By the end of the sixteenth century Newtown, on the north east coast of the Isle of Wight, opposite Lymington, was a very minor settlement, although it did have an oyster fishery and engaged in the manufacture of salt. VCH Hants, v. 265. Never incorporated, it was a borough by prescription, having been granted a seigneurial charter in 1393. This was said to have been confirmed in 1598, although documentation was subsequently lost. The chief burgesses chose a mayor annually from among their number and replenished their ranks from the burgage holders. The latter made up the electorate, once the borough was enfranchised in 1584, but this was tiny: only 18 voters were recorded in 1640. VCH Hants, v. 265-6; R. Worsley, The Hist. of the Isle of Wight (1781), 155-8. By the 1620s electoral patronage was divided between the island’s governor and the Meux family of Kingston. In this decade the latter exercised their interest in favour of their kinsmen the Barringtons, who were one of Essex’s most godly families, but who had acquired substantial landholdings on the island and were lords of the manor of Swainston. Add. 46501, ff. 142-47v; HP Commons 1604-1629. Such records pertaining to Newtown borough as have survived belong to the Barrington family archive.
The election for the Short Parliament in Newtown was effectively decided at the end of December 1639, when the mayor and company of the borough agreed that John Meux* would be one of the burgesses, and that the island’s governor, Jerome Weston†, 2nd earl of Portland, would have the nomination of the other, provided his candidate was a sworn burgess of the corporation, or took the oath of a burgess before the poll. I.o.W. RO, JER/BAR/3/9/8, p. 17. On the day of the election (22 Mar. 1640) new burgesses were sworn, including the man who became Meux’s fellow MP, Portland’s brother Nicholas Weston*, who represented the court interest. C219/42ii/131; I.o.W. RO, JER/BAR/3/9/8, p. 18. Meux’s background was on the face of it completely different. The son and heir of Sir William Meux†, he had been brought up in the household of Sir Thomas Barrington† as part of a puritan circle including his other uncles, Sir Gilbert Gerard* and Sir William Masham*. However, he seems to have rebelled against their tutelage, and following his marriage to a sister of Sir Henry Worsley and his succession to the Meux estate in 1638, gained a greater independent power-base on the Isle of Wight, becoming a figure of importance in his own right. When the Westons arrived on the island in the late summer of 1639 he had been, with Nicholas Weston, among the ‘young blades’ whose drunken behaviour scandalised local worthies like Sir John Oglander. Royalist’s Notebook ed. Bamford, 98, 99, 160.
Meux’s repudiation of his previous connections is evident in the autumn election of 1640. Returned to the first seat despite his apparent inactivity in the spring, Meux was among 11 who voted for Weston in a contest for the second seat, while the rival candidate, none other than Sir Thomas Barrington (five times victorious here in the 1620s), received only seven votes, including that of the mayor. C219/43/148; I.o.W. RO, JER/BAR/3/9/8, pp. 19-20; Letters Arch. and Hist. Rel. to the I.o.W. ii. 161-2. Newtown’s two Members, who proved once again little in evidence at Westminster, did not remain there long after the outbreak of civil war. Weston, a Straffordian, withdrew from Parliament in the summer of 1642 to assist in the royalist seizure of Portsmouth, and on 16 August the Commons, apprised of this, disabled him from sitting. CJ ii. 720a, 722b-723a. Meux survived a little longer, having pledged his loyalty and been granted leave of absence, but in June 1643 the Commons summoned him to attend the House. Questioned about Meux’s service for Parliament, John Lisle* could give ‘no great commendation’ of his actions but could not prove that he had joined the king at Oxford. CJ iii. 123b; Harl. 165, f. 109. By the end of September Parliament had resolved to sequester Meux’s estate for his failure to attend Parliament, and although he was on the Isle of Wight a month later, he did not linger. CJ iii. 256b; I.o.W. RO, JER/BAR/3/9/8, p. 32. Once his attendance at the Oxford Parliament was revealed, he was disabled from sitting at Westminster (5 Feb. 1644), leaving Newtown without representation in the Commons. CJ iii. 389b.
In late October 1645 a writ was issued for the election of replacements for Meux and Weston. C231/6, p. 28; CJ iv. 320b. There seem to have been three candidates. Sir John Barrington*, son of Sir Thomas, had been an active parliamentarian in Essex, but financial difficulties after succeeding to the family estates had induced him to petition Parliament in July 1645. Since an ordinance introduced into the House of Lords on his behalf does not appear to have been passed, one motive in seeking election may have been the need for protection from creditors. PA, MP 24/7/45; LJ vii. 506a; HMC 6th Rep. 71; HMC 7th Rep. 589. At Newtown he probably relied not only on his own local interest, but also the support of the island’s parliamentarian governor, Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, with whom he enjoyed friendly relations. Add. 46501, f. 148. John Bulkeley*, from mainland Hampshire, had sat for Yarmouth in the Short Parliament on the interest of his stepfather Barnaby Leigh and his wife’s family on the island, and as a member of the parliamentarian Isle of Wight committee had recently been active in countering clubmen. He was made a free burgess of Newtown shortly before the election, as was Robert Dillington, son of prominent islander Sir Robert Dillington*. I.o.W. RO, JER/BAR/3/9/8, p. 41. The Dillingtons, who intially at least had been tinged with royalism, had previously clashed with Bulkeley, but on this occasion perhaps withdrew from a contest. CJ ii. 723b; The copy of a letter concerning Portsmouth (1642), 7; I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, 435-6. At the election, held on 11 November 1645, Barrington and Bulkeley were returned. I.o.W. RO, JER/BAR/3/9/8, p. 42.
During the Rump, Newtown was left without effective representation, with the seclusion and imprisonment at Pride’s Purge of Bulkeley, a promoter of the Newport treaty, and the withdrawal of Barrington from Westminster. The latter was not secluded, but he was no friend of the republic and a move to readmit his to the chamber came to nothing. CJ vi. 153a.
Disenfranchised under the Instrument of Government, Newtown was ineligible to send Members to the Parliaments of 1654 and 1656. When re-enfranchised for the election to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament in 1659 the borough was probably again subject to the influence of the island’s governor (by now William Sydenham*) and the Barrington family. The occupant of the senior seat was Sydenham’s brother-in-law and replacement as knight of the shire in 1656, William Lawrence*, an employee of the protectorate in Scotland and plausibly a court candidate chosen primarily to block the return of less desirable Members. TSP vii. 656. Sir John Barrington, who after a spell in debtors’ prison was experiencing a modest upturn in his fortunes, may have been behind the election to the second seat of John Maynard*, who had been one of the most prominent Presbyterian lawyers in the Commons during the Long Parliament, and who was now solicitor-general. Returned also at Camelford and Bere Alston, only on 2 March 1659 did Maynard, who had no known connection to the Isle of Wight, announce his decision to represent Newtown. CJ vii. 609b. Barrington interest in the region remained sufficiently strong for Sir John to represent the borough in 1660 and 1661, alongside John Bulkeley’s brother-in-law Sir Henry Worsley*, a long-time burgess. HP Commons 1660-1690.
