Ilchester was one of those boroughs which had only regained the right to elect MPs earlier in the seventeenth century. In 1621 Sir Robert Phelips† of Montacute had persuaded the Commons to re-enfranchise the town. Three centuries earlier its right rested on its status as the ancient county town of Somerset. But since then it had experienced steep decline. As one contemporary lamented, the town was
where you can see in part the carcass of an ancient city that flourished in the Britons, Saxons, Romans, Danes and Normans’ times, and now (such is the fate of places as well as families) almost wholly decayed. T. Gerard, The Particular Description of the Co. of Som. ed. E.H. Bates (Som. Rec. Soc. xv), 203.
It retained importance only as the site of the county gaol, the spring quarter sessions, the shire court and the usual location for the elections of county MPs. Gerard, Particular Description, 203. There appears to have been a tradition in this period that those wishing to stand as a knight of the shire announced their candidacy at the market cross. Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 150. Since 1556 the town had been governed by a bailiff and 12 capital burgesses. However, the right to elect MPs was wider, being exercised in this period by the inhabitant householders. As enfranchised in 1621, the constituency had been intended as little more than a convenient pocket borough for the Phelipps family and, since Sir Robert’s death in 1638, that interest had been controlled by his eldest son, Edward Phelipps*. Yet that interest was eclipsed between 1640 and 1661.
The Phelipps influence was most evident in the Short Parliament, for, on 31 March 1640, Edward Phelipps was elected with Sir Henry Berkeley*. C219/42, pt. 2, f. 5. Berkeley lived at Yarlington, ten miles to the east of Ilchester, and, as a direct result of Sir Robert Phelips’s patronage, he had represented the borough in the 1628 Parliament. However, this alliance between Phelipps and Berkeley broke down at the next election later that year. Berkeley instead joined with his neighbour, Robert Hunt* of Compton Pauncefoot, in an attempt to block Phelipps’s election. Phelipps saw this as a personal betrayal and spoke of ‘the knavery of two or three of my father’s condign back friends’. Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 161, 167. His initial response was to seek two other candidates who could stand against them. John Coventry*, the son of the late lord keeper (Sir Thomas Coventry†, 1st Baron Coventry), who had inherited lands at Pitminster from his late father-in-law, was apparently keen to stand, while Phelipps tried to persuade Thomas Smyth I* to join with Coventry. Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 160, 166, 167. Although Coventry and Smyth had been the losing candidates for the county seats earlier that year, Phelipps now assured Smyth that the area ‘was very well-affected towards you before it was canvassed’. Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 160. Despite this, both Coventry and Smyth decided in the end to take their chances elsewhere. This left Phelipps to stand alone against Berkeley and Hunt at the poll on 14 October. He lost and, as he subsequently complained to Smyth, he was ‘left to play an after game by bringing it to a dispute in Parliament’. Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 161. His specific complaint was that the date of the election had been made public only on the day before, a classic form of electoral gamesmanship. Add. 28716, f. 32v. By the third week of November, Berkeley’s nephew Sir Charles Berkeley* was spreading the news that Sir Henry intended to fight Phelipps’s petition. Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 162. The petition was then referred to the committee for privileges. On 15 February 1641 John Maynard* reported back from that committee on the case and, accepting the argument that insufficient notice of the election had been given, the Commons agreed to order a new election. CJ ii. 85b; Procs. LP ii. 453, 455. This time Phelipps was returned with Hunt. The latter had resumed his seat in the Commons by 12 March. CJ ii. 102b.
During the civil war Phelipps and Hunt both sided with the king. By early 1644 Phelipps had joined him in Oxford and, had he been able, Hunt would have done so as well. As a result, both were among the 36 MPs expelled from Parliament on 5 February 1644. CJ iii. 389b. Moreover, since the previous summer Somerset had been in royalist hands. Only in the summer of 1645, when Sir Thomas Fairfax* retook most of the county, would Ilchester once again come under parliamentarian control. In the wake of Fairfax’s success, the key Somerset parliamentarians, led by John Pyne*, reasserted their influence throughout the county. Their powerbase was the newly-created county committee. Also important were the by-elections to fill the various vacancies in the Somerset seats, in which the county committee hoped to secure the return of as many of its favoured candidates as possible. Ilchester, with two seats available, became one of their prime targets. D. Underdown, ‘The Ilchester election, Feb. 1646’, Procs. Som. Arch. and Nat. Hist. Soc. cx. 40-51. On 25 September 1645 the Commons agreed that writs be issued for by-elections in six of the Somerset borough constituencies, including Ilchester. CJ iv. 287a.
Pyne made his first move over a month before the election was due. In December 1645 he and several members of the county committee held an election meeting in one of the taverns in the town. Pyne and John Palmer* spoke. Their message was that the electors would be advised to accept whichever candidates the county committee recommended and that those preferred candidates would be Thomas Harrison I*, the army officer who had no obvious connections with the area, and Alexander Pym, the son of John* who could at least claim some ancestral links with the county. Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. This proposal looked suspiciously like an attempt by Pyne to win favour with the army and with his radical friends at Westminster. It fell to the bailiff, John Lockyer, and one of the capital burgesses, Giles Raymond, to tell Pyne that the burgesses had already met to discuss the matter the week before and that they were instead minded to elect Henry Henley* and William Strode II*. Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. This pairing had not been picked at random. Ostensibly these two were rivals, for Henley was a strong ally of Pyne on the county committee, whereas Strode was one of his major critics. What linked them was that they were the two defeated candidates from the election for the county seats on 2 December. During that election the leading Somerset clubman, Humphrey Willis, had promoted Strode’s candidacy among the Ilchester electors. Pyne’s response had been to have Willis arrested. H. Wills, The power of the Cttee. of the Co. of Som. [1646], 7 (E.345.3). Some in Ilchester now evidently shared the view that the sheriff, Sir John Horner*, had cheated Henley and Strode in that earlier contest. Balancing Strode with Henley might also have been intended as a way of countering Pyne’s likely disapproval. At some point over the following weeks, Pyne held a second meeting with the burgesses, but was unable to persuade them to change their minds. The day after that second meeting two of Pyne’s allies within the town, John Laver and John Wigwood, both of whom were alleged to be ex-royalists, toured Ilchester trying to canvas support for Harrison and Pym. Their opponents accused them of being paid to do so. Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol.
Lockyer as bailiff received the sheriff’s precept for the election from Horner on 23 January 1646. On being shown it, Pyne not-too-subtly warned Lockyer, ‘Mr bailiff, if [you] do not look upon us now, we shall hereafter look upon you.’ Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. That night, however, panic broke out in the town when it was reported that royalist troops were advancing towards Ilchester from Warminster. Henley immediately sought out Lockyer, who was persuaded, rather naively, to hand the precept over to Pyne for safekeeping. Predictably, Pyne refused to return it once the crisis had passed. Add. 28716, f. 35; Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. Lockyer therefore called together the burgesses on 30 January to explain his predicament. Wigwood refused to attend. Strode, on the other hand, was present. The assembled burgesses agreed that Lockyer should go ahead with the election on 2 February. Add. 28716, ff. 32v, 36v, 38; Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. Lockyer’s next thought was to obtain a replacement precept from Horner, but since the latter was then at Farleigh Castle he decided that, with royalist forces still operating nearby, it would be unsafe to travel there. So instead went to Mells on 31 January to speak with Horner’s clerk, Benjamin Avery. Avery’s view was that a sheriff did not have the power to issue a second precept, but he did provide Lockyer with a copy of the original. Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. What none of them may have known was that earlier that week the Commons had ordered Horner to proceed with all the by-elections in the Somerset borough constituencies as soon as possible. CJ iv. 420a.
Lockyer went ahead with the election meeting on 2 February. That morning several members of the county committee visited him to try to convince him to postpone the poll. He refused. When the electors met at the town hall, Lockyer admitted that he had only a copy of the precept. This gave some of Pyne’s allies their pretext to refuse to participate. Some, including Wigwood, were said to have caused a ‘hurly burly’. Lockyer nevertheless proceeded to hold the vote. Add. 28716, ff. 32v, 38; Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. Henley’s name does then seem to have been voted on and one witness suggested that Pym’s name was mentioned as well. Add. 28716, f. 36v; Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. However, those favouring Strode now paired him with another of Pyne’s local opponents, Thomas Hodges II*. The completed return named these two as the successful candidates. C219/43, f. 140. But was this enough? Their opponents claimed that the Ilchester electorate numbered about 70 or 80, but that only 40 were present at this meeting and that, of those, only 17 were willing to vote for Strode and Hodges. Add. 28716, ff. 33, 36. They also claimed that Strode and some of his armed servants had manned the entrance to the town hall, intimidating those who intended to oppose his election. Add. 28716, f. 35v. Hodges’s style was less direct; he told one witness that his election had been ‘very fair’ because ‘he did not solicit before hand as Mr Strode did’. That Lockyer was so openly supporting Strode and Hodges had ensured their success. Lockyer was accused of later admitting that he had been determined to make Strode ‘eminent’. Add. 28716, f. 34v.
Not that Pyne was beaten. He still held what might yet prove to be the trump card – the actual precept. Several days later he travelled to Ilchester, where Lockyer once again demanded the precept. However, Pyne declared that he did not have it: he had given it to two of his leading supporters in the town, George Smyth and Richard Browne. On 5 February, the under-bailiff, acting on Pyne’s instructions, announced that the proper election would take place four days later. Add. 28716, ff. 33, 34, 37; Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. The day before, Laver and Wigwood again canvassed support for Pyne’s favoured candidates. Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. Now Pym was now paired not with Harrison but with Sir William Selby. Another complete outsider, Selby’s nomination was a blatant favour to Sir Thomas Fairfax*, the commander who had only recently re-conquered the county for Parliament and the man who just happened to be Selby’s brother-in-law. According to Fairfax, Selby’s candidacy at Ilchester was being promoted principally by the chairman of the Committee of the West*, Edmund Prideaux I*. Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, i. 283-4. When the new meeting took place at the town hall on 9 February, Wigwood presided. When he attempted to read the precept, Lockyer interrupted him to declare that the indenture electing Strode and Hodges had already been returned. Wigwood just ignored him. According to a later allegation from the other side, in making the count Wigwood merely read through his list of known supporters of Selby and Pym. Add. 28716, ff. 33v, 36; Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. Those present all later gave slightly different figures for the number of votes cast. The general shape of the result is clear, however. Pym came top with about 43 votes, while Selby received about 36 votes. A handful of electors voted for Hodges and ‘some’ voted for Henley. About 70 burgesses in total took part. About 40 of those were said to have signed the new election indenture. Pyne was also present. Add. 28716, ff. 33v, 36, 37; Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol.
All this had been the easy bit. The more difficult thing would now be for either side to get their return officially recognised. John Lutt tried to deliver the new indenture to Horner, who refused to receive it, arguing that he had already received the indenture from Lockyer; he also refused to seal the counterpart. Add. 28716, f. 38v. He then sent to London the first indenture, naming Strode and Hodges. C219/43, f. 140. This left Selby and Pym with no option other than to petition Parliament against that result. Their petition was read in the Commons on 17 April and referred to the committee for privileges. CJ iv. 512a. That committee began its hearings on the case on 22 May and over the next three months took evidence from at least 14 witnesses. All this is recorded in detail in notes made by the chairman, Sir Robert Harley*. Add. 28716, ff. 28v, 31v-38v; Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. Unfortunately, Harley’s notes break off before the committee completed its investigation. The last relevant entry, dated 21 August, ordered Strode and Hodges to produce further witnesses on the first Wednesday of the next law term (Michaelmas). Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unfol. Whether the Committee ever ruled on the dispute is not clear. What is known is that Strode and Hodges had already taken their seats. Strode probably did so as early as 25 February, when he swore the Solemn League and Covenant, while Hodges did likewise on 27 May. CJ iv. 454a, 556a. Both continued to serve as the Ilchester MPs until the purge of the Commons in December 1648.
Ilchester was typical of the small towns deliberately deprived of its parliamentary representation under the redistribution of seats in the 1653 Instrument of Government. Its inhabitants could therefore only vote for the county seats in the 1654 and 1656 elections. But, with the return to the old franchises for the elections to the Parliament of Richard Cromwell*, the town regained its two seats. By then, Hodges was long dead and Strode, who had come bottom of the county poll in 1656, was probably uninterested in seeking re-election. Phelipps and Hunt were still barred. Two new men emerged to claim these two seats. John Barker II* was a local man, albeit of rather lowly origins. The son of a tenant farmer from High Ham, just eight miles from Ilchester, he had probably risen to local prominence through service in the parliamentarian army and more recently he had taken over the Stawell estates at Netherham in High Ham. His political views were firmly republican. Later that year one of the English army officers in Scotland, Captain William Gough, told the committee of safety that he had encouraged Barker to stand at Ilchester so ‘there would be a commonwealth party in the House’. CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 239. The other candidate elected was Richard Jones II*. His immediate local connections were less evident. The fortune of his father, a Bristol merchant, had allowed Jones to set himself up as a country gentleman at Chew Magna in the north of the county. Even if he had no specific links with Ilchester, he could at least claim to be a well-known and experienced figure on the major county commissions. When, in February of the following year, the secluded Members were readmitted to the Rump, Strode was in prison and, although he was then released, he was probably unable to resume his seat as the surviving Ilchester Long Parliament MP.
Only after the Restoration did the Phelipps interest finally revive. No longer proscribed by his royalism, Edward Phelipps became knight of the shire for Somerset in the Cavalier Parliament, while his son Edward†, who was now of age, sat for Ilchester in 1661 and 1665. Strode’s son William† also sat as MP for Ilchester in both the 1679 Parliaments.
