Dorset

In the absence of a dominant noble interest, Dorset was controlled by a small group of interrelated gentry families. Most of these were relative newcomers to the county. The Strangwayses, Trenchards, Husseys, Tregonwells and Napers had all come to prominence through the purchase of monastic lands in the 1540s. T. Coker, Survey of Dorsetshire (1732), 31, 63-4, 83, 98. In the century that followed other families moved into the county, including the Erles from Devon, the Digbys from Warwickshire and the Bankeses from Cumberland. A second boom was initiated by the bankruptcy of the lord lieutenant, Theophilus Howard†, 2nd earl of Suffolk, in 1640. The sale of Suffolk’s lands (which were, once again, monastic in origin) allowed the established families to extend their estates, while rising merchants, like the Bonds of Dorchester, were able to confirm their position in the ranks of the gentry. CUL, Ee. iii. 25, ff. 5v-8v. The land bonanza was complemented by marriage alliances between the prominent families. The most important of these was centred on the Trenchards of Wolveton, near Dorchester, and included the Strangways, Digby, Rogers and Browne families, and also (in later years) the Sydenhams and Binghams. The influence of such gentry groupings was not challenged by other interests. Although there were no important resident peers, a degree of influence was exercised by lords with seats in neighbouring counties: for example the earls of Pembroke and Salisbury in the north-east, and the earl of Bedford in the south-west. Nor were the boroughs a major influence over their regions, and of the parliamentary constituencies only Dorchester and Shaftesbury represented rural, rather than coastal, interests. The other inland towns – Wimborne Minster, Blandford Forum, Sherborne, Beaminster – were no more than market towns, and tended to be controlled by the local gentry.

The Short Parliament elections, held at Dorchester on 9 March 1640, demonstrate how Dorset politics was stage-managed by the gentry. According to Denis Bond*, there were three candidates in this election: Richard Rogers (with 942 votes), Sir Walter Erle (902) and George Lord Digby (800), but in order to avoid a division, ‘Sir Walter Erle did sit down unto the Lord George, so Mr Rogers and the Lord George were returned for the knights for this shire’. Dorset RO, D/BOC/22, f. 52. Such gentlemanly agreements were easy to organise at this stage, when there was no great political difference between the candidates: Rogers (a relative of Edward Seymour†, 2nd earl of Hertford) and Digby (as son of the 1st earl of Bristol) were as solid in their opposition to Caroline innovations as any veteran of the 1620s Parliaments. The election indenture, subscribed by major gentry figures from across the county, also suggests that this election reflects a broad consensus among the local ‘community’. C219/42/96. The Long Parliament election that autumn produced an identical result, with Digby and Rogers apparently unopposed.

In the summer of 1641, however, the unity of the Dorset gentry started to break down, with Strangways, Digby and Rogers voicing disquiet at Parliament’s radical agenda, and (in 1642) siding with the king as the country slid into civil war. Despite such divisions, the county itself remained broadly parliamentarian, and the broadly-based Trenchard interest, although depleted by the defections, was able to keep control of the county seats. When George Digby was elevated to the House of Lords by Charles I in June 1641, he was replaced by another Trenchard associate, John Browne I; and when, in November 1645, a new election was held to provide a recruiter MP in the place of the disabled Rogers, Sir Thomas Trenchard, the head of the family, was returned. C219/43/155, 156, 157. Trenchard dominance in the elections corresponded with their leadership of the county committee and other local structures, and suggests that the tone of Dorset politics remained conservative throughout the 1640s.

The stability of the 1640s continued into the 1650s. Once again, the Trenchards were the key power-brokers in Dorset. The returns for the Nominated Assembly of 1653 saw John Trenchard’s sons-in-law, John Bingham and William Sydenham, chosen for the county seats. In 1654, when six MPs were elected under the new franchise, Trenchard, Bingham and Sydenham were joined by John Fitzjames, Sir Walter Erle, and Henry Henley. C219/44, unfol. The choice of two Presbyterians, Fitzjames and Henley, alongside the usual Trenchard candidates, suggests that this was a compromise, rather than a whitewash. The 1654 compromise was repeated in 1656. On 5 August 1656 John Fitzjames wrote to Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, agreeing to attend a meeting to discuss the forthcoming elections, but adding that he advised such a gathering to be ‘speedy and … private’, as ‘the country hereabouts dare mutter’ and are ‘ticket-struck’. The alternative venues included the houses of John Trenchard, Mr [Edward?] Hooper, Sir Gerard Naper* or ‘Captain Taylor’s near to Sir Walter Erle’s’. Alnwick, Northumberland 551, f. 89v. In the meantime, Fitjames wrote to James Baker* at Shaftesbury, asking for his advice on the election, and once again warning of ‘the tickets that fly abroad here, [which] are no way pleasing to rational men, who bite their lips and hang down their heads, either with anger or fear that their voices, as formerly, should not be free’. Alnwick, Northumberland 551, f. 91. Concern at radical interference, as represented by these ‘tickets’, ‘had caused the gentlemen of the country … to resolve to be on the place at the time prefixed’ to ensure that the county election was kept under control. Alnwick, Northumberland 551, f. 93v. In the days before the election, Fitzjames met Bingham, Erle, Ashley Cooper, Thomas Trenchard* and Robert Coker*, and (as he told Walter Foye on 14 August) they had agreed ‘that these six shall appear upon the place’: Sydenham, Thomas Trenchard, Erle, Coker, Thomas Moore and Fitzjames himself. The 1654 MP, Henry Henley, had been discussed but rejected, to Fitzjames’s disappointment, but at least he could report that ‘all the eastern parts [of the county] are for the six … and some considerable number in the west likewise’. Alnwick, Northumberland 551, f. 94v. This was, as yet, a provisional list, and when the election was held on 20 August, only three of the proposed candidates remained. There is no indication of a dispute, however, and the substitution of John Trenchard, James Dewy I and Bingham for Thomas Trenchard, Ashley Cooper and Moore was probably the result of further negotiations between the ‘gentlemen of the county’.

The consensus in 1654 and 1656 matched the relative stability of national politics under Protector Oliver, when Presbyterians and even former royalists were gradually allowed back into positions of influence. The elections for the 1659 Parliament, under the weaker and more controversial Protector Richard proved much more acrimonious, partly because the older franchise had been re-introduced, allowing only two knights of the shire instead of six. John Fitzjames was again encouraged to stand as a candidate, and in early December 1658 he was confident that this would be another compromise: ‘by some I am assured that Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper will not stand … the contest will be (if any) between Colonel Coker, Colonel Bingham and myself’. Alnwick, Northumberland 552, f. 50v. Assuming this information to be correct, Fitzjames began lobbying his friends across the county, to ensure an easy victory for himself and Coker as his running-mate. On 18 December he was confident that ‘except it be by the standing of three and consequently the juggling of voices, I think I shall not fail’. Alnwick, Northumberland 552, ff. 51, 52v, 53, 54. On 20 December, however, there came news that not only Bingham, but also Sir Walter Erle, intended to contest the seat, and Fitzjames was forced to make contingency plans, by organising a borough place for himself if all else failed. Alnwick, Northumberland 552, f. 55. Two days later, Fitzjames was increasingly concerned that he was being misled by his former allies, and warned Coker that ‘Sir W[alter] Erle and B[ingham] sit close in council at Dorchester, where I am confident … there are monstrous plots in agitation against you and myself’. Alnwick, Northumberland 552, f. 58. Despite his continuing efforts to drum up support, Fitzjames was completely out-manoeuvred, and he was left to complain impotently about the ‘horrid underground plots’ against him. Alnwick, Northumberland 552, ff. 60, 61, 62, 64v. On the day of the election, 3 January 1659, he commented bitterly that ‘Colonel Coker and myself were buried alive this day: to say no more, Sir Walter Erle and Colonel Bingham are your and our knights for the county’. Alnwick, Northumberland 552, f. 65.

The collapse of consensus politics in Dorset, in the face of the national crisis caused by the weakness of the protectorate, should not detract from the extraordinary degree of cooperation which existed in the county earlier in the decade, and throughout the 1640s. Fitzjames’s surprise at his defeat shows how confident he had become that the gentry could sort things out in private, and avoid public disputes – just as they had in 1640. Despite his discomfiture in 1659, in 1660 things returned to normal, with Fitzjames and Coker at last securing election, without opposition, as knights of the shire for the Convention. And from 1661 the county MPs were once again drawn from the gentry elite, with members of the Strangway, Digby, Naper and Freke families being returned for successive Parliaments in the late seventeenth century. HP Commons 1660-1690.