Winchester

Winchester, located in the valley of the River Itchen amid chalk down lands, could claim to be one of the country’s most ancient and important towns. Anglo-Saxon royal capital and centre of administration, and still the county town, it boasted a cathedral which was the seat of England’s richest bishopric, a royal palace which was used until the sixteenth century, a castle, and the prestigious college founded by William of Wykeham. It had also been the seat of the earliest Parliaments. Nevertheless, Winchester had long been in decline both administratively and as a centre for clothworking, with its economy residing largely in its markets, although it remained the seat of local government, and the venue for quarter sessions and assizes, as well as county elections. A. Rosen, ‘Winchester in transition, 1580-1700’, Country Towns in Pre-Industrial England ed. P. Clark (1981), 143-95. Furthermore, the diocese had retained its importance, and was home to a succession of leading bishops, although there were the usual arguments concerning the jurisdiction of the borough and county sheriff over the cathedral close, not least over Ship Money. VCH Hants, v. 1, 9; Docs. Hist. Winchester Cathedral, 1-2. Winchester’s size shrank considerably during the early modern period, but it remained one of the largest towns in the county, the Compton Census of 1676 recording the presence of 2,818 communicants. Compton Census, 92.

The city’s earliest surviving charter dated from the reign of Henry II, although it was governed by the more recent Jacobean charter of 1604, according to which it was presided over by a mayor, recorder, six aldermen, two bailiffs, two coroners, two constables, as well as the ‘twenty-four’ assistants. Hants RO, W/A1/1/1, 26; VCH Hants, v. 21, 25; City of Winchester Cal. of Charters ed. J.A. Herbert (1915). The borough had sent Members to Parliaments since 1295, and during the early seventeenth century its electorate consisted of the corporation and freemen, of whom there were 74 in 1660. VCH Hants, v. 25-6; Hants RO, W/B1/5, f. 137.

The election for the Short Parliament saw the return of two men with close connections to the borough. C219/42ii/134; Hants RO, W/B1/4, f. 103v; W/F2/4, f. 101. John Lisle*, from Wootton in the Isle of Wight, had been the town’s recorder since February 1637. Hants RO, W/F2/4, f. 101; W/B1/4, f. 103v. Sir William Ogle* was not native to the county, but had developed an association with the region after his marriage to a daughter of William Waller of Oldstoke and Stoke Charity. Through his wife, Ogle had acquired an interest in Winchester, since she was the widow of Sir Thomas Phelips†, who had represented the borough in the 1620s. C142/432/130; HP Commons 1604-1629; Coventry Docquets, 323, 472. Ogle also had a proprietorial interest in the borough, having leased property there since at least 1629, and had been made a freeman in 1630, before being made a commissioner for gaol delivery for the town in 1631, and captain of the town’s militia. Hants RO, W/F2/4, ff. 60v, 61v, 121, 122; W/B1/4, f. 65v; C181/4, f. 104v; Add. 26781, f. 18.

Lisle and Ogle were re-elected to Parliament on 27 October 1640, the latter in his absence. C219/43/155; Hants RO, W/F2/4, f. 163; W/B1/4, ff. 136v, 137. Having served over the summer in the bishops’ wars as colonel of a Wiltshire and Hampshire regiment, Ogle was then assisting at the negotiations with the Scots in Ripon. Add. 28082, ff. 9-12; E351/293; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1242-3, 1249; CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 286, 366, 462, 470; 1640-1, pp. 190, 432, 452, 456, 488; Hants RO, W/B1/4, f. 137; HMC Var. i. 106-7. From January 1641 Lisle became a prominent figure in the House of Commons, whereas Ogle’s appearances there were few, and at the beginning of May 1642 he was given leave to take his regiment to Ireland to help suppress rebellion, and yet remain an MP. CJ ii. 552b, 585a; PJ ii. 438; Irish Rebellion ed. Hogan, 26, 42-3.

During the early stages of the civil war Winchester’s inhabitants probably inclined towards royalism. This perhaps owed something to its ancient standing as a capital city and to its close ties with a series of Laudian bishops, which had meant that puritanism had remained a minor force locally. By virtue of its location, however, the town was much contested between royalists and parliamentarians, and the townspeople may have been more concerned to preserve their city than to take sides.

Returning from Ireland in later August 1642, Ogle initially seemed to support Parliament, but at some point after mid-October 1642, he deserted the cause. He may have played a part in securing Winchester for the king before Sir William Waller* recovered it on 13 December 1642. Gardiner, Hist. Civil War, i. 78; Rosen, ‘Winchester’, 163-4. Following conflicting rumours about his activities over the winter and spring, on 24 June 1643 Ogle was disabled from sitting in Parliament ‘for being in war’ against it. CJ iii. 142b. By October he had taken Winchester for the royalists, and was installed as its governor, but Waller regained control of the town, if not the castle, in April 1644, and Ogle was eventually forced to surrender to Parliament on 5 October 1645. Gardiner, Hist. Civil War, i. 330, ii. 362; Rosen, ‘Winchester’, 164-5; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 329, 413; A Coppie of Lieut. Gen. Cromwels Letter (1645), 3-5 (E.304.12); Add. 27402, f. 93-9; Mercurius Civicus no. 124 (1-8 Oct. 1645), 1087-9 (E.304.8); Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, 141-3; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 179; Bodl. Clarendon 26, ff. 114-15.

Parliament was now in a position to organise the election of a replacement for Ogle in the Commons. CJ iv. 320b; C231/6, p. 28. The writ was issued on 28 October 1645, and on 5 November Nicholas Love* was returned. C231/6, p. 28; Hants RO, W/F2/4, f. 197; C219/43/160. Love was a local man, whose father had been warden of Winchester College and a canon of the cathedral. Hants RO, W/B1/4, f. 156v. Like Lisle, Love was a lawyer, and was both recorder of Basingstoke and one of the six clerks in chancery, although he was not a freeman of the borough before his election. He had been among those named by Parliament in July 1642 to defend its cause in Hampshire and to defend Winchester, and had shown himself a parliamentarian stalwart. LJ v. 233b-234a; CJ ii. 686b. A fortnight after his election his colleague on the county committee, and long-term associate Robert Wallop* became the borough’s new high steward. Hants RO, W/B1/4, ff. 156v-7; W/F2/4, f. 198. That royalist sympathies lingered among the townspeople, however, is indicated by the warmth of the reception granted to Charles I when he stayed in the town on his journey to Westminster from the Isle of Wight in December 1648. Gardiner, Hist. Civil War, iv. 279.

Both Love and Lisle survived Pride’s Purge that month, and both were named to the high court of justice for the trial of the king in 1649, although neither signed the death warrant. Both men sat in the Rump, and with Sir Henry Mildmay* oversaw in September 1649 the imposition by act of Parliament of a new borough charter, which nominated a new mayor, three aldermen, seven new benchers, and ten new members of the ‘twenty-four’, although it was only with the Engagement that disaffected members of the corporation were purged, in September 1650. It was the new corporation who were later accused of having removed bells from a number of local parishes, and of having leased various churches to those who turned them into stables and used fonts for washing linen. CJ vi. 294b; PA, Main Pprs. 13 June 1660.

Love, an ardent Rumper, had no evident sympathy for the protectorate and did not sit in its first two Parliaments. Apparently retiring to Hampshire, in 1654 he subscribed to the repair of Winchester Cathedral. Docs. Hist. Winchester Cathedral, 98. It may have been Lisle who ensured that the city retained its parliamentary representation, although it was reduced to having a single member under the terms of the Instrument of Government. Lisle’s influence, both parliamentary and civic, may be detected in other respects. Although he resigned as recorder in August 1650, he probably nominated his replacement John Hildesley*, a new bencher appointed under the terms of the 1649 act: in 1651 Hildesley was to recommend Lisle as recorder of Southampton. CJ vi. 294b; Hants RO, W/B1/5, ff. 27v, 66v; W/F2/5, ff. 7, 19; Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, f. 77v. While Hildesley was himself replaced with Cornelius Hooker in 1652, probably thanks to a hostile faction within the corporation, Hooker, who led a delegation in favour of tithes to the 1653 Parliament, was in turn removed from office, apparently for royalist sympathies. Hants RO, W/B1/5, f. 56v; The Humble Petition of the Well Affected of the County of Southampton (1653, E.714.8); CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 82. Meanwhile, Hildesley, a Member for Hampshire in the Nominated Parliament, was made commissioner for probate of wills in December 1653 and named to the Army Committee in January 1654, and presented himself at the election later that year with the endorsement of the protectorate government. CSP Dom. 1654, p. 385; 1655, p. 178; 1655-6, pp. 290, 320; 1656-7, p. 180; 1657-8, pp. 76, 282, 334; 1658-9, pp. 31, 374; 1658-9, pp. 31, 48; Mercurius Politicus no. 447 (16-23 Dec. 1658), 84 (E.760.24); Stowe 185, f. 88. Hildesley was successful at Winchester while Lisle was returned in his new sphere at Southampton. By the time both were respectively re-elected in 1656, Hildesley had strengthened his ties with the protectorate through appointment the previous year as master in chancery. Hants RO, W/B1/5, f. 94.

When Winchester was restored as a two Member constituency for the 1659 Parliament, Hildesley was once more returned, alongside Nicholas Love. Hants RO, W/B1/5, f. 131v; W/F2/5, f. 100. Lisle and Love both returned to Westminster with the restored Rump that May as Members for Winchester, although both men then withdrew upon the readmission of the secluded Members, leaving the city unrepresented in the last weeks of the Long Parliament. Although Hildesley was to sit again in the Convention, it was for his local borough of Christchurch, and the Restoration saw him removed from public life, while Love and Lisle became fugitives on the continent, and the rulers of Winchester were transformed. HP Commons 1660-1690.