Yarmouth, I.o.W.

Yarmouth, situated on the north-western extreme of the Isle of Wight, was the smallest parish on the island, yet one of its oldest boroughs. It received a seigneurial charter in the twelfth century, which was confirmed by Edward III in the thirteenth century, although it remained a mesne borough until 1440. Despite its coastal location, it was a decayed port and boasted little or no local trade or industry. The town was said to comprise little more than a dozen houses in the mid-sixteenth century, although a petition from 1654 indicated that the town had 400 inhabitants, and the Compton Census of 1676 recorded the presence of 313 communicants. Its location, however, ensured the town a role in the defence of the south coast, and a castle was built by Henry VIII, although this was already in great need of repair by the early seventeenth century. According to the charter of 1609, the governing body of the town comprised a common council of a mayor, who was elected annually and who acted as returning officer, and 11 chief burgesses. The other borough officers included a common clerk and a serjeant-at-mace. VCH Hants, v. 286-9; C66/1814, m.9; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 125; Compton Census, 92.

The common council, together with an indeterminate number of freemen or free burgesses, constituted the electorate; in 1625 there were 16 voters. Add. 5669, f. 67v. Yarmouth had been represented in 1295, but then returned no Members until 1584, when the island’s governor obtained its re-enfranchisement. Subsequently the constituency tended to fall under the influence of the governor, but in the 1620s, during the tenure as secretary of state of Edward Conway† (later 1st Viscount Conway) it had usually devolved to his resident deputies, including Sir John Oglander†. HP Commons 1604-1629.

In the spring election of 1640 there is no evidence that the island’s governor, the 2nd earl of Portland (Jerome Weston†) exerted influence over the borough. C 219/42ii/135. The senior place went to Philip Sidney*, Viscount Lisle, heir to the 2nd earl of Leicester (Sir Robert Sidney†). Lisle, who had only recently attained his majority, had no known connection with the island, and probably owed his place to his uncle, Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, who was lord high admiral and who was already exerting his influence in other ways on behalf of his nephew. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 218, 220, 231, 234, 238; HMC 3rd Rep. 79. The second seat went to John Bulkeley* of Fordingbridge on the mainland, who had no experience of local administration, but whose stepfather Barnaby Leigh of North Court was a longstanding freeman of the borough and a prominent island gentleman. C219/42ii/135; Add. 5669, f. 88. It doubtless also helped that Bulkeley’s father-in-law was wealthy Hampshire puritan Sir William Doddington† of Breamore. Hants Marriage Licences, 126; Vis. Hants, 104; Berry, Hants Pedigrees, 122. Neither Bulkeley nor Lisle, who did not arrive back from a prolonged stay in France until after its dissolution, made any visible impression on the proceedings of the Short Parliament. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 256-7.

The possibility that Bulkeley may simply have been a place-holder is suggested by the fact that in the autumn election he was replaced by his older stepbrother and brother-in-law Sir John Leigh*, who had been a burgess since 1631 and a captain in the island’s militia since 1632. Add. 5669, f. 88; I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/270; Royalist’s Notebook ed. Bamford, 71-3. Lisle, who had been away campaigning in the north over the summer, again took the senior seat. C219/43/158; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 323, 329. On this occasion a contest may have been expected since Lisle also secured election at St Ives in Cornwall, but he opted to remain as Member for Yarmouth (9 Nov. 1640), removing the need for a by-election. CJ ii. 25a. Although at the opening of Parliament on 3 November Lisle was in a place of honour ‘at the back of the king’s chair when the Speaker was presented’, neither he nor Leigh made much visible contribution to the House in its early months, and then in 1642-3 Lisle was in Ireland. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 339.

Yarmouth saw little military action during the civil wars, after an abortive attempt to secure the castle for the king at the outbreak of hostilities. Thereafter, the town was garrisoned by Parliament, and in 1654 was recorded as having had 70 soldiers, but the persistence of royalist sympathies may account for the election of Sir John Oglander as mayor in 1647. HMC Portland, i. 54; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 125; Coleby, Hants 1649-1689, 28; Add. 5669, f. 100. Both its MPs survived early suspicions of their loyalty to Parliament, but Lisle did a second stint in Ireland and Leigh, who had been more active on the Ireland than at Westminster, was secluded at Pride’s Purge. Lisle, who had attained some standing in Parliament in 1646-7, again survived to serve in the Rump, but he proved a notably unenthusiastic Member of the Commons. The borough was disenfranchised under the terms of the Instrument of Government, and sent no Members to Westminster in either 1654 or 1656.

The election for the 1659 Parliament at the re-enfranchised Yarmouth revealed fairly clear evidence of the influence of the island’s governor, William Sydenham*. One of the two seats went to his brother-in-law, John Sadler*, a powerful lawyer who was town clerk of London, master of requests, and master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Sadler was a stranger to the borough, but his republican credentials, which flowered in the course of the assembly, ensured Sydenham’s political as well as familial patronage. The other seat fell under the influence of local gentry, gaining a place for Richard Lucy* of Charlecote, who had represented his native Warwickshire in the previous three Parliaments, but who owned property in Hampshire, and who had acquired an interest at Yarmouth through marriage into the Urry family of Thorley. VCH Hants. v. 285.

The outcome of the election was in dispute, however. On 1 March 1659, over four weeks into the Parliament, the House was informed that the Yarmouth indenture remained with the sheriff and had not yet been filed by the clerks, and Thomas Juxon* claimed that Sadler – whose republicanism had already been conspicuous in debate – had thus not been duly returned, and ought not to be in the chamber. Sadler retorted that the return had been delivered to the clerk, albeit without the writ attached, and without the necessary payments having been made, not least because Lucy had been doubly returned. On his own telling, awareness of potential problems had prompted Sadler to refrain from entering the House for the first week of the session. The affair quickly split the House along political lines, with Serjeant John Maynard* sensing an opportunity to remove a troublesome Member, while another prominent lawyer, Robert Reynolds*, lent Sadler his support. Sadler claimed that boroughs could make returns without the sheriff, although this was denied by the solicitor general, William Ellys*. Sadler’s ally Sir Henry Vane II* suggested that Sadler might voluntarily withdraw from the chamber pending resolution of the matter, and the House duly sent for the under-clerk of the Parliament and the sheriff of Hampshire. CJ vii. 608b-9a; Burton’s Diary, iii. 549, 560, 562; Worcester Coll, Oxf. Clarke MS XXXI, f. 40v. On the following day, two more of Sadler’s republican allies, Sir Arthur Hesilrige* and Slingsby Bethel*, spoke in his favour, and the arrival of the summoned officials meant the writ could be filed and Sadler could resume his place in the House. CJ vii. 609b; Burton’s Diary, iii. 579. That day the House ordered a writ for a by-election to replace Lucy, who had opted to sit as knight of the shire for Warwickshire, although there is no indication that it was implemented before the dissolution of the Parliament on 22 April. CJ vii. 609b; C231/6, p. 427.

Lord Lisle, who in the interim had been close to the Cromwell family and sat in the Other House, belatedly and briefly returned to the restored Rump as Yarmouth’s MP in September 1659. Lansdowne 823, ff. 314-15; CJ vii. 774b, 780a, 790a. Leigh, who had been secluded at Pride’s Purge, seems not to have resumed his place in the Commons on the restoration of the Long Parliament in February 1660, although he represented the borough once again in the Convention Parliament alongside Richard Lucy. Thereafter, while Leigh retired, the Lucy interest endured, but the appointment of a new governor of the island reasserted that official’s hold on the other seat. HP Commons 1660-1690.