Positioned high on an escarpment above the vale of Blackmore in north Dorset, and a major staging-post on the main western road from London to Cornwall, Shaftesbury was a borough of some strategic importance.RCHM Dorset, iv. 56-9. The town’s early prosperity depended on its Benedictine abbey, and although the dissolution of this in 1539 brought gradual decline to the town, in the seventeenth century the borough had a population of over 350 families, and in 1623 could still be described as ‘a fair thoroughfare, much frequented by travellers to and from London, governed by a mayor, well inhabited, and accommodated with a plentiful market on the Saturdays’.CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 360; Coker’s Survey of Dorsetshire, 1623 (1732), 91.
After the dissolution, Shaftesbury came under the seigneurial influence of the Herberts, earls of Pembroke, who purchased the abbey lands and the lordship of the manor in 1553.RCHM Dorset, iv. 1559. Apart from the Herberts, the town attracted other wealthy residents, most notably the recusant Lord Arundell of Wardour, who built a substantial town-house there in the late sixteenth century.Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 3, 7,40. Noble influence was balanced by a strong corporate structure. The borough charter, granted by James I in 1604, instituted government by a common council consisting of the mayor, 12 aldermen, recorder and town clerk.Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 14. These posts were soon to become monopolized by an oligarchic group of cloth-families, including the Groves, Husseys, Whitakers, Chaldecotts, Swetmans and Kings. The commonalty seems to have been unusually politically aware. Troops for the Ile de Ré expeditions of the 1620s were mustered in Shaftesbury, and in June 1628 the privy council ordered the sheriff to act against ‘divers factions and ill-disposed persons of that town’ who joined with the soldiers in attacking the king’s property in the area.APC 1627-8, pp. 229, 348, 495. Lower rates meant that Ship Money was probably less of an issue in Shaftesbury than elsewhere in Dorset during the 1630s, but elements of discontent manifested themselves in other ways. In 1638 Nicholas Compton, the town’s post-master, was investigated by the privy council for corruption, but was vigorously defended by the locals.CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 576; Add. 1625-49, p. 587; PC Regs. iv. 434.
The franchise at Shaftesbury lay in the mayor, burgesses and commonalty.Municipal Recs. of the Borough of Shaftesbury ed. C.H. Mayo (Sherborne, 1889), 65. A degree of antipathy towards the Caroline regime may have encouraged the election of Shaftesbury’s recorder, William Whitaker*, as MP for the borough in the Short Parliament. Whitaker, who had sat for the borough three times in the 1620s on the Pembroke interest, was a close friend of such prominent critics of the Personal Rule as John Pym* and Francis Rous*.Infra, ‘William Whitaker’; Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 17. The other successful candidate in April 1640 was Edward Hyde* (later 1st earl of Clarendon), who, like Whitaker, was at this time a proponent of reform and was probably elected on the interest of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke.C219/42/91; V.A. Rowe, ‘The influence of the earls of Pembroke on parliamentary elections, 1625-41’, EHR l. 243, 248. Hyde was returned for both Shaftesbury and Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, and chose to sit for the latter, but the brevity of the Parliament did not allow a by-election to be held.CJ ii. 3b. Whitaker was again returned for Shaftesbury in the Long Parliament of November 1640, this time with Dr Samuel Turner*, a client of Pembroke who had already represented the borough in the 1626 Parliament, where he had led the attack on the 1st duke of Buckingham.C219/43/169. It may have been as a reward for accepting his man that Pembroke granted the corporation control of its own fairs and markets in December 1640, thus ending a long dispute.C54/3237.
Shaftesbury’s role in the civil war was determined by its position on the main road between London and the west, and the unfortified town was repeatedly taken and re-taken by the rival sides. In 1644 Shaftesbury was held by royalists in August, became Sir William Waller’s* headquarters in September, and reoccupied by the king in October.CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 414, 523-45; 1644-5, pp. 5-31. Despite earlier sympathies with Parliament’s cause, anger at the destruction and dislocation which came with the war erupted in 1645, and Shaftesbury became the focus for pro-royalist clubmen risings. In August 1645 the western clubmen met at Shaftesbury to discuss how they should intervene on behalf of beleaguered royalist garrison at nearby Sherborne Castle. While in consultation, they were surrounded by troops under Colonel Charles Fleetwood*, who dispersed the mob and arrested 50 ringleaders (including the ‘malignant’ rector of St Peter’s and Holy Trinity church in the town).Bayley, Dorset, 276-7. The crushing of this local rising was completed by Oliver Cromwell* a few days later, and the main body of the New Model army was unopposed when it marched through the town en route for Lyme Regis in September 1645.Bayley, Dorset, 278, 293. The defeat of the royalist element within the borough no doubt paved the way for the election of Colonel John Bingham*, son-in-law of the prominent parliamentarian, John Trenchard*, as its recruiter MP in place of the royalist Dr Turner, in November 1645.C219/43/171.
Parliament’s victory brought further problems for the town, as the ill-disciplined brigade of Major-general Edward Massie* was quartered in the area during the summer of 1646. On 3 July 1646 William Whitaker joined a prominent Shaftesbury burgess, William Hussey, in presenting a complaint to the quarter sessions about the conduct of Massie’s troops.Bayley, Dorset, 313. Five days later the Dorset county committee, which was meeting at Shaftesbury, voiced its own concerns to Speaker William Lenthall* of ‘the great insolences and disorders committed by the soldiers under the command of Major-general Massie’.Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 392. The situation had not improved by October 1646, when recent orders to disband the brigade only served to heighten tensions between the soldiers and the local inhabitants, and the county committee assembled a council of war at Shaftesbury to consider the problem.Christie, Shaftesbury, i, appx. i, p. xxxix. It was in this unsettled climate that news came from London of the death of Whitaker, and the need for a recruiter election in the borough.CJ iv. 687a. What followed was a three-way contest. Hussey was the only candidate from the town, and he seems to have secured the support of the earls of Pembroke and Salisbury; John Fitzjames*, a well-connected officer from north Dorset, who had served under Massie, hoped for support from all factions; the third contender, George Starre*, from nearby Bradford Abbas, relied on the support of the county committee.Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 46v-7, 48-9, 53v-4. Fitzjames, whose letter-books are the most important source for the election, clearly saw Pembroke, as lord of the manor, as the key figure. He was bitterly disappointed by the earl’s support of Hussey, and complained that ‘nothing crosses or prejudices me more than my lord of Pembroke’s letters ... in Mr Hussey’s behalf'.Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, f. 53v. But the earl’s local power was not as strong as formerly, and the borough oligarchs took the opportunity to assert their influence. This can be seen in the efforts of all three candidates to court support within the borough corporation: Fitzjames wrote to two important local figures, Thomas Grove* and George Chaldecott, and hoped for the mayor’s backing.Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 46v-7, 68. Hussey reputedly had his own party among the burgesses, and Starre claimed that he had been approached by members of the corporation to represent them even before Whitaker’s death.Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, f. 48v. There may have been some truth in Starre’s claim, as the electorate voted him into the vacant seat in November 1646, rejecting Fitzjames and Hussey.Infra, ‘John Fitzjames’; ‘George Starre’; Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, f. 68.
George Starre’s death in October 1647 precipitated a new election after barely a year, and at a time when the role of the New Model army in politics had polarized opinion nationally.CJ v. 334a. A writ for a new election at Shaftesbury was issued on 8 February 1648, and sometime in the next five weeks the borough returned the religious radical, John Fry*.C231/6, p. 106. His election brought a petition of complaint by three burgesses against the mayor and remaining nine burgesses of Shaftesbury corporation. The petitioners claimed that the election was held in secret, on a different day from that set by the sheriff, and that the mayor, James Baker*, had not been allowed to vote.Som. and Dorset N. and Q. xxix. 245-6; Shaftesbury ed. Mayo, 65. These objections were put before the Commons’ privileges committee on 21 March 1648. They did not prevail, however, and Fry had taken his seat by September.CJ v. 506b; vi. 34a This electoral dispute was symptomatic of wider divisions in Shaftesbury that emerged during 1647 and 1648. There was controversy concerning religious appointments imposed on the borough, possibly reflecting the residual influence of Pembroke as patron of the town’s three parishes. This came to a head during the attempt by the Presbyterians to seize power during the spring and summer of 1647, which had been supported by the earl. The county committee introduced a regular Presbyterian lectureship at Shaftesbury in January 1647, but this seems to have been less than popular, and in April the committee had to allow a yearly £50 grant to prevent its collapse.Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 138, 250. In February 1647 the temporary incumbent of St Peter’s parish, James Nicholls, was granted the tithes for his support; but by March he also needed external funding, and in April measures were taken against tithe-refusers in the town.Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 188-9, 206, 235. The appointment of William Stronge as permanent minister at St Peter’s at the end of April 1647 was in the hope of a ‘better settlement of peace and unity at Shaftesbury’, but any rapprochement was short-lived.Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 259. Trouble flared again the following year, when John Devenish, another Shaftesbury minister, faced a concerted resistance to tithes, led by John Wykes and others.Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 442, 448-9. Perhaps surprisingly, there is no evidence of unrest in Shaftesbury during the second civil war in 1648, and this may have reflected the level of military activity in the area. In July 1648, for example, Colonel William Sydenham* was in overall command of troops assembled in north Dorset ‘to preserve the peace of the country from Dorchester to Shaftesbury’.Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, f. 49v.
During the late 1640s and the 1650s, the religious and political polarity of Shaftesbury lent the town a reputation for disorder and even disloyalty. After the expulsion of the Rump in April 1653, the council of state was suspicious of the influence of both radical sectaries and crypto-royalists in the town. Unrest was reported in August 1653, when Major-general John Disbrowe* wrote from Shaftesbury that he feared an insurrection in Somerset and Dorset led by one ‘Major Fry’ – possibly the former MP, John Fry.CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 102. The town remained divided on religious lines later in the decade. The Dorset Quakers, complaining of their treatment at the hands of the local justices of the peace in the mid-1650s, castigated William Hussey as an ‘enemy to friends’ and put the Presbyterian Thomas Grove into a similar category, but approved of the pro-Cromwellian James Baker* as a ‘moderate, and against persecution’.SP18/130, f. 46. Royalist activity in Shaftesbury during Penruddock’s rising of 1655 also concerned the authorities. The royalists chose the town as their headquarters, but a list of those subsequently captured at Exeter, which included many men from Blandford and Sherborne, did not mention any insurgents from Shaftesbury.TSP iii. 242-3. Indeed, lack of cooperation rather than open opposition seems to have been the principal tactic employed by the town’s royalists during the protectorate. When, for example, in December 1655 Disbrowe and his henchmen James Dewy I* and James Baker (himself a Shaftesbury burgess) testified against the town’s post-master, William Swetman, as ‘a person disaffected to the present government’, the charges were ones of dishonesty and neglect, not of outright treason.TSP iv. 316.
After years of exclusion under the Instrument of Government, Shaftesbury regained its franchise in the elections for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament in 1659. In Dorset the moderate Presbyterian party led by Ashley Cooper and Fitzjames targeted support in boroughs such as Shaftesbury. Fitzjames solicited the support of James Baker, William Chaldecott, the recorder Henry Whitaker* and a ‘Mr Hurman’ of Shaftesbury in the county election in December 1658.Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, ff. 50-v, 51, 53v. Fitzjames was also eager to manage the borough election itself, writing to the sheriff on 23 December to request that the Shaftesbury election writ should only be issued on the day after the county election.Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 59v. He was also behind James Baker’s candidacy in the borough election, assuring him that a seat would ‘gain the greater in the thoughts and hearts of your friends, and this way you may be out of reach of others’.Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 62v. Baker and Henry Whitaker were duly returned. The extent of royalist support for these candidates is unclear, but it is interesting that in the following August Sir George Boothe’s* abortive rising against Parliament was joined by a contingent from Shaftesbury. This group was encouraged by one of the Chaldecott clan and was led by one Luke Cave, who sensibly advised against bringing James Baker into the plot.Bayley, Dorset, 383. This persistent royalist streak perhaps explains the survival almost intact of Shaftesbury’s corporation after the Restoration, in contrast with to widespread purges conducted at Poole, Lyme and Bridport. The seigneurial control of the earl of Pembroke was now a dead letter, and the election for the Convention on 20 April 1660 returned James Baker and another local man, Thomas Grove.HP Commons 1660-90, i. 220; C219/49, unfol. The 1662-4 hearth tax records show Shaftesbury to be a borough of considerable town-houses (nine having ten or more hearths), and a further measure of this prosperity was the founding of a new hospital, ‘Spiller’s Spittle’, barely three years after the Restoration.Dorset Hearth Tax, 22-3; Historic Towns in Dorset, 88.
