Although economically and topographically diverse, and religiously divided, Hampshire was an administratively centralised county in the early seventeenth century, and an area of notable strategic importance. While puritanism was probably dominant among the gentry, there was a notable Catholic presence in the region (represented especially by the Paulets, marquesses of Winchester), which became particularly significant during the popish plot scare in the early 1640s. Geographically, Hampshire was divided between chalk downs in the north and woodland, including the New Forest, in the south – a state mirrored in its contrasting social structures and economic patterns, with large-scale and increasingly capitalistic agrarian production in the north, and numerous independent small-holders in the south. While Southampton and Winchester were declining from their medieval heights, dynamism and wealth sprang from the market towns and from Portsmouth. Administratively, Hampshire was more unified than some of its neighbours: civilian and religious affairs were centred on Winchester and its cathedral, the city being the venue for election of knights of the shire, and the centre of a diocese with authority over the entirety of the county. Even the Isle of Wight, with its distinct gentry community, exemption from certain mainland rates and taxes, and centrally-appointed military structure, was essentially integrated into the wider county administration.
As the Solent was vital to the defence of the south coast, numerous major garrisons were located on the mainland and on the Isle of Wight, while the naval base at Portsmouth, supplied by the ample nearby forests, ensured that the region was a focal point for Whitehall and Westminster concern, and played a conspicuous part in wider affairs, during national and international conflict. Strategic importance may help to explain why the county was somewhat over-represented in Parliament, with nine mainland constituencies and a further three boroughs on the Isle of Wight, in addition to the two county Members. Nevertheless, while court and aristocratic electoral influence on the voters – 2,179 in 1614 – was evident, most of the county’s seats succumbed to gentry control, and to close-knit puritan families like the Nortons, the Wallops and the Whitheds. STAC8/293/11; HP Commons 1604-1629. The political importance of the region was also manifested by its contested nature during the civil wars, and by a persistence of royalism which was unusual for the south-eastern counties. A royalist petition emerged from the county in 1644, while Basing House and Winchester both survived as royalist strongholds until late 1645, and the local clubmen inclined towards the royal cause. Coleby, Hants 1649-1689, 8. Such royalism was also spurred by the king’s presence in, or passage through, Hampshire in 1648; his flight to the Isle of Wight provoked an abortive royalist rising.
Two leading county squires were elected to the Short Parliament, both probably returned on their own interest rather than through the influence of the county’s lord lieutenants, the 2nd earl of Portland (Jerome Weston†) and James Stuart, 4th duke of Lennox (later duke of Richmond). Given the tension of the two previous decades over billeting and martial law, resistance to forced loans and knighthood fines, considerable delays in the collection of Ship Money, and protest by local justices in 1639 about levies for the repair of St Paul’s cathedral, it was perhaps predictable that the county would return men more or less critical of the royal court. Bodl. Rawl. D.666, ff. 41-3, 84v-86, 103v; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 912, 914; Add. 21922, ff. 179v-83; CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 392; 1636-7, pp. 217-18, 356, 436; 1637, pp. 21-2, 172, 387. Although into his seventies in 1640, Sir Henry Wallop* was one of the most powerful local gentlemen and had sat in every Parliament since 1597, except that of 1604, when he held the shrievalty; on four previous occasions it had been as a knight of the shire. HP Commons 1604-1629. Despite his age, Wallop was almost certainly regarded as the leading spokesman in the county for those who sought ‘further reformation’. T. F. Heavenly Meditations (1606), sig. A3; N. Fuller, Miscellaneorum (1617), sig. ⁋2; M. Brookes, The House of God (1627), sig. A2; Hants RO, 19M61/1317; SP14/156, f. 14. His partner in the Short Parliament, Richard Whithed I* – who had been sheriff in 1635 – belonged to another of the region’s most prominent families. He was the heir of Sir Henry Whithed†, who had taken one of the county seats in 1625 and who had married as his second wife the niece of Sir Daniel Norton†, a knight of the shire in 1624 and 1628. HP Commons 1604-1629. Sir Daniel and later his son Richard Norton* were among Richard Whithed’s closest friends and associates in a circle which also included Nathaniel Fiennes I*, and through him his father, opposition peer William Fiennes†, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele. Hants RO, 5M50/377, 378.
Wallop and Whithed had sufficient standing to be re-elected in the autumn of 1640 independently of the wishes of the lords lieutenant. On 30 September Lennox’s secretary, Thomas Webbe*, told Hampshire-born courtier Robert Reade*, nephew of the secretary of state, Sir Francis Windebanke*, and an aspirant to a county seat with other noble backers, that the earl’s interest was doubtful. Lennox had written to every corporate town in an attempt to exert influence over the polls, but lacked confidence that he could go further. CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 121-2, 179. (Indeed, the earl’s recommendation that spring had failed to get Reade in even at Southampton.) CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 307. On 26 October Reade’s cousin informed him that the county election was a mere formality, and that the return of Wallop and Whithed was a matter of nomination rather than choice. CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 198.
Hampshire was deprived of one of its knights of the shire in November 1642 with the death of Sir Henry Wallop, but it was not until 13 November 1645 that a writ was issued for the selection of his replacement. CJ iv. 320a, 337a; C231/6, p. 30. On one level the choice of Richard Norton represented a perpetuation of the power of local gentry, and particularly of godly magnates. But Norton, who had succeeded to the family estates in 1636, had emerged during the first civil war as one of the most powerful parliamentarians in the region, both as an administrator, often acting with Whithed, and in a military capacity, not least as colonel of a regiment, and governor of Southampton (1643-4) and Portsmouth (1645). A controversial figure locally and nationally, distrusted by some for his militancy, he had served as sheriff in 1644 despite the attempts of some in Parliament to block his appointment. CJ iii. 354b, 370b; LJ vi. 381b; Harl. 165, f. 279v; Add. 18779, ff. 37v, 46v. In 1645, while assiduous in fulfilling his local duties, he had also spent time at Westminster, cultivating his contacts on the Committee of Both Kingdoms and his friends in the Commons to secure additional resources for his garrison. HMC 6th Rep. 58; CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 510, 515, 560; 1645-7, pp. 10-11, 18-19, 28, 40, 75, 77; HMC Portland, i. 242, 274; Add. 24860, f. 127; Add. 18780, f. 123; HMC 10th Rep. vi. 163; CJ iv. 168b, 173b, 220b. He was returned for the shire on 21 November 1645, and had taken his seat by 31 December. Return of Members, i. 493; CJ iv. 393a.
Both of Hampshire’s knights of the shire were secluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648, although perhaps for slightly different reasons. While Whithed’s removal probably resulted as much from his Presbyterian allegiance as from his attitude towards the Newport Treaty, Norton made himself a target for the army by the strength of his contacts with those Independent grandees – notably his father-in-law Saye and Sele – who were willing to persist in negotiating with the king. Mercurius Militaris no. 5 (14-21 Nov. 1648), 35 (E.473.8); Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 36-7 (5-12 Dec. 1648), sig. Ccc2v (E.476.2); CJ v. 647a; vi. 47a, 88a, 93a. This may explain why he emerged as a candidate for readmission to the Commons during the Rump. Oliver Cromwell*, who had previously evinced friendly exasperation with Norton and his frequent absences from the House, may have sought to effect his return in September 1650, at a time when he was being considered for military employment in Ireland. Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 585, 590-2; Ludlow, Mems. i. 247. Norton’s name appeared on a list of potential returners in January 1651, but it was not until 26 November that year that he was given permission to resume his place in the House. Salt Library MS 454, no. 6; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 328, 453; HMC Portland, i. 582; CSP Dom. 1650, p. 487; 1651, pp. 200, 227; CJ vii. 29b, 44a. The differing paths taken by Norton and Whithed does not signify any rift between them – in 1652 Whithed’s eldest son, Henry Whithed† married one of Norton’s daughters – but rather it highlights the subtle variations among the responses of traditional local leaders to novel political circumstances.
Hampshire was represented by three Members in the Nominated Assembly of 1653. The process whereby John Hildesley*, Richard Maijor* and Richard Norton were selected is uncertain, but it is probable that they were nominated centrally, if not – in the latter two cases – by Cromwell himself. There is no evidence that any of them were involved with local congregational churches, although the three had together appointed Independent divine, Nathaniel Robinson, as rector of St Lawrence, Southampton in 1647. J. Speed, Hist. and Antiq. of Southampton ed. E. R. Aubrey (Southampton, 1909), 175-7; Calamy Revised, 413. Hildesley, a former mayor of Christchurch and recorder of Winchester, was a political protégé of regicide John Lisle*, one of the county’s most powerful and controversial parliamentarians, and was later listed among MPs who supported the maintenance of a public preaching ministry. A Catalogue of the Names of the Members of the Last Parliament (1654, 669.f.19.3) Maijor, who had been sheriff of Hampshire in 1639, had provided vital financial support for Norton’s regiment before becoming treasurer for the war effort in the county and later lending money for Cromwell’s troops. Add. 24860, ff. 9-53. 75-84, 113, 116, 125, 127, 139; Add. 24861, ff. 3-10, 13, 15, 37, 40v-41. Norton and Nathaniel Robinson had been intermediaries in the negotiations which resulted in the marriage of Maijor’s daughter to Richard Cromwell* in 1649. Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 585, ii. 8; Add. 24861, ff. 11, 17, 20, 22. Personally close to Oliver, Maijor was among his inner circle after the dissolution of the Rump, was granted lodgings in Whitehall in June 1653 and in July became a councillor of state. CJ vii. 284b, 285a, 344a; CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 415, 425. In the spring he had supported a petition from the county in favour of the maintenance of a preaching ministry; although he approved of measures to grant a degree of liberty to those with tender consciences, he opposed radical sectaries who rejected a national church maintained by tithes. Add. 24861, ff. 71-2v. Norton too was awarded lodgings in Whitehall, and added to the council of state. CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 3, 25; CJ vii. 284b.
Under the terms of the Instrument of Government, Hampshire was allocated eight knights of the shire for the protectorate Parliaments. Some of those returned had links to Cromwell’s court, but, as previously, the MPs included county magnates of independent standing, and the distinction between those bound up with the regime and those aloof from it is not entirely clear. Richard Norton and Richard Maijor retained their places. Maijor had participated in proclaiming Cromwell as protector in December 1653, and served on his first protectoral council, appointed in the same month, and in addition to assiduous service at Whitehall proved active in investigating Quaker activities in Hampshire, and was named as a commissioner for scandalous ministers in August 1654. TSP i. 642, iii. 581; Add. 18739; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 139; CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 298, 381, 385, 402, 404; 1654, pp. 7, 12, 28, 43, 65, 190, 195, 207, 210, 215, 217, 220, 222, 223, 245, 249, 251, 253, 263, 270, 275, 290, 308, 312, 315, 318, 320, 330, 354, 370; 1655, pp. 50, 106. Norton, less prominent at court, revealed his support for the protectorate, and his ongoing personal attachment to Cromwell, during the course of the assembly. But it was quite probably Norton’s own influence in the county which underpinned the return of his former lieutenant John St Barbe*, who had been installed by him as governor of Southampton in July 1645; St Barbe was by this time in possession of an estate at Broadlands and had made an advantageous marriage outside the county, but did not yet have the status of traditional county MPs. CJ iv. 196b; Add. 24860, f. 113. Unequivocally representing the Cromwellian interest, on the other hand, was the protector’s son, and Maijor’s son-in-law, Richard Cromwell.
John Bulkeley*, another man of considerable substance, embodied a somewhat different strand. Having represented Yarmouth in the Short Parliament and Newtown as a recruiter, like Norton he was perceived to have been close to Independent grandees in the late 1640s, and like Norton and Richard Whithed had been a supporter of the Newport treaty; in his case it was to the extent of being a commissioner to Charles I at Carisbrooke in 1648, for which he became a marked man as far as the army was concerned. Burton’s Diary, iii. 105-7; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1355, 1369; Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 36-7 (5-12 Dec. 1648), sig. Ccc3v (E.476.2). Secluded, and briefly imprisoned, at Pride’s Purge, unlike his colleagues he was a firm opponent of both the Rump and the creation of the protectorate, although his resistance did not take concrete and visible form at this time. Burton’s Diary, iii. 105-7. In the spring of 1652 he and Whithed seem to have circulated a petition in support of the maintenance of a public preaching ministry. Add. 24861, f. 67; Hants RO, 1M53/454-5. Edward Hooper* shared with Bulkeley roots outside the county and indeed had been sheriff of Dorset in 1646, but on the one hand had retreated from public life in the later 1640s, and on the other, unlike Bulkeley, appears to have found the protectorate more congenial than the commonwealth. CJ iv. 732b, 739b. Since his moderation in the mid-1640s had earned the scorn of the more militant Norton, who had manouevred to overturn Hooper’s appointment as governor of Southampton in favour of St Barbe, the working relationship between this trio in 1654 was plausibly tense. Add. 24860, ff. 94, 113, 116.
The other two men returned in 1654 probably represented the views of those whose sympathies lay with the republic rather than the protectorate, and the enduring political influence of the Wallop family. Robert Wallop*, son of one-time county MP Sir Henry, and himself MP for Andover during the Long Parliament and into the Rump, had been an enthusiastic supporter of the latter, despite not signing Charles I’s death warrant. Yet he accommodated himself to the protectorate, and even served as a commissioner for investigating plots against the regime. TSP iii. 296; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 114. It seems likely that he was at least partly responsible for securing a place in the 1654 Parliament for Francis Rivett*, who had served as his estate steward during the late 1640s and early 1650s, although the Derbyshire-born lawyer had been established and active in Hampshire for some time, and had other powerful friends. C54/3460/32; C54/3642/9; Hants Hearth Tax, 274; Hants RO, 5M58/25-30.
The delicate electoral and political balance of power in Hampshire was altered by the appointment of the major-generals and the arrival in the county in 1655 of William Goffe*. It was integral to his function to seek to control elections for the 1656 Parliament, but his very presence, and the new administrative structures, provoked more overt opposition to the court than had been evident two years earlier. On 8 August 1656 Goffe reported to the secretary of state John Thurloe* an unquiet spirit in the region, and attempts by Cromwell’s opponents to influence the forthcoming elections. TSP v. 287. A potentially powerful, but by this time somewhat inscrutable, player was Richard Norton. Oliver Cromwell’s attempt the previous autumn to persuade his old friend to lend ‘countenance’ to Goffe had evoked a polite but aloof response from Norton to the major-general, declining to assist. Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 25; TSP iv. 239. In the intervening months Goffe had first been reassured but then alarmed, claiming that Richard Cromwell too was ‘very apprehensive’ that Norton would use his role as chairman of the grand jury to procure the selection of unwelcome MPs. Goffe’s proposed solution was that Norton and Richard Cromwell ‘debate and agree their men before the day of choice, and [then] certainly they would carry without dispute’. TSP v. 215. Something of this sort may have happened, if not quite as Goffe hoped. On 21 August the major-general reported that Norton had not thought ‘fit to put my name into any of the lists’ of potential candidates, explaining that ‘I were better not be named than receive a baffle’ [rejection], although he had undertaken, if the sheriff would accept it, to ‘endeavour for Portsmouth’ on Goffe’s behalf. TSP v. 329.
Notwithstanding this, at the county election Goffe was returned, with support from Richard Cromwell, who came top of the poll. TSP v. 329, 344; Bodl. Rawl. A.41, p. 696. Returned also for Cambridge University, on 2 October Cromwell waived his right to the Hampshire seat, but no replacement seems to have been elected despite an order for a writ. CJ vii. 432a. Additionally, Goffe managed to secure the return of Thomas Cole* and Richard Cobbe*. Cole, a well-connected gentleman from Liss, had served continuously in local administration from the mid-1640s; most recently he had been a commissioner for preserving the peace of the commonwealth and had assisted Goffe with the ‘decimation’ of local royalists. A. and O.; TSP iv. 363. Goffe anticipated he would favour a settlement which was advantageous to Oliver Cromwell. TSP v. 329. Cobbe, whose origins are uncertain and whose wife came from the royalist side of the Norton family, was a latecomer to parliamentarian administration, but had been recommended to Gough by Richard Cromwell and Richard Maijor as a commissioner for preserving the peace of the commonwealth, had assisted with the decimation, and was also thought amenable to a settlement. TSP iv. 238-40, 363; v. 329. The court interest failed, however, to secure the return of John Pitman, a local militia captain, even though allegedly he had the support of a ‘great number of honest and resolute men’. TSP v. 287. Furthermore, Richard Maijor, who had given Goffe ‘much kindness’ and not a little advice, and whose help was sought in September to suppress a suspected plot, was not returned. TSP iv. 229, 238, 363, 764; v. 397. It is not clear whether this was because of defeat by Goffe’s opponents, or disinclination, possibly brought about by ill health. TSP vii. 548.
Having feared worse, Goffe’s correspondence reveals that he was moderately relieved at the result of the election. The fact remains, however, that four gentlemen re-elected despite rumours of their engagement to a greater or lesser extent in plots against the regime that September. TSP v. 329, 396-7. Richard Norton and Robert Wallop were probably simply too well-entrenched and too powerful to be denied their places, but John Bulkeley and Edward Hooper were excluded from Parliament on the orders of the council on 19 September. CJ vii. 425a. It is not clear whether the exclusions were permanent, but both men were being employed on local commissions from February 1657. CJ vii. 491b.
Following the fall of the major-generals, the death of Oliver Cromwell, and the restoration of traditional electoral constituencies and franchises, at elections for the 1659 Parliament, Hampshire was once more able to return two ‘natural leaders’ from within the ranks of the county’s greatest families. The choice of Richard Norton and Robert Wallop, however, once again suggests dissonant hopes and perceptions within the county community. For some months in 1658 Norton had been regarded by royalist agents as a potential ally to the cause, but some always distrusted him and some came to doubt him, so it is difficult to determine how exactly this played in the minds of voters. TSP vi. 856; CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 93; CCSP iv. 9, 24-5, 28-9; Carte, Orig. Letters and Papers, ii. 125-6, 128, 130, 133-4; Carte, Life of Ormond, iii. 663-4; Bodl. Carte 57, ff. 248-9; Wallop, meanwhile, had developed into a committed commonwealthsman. His campaigning for the election of Sir Henry Vane II* at Whitchurch caused consternation in Whitehall, and the government ‘sent a menacing letter to him, which was subscribed by most justices of the peace for the county, to let him know, that they would oppose his election for the shire, if he persisted to recommend Sir Henry Vane to the choice of the people’. However, according to the published memoirs of Edmund Ludlowe II*, Wallop ‘despising their threatenings, continued to assist Sir Henry Vane, and was chosen for the county in spite of them’. Ludlow, Mems. ii. 51.
Following the collapse of the protectorate and the retirement of Norton’s friend Richard Cromwell, Norton does not appear to have returned to Westminster with the Rump in May 1659. Once again suspected of royalist sympathy, he was deprived of the governorship of Portsmouth and on 30 September he was fined £100 for failure to appear at a call of the House. CJ vii. 653a-b, 790a; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 81; HMC 10th Rep. vi. 203. He declined to support the civilian republicans who seized the garrison from the army in December and expressed exasperation with the management of the Rump when it once again resumed. Whitelocke, Diary, 548-9; Mercurius Politicus no. 602 (29 Dec. 1659-5 Jan. 1660), 994-5 (E.773. 39); Ludlow, Voyce, 121. Both he and Richard Whithed returned to Parliament, however, after the readmission of the secluded Members in February 1660. CJ vii. 847b; Grand Memorandum (1660, 669f.24/37).
Norton and Bulkeley were the ‘natural rulers’ returned to the Convention in April. After the Restoration the traditional order found expression in the election of candidates from families who had been loyal to the crown, including Norton’s kinsmen. HP Commons 1660-1690.
