St Albans

St Albans survived the dissolution of the monasteries without apparent loss of prosperity, largely because it remained an important staging-post on a major route from London to the north. Its right to parliamentary representation was revived in 1553, when it was incorporated by charter, with a mayor, who acted as returning officer, and ten ‘principal burgesses’. There was also a common council of 24 assistants and a steward. The corporation obtained a new charter in 1633 confirming those rights, which it had sought mainly in order to block the attempts by the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*) to claim the town’s market tolls. A.E. Gibbs, The Corporation Recs. of St Albans (St Albans, 1890), 5-6, 290-1; VCH Herts. ii. 481-2. Its electorate, although restricted to the freemen, seems to have been exceptionally broad and in 1662 the Commons accepted that even those receiving alms ‘had had voices time out of mind’. CJ viii. 351a. On account of its strategic importance, the town was garrisoned for Parliament during the civil war and was used as military headquarters at various times by the 3rd earl of Essex, Sir Thomas Fairfax* and George Monck*. The meeting on 16 November 1648 at which Fairfax and the council of officers adopted the Remonstrance of the Army took place in the abbey. A Remonstrance of his Excellency Thomas Lord Fairfax (1648, E.473.11); Clarke Pprs. ii. 54, 258.

The first of the two elections of 1640 resulted in the return of two of the town’s largest property owners, Thomas Coningsby* and Sir John Jennyns*. The latter had previously represented the town in the 1628 Parliament. That Coningsby had been the sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1637-8 at the height of the Ship Money controversy was evidentially not an insurmountable disadvantage. Both Coningsby and Jennyns got into trouble in the months following this Parliament’s dissolution. Coningsby was among Hertfordshire deputy lieutenants who complained about the king’s demands for troops for the latest Scottish campaign, while Jennyns was accused of failing to deal with disorders by troops raised for that same campaign. Those difficulties seem to have worked more to Jennyns’s advantage than to Coningby’s in the subsequent parliamentary election.

When the king announced on 24 September that he intended to call another Parliament, the earl of Salisbury immediately instructed his receiver-general, Roger Kirkham* to

go presently to St Albans and speak with Mr Pemberton and such others as you conceive to be most affectionate to me and let them know that I should take it as an expression of their respects to me if they would choose my younger son to be one of their burgesses. If you find any difficulty in it, give it over and let there be as little notice of it as may be. Hatfield House, CP 114/118.

Pemberton was probably Ralph Pemberton, who had been the town’s mayor in 1627 and 1638. When Salisbury’s approach was rebuffed, the son in question, Robert Cecil*, had to come in for Old Sarum. The St Albans electors also disappointed Coningsby. While Jennyns was re-elected unopposed, Coningsby found himself defeated by Edward Wingate*, who owned lands at Shenley acquired through marriage.

Coningsby subsequently challenged this result, but his opponents were ready and waiting. On 6 February the Commons was told that Coningsby was implicated in the recent arrest of Jennyns, a serious breach of parliamentary privilege given that Jennyns was a serving Member. CJ ii. 79b-80a. On 18 February 1641 the Commons heard two petitions from the town’s inhabitants, plus a petition from Coningsby himself. CJ ii. 88b. According to the notes made by Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, some of the St Albans townsmen accused Coningsby of having used ‘many violent words and deeds to hinder a free election’, and of writing ‘a scandalous letter to Mr Wingate to discourage him’. Procs. LP, ii. 479 and n. Kneeling at the bar of the House, Coningsby denied this. These petitions were then referred to the committee which was investigating the Bedfordshire election. CJ ii. 88b; Procs. LP, ii. 479; Two Diaries of Long Parl. 87.

The committee took evidence from several witnesses on 17 March. It was told that during the poll, an attorney, William Ellis, apparently a partisan of Coningsby, had declared that he ‘would have the election determined by the sword and wished that they might go to it presently’. Coningsby was also said to have got two of Wingate’s supporters removed from the poll by force. D’Ewes (N), 508. Coningsby subsequently claimed that Sir William Lytton* had falsely testified

that he [did] see me brought on men’s shoulders from my lodgings to the place where the king’s writ was to be read and before reading the same, and in his view, as far as the turning into the open market place from the end of a close street, which is fully the length of Westminster Hall. T. Coningsby, To All the World to View (1647), 4 (E.406.7).

However, the committee decided that Coningsby was innocent, although D’Ewes for one was unconvinced. D’Ewes (N), 508. The result was nevertheless allowed to stand. On 5 August 1642, following the death of Jennyns several weeks earlier, the Commons ordered a new writ. CJ ii. 704b. The candidate elected was Jennyns’s eldest son, Richard*. The younger Jennyns made little impact at Westminster, but, like Wingate, he consistently sided with Parliament during the civil war. In December 1644, after the Committee for Examinations at Westminster had arrested the town’s steward, John Howland, the St Albans corporation appointed William Foxwist*, a Welsh lawyer who had married a local woman, as his replacement. Gibbs, Corporation Recs. 72-3. Both Wingate and Jennyns were secluded from the Commons by the purge of December 1648.

By the Instrument of Government of 1653 the St Albans representation was reduced to one Member. To all the protectorate Parliaments it sent Alban Coxe*, the former keeper of the royal stables in the town who had an estate at Beaumonts on its outskirts. During the 1640s he had been one of the leading figures in the county militia and he had held a full commission as a colonel in the regular army during the early years of the republic.

However, Coxe faced opposition when he stood for re-election in August 1656. His challenger was Jennyns, who claimed that he was standing with the encouragement of ‘his friends and neighbours’. MERL, FR HERT 5/1/1, f. 5. A rancorous feud now developed between the two men. The election contest was certainly disorderly. Jennyns subsequently alleged that Coxe had threatened ‘to lay him by the heels and likewise some other persons of the said town, if they appeared for him’. MERL, FR HERT 5/1/1, f. 5. Jennyns further alleged intimidation at the poll by the county troop which Coxe commanded.

And when the time of the election was come, his soldiers appeared there, and thrust away divers persons who came be polled for your petitioner, and kept away divers by force from coming thither at all, to give their voices for him, and the said Alban Coxe together with one Joshua Lomax held the mayor by force to be present at his polling, after the mayor had declared that their proceedings were tumultuous and he could not do justice in respect of the uncivil carriage of his soldiers, by which means and also by many other undue proceedings. MERL, FR HERT 5/1/1, f. 5.

Eighty-eight of the townsmen signed the election indenture returning Coxe. C219/45, pt. 2, St Albans indenture, 6 Aug. 1656. The corporation then spent 2s. sending it to London. Herts. RO, OFF ACC 1162/179. Jennyns petitioned the committee for elections fearing that ‘this evil example be drawn into practice to the prejudice of future Parliaments and the just freedom of elections’. MERL, FR HERT 5/1/1, f. 5. But nothing came of it. Earlier that year the corporation had sought a new charter from the lord protector. CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 255. On 14 August, eight days after the St Albans election, the council of state appointed a sub-committee to review nominees for inclusion in the new charter for Colchester. That committee was then also asked to consider the comparable list for the proposed St Albans charter. CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 71. No evidence has emerged that the charter was ever issued. B.L.K. Henderson, ‘The Commonwealth charters’, TRHS 3rd ser. vi. 145-6, 160.

The revival of the second seat for the 1659 Parliament avoided a direct clash between Coxe and Jennyns, and both were returned. C219/47. The election was held in a ‘convenient place’ in the abbey church, with the corporation spending 8s. to get that venue ready. Their celebrations at a local tavern cost a further £1 3s. 6d., while the town clerk was paid 10s for engrossing the indenture. Herts. RO, OFF ACC 1162/181.