The town of Aldeburgh was first and foremost a fishing town. Beyond that, its position as one of the string of ports along the East Anglian coast brought some benefits from passing trade. Reporting to the privy council on the county’s coastal defences during the Spanish invasion scare of 1626, the Suffolk deputy lieutenants described Aldeburgh as
one of the greatest towns in that part of this county for trading by sea and maintaining of mariners and seafaring men, and also being situate next the common road [or] passage for ships to Newcastle and other parts of the north. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, f. 8.
The Ship Money ratings agreed between the five main Suffolk ports in 1636 and 1637 suggest that Aldeburgh (£8 16s) was nowhere near as prosperous as Ipswich (£240), but not far behind Orford (£12) and just ahead of Southwold (£8). Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, ff. 78-82v; Gordon, ‘Collection of ship-money’, 160.
The town had been incorporated as a borough since 1547, with two bailiffs, 12 capital burgesses and 24 inferior burgesses comprising the corporation. British Borough Charters 1307-1660 ed. M. Weinbaum (Cambridge, 1943), 108. Its right to return two MPs to Parliament, on a freeman franchise, dated from 1571. The restoration in 1603 of the manors of Aldborough and Snape to Thomas Howard, 21st earl of Arundel re-established a Howard electoral interest in the town and, since then, Arundel had tried, with mixed success, to influence its choice of MPs. A.T. Winn, ‘Lords of the manor, Aldeburgh’, E. Anglian Misc. (1920), 73; Copinger, Manors of Suff. v. 96, 167; V.B. Redstone, ‘Aldeburgh’, Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. xii. 209.
During the 1640s, however, the dominant interest in the town was that of the Bence family. Long resident in Aldeburgh, the Bences were a dynasty of merchants who had hitherto enjoyed only a very patchy electoral record in this constituency. Alexander Bence senior failed to win a place in the 1604 election and his late son, John, served as MP just once, in 1624. The surviving sons of Alexander Bence now made more of a mark. Such was the local standing the family had now gained that it was probably, of itself, sufficient to secure the return of Squier Bence to the Short Parliament. C219/42/2, no. 24; Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/P1/1/13; Harl. 298, f. 148. Both prosperous London merchants, Alexander junior and Squier Bence had managed to extend the family’s operations far beyond the sleepy confines of their home town. They were men of substance on a scale to which few of the other leading Aldeburgh families could come close. Despite their interests elsewhere, the brothers still retained links with the town and both had served twice as bailiff. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/C1/1, ff. 3v, 5, 6, 7. Two decades later, Sir John Holland* would note that the family’s support was particularly strong among the local sailors. Bodl. Tanner 239, ff. 120v-121. The election of an outsider, William Rainborowe*, to the senior place in 1640 may also reflect Bence influence. Rainborowe, the hero of the 1637 Sallee expedition, was another London merchant, who also happened to be Alexander Bence’s landlord at Wapping. PROB11/189/21. What efforts, if any, the earl of Arundel made to sway the result are not known. The election appears to have been uncontested.
Arundel did make an effort seven months later. On 24 October 1640, two days after that year’s second election at Aldeburgh, the bailiffs of the corporation (who, as the equivalents of a mayor, acted with the sheriff as returning officers) wrote to Arundel to explain what had happened. Shortly before election day the bailiffs had received a letter from Arundel nominating Sir William Le Neve for one of the seats. Le Neve had no connection with the town (he was originally from Aslacton in Norfolk), but, as Clarenceux king-of-arms, he would have been well known to Arundel, the earl marshal. The bailiffs assured Arundel that, on the day, ‘your honourable letter was publicly read at which time Sir William Le Neve in the first place amongst others was put in nomination’. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, f. 85. The outcome was not, however, the one Arundel wanted. Two other candidates, Rainborowe (once again) and Alexander Bence (instead of his younger brother), were also in the field and the ‘greatest vote’ was cast for Rainborowe and Bence. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, f. 85; C219/43/2, no. 169. As the bailiffs explained to Arundel, ‘their reason was because our town is a maritime town and they [are] best acquainted with maritime affairs and our grievances therein’. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, f. 85. Politeness may mean that the bailiffs were being less than entirely truthful. If there were any suspicions about them, Le Neve’s Catholic leanings would have clearly counted against him. What influence the Howard family had previously had in the borough was now largely extinct and it never ever really revived. Rainborowe’s death in early February 1642 made necessary a by-election. CJ ii. 429a-b. Once again the Bence interest was to the fore and, after the freemen met on 2 March, Squier Bence joined his brother in Parliament. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/P1/1/12.
The pro-Parliament stance taken up by the Bences did not cause them problems with their constituents. Aldeburgh was remote from the land campaigns of the war and, as far as its inhabitants were concerned, the most important aspect of the conflict was the disruption to shipping along the east coast. When they petitioned the major-general of the Eastern Association, the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†), in early 1644, the townsmen explained that they were ‘a very poor town, their estates being altogether in shipping’, in the hope of persuading him to allow the town to decide its own tax assessment. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, f. 88. On another occasion, the town asked for one of the county trained bands to be sent, as the cost of maintaining their defences was considerable and unemployment among the seamen, caused by the war, meant times were already difficult in the town. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/P5/5. A petition to Parliament from the corporation against the former bishop of Norwich, Matthew Wren, added that the town was suffering because of the slump in the fishing industry. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/P6/3-4. In September 1643 the corporation was forced to restrict the burning of grass during the coal shortage created by Parliament’s blockade against Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/E1/2, f. 1. Parliament made arrangements to improve the town’s defences and the local militia was placed under the control of the bailiffs and the Bences’ brother-in-law, Thomas Johnson. CJ ii. 878a, 925b, iii. 272a; Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, f. 102v. The prominence of Alexander and Squier Bence in the management of parliamentarian naval affairs during the war at least ensured that such concerns of the small Suffolk ports had some chance of being heard at the highest levels.
The removal of parliamentary representation from all the minor boroughs under the 1653 Instrument of Government cost Aldeburgh both its seats in the Commons. A. and O. However, an attempt was made to restore one of those seats in December 1654, when the first protectoral Parliament re-considered the contents of the Instrument. On 6 December however the House rejected (by 72 votes to 59) the suggestion that the Dunwich seat should be transferred to Aldeburgh. CJ vii. 396b.
When the two seats were restored to the town in 1658, the influence of the Bences was still strong. The surviving brother, Alexander Bence, did not himself stand, but his son, John, was one of the two persons elected by the borough on 3 January 1659. C219/48: Aldeburgh election indenture, 3 Jan. 1659. More difficult to explain is the choice of Lawrence Oxburgh alias Hewer for the senior place. Oxburgh was an outsider from north-west Norfolk who had no known connection with his new constituency. The fact that his patron, John Thurloe*, the secretary of state, had already arranged for his election to a Scottish seat marked him as a candidate approved by the government. Like Oxburgh, there was no clear reason why Thurloe should have had a personal electoral interest in Aldeburgh. The key connection may have been John Bence’s former brother-in-law, John Upton II*. Upton was married to Thurloe’s sister-in-law and may already have been one of Oxburgh’s creditors. He and Oxburgh certainly knew each other eleven months later when Oxburgh agreed to mortgage a substantial part of his estates to Upton. Wisbech and Fenland Museum, E.M.3: indenture, 27 Nov. 1659. Thurloe may also have been able to call on the assistance of the recorder, Francis Bacon*, who was another senior Cromwellian courtier. Bacon did not need the Aldeburgh seat for himself, as he and his brother, Nathaniel*, had every reason to expect a easy election at Ipswich several weeks later. Bacon could probably have counted on his cousin, Thomas Bacon*, and Robert Brooke†, two of the leading landowners in the area, to have supported any candidate with his backing.
The electoral politics of the borough subsequently became more fraught. Brooke, who was aged only about 23 at the time of the Restoration, claimed one of the seats for himself in 1660 and 1661, while the efforts of Sir Edward Duke*, on behalf of Sir John Holland, and of Thomas Bacon, on behalf of himself, prevented John Bence regaining the seat before 1669.
