Westbury

Westbury was a small market town in the centre of Wiltshire’s clothing area. The borough, apparently restricted to the precinct in which the ancient burgage tenements lay, was never chartered, but a municipal structure had evolved by the reign of Elizabeth, which included a mayor and a town seal. Enfranchised from 1448, the parliamentary indentures for the early Stuart period were signed by the ‘mayor and burgesses’ and authenticated with the town seal; the 1625 indenture was additionally witnessed by ‘Edward Greenhill, Thomas Style, John Greenhill and others’. At its dissolution in 1835 the corporation consisted of a mayor, recorder, and 13 capital burgesses, but it is impossible to say how far this structure had developed two centuries earlier.VCH Wilts. viii. 186; C219/39/230.

The most influential local landowner at Westbury was Sir James Ley, whose father had acquired the nearby manor of Teffont Evias. From 1599 Ley began to purchase property in Westbury, which ultimately gave him a preponderant interest in the parliamentary elections there. VCH Wilts. viii. 149-51, 155, 157-8, 161-2. During the early Stuart period four of the borough’s MPs were his relatives: his brother Matthew, son Henry, brother-in-law Maximilian Petty, and son-in-law Walter Long I. Sir Miles Fleetwood, returned in 1621, was professionally connected with Ley, being receiver-general of the Court of Wards, of which Ley was then attorney.

Though their election presumably needed Ley’s approbation, other Members had independent influence as local landowners. The family of Alexander Chocke I, who was returned at Westbury after Ley was appointed chief justice of Ireland, had long owned property in the area. CJ, i. 323b; Bowyer Diary, 188. On the day after his election, Chocke was invested with the manor of Westbury St. Maur. VCH Wilts. viii. 150; C142/211/186; R.C. Hoare, Hist. Wilts. ‘Westbury Hundred’, 39. Gifford Long, whose maternal grandfather and great-uncle had represented the borough in the previous reign, inherited property in Westbury, of which at least one manor – Westbury Stourton – was sold to Ley; VCH Wilts. viii. 150. and Thomas Hopton’s brothers had recently acquired an interest in Westbury rectory. C3/358/7. Charles Thynne is the only Member who had no known connection with Ley or the borough. He probably relied for his seat upon his half-brother (Sir) Thomas Thynne*, whose estate at nearby Longleat presumably gave him some influence with Ley.