By the second half of the sixteenth century Southampton, once the chief port in England after London, was in serious, albeit not terminal, decline. Trade built around wool and wine, particularly with Venice, and in Newfoundland fish had given it considerable affluence and led to impressive buildings and other manifestations of conspicuous consumption. VCH Hants, iii. 490; R. Douch, Visitors’ Descriptions of Southampton: 1540-1956 (1961), 9; A.A. Ruddock, Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton 1270-1600 (1951), 259-60. Like many southern ports, however, it had suffered both from the decay in trade with Italy and from the impact of French pirates. It struggled to pay fee farm rent to the crown, even after securing reductions in the amount payable to the exchequer, and to supply ships to resist the Armada, while even the grant of a monopoly of the import of sweet wines failed to revive trade. VCH Hants, iii. 508; Ruddock, Italian Merchants, 255-72; C. Platt, Medieval Southampton (1973), 197-226; Davies, Hist. Southampton, 29-39, 248-50; E. Welch, Southampton City Charters (1966), 14-15. None the less, its former prestige still counted for something and in contrast with south coast rivals which had silted up, it remained a viable port. Determined to maintain this, the corporation fought hard with the salt patentees to secure exemption from the increased duty imposed in 1636, on the grounds of their reliance upon trade in Newfoundland fish. Southampton RO, TC Box 1/61, 74; Davies, Hist. Southampton, 261. In 1635 one Lieutenant Hammond commented that it was ‘one of the neatest and completest towns in all these western parts’. Douch, Visitors Descriptions, 9. But for most of the seventeenth century the town’s population remained surprisingly low for a major port – around 2,000 judging by the number of communicants recorded in 1603, the Protestation Returns of 1641-2, and the Compton Census of 1676. Such surveys recorded few recusants, although there were a sizeable number of Protestant nonconformists (303) recorded in 1676. Compton Census, 75-6, 88-9.
Southampton was granted its first charter during the reign of Henry II in the twelfth century, incorporated under the charter of 1445, and made a county of itself in 1447. The charter was confirmed in the reign of James I, although a new one was granted in June 1640, at a cost of £219. The corporation was governed by a mayor, sheriff, recorder, and steward, along with two bailiffs and two constables, as well as aldermen, or former mayors. It was these men who held the franchise, together with the burgesses (sometimes called ‘freemen’), whose numbers were kept down by residency requirements and the need to be nominated and elected. Although it was later claimed that the franchise included those paying scot and lot, this was not enforced until 1689. Southampton Charters ed. Gidden, pp. xiv, xxi-xxiv, 11; VCH Hants, iii. 509-18; Welch, Southampton Charters, 17-18, 35-6; Southampton RO, SC1/1/18; Davies, Hist. Southampton, 137, 152, 158, 163-4, 184. The borough was represented in Parliament from 1295, and until the reign of James I those chosen were bona fide burgesses, with nominations for both seats controlled by the corporation. Following a break with this tradition, the town resolved in 1624 not to elect strangers, or those without official or residential connection to the town. VCH Hants, iii. 517; Davies, Hist. Southampton, 199; HP Commons 1604-1629.
In the spring election of 1640, Southampton returned two men who were intimately connected with the borough. C219/42ii/133. The first, Sir John Mill*, had represented the borough in the Parliaments of 1624, 1625, and 1626, although not in 1628, when he was sheriff of Hampshire. His partner was Thomas Levingston*, the town’s recorder, who may have been returned in order to assist in the process of securing the town’s new charter. In making this choice, the freemen rejected an unprecedented degree of outside intervention from Charles Lambart†, 2nd Baron Lambart [I], and from the joint lords lieutenant of the county, brothers-in-law Jerome Weston, 2nd earl of Portland (governor of the Isle of Wight and vice-admiral of Hampshire) and James Stuart, 4th duke of Lennox [S]. Before 6 January these three had proposed Robert Reade*, nephew of secretary of state Sir Francis Windebanke*, who had been nominated as a freeman in 1638 but was otherwise a controversial candidate, here as elsewhere. Southampton RO, SC3/1/1, f. 207v; CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 307. The mayor, Nicholas Pescod, professed to Lambart some support for Reade and willingness to oblige the grandees, but conveyed his regret that
men of some command in other matters in this must be ruled by a company of such as make their wills a law, and will give their voices according to their particular affections, and not for the good of the place where they have their livelihood in.
The burgesses, of whom there were at least 40, had the whip hand. Mill and Levingston had already ‘procured many friends for their election’ and, Pescod thought, had ‘made too strong a party to have their desires unsatisfied.’ SP16/441, f. 130.
There is no surviving evidence of an attempt to exert such outside influence on the borough during the autumn elections for what became the Long Parliament. It is not clear whether either Levingston or Mill offered their candidacy, but neither was returned. Levingston may have fulfilled his usefulness once the new charter was granted in June 1640. Instead, two local merchants were returned on 12 October: George Gollop*, who had represented the borough in 1625, 1626, and 1628, and Edward Exton*. C219/43ii/152. The objective of electors may have been to further the mercantile interests of the town at Westminster: in the opening weeks of the session petitions from Southampton were submitted to the Long Parliament, but their substance is unknown. CJ ii. 29b.
Southampton was of strategic importance during the civil war. An attempt by royalists to seize the town in November 1642 – perhaps orchestrated by former MP Sir John Mill – was resisted, and it declared for Parliament in December, although not before the sitting MPs came temporarily under suspicion. Davies, Hist. Southampton, 485-8. Thereafter it was garrisoned and governed successively by Richard Norton* (1642-4) and Colonel John St Barbe*. In November 1643 Parliament passed an ordinance for raising money to fortify the town, and it remained conscious of the imperative to protect such a vital base; now rehabilitated, Exton and Gollop, who were both more active locally than at Westminster, handled much of the business. LJ vi. 309b-310a, 379b, 635b; viii. 292b-293a. Although it saw little military action, in 1644 the town quartered many troops from the army of Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex. Davies, Hist. Southampton, 488-9. In August 1648, during the royalist insurrection, Parliament commissioned the mayor and governor of the town to raise troops for its defence and appointed a committee for the execution of ordinances which included many prominent Hampshire members, among them Gollop and Exton. LJ x. 408a, 419b, 447b.
It is possible that both MPs had absented themselves from the House of Commons before Pride’s Purge, and there is no sign of either attending during the Rump, although in July 1649 they lent money for transport of troops to Ireland. Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, f. 2. Following the death of Gollop in 1650, the town resolved to petition for the continuance of their ancient privilege of having two Members, and for the issue of a writ for the election of a replacement, but no by-election was ever held. Davies, Hist. Southampton, 204. On 16 March 1652 the question of Southampton’s representation surfaced during the debate on the ‘new representative’, but although the Commons resolved that the town was to have two Members, this decision was later reversed. CJ vii. 268b, 270b. Meanwhile, in December 1651, in what was probably a politically-motivated attempt to remove a political Presbyterian, Thomas Levingston*, from the recordership, John Lisle*, lord commissioner of the great seal and regicide, was manoeuvred into the office with the assistance of John Hildesley*. Southampton RO, SC 2/1/8, f. 77v-78. Thereafter the the corporation also replaced other officials, including the town’s mayor, William Higgins. Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, f. 113.
In the aftermath of the Dutch war, the town was used to hold hundreds of enemy prisoners, and by 1654 the costs of housing both them and soldiers had provoked local resentment, prompting the leading burgesses to petition Protector Oliver Cromwell* for the removal of part of the garrison. TSP iii. 273; Davies, Hist. Southampton, 490. The result of this petition is unclear, but Southampton continued to loom large in matters of military strategy throughout the 1650s. The town itself sought the status of a a ‘free port’ and the grant of a monopoly on trade with the Levant. Southampton RO, TC Box 1/61, 74; Davies, Hist. Southampton, 261.
In elections for Oliver’s two Parliaments Southampton was allocated only one Member, and on both occasions the place went to John Lisle, who had previously represented Winchester. C219/44ii. In 1654 he opted to sit for the town despite having also been returned for his native Isle of Wight, but two years later he almost failed to get elected. CJ vii. 373a. In May 1656 Major-general William Goffe* complained to secretary of state John Thurloe* about ‘the wicked spirit of the magistrates’ in the town, and their ‘unworthy carriage’ against ‘the godly party’. TSP iv. 764-5. They conducted a concerted campaign to prevent Lisle securing election involving the circulation of scandalous pamphlets – probably not a difficult undertaking given Lisle’s reputation for corruption. The identity of the rival candidate is unknown, but he came close to victory, since Goffe reported that Lisle won by only ‘four voices’. TSP v. 287.
Lisle’s local influence continued to decline. In December 1658 Thomas Levingston secured a writ of restitution to the recordership and in April 1659 Lisle had to resign, although he claimed that his other duties made it impossible for him to fulfil his duties to the town. Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, ff. 142, 145. In the early weeks of Richard Cromwell’s protectorship he was certainly party to the conciliar discussions about the writs for elections to the new Parliament which resulted in the restoration of two-seat representation at Southampton and elsewhere, but it is not clear if he was a candidate in the borough. The men returned were Thomas Knollys*, seated at nearby Nursling, who may have inclined towards royalism but who was made a burgess on 28 December 1658, and Roger Gollop*, nephew and heir of former MP George, and a man who had accommodated himself to the protectorate. Neither Member made any visible contribution to Commons proceedings, and it is possible that their main function was to block the election of men like Lisle.
During the army’s interruption of the returned Rump in late 1659, Southampton was briefly under its sway when Harbert Morley* and Sir Arthur Hesilrige* wrote to the borough from Portsmouth seeking to win its allegiance to Parliament and to civilian rule. Southampton RO, SC 2/1/8, f. 153. Long Parliament MP Edward Exton made no recorded impression in the chamber following the return of the excluded Members in 1660, but, following the Restoration, he did serve as a commissioner for corporations. HMC 11th Rep. III, 55. That body imposed further alterations to the ranks of civic officials in 1662, including the appointment of Roger Gollop as recorder. Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, ff. 113, 185; TC Box 1/91-2. Such outside influence also became apparent in parliamentary elections, and the town achieved only limited success in reserving its seats for men with local interests and civic responsibilities. It became common for at least one Member to be a ‘stranger’, or court candidate, including men who were nominated by the duke of York. However, Knollys was finally re-elected in 1670. HP Commons 1660-1690.
