Devon, England’s third largest county, was noted in the early seventeenth century both for the wildness of its upland moors and the enterprise of its inhabitants. The population at this time has been estimated at around 234,000. At least 5,000 of the adult males engaged in fishing, the fleets bringing in rich catches of pilchards and herrings from coastal waters, and regularly venturing as far as Newfoundland. Arable farming was concentrated on the southern lowland region, with great efforts made to maximize yield through enclosure and the intensive use of fertilizers. Northern and eastern parts were largely given over to cattle and sheep, the latter producing the wool which fed Devon’s flourishing cloth industry.
In administrative terms, Devon was remarkably unified considering its size. Except in times of plague, quarter sessions and assizes were always held at Exeter Castle, which was also the setting for the county’s parliamentary elections. This cohesiveness also extended to religion. Recusancy was an insignificant problem, largely confined to a handful of gentry families such as the Courtenays. Puritans were much more numerous, and while still a small minority of the total population, they were similarly prevalent at gentry level, and probably dominated the county bench. Neither of Devon’s lords lieutenant during this period, the 3rd earl of Bath and the 4th earl of Bedford (Sir Francis Russell*), showed much interest in local politics, so the choice of shire knights lay with the gentry. There were apparently no contests during this period, and nominations were probably agreed ahead of the elections, a common practice in neighbouring counties.
Considered as a group, the shire knights were highly representative of Devon’s gentry leadership. They were all resident in the south of the county, where the bulk of the major seats were located, and many of them were closely related. Sir Francis Drake (1628) was both the son-in-law of Sir William Strode (1624), and the brother-in-law of John Bampfield (1628), who was in turn the first cousin of Sir Francis Fulford (1625). Again, Francis Courtenay (1625) was the brother-in-law of John Pole (1626), and son-in-law of Sir Edward Seymour (1621), himself the son of the 1604 shire knight Edward Seymour. Many of them belonged to Devon’s oldest families. Fulford and Sir John Acland could trace their forebears back to the twelfth century, the Poles and Bampfields had been locally prominent since the fourteenth century, while the Courtenays were descended from the medieval earls of Devon.
In 1604 the senior seat was taken by Sir Thomas Ridgeway, who had recently been appointed to Anne of Denmark’s Council, and whose brother-in-law, Sir John Stanhope I*, was vice-chamberlain of the Household. His partner was the more experienced and equally well-connected Edward Seymour. The latter undoubtedly hoped to use this platform to help push through a private estate bill, but the two Members also had urgent county business to attend to in London. Around the time of the Commons’ Easter recess, Ridgeway and Seymour appeared before the Board of Greencloth to explain why Devon had fallen behind with its purveyance composition payments, thereby pre-empting government intervention.
In June 1606 Ridgeway became Irish treasurer-at-wars, and in the following November the Commons resolved that his seat was now vacant. He was replaced by Sir John Acland who, like Seymour, had private business to promote. His 1607 bill to appropriate the revenues of a Devon prebend to other charitable purposes failed to complete its passage, but in 1610 he won approval for an alternative measure to encourage Devon husbandry by establishing 200 apprenticeships in the county.
Acland was the last Member during this period to make private legislation his priority, and for the next three Parliaments the shire knights more conspicuously pursued issues of general interest to the county. John Drake sat in all of these sessions, presumably a sign that he was viewed locally as an effective spokesman, though his local standing must also have benefited from the 1616 marriage of his son, Sir John*, to a kinswoman of the royal favourite, Buckingham. Drake was accompanied in 1614 by Giles, who had recently completed a successful shrieval term, in 1621 by Sir Edward Seymour, who was now head of his family, and in 1624 by Sir William Strode, who had first sat for the county in 1597, and had since established a formidable Commons’ reputation as a borough Member.
Drake may have alienated local opinion by his sustained criticism of Sir William Courtenay, whose Protestant son Francis replaced him as Devon’s junior knight in 1625. The senior seat on that occasion went to Sir Francis Fulford, an active figure in local government. Neither man had previously entered the Commons, and perhaps for this reason they made little impact on the first Caroline Parliament. In the following year Devon was gripped by the plague, and the shire election was poorly attended by the county elite, judging from the signatures on the return. Drake, whose ties to Buckingham were by now a mixed blessing, represented his county for the last time in 1626, but he barely touched on local matters, merely confirming that another Devon gentleman, Sir Thomas Monck, had been improperly elected. Drake’s junior partner was a near neighbour, John Pole, who had not yet had much impact on local affairs, and was similarly inactive in the Commons.
In the later 1620s Devon was seriously burdened by the billeting associated with the military expeditions to Cadiz and the Ile de Ré, and in 1628 the county returned as its junior Member Sir Francis Drake, who was at the forefront of efforts to tackle this crisis. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law, John Bampfield, a deputy lieutenant who had recently succeeded to one of Devon’s largest estates. Surprisingly, it was Bampfield who was appointed in the Commons to help draft a petition to the king about the payment of outstanding billeting debts, whereas Drake is not known to have commented directly on his county’s problems.
Number of voters: unknown