Andover’s importance in the early modern period stemmed largely from its location on one of the main routes from London to the West, at the point where it crossed the River Anton, and to a lesser extent from its role as a centre of cloth manufacture. VCH Hants, iv. 345, 351. The town’s importance was reflected in its population, and the Compton Census of 1676 recorded 1,557 adults, of whom 107 were reckoned to be non-conformists. Compton Census, 81. In 1636 Andover was assessed at £50 for the purposes of Ship Money, although it was somewhat lax in making payments. CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 230, 542; 1638-9, p. 22.
According to a new charter of 1599, replacing that of 1175, power in the borough was vested in a corporation consisting of a bailiff, who served as the returning officer, a recorder (or steward), and other minor officers (coroner, escheator, clerk of the market, justices, chamberlains, constables, serjeants at mace), who were drawn from the ten ‘approved men’ and the 12 ‘burgesses’; in 1640 the total number was deemed to be 24. Hants RO, 37M85/1/CH/10-11; Andover Charters ed. Parsons, 1, 18-20; VCH Hants, iv. 350; CJ ii. 554a. Although Members were sent to Parliament as early as 1295, Andover’s representation had soon lapsed, to be restored in 1586, with the right of election held by the corporation. VCH Hants, iv. 351; Woodward et al. General Hist. Hants, iii. 173; D.K. Coldicott, Elizabethan Andover (2004), 9-10. The borough was only semi-independent: while it could hold quarter sessions, the lord of the manor held the court leet, and his steward appointed the town clerk. S. Webb and B. Webb, English Local Government ((1906-29), ii. 65, 326, 355, 425. Not all potential external leverage was realised, however. In the early seventeenth century William Paulet, 4th marquess of Winchester, who held substantial property in the town, only once exercised an influence on elections, while after becoming steward in 1606 Henry Wriothesley, 3rd earl of Southampton, apparently did so only indirectly. Robert Wallop*, from Farleigh Wallop, some 15 miles to the east, was not yet the earl’s son-in-law when he first served as MP for Andover in 1621, and the Wallops’ long-lasting electoral dominance thereafter seems to have owed more to their own wealth and prominence in public life than to aristocratic connections. HP Commons 1604-1629.
By the spring of 1640 Robert Wallop’s re-election to Parliament probably seemed a foregone conclusion. Returned alongside him to the senior seat on 12 March was Sir Richard Wynn* of Gwydir, treasurer and receiver general to Queen Henrietta Maria, evidently a court nominee. C219/42/141. Elected also at Bodmin and Newton, on 15 April Wynn opted to represent Andover. CJ ii. 3b; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 41. Neither he nor Wallop, an opponent of some policies of the personal rule of Charles I, made any discernable impact upon parliamentary proceedings, in contrast to the latter’s brother-in-law Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton, who voiced criticism of the government. ‘Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton’, Oxford DNB.
Discontents arising from the local effects of military campaigning in the north of England over the summer may have enabled Wallop to take the first seat in the autumn election on 19 October. The second place went to Sir Henry Rainsforde*, a Gloucestershire gentleman with a reversionary interest through marriage in Hampshire lands at Faccombe, a few miles to the north. C219/43/163; Hants RO, 37M85/11/PE/22; Abstracts of Glos. IPM, ii. 163-4. Rainsforde, who had spent much of the 1630s in Ireland, where he was favourably regarded by the king’s lord deputy, Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford, may have been endorsed by the court. Strafforde Letters, i. 282. If so, however, this was not apparent to Francis Reade, nephew of the secretary of state Sir Francis Windebanke*, who observed that ‘the town of Andover have most unexpectedly bestowed a place on Sir Henry Rainsforde, without any thought or suit of his, or (for ought I know) any of his friends’. Reade confessed to being ‘very glad of it’, not just because it would act as a ‘healing plaster’ to divert Rainsforde’s mind from the recent death of his wife, but also because ‘by this means I have one more friend of the House than I thought’. SP16/470, f. 124. But his rejoicing was perhaps misplaced, since Rainsforde’s association with the Great Tew circle around Lucius Cary*, 2nd Viscount Falkland [S], may have resulted in support for limited political reform at this juncture. J. Aubrey, Brief Lives ed. A. Clark (1898), i. 151; K. Weber, Lucius Cary Second Viscount Falkland (1940), 60-1; CJ ii. 44b, 54b, 87a; Procs. LP ii. 628, 629.
Whatever Rainsforde’s stance, it soon became irrelevant. He died in the spring of 1641, and a new writ was ordered for the election of his replacement on 31 March. CJ ii. 114b. That day Robert Wallop wrote to the borough endorsing Henry Vernon*, cousin and employee of the earl of Southampton: ‘his worth and abilities will sufficiently commend themselves’ but if Wallop’s own recommendation earned ‘your favourable respect’, the sitting MP would ‘for this and your former favours be ever ready to acknowledge myself to be your very loving friend and servant’. Hants RO, 37M85/11/PE/41. Vernon was returned by an indenture dated 13 April, but since by this time Southampton (although not Wallop) had begun to show marked sympathy for the king, this was challenged. By 30 April the Commons had received a complaint from Sir William Waller*, a newcomer to Hampshire and the rival candidate, which was referred to the committee for disputed elections chaired by Sir Henry Herbert*. Hants RO, 37M85/11/PE/1; CJ ii. 130b; Harl. 163, f. 117; Harl. 477, f. 21v. In the meantime Vernon briefly took his seat, and is recorded as having taken the Protestation on 3 May, and as having voted against the attainder of Strafford. CJ ii. 133a; Verney Notes, 59. However, he seems to have withdrawn from Westminster soon afterwards, probably joining Southampton as he accompanied the king on his journey to Scotland in August.
After numerous postponements, Herbert finally reported on the case on 3 May 1642. CJ ii. 513b, 516a, 517a, 530a, 541b, 553a. According to his account, of the 24 burgesses who were eligible to vote, 18 had appeared on the day of the election; nine of these had voted for Vernon and nine for Waller, leaving the casting vote with the bailiff, who supported Vernon. Additionally, there were three burgesses who had been elected to the corporation but who had not yet been sworn in; of these one had appeared at the door and intimated his intention to vote for Waller, but was denied entrance, while the other two were not present and only later appeared to state their preference for Vernon. On hearing this, the House decided, controversially, that Vernon’s election was void, based on giving greater weight to the one attender. A division on whether to support the election of Waller split the Commons along ‘party’ lines, with two future parliamentarians, Sir Philip Stapilton* and John Moore*, as tellers for those who supported Waller (107), and two future royalists, Edward Kyrton* and Sir Edward Alford*, as tellers for those who supported Vernon (102). CJ ii. 554a-b; PJ ii. 267, 271. With Waller’s election secure, the bailiff of Andover appeared at Westminster in order to amend the return (12 Apr.). CJ ii. 568a. Meanwhile, in February Sir Henry Mildmay* introduced a motion to promote greater ‘godliness’ in the town through the institution of a lectureship, and John Pym* presented a petition from the town requesting that the vicar, Francis Matkin, would facilitate the appointment of Richard Symonds. PJ i. 368, 411; Walker Revised, 187; Calamy Revised, 443.
During the first civil war Andover’s location and manufacturing capacity gave it strategic importance to both sides, in a region which was fiercely contested. CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 63, 70, 78-9. In July 1644 the Committee of Both Kingdoms was alarmed by reports that during a temporary royalist resurgence in Hampshire after their defeat at the battle of Cheriton, their garrison at Winchester Castle had removed from Andover £10,000 worth of cloth. Anticipating an attempt to ship it out of the kingdom via Bristol, the only major port then remaining in royalist hands, and noting the ‘press’ from the area for redress, the Committee instructed Edward Massie* to intercept it. SP21/7, f. 116v; SP21/18, ff. 185, 191. Andover continued to experience the military presence of both sides, as well as minor skirmishes, in succeeding months, and was used as a parliamentarian back during the attack upon the Sussex Clubmen in the autumn of 1645, and the siege of Basing House. CSP Dom. 1644, p. 493; 1644-5, pp. 46, 56, 57, 60, 250, 455; 1645-7, pp. 151-3, 169-70, 172.
In January 1648 Sir William Waller was disabled from sitting in the Commons, having been one of the ‘Eleven Members’ impeached by the army the previous summer. On 14 March the Commons ordered that an election be held for his replacement, and the writ was issued on 27 March. But no election was held before 8 June, when Waller was restored to his place. CJ v. 497b-98a, 589b; C231/6, p. 112. However, with Waller’s seclusion from the House at Pride’s Purge in the following December, the borough was once again reduced to a single representative, in the shape of Robert Wallop. The town’s influence at Westminster was threatened further during debates on the ‘new representative’ early in 1653. On 16 March Sir Michael Livesay* and Sir Thomas Wroth* failed to marshall sufficient support for a motion that Andover should continue to be represented, being defeated by Sir Arthur Hesilrige* and Sir John Danvers*. CJ vii. 268a. Notwithstanding this vote, however, the Commons resolved on 23 March to grant Andover a single seat in forthcoming elections, a decision replicated by the Instrument of Government. CJ vii. 270b.
Under the protectorate Wallop was three times elected to sit for his county, leaving the way open for others at Andover. The 1654 election presents something of a puzzle in that the surviving list of votes cast on 6 July by 24 members of the corporation is difficult to interpret. In a three-way contest, it seems likely that 11 votes went to John Dunch*, grandson of John More, steward of Andover from 1599 to 1620, son-in-law of Richard Maijor* and brother-in-law of the town’s new high steward, Richard Cromwell*. Local gentleman John Bulkeley*, who had been a recuiter MP for Newtown but secluded at Pride’s Purge, received seven, while John Shuter†, one of the capital burgesses and recorder from 1620 to 1648, received none. Hants RO, 37M85/4/M1/1/24a. Subsequently, however, Dunch opted to sit as a knight of the shire for Berkshire while Bulkeley represented the county and on 5 October a writ was ordered for a new election. CJ vii. 373a. This was held on 22 December, and again there was a contest, this time between Shuter and Thomas Hussey II*, a local landowner who had represented Whitchurch as a recruiter and who had sat in the Rump. Once again Shuter received no votes, and Hussey was returned with the unanimous support of the 18 ‘approved men’ and burgesses, although he then made no visible contribution to parliamentary proceedings. Hants RO, 37M85/4/M1/1/24b. Re-elected in 1656, he was somewhat more in evidence in the chamber.
At the 1659 election there were once again two seats available at Andover. The corporation, which had been quick to proclaim their support for their high steward Richard Cromwell on his succession to the protectorate in September 1658, unsurprisingly chose at least one courtier. TSP vii. 378. Gabriel Becke*, elected on 4 January 1659, was solicitor to the protector’s council, and also a brother-in-law of John Dunch. With Hussey now dead, the other candidate chosen, Robert Gough* of Vernham’s Dean, a few miles north of Andover, was probably returned on his own interest. Hants RO, 37M85/11/PE/2.
The Restoration brought imprisonment for Robert Wallop, while the focus of his family’s involvement in Parliament switched to Whitchurch. However, the tradition of electing gentlemen with local bases or interests was perpetuated. HP Commons 1660-1690.
