Situated on the roads from London to both Portsmouth and Winchester, Petersfield was a posting town; it had an important market and was the focal point for local industrial activity. Its growth under the Tudors was due to the presence of cloth and leather manufacturing, and although these industries were in decline by the mid-seventeenth century, they may still have employed as many as 1,000 people in the locality. VCH Hants, iii. 111, 114. Later in the century the Compton Census recorded that the parish itself comprised 700 conformists, as well as five Catholics and three non-conformists. Compton Census, 87. Although a charter was drawn up in 1612, it failed to secure ratification, and Petersfield remained a borough by prescription rather than incorporation, its government being vested in the mayor (who acted as returning officer), constable, bailiff and two aldermen and tithingmen, all of whom were elected an the annual court leet. Although the town had sent members to Parliament in 1307, its representation had then lapsed until the reign of Edward VI. Until 1623 the franchise appears to have been granted to the commonalty, or freeholders, but thereafter election precepts were addressed merely to the mayor and burgesses or burgage holders, causing confusion in at least one election in the mid-seventeenth century, and again in later centuries. Hants RO, 39M74/DB1-2, 13; VCH Hants iii. 114-5; R.S. Atcheson, Report of the Case of the Borough of Petersfield (1831), 4, 19-20. Nevertheless, the dominant interest in the borough by 1640 was well-established, and lay with the Norton family of Rotherfield, although the borough was also susceptible to influence from the court. HP Commons 1604-1629.
The election for the Short Parliament saw the return of Sir William Lewis and Sir William Uvedale*, apparently without contest. C219/42ii/139. Lewis, who took the senior seat, was within the circles of the earls of Pembroke and a native of Llangorse in Breconshire, but had usually resided at Borden, a mere three miles from Petersfield, following his marriage in 1622 to a local widow, and was on the commission of the peace by 1632. Western Circ. Assize Orders, 41. As sheriff of Breconshire in 1636-7 he had collected Ship Money, but in Hampshire he was almost certainly perceived as being one of the region’s more vocal critics of Caroline polices, having sought excusal from the Forced Loan in 1627, and ignored the king’s request for contributions towards the northern expedition in 1639, despite perhaps already being a deputy lord lieutenant. SP16/352, f. 226; SP16/356, f. 63; SP16/371, f. 238; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 914; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 438. Uvedale, on the other hand, had been treasurer of the privy chamber since 1618, and was now also treasurer at war, although in February 1640 he married a sister of Lucius Cary*, 2nd Viscount Falkland [S], a critic of the personal rule of Charles I. C66/2133/8; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure (Philadelphia, 1939), i. 606; ii. 125; C66/2840/7; C66/2903/20; SO3/12, f. 223; C231/3, p. 156; SP16/414, f. 368; Coventry Docquets, 209. Also a deputy lord lieutenant, he was seated at Wickham, some 12-13 miles south west of Petersfield, and on the interest of his maternal grandfather, Sir Richard Norton, had been elected for the borough as an already experienced MP in 1625, 1626 and 1628. HP Commons 1604-1629.
Neither Lewis nor Uvedale made any surviving impression on proceedings in that Parliament, but both retained their places in the autumn election, again apparently without contest. C219/43ii/149. This was despite Uvedale’s absence in the north of England, where he was engaged in paying off the army after the signing of the Treaty of Ripon. He returned to his home in Covent Garden during the first week of the parliamentary session. SP16/471, ff. 10, 37, 43; SP16/472, f. 2.
This time both MPs had a higher profile in the House. In Uvedale’s case this was short-lived, and almost exclusively related to his army duties, while gout soon curbed his attendance in the chamber. Lewis, on the other hand, came to prominence as measures to combat the ‘Army Plot’ unfolded in 1641. He had a particular oversight of affairs at Portsmouth (some 17 miles from Petersfield and a strategic goal of the plotters), and was at the centre of security matters and military preparations by Parliament in the first half of 1642. He became a zealous supporter of the war effort in Hampshire, at least during the early phase of the conflict, serving as governor of Portsmouth for several months from September 1642. CJ ii. 785b; iii. 129a, 492b. Meanwhile, Uvedale answered a call from the king to York, and returning south with peace overtures, narrowly escaped disablement from Parliament; he was readmitted in 1644 and nominated to local commissions, but incapacity and perhaps political disinclination largely kept him away from Westminster. Add. 31116, p. 274; CJ iii. 492a, 679b, 682a.
Unlike other parts of the county, Petersfield did not witness significant military action during the civil wars. During the winter of 1644-5, however, it was employed as a base for the army under Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, and Sir William Waller*, in order to prevent the advance of the royalist army, and with the aim of holding a line which extended from the sea through Petersfield and Farnham to Reading. CSP Dom. 1644-4, pp. 52, 56, 140, 161, 224, 227, 282, 310. In September 1645, Richard Norton* was ordered by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to advance with a force to Petersfield in order to suppress the local Clubmen. CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 146-8.
Lewis, who became one of the leading Presbyterians in the Commons, was one of the Eleven Members impeached by the army in 1647. The action against him prompted his disablement and plans for a new election in March 1648. CJ v. 498a; C231/6, p. 112. But these had yet to be acted upon when the impeachments were discharged on 3 June, and Lewis returned to the Commons shortly thereafter, only to be excluded, like Uvedale, in Pride’s Purge on 6 December.
Effectively unrepresented during the Rump, Petersfield was disenfranchised during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell*. When it was re-enfranchised during the protectorate of Richard Cromwell*, it reverted to traditional behaviour by returning men with local and court connections. Atcheson, Petersfield, 198-9. Sir Henry Norton was the son of regicide Sir Gregory Norton*, but had been disinherited as ‘unnaturally disobedient’. PROB11/223/270. In 1656 he married a distant cousin from the Norton family of Rotherfield, who had been royalists during the war, and he himself may have had similar sympathies. His election at Petersfield in 1659 saw him follow in the footsteps of his wife’s father, Sir Richard Norton†, 1st bt., who had sat in 1621. CB; HP Commons 1604-1629. The other successful candidate, Josiah Child*, may have had only a minor proprietary interest in the town through a kinsman. Hants RO, 20M67/125. At Portsmouth, where he was mayor and deputy treasurer of the navy, he appears to have used his influence to secure the return of his elder brother John Child*; at Petersfield he may have appealed to voters through his business and administrative contacts in the wider county. CSP Dom. 1655, p. 424; Ports. RO, CE 1/7, pp. 58, 66, 82, 99, 101, 121; Portsmouth Sessions Pprs. ed. Hoad, 13, 14, 18, 176.
However, there is no evidence for the presence of either Norton or Child in the chamber, and the election was eventually overturned following a complaint from the freeholders, who claimed a right to vote, but who alleged that the mayor had made a surreptitious election without giving due warning. On 19 February 1659, Thomas Waller* reported that the committee of privileges considered the election to be void. The matter was recommitted at the request of Sir Henry Vane II* (who presumably knew Child well in a naval context), and of Presbyterian-sympathisers Richard Knightley*, John Maynard* and Sir Walter Erle*, on the grounds that it had not been fully reported by the chairman, although not before one of the members of the committee explained that the election was considered unacceptable because there was ‘no due notice; there being 80 electors, and but 30 present’. CJ vii. 605b; Burton’s Diary, iii. 348-9; Mercurius Politicus no. 555 (17-24 Feb. 1659), 248 (E.761.17). The matter was reported again on 22 March when Waller explained that the freeholders as well as burgesses were entitled to vote, but that notice of the election at ten in the morning had been given only 30 minutes beforehand. Since the freeholders did not have ‘timely and due notice’, the election was considered void, and a new writ was ordered for the election of replacements for Norton and Child. CJ vii. 617a; Mercurius Politicus no. 559 (17-24 Mar. 1659), 319 (E.761.25). It was issued on 24 March, but there is no evidence that an election took place before the dissolution of Parliament on 22 April. C231/6, p. 429.
With both Petersfield’s MPs having been secluded at Pride’s Purge, and with Uvedale having died in 1652, the borough was unrepresented during the restored Rump in 1659. Lewis returned to Westminster following the readmission of the secluded Members in February 1660. The Restoration ushered in a resurgent Norton influence.
