability, probably recommended him to the metropolitan fixers who seem to have influenced many choices for this Parliament, although he brought with him the Presbyterian sympathies of his family, and may have shared them with Coles.21 CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 102, 117; Woodward et al. General Hist. Hants, i. 377. Once again, however, the Downton Members had a very low profile in the Commons.

Following the restoration of the Long Parliament, on 7 January 1660 Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper’s 1640 election was finally upheld, whereupon he was called to the House and took his seat; his rival Richard Gorges was by this time 2nd Baron of Dundalk.22 CJ vii. 805a. In Cooper, who had in the interim carved out a distinctive parliamentary and conciliar career, Downton at last had an MP of consistently high standing at Westminster, although his exact sympathies were opaque.