Newport, located at the head of the River Medina estuary, was the principal administrative town in the Isle of Wight. Part of the parish of Carisbrooke, and in the shadow of its castle, Newport provided the residence for the captain, or governor, of the island. VCH Hants, v. 253; Worsley, Isle of Wight, 147-55. In 1648 it would assume a position of national importance, and its most famous moment, when it provided the location for the Newport treaty between Parliament and the king. CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 277. Although not a separate parish, it had a sizeable population. A petition from 1641 mentioned ‘3,000 souls’, and the Compton Census later in the century recorded nearly 1,100 adults. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 406; Compton Census, 91. Newport had traditionally been governed according to a seigneurial charter of 1180, which had been enlarged by Henry VII, but in 1608 it was incorporated by a new charter, which pertained until 1661. The Jacobean charter instituted governance by a mayor and 23 common councilmen, with officers including a recorder and a town clerk; in theory the franchise also lay with the 24 burgesses, but there appear to have been 25 voters in 1640 and only 16 in 1614. VCH Hants, v. 256; C66/1735; I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, pp. 35, 326; HP Commons 1604-1629. This increased the power of townsmen relative to that of local gentry in borough affairs, although electorally these continued to be influenced by the island’s governor, and by its great gentry families, for whom Newport effectively represented a county seat. Newport had sent Members to Parliament in 1295, although thereafter its representation lapsed until 1584, when it was re-enfranchised at the request of the then governor, Sir George Carey†. VCH Hants, v. 259.
The elections for the Short Parliament, which took place on 25 March 1640, saw the electoral spoils divided between the island’s governor, the 2nd earl of Portland (Jerome Weston†) and the local gentry. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 387; C219/42ii/138. However, as with many elections that spring, attempts were made by outside interests to influence the outcome. As early as December 1639, Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, requested the right, as lord high admiral, to nominate at least one candidate, as part of his attempt to wield influence across the southern counties, although at this stage he probably did not name a specific individual. On 20 December the corporation replied, denying his propositions of precedent and signifying that they were already engaged for the choice of both burgesses. The same day they granted a request from the earl of Portland for the right to nominate one Member, but they were concerned that their response should make no reference either to dealings with Northumberland or to ‘the other burgess whom we are minded to choose’. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 381.
In late February Portland evidently wrote again to the corporation, hoping to nominate someone who was not yet a burgess of town, to which the corporation replied on 2 March with a ‘modest denial, the reasons to be alleged that we conceive it will not stand with our charter or the king’s writ to choose a burgess of this Parliament unless he be first of the incorporation sworn’. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 385. Portland’s intended nominee seems to have been Lucius Cary*, 2nd Viscount Falkland [S], who was unwilling or unable to make the journey to Newport before the election in order to be so sworn. On 15 March the corporation agreed an unorthodox and possibly illegal compromise, that Falkland ‘shall be effectually chosen a burgess of the Parliament for this borough’ if he took the oath of a burgess before one of the masters in chancery. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 386. The second seat, meanwhile, went to Sir Henry Worsley* of Appuldurcombe in Godshill, head of one of the island’s most influential gentry families, lord of the manor of Newport and a substantial landowner in other parts of the county and beyond. C142/389/126. Worsley’s grandfather, Thomas Worsley (d.1604) had been deputy captain of the Isle of Wight, and his father, Sir Richard Worsley†, had been sheriff (1617), and MP for Newport in 1614 and 1621. I.o.W. RO, JER/WA/37/5-7, 9. Apart from upholding the prestigious position of his family, however, Worsley may have sought election to Parliament as protection from the consequences of his many lawsuits.
The election on 18 October for what became the Long Parliament had the same outcome, but this time there is no evidence of external pressures at work. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 401; C219/32/147. Having agreed to elect an outsider like Falkland, however, the corporation expected him to assist in lobbying Parliament over their attempt to make the town a separate parish, with patronage of the new living vested in themselves, not only to serve their large population but also address the absenteeism of Carisbrooke’s vicar, Alexander Ross. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, pp. 404-6. The latter was a Scot who had married into the local Bowreman family, but whose churchmanship was closer to the ceremonialist preferences of his patron the king than to those of his godly in-laws and their kin and friends the Worsleys. ‘Alexander Ross’, Oxford DNB. In an undated letter to Portland the corporation thanked Portland for ‘commending unto us so noble and able a burgess of the Parliament for our borough as is the lord of Falkland, which in all duty we shall ever labour to deserve’, adding that they sought his help with their petition to Parliament. Similarly, an undated letter to Falkland acknowledged ‘with much thankfulness your lordship’s favour towards us in being a burgess of the Parliament for this borough of Newport’, and expressed the hope that he and Worsley would assist in promoting the town’s cause. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 409. They were both named to the committee set up on 24 May 1641 to consider the creation of a new parish, but there is no other indication of Falkland’s taking a particular interest in Isle of Wight affairs in Parliament. CJ ii. 155a.
Newport’s position and affairs changed dramatically with the slide into civil war. In place of the earl of Portland, who was to be a royalist, the island received a new governor, Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, who may have been responsible for the appointment of a new recorder for the borough, William Stephens*. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 414. In August 1642 Pembroke oversaw attempts to prevent the island sending supplies to Portsmouth, the strategically important garrison initially in royalist hands. Newport evidently became something of a stronghold of parliamentarianism on an island otherwise notable for its royalist gentry. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 427. In August 1642 Sir Henry Worsley’s stepfather, Colonel Jeremy Brett, who briefly held Carisbrooke castle for the king, compared Newport to ‘a large Bedlam’, being ‘full of faction and such uncivil language used with such threatenings to persons of the best quality’, and wished that ‘all your corporation were so well affected and as good Protestants as those they shall please to call papists, traitors and villains’. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, pp. 428-9. Another royalist, Nicholas Weston*, complained that parliamentarians like John Lisle* and John Bulkeley* ‘hath poisoned this county’. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, pp. 433-4. On the other hand, the corporation recorded that Brett, with local royalist sympathisers like Sir Robert Dillington* and Sir John Oglander†, ‘swaggered and used speeches’ ‘in a rude manner’. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, pp. 435-6. After Brett was arrested at the end of August the royalist threat on the island receded: other local gentry with royalist sympathies appear to have been willing to live in peace with the parliamentarian authorities. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, pp. 437-9.
In May 1643 the Newport townsmen reported to Pembroke the progress made in the repositioning of the altar in their church and the removal of monuments of superstition and idolatry, including the image of a dove on both the font and the pulpit, and the cross on the outside of the church. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 448. Ecclesiastical problems were not entirely resolved, however, and the town resorted to another petition to Parliament in October 1644, in the wake of the loss of both their vicar (Ross) and curate, in the hope of securing the appointment of Thomas Hallett, previously minister of Shaston in Dorset. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 475. Hallett was appointed, but then removed some time before August 1646, when the town renewed petitioning about its church affairs. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 501, 511. Later, in 1649, the town sought advice from two prominent Presbyterian divines, Richard Vines and Lazarus Seaman, regarding the lack of a minister, and their opinion of one ‘Mr Geery, who is nominated to us’. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 554.
The most pressing problem during the years 1642-5, however, and one liable to diminish the town’s lobbying power, was its lack of effective representation at Westminster. Falkland, who had been made a secretary of state to Charles I in January 1642, withdrew from Parliament in June, and was disabled by the Commons on 22 September. CJ ii. 777a. Although Worsley remained the town’s nominal representative, his service was probably minimal. His appearances in the Commons Journal related largely to his absence from proceedings, while his activity on parliamentarian local commissions seems to have been very modest. CJ iii. 143a, 410b, 440b, 486a, 537a, 576a, 579b, 586a; iv. 71b; 183b, 499b; v. 107b, 330a, 366b; Harl. 165, ff. 108v-109; I.o.W. RO, OG/CC/71; OG/Z/20; OG/BB/480, 485; NBC 45/16a, p. 476; Oglander Memoirs, 153
On 1 November 1645, as part of the plan to ‘recruit’ new Members, the Commons ordered the issue of a writ for electing a replacement for Falkland. CJ iv. 329a. At the election held on 24 November there appear to have been three candidates: William Stephens, the recorder; John Dingley; and Robert Dillington. Although almost certainly the nominee of the island’s governor, the earl of Pembroke, Stephens was a controversial figure. In June 1644 he had been confirmed in his post in the face of an attempt to oust him from the corporation, and his candidacy provoked opposition from within the borough elite. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 460. On 11 November the officers debated whether Stephens was fit to stand for election, although four of the burgesses wanted more time to deliberate. I.o.W RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 485. Of the other candidates, Dingley, from Wolverton in the extreme north of the county, was a moderate parliamentarian who up to this point had played a more prominent part in Surrey than Hampshire affairs. A. and O.; Vis. Hants 1686, 23. Dillington, who had been a burgess since December 1640, belonged to one of the island’s most important families, and was the son of the man accused of pro-royalist sympathies in 1642. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 403. At the election Stephens was chosen by the mayor and the majority of the other 23 chief burgesses, and the indenture sealed and dispatched. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 490. However, those who had earlier questioned his candidacy protested, asking if Dingley might yet be returned. They alleged that Stephens had created new burgesses to strengthen his party before the election, and that on the day of the poll he had assembled
a tumultuous rabble of the scum of the town, in order to awe the freeholders, and in the open hall at the time of the election, he being recorder of the town, peremptorily ordered the serjeants to lay a gentleman of known integrity and a freeholder by the heels.
When a vote was taken on this motion, however, Stephens’ opponents were defeated by 12 votes to four. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 491; E.B. and R.B. James, Letters Archaeological and Historical (1896), ii. 187. This failed to end the matter. In February 1646 a report by the committee of privileges led to a summons being issued to the mayor of Newport to appear to answer complaints made regarding the election. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 493. The outcome of the dispute is not recorded, but Stephens had already taken his seat by late January, and he remained in the House thereafter. CJ iv. 420b.
By the terms of the Instrument of Government, which gave the island county status and two knights of the shire, Newport as a borough was disenfranchised in the elections of 1654 and 1656. However, it sent Members to Westminster once again in 1659 in the shape of Thomas Bowreman* and Robert Dillington*, although in the absence of borough records for the period it is not clear whether or not the election was contested. Bowreman came from a well-established island family, from Broke and Newport, and had risen through the military ranks on the island to become deputy governor by 1653. This influential position, in which he served under William Sydenham*, enabled Bowreman to secure one of the county seats in 1654 and 1656, although on the first of these occasions he was returned only as a replacement for Sydenham, who opted to sit elsewhere. That Bowreman sat as a supporter of Richard Cromwell* is indicated by the fact that he was responsible with Sir Henry Worsley for proclaiming the new protector at Newport in September 1658. Mercurius Politicus no. 433 (9-16 Sept. 1658), pp. 827-8 (E.756.17). Dillington, meanwhile, was a grandson of Sir Robert Dillington, and the son of the man who had stood unsuccessfully at Newport in 1645.
It is unlikely that Newport was represented in the restored Rump in 1659-60. Stephens died in October 1658, and Sir Henry Worsley probably disobeyed his summons to attend Westminster. On 27 February 1660 he wrote to the corporation to excuse himself once again. Since the date of his original election was ‘long past and so many alterations have since happened’, and the ‘corporation did lately [i.e. in 1659] upon the like occasion make choice of two worthy gentlemen of this county to be your representatives’, he not only considered that it behoved him to seek ‘approbation [to] take upon me (however invited or summoned) to appear there in your behalf’, but also requested ‘that if I were not duly discharged before, I may be so now and that your borough may be left to their freedom for making a new election’. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16b, p. 13. In the short time remaining in that parliamentary session, the response from the burgesses was almost certainly immaterial.
Dillington was elected to the Convention, and he and his family continued to sit for the borough in Parliaments after the Restoration. Its other Members were drawn from local gentry families including the Oglanders and Stephens. HP Commons 1660-1690.
