Reading

In the words of John Taylor, the ‘water poet’, Reading was ‘the prime and principal town in this county of Berkshire, for fair buildings, large streets, for clothing and other blessings’. J. Taylor, The Honorable and Memorable Foundations, Erections, Raisings and Ruines (1636), sig. D2v. As Taylor noted, the town was famous for its cloth production and the wealth which that trade had generated had made it the largest town in Berkshire. Only now, in the seventeenth century, was that prosperity under threat, a process which would be accelerated by the difficult war years of the mid-1640s. Several gentry families – the Knollyses, the Vachells and the Blagraves – held extensive estates in and around the town and were all closely involved in its affairs.

But by the late 1630s one great man loomed even larger than them over the town’s politics. The archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, was a native of Reading and the son of a local clothier, and, at the height of his power, he made every effort to remind its inhabitants of those connections. From 1637 he annually donated gowns for the poor of the town, with the number of gowns increasing by one in each successive year. The Household Accts. of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1635-1642, ed. L. James (C. of E. Rec. Soc. xxiv), 69, 107, 141, 174. Also, in March 1640, just before the Short Parliament election, he presented some lands at Bray to the Reading corporation. The revenue of £200 a year from those lands was, after his death, to be used for a variety of local good causes, including assistance for poor apprentices, young women in need of marriage portions, the vicar of St Lawrence’s and the town’s school. H. Trevor-Roper, Archbishop Laud 1573-1645 (3rd edn. 1988), 383-4; Household Accts. of William Laud, ed. James, 159, 162. His other major favour to the town was to obtain for it a new charter in 1638. This reorganised the structure of the corporation, which was now to consist of a mayor, 12 aldermen and 12 assistants. All this meant that by 1640 Laud understandably felt that he should have a major say in its parliamentary elections. But he was not the only great man to whom the corporation could look for courtly patronage or who would expect a say in those elections: the 1st earl of Holland (Henry Rich†) was the town’s high steward.

Few constituencies in this period had as troubled an electoral history as Reading. In every election, except perhaps that for Short Parliament, there was a contest and, in most, the result was disputed. This was partly because of an enduring ambiguity about the extent of the franchise. All the town’s charters had been silent on that subject. Reading Charters, Acts and Orders 1253-1911, ed. C.F. Pritchard (Reading and London, 1913), 1-84. Earlier in the century the MPs had been elected by the corporation. By 1640, however, there seems to have been an assumption that the corporation’s choice should also be approved by the freemen (the ‘burgesses’), or, as seems later to have been claimed, by the inhabitants. Such uncertainties supplied plenty of scope to challenge any particular result. It did not help that some senior members of the corporation – and Daniel Blagrave* in particular – would be exceptionally litigious. By the 1650s the factional struggles within the corporation would be fought out as much in the law courts and in Parliament as in the town hall.

The first move in the 1640 Short Parliament election was made by Laud. Almost as soon as it had become clear that the king intended to call a Parliament, the archbishop requested from the Reading corporation the nomination of one of the MPs. Unwilling to offend their benefactor, the corporation agreed. Reading Recs. iii. 472. Laud therefore informed them that he wished to nominate the solicitor-general, Edward Herbert I*. Holland, meanwhile, as the high steward, exercised the same right. His nominee was one of his clients, Sir John Berkeley*. However, when they met on 12 March, a minority among the aldermen and the assistants voted against these court candidates. Herbert received 20 votes in his favour, but six against, while Berkeley too received six votes against, but only 16 in his favour. The corporation minutes bluntly noted that the opposition was because Herbert was ‘a stranger to the corporation’ and that Berkeley was ‘a stranger and can be no friend to the town’. Reading Recs. iii. 488-9. Although it was the aldermen and assistants who actually voted, the election return was made in the name of the mayor, aldermen and burgesses. C219/42, pt. 1, f. 58.

The lukewarm response to their nomination from some sections of the corporation can hardly have encouraged either Herbert or Berkeley to remain as the town’s MPs. Both opted to sit for other constituencies where they had been elected. CJ ii. 4b. As the new writ was then issued with unusual speed and received by the corporation by 28 April, it was possible to meet for a by-election the following morning at 10am, but the gathering had to be adjourned without a result ‘in regard of the great number of the commonalty of the borough’ who turned up. Reading Recs. iii. 492-3. Reconvening on 30 April, the freemen heard ‘many speeches’ and the only way in which the mayor and the senior members of the corporation were able ‘to cease the cry of the commonalty’ was to withdraw and vote on the candidates. That result was then presented to the assembled freemen for their agreement. They had three candidates to choose from: Sir Francis Knollys I*; his son and heir, Sir Francis Knollys II; and the former lord chief justice of common pleas, Sir Robert Heath†. Sir Francis I was one of the town’s major landowners, which was why his son had represented Reading in the four previous Parliaments. They were obvious choices for those on the corporation who wanted local men to represent them, with only the great age of Sir Francis I counting against him. Heath, in contrast, had no prior connection with the town. No friend of the archbishop, he can hardly have been Laud’s nominee, but could conceivably have been that of Holland. In any case, since the corporation had previously accepted the nominations of their two patrons they now had an honourable excuse to favour the two local candidates. The aldermen and assistants gave 21 votes to Sir Francis I and 17 to Sir Francis II. This was then approved ‘by the major voice’ of the freemen. Reading Recs. iii. 493.

The election for the Long Parliament later that year was largely a re-run of the by-election. The two Knollyses were again elected on 19 October by the aldermen and assistants, receiving almost exactly the same number of votes as before (21 and 16). This time they were not opposed by Heath, but by their kinsman, Tanfield Vachell*, another local gentleman, Sir Humphrey Forster of Aldermaston (a future royalist), and Edward Clarke. According to the corporation minutes, the election was ‘begun in the council chamber, and ended in the open hall by a free and general consent of all, without any contradiction, but with great alacrity’. Reading Recs. iii. 507. There is just one hint that not everyone in the town agreed with the manner in which the election was held. Five days previously, two of the ‘chief commoners’ seem to have asked permission to participate in the election. On the day itself, those men, together with a third, were called into the council chamber and informed of the result. They replied that ‘they could not except against either of them [the two new MPs], but…’. At that point, the corporation minutes break off. Reading Recs. iii. 506, 508. This may well be early evidence of the claim by some of the inhabitants who were not freemen of the corporation that they too were entitled to vote. One person was careful to avoid playing any part in the election was Laud. On 13 November he sent the corporation the latest instalment of the rents from his lands at Bray. His covering letter explained in detail why he had decided against making another nomination. One reason was that

I saw that in the former election there was a difference between you and the commons about the right of choosing; which I was not willing to stir a second time; though what your own right was, and what theirs, you might have certainly known before this time, had you followed my direction, and attended the king’s solicitor, Mr Herbert, with your charters.

His other reason was his own personal unpopularity, as revealed by the attacks on Lambeth Palace the previous May. [W. Laud], The Works (Oxford, 1847-60), vi. 586-7.

The civil war was a disaster for the town. Close to Oxford and controlling one of the major crossings on the Thames, Reading was fought over by both sides, changing hands three times. Royalist forces occupied it for the first time in October 1642, only for it to fall to Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex in April 1643. The royalists recaptured it the following September, but finally abandoned it in May 1644. On regaining control, Parliament settled a major garrison there to help put pressure on Oxford. Throughout all this, the town was repeatedly attacked, the livelihoods of the citizens were disrupted and a legacy of bitter factional hatred created. It took several purges of the corporation in the two years following the parliamentarian recapture in 1644 to remove all those who had collaborated with the royalists and only then could the local parliamentarians regard its civic leadership as being suitably loyal. This meant that the next parliamentary election took place at a time when the corporation was only half-purged.

Reading had in the meantime lost one of its MPs, for Sir Francis Knollys II had died in May 1643. On 26 September 1645 the Commons ordered a writ for a by-election to fill this vacancy as part of its more general policy of holding ‘recruiter’ elections. CJ iv. 288a. The members of the corporation met on 13 October to determine Knollys’ replacement. As in the previous elections, the aldermen and the assistants voted first and then presented their two candidates to the freemen for consideration. Both were active members of the county committee. But, crucially, Tanfield Vachell, the defeated candidate from 1640, had strong ties with the town, whereas the more radical William Ball*, whose candidacy may well have been promoted by his friends, Henry Marten* and Cornelius Holland*, could easily be viewed as an outsider. Vachell received the backing of all the 13 aldermen and the nine assistants (including Daniel Blagrave) who were present. Ball immediately protested, arguing that there should be a poll of the freemen. The mayor, George Woldridge, refused on the grounds that he judged the vote by voices to have been two-to-one in Vachell’s favour. Ball had previously requested to be admitted as a burgess or a freeman. That too was refused. Reading Recs. iv. 167-8. Unsatisfied with this result, ‘a part of the town’ petitioned the committee of privileges against ‘some miscarriages’ in Vachell’s return. Scotish Dove no. 109 (12-19 Nov. 1645), 858 (E.309.24). On 17 November the Commons declared the election void, giving as their reason the fact that ‘the poll was not granted, being duly demanded’. CJ iv. 346b. They also ordered that soldiers were not to interfere in any parliamentary elections and specified that a copy of this order was to be sent to Reading. CJ iv. 346b. Clearly, they had reason to think – or had been led to believe – that the corporation had been leant on by the local garrison.

The new election was fixed for 1 December 1645. Reading Recs. iv. 170-1 As the Commons had required, the poll was preceded by a reading of the orders of 17 November. Vachell and Ball were once again the two candidates. The aldermen and the assistants probably voted first, giving their ‘unanimous consent’, presumably indicating that they again voted solidly for Vachell. The inhabitants were then polled. When the poll was closed at 4 pm, Vachell had received 560 votes and Ball just 309. Reading Recs. iv. 171-2. Vachell appeared to have trumped Ball even on the basis of the wider poll, but Ball was not so easily defeated. That evening a group of his supporters met in the town hall ‘by candlelight’ and signed an indenture claiming that he had been elected. What made this even more provocative is that signatories included the mayor, George Woldridge. Understandably annoyed when they discovered this, the corporation met the next morning to demand an explanation. Woldridge attempted to excuse his actions by claiming that he had signed it ‘as a private man, giving his vote for him, and not as a public man.’ He then refused to sign the indenture naming Vachell. Reading Recs. iv. 172-3. Woldridge continued to make excuses on 3 December. Frustrated by Woldridge’s behaviour and unwilling to trust him to send the pro-Vachell return, his colleagues agreed to petition Parliament explaining that Vachell had been duly elected. Reading Recs. iv. 173-5. This was sufficient to achieve their aim. Ball seems to have abandoned this efforts to block Vachell’s election and, in any case, the following month he was elected as the MP for Abingdon.

This dispute over the extent of the Reading franchise was evidently known beyond Reading and Parliament. During the army debates at Putney in October 1647 Nicholas Cowling argued for a more consistent franchise by complaining that ‘there is a tanner in Staines worth £3,000 and another in Reading worth three horse skins.’ Clarke Pprs. i. 316. In other words, poor residents in Reading already had the vote, whereas rich men elsewhere sometimes did not.

Sir Francis Knollys I died in the spring of 1648. His death was not exactly unexpected, as he was then aged in his mid-nineties. The Commons moved quickly to replace him and on 8 May 1648 ordered that a writ be issued to fill the vacancy. CJ vi. 552b. The resulting election was held on 19 June. Two candidates stood. Daniel Blagrave was the town steward, the Reading equivalent of the recorder, as well as being one of the assistants. Challenging him was George Starkey*, the future New Windsor MP. This time the ‘burgesses and inhabitants’ were polled and ‘taken into several paper books delivered to Mr Mayor of the names of those which voted for either party’, and these were then ‘perused by the company present’. That count revealed that Blagrave had more votes. The aldermen and the assistants then voted to make the return in his favour. It was agreed that the mayor, John Harrison, should retain the pollbooks. Blagrave waived his customary stipend as MP. Reading Recs. iv. 298-9; Perfect Occurrences no. 86 (18-25 Aug. 1648), sig. Qqqq4 (E.525.20). But, as in 1645, this apparent consensus was soon broken when it emerged that the rival groups of supporters had prepared separate returns. Within ten days one side had complained to Parliament. CJ v. 615b. Neither of the returns survives, but it would appear that Blagrave’s return had been made by ‘the mayor, aldermen and burgesses, under the common seal of the borough’, whereas Starkey had been returned only by ‘the aldermen and divers burgesses’. CJ v. 631b. After a report on the Reading election from the committee of privileges on 11 July, the Commons found for Blagrave. The House also implicitly criticised the sheriff of Berkshire, William Standen, for having sent in both returns. CJ v. 631b. The committee of privileges resumed debate on the Reading election late in July in relation to allegations that Blagrave had tried to bribe one of the committee’s members, Thomas Waller, with a gift of six sugar-loaves. According to a report in the press, the committee quickly satisfied itself that Blagrave’s gift had not been for electoral advantage ‘but upon [an]other considerable cause’, and it condemned Starkey’s ‘unworthy procuring of men for 2s. a piece to vote for him (as was proved to the committee)’. Letters from Reading’s ‘honest party’ in August reportedly denounced Starkey for ‘corrupting above 100 poor men’s votes’ and for being ‘a great gamester’, losing ‘£200 in one night at dice’. Perfect Occurrences no. 83 (28 July-4 Aug. 1648), sig. Nnnn2v (E.525.11); no. 84 (4-11 Aug. 1648), sig. Oooo3 (E.525.15); no. 86, sig. Qqqq4. Unlike Vachell, Blagrave continued to represent the town in Parliament after the purge of December 1648.

Reading lost one of its two parliamentary seats in the redistribution included in the Instrument of Government. A. and O. At the next election in 1654, there was an obvious candidate to hand for the single seat. Robert Hammond*, as well as being a distinguished ex-army officer, was a grandson of the late Sir Francis Knollys I and had recently settled in the town. He was also, perhaps just as importantly, a distant kinsman of the new lord protector, Oliver Cromwell*. But Hammond’s election would not be straightforward. On receiving the sheriff’s precept, the corporation agreed that the election would be held on 28 June 1654. Reading Recs. iv. 530. Between fixing that date and the day itself, they also agreed to appoint Hammond as their high steward. Reading Recs. iv. 532 Their wishes could not have been made plainer. On the election day itself the inhabitants assembled in the town hall at 10 am. On the hour the mayor, Henry Frewin, emerged to announce that the aldermen had already elected Hammond. At this, some of the assembled inhabitants protested, claiming that they, not the aldermen, had the right to make the election. When Frewin refused to listen, the crowd began to chant, ‘A Castle, a Castle’, a reference to their preferred candidate, army officer Captain Thomas Castle. The anonymous Castle supporter who subsequently published a pamphlet condemning Frewin would claim that Hammond’s supporters were outnumbered five to one by Castle’s. Castle’s supporters then withdrew to the Forbury, a field to the east of the town centre, to hold a rival poll. Allegedly, Frewin in the meantime got the town bellman to search the local alehouses to find anyone willing to support Hammond. In the days that followed, six local inhabitants (including Richard Goddard, brother of Vincent Goddard*) were said to have complained to Cromwell about Frewin’s behaviour. The pro-Castle pamphlet on the subject was also published. An Admirable Speech made by the Maior of Reading, upon the occasion of the late choice of a Burgess for that Town (1654, E.745.17). It is unclear whether Castle’s supporters ever made a return – only the one in Hammond’s favour survives – and whether any complaint was made to Parliament. C219/44: Reading indenture, 28 June 1654. Hammond served only briefly as the MP – he left for Ireland at about the time Parliament met and he died in Dublin the following October. Bulstrode Whitelocke* was then appointed to his place as high steward. No by-election was held to fill Hammond’s parliamentary seat.

The 1656 election took place against the backdrop of the continuing dispute between the Reading corporation and Blagrave, by now their ex-steward. Relations had deteriorated to such an extent that the previous March Blagrave had been sacked as steward and removed from the ranks of the assistants. Acting on recommendations from Whitelocke and Charles Fleetwood*, the corporation appointed Whitelocke’s cousin, Richard Bulstrode, to replace him as steward. By May 1656 Blagrave had instigated legal proceedings against the corporation to get himself reinstated. Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/6, ff. 34, 36v, 38v, 39, 40; R/AC 1/1/7, ff. 41v, 42, 43; Gray’s Inn, MS 33, pp. 272-3. The parliamentary election two months later would be exploited by Blagrave to those same ends.

On 21 July 1656 ‘the company with the ministers and divers other people assembled in the town hall to seek God for a blessing in the choice of a burgess’. After ‘exhortation and prayer’, the members of the corporation withdrew to the council chamber and, ‘upon debate’, agreed to elect the lieutenant of the Tower of London, Sir John Barkstead*. The mayor, Thomas Cope, then went out to announce this to those who had remained in the hall. The following day Barkstead was also admitted as a freeman of the town. Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/7, f. 47. On 23 July the corporation signed the election indenture confirming Barkstead’s election; 114 aldermen, assistants and burgesses subscribed. C219/45, no. 13; Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/7, f. 48. But, in the meantime, others had taken steps to challenge that decision. Their candidate was Blagrave. Barkstead would later tell the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, that the local postmaster, Thomas Coates†, had ‘appeared very active for Mr. Blagrave’s party at the election’ and that he ‘did then rantingly use these speeches, that he had drawn his sword these 13 years against the Presbyterians, and would not sheath it yet’. TSP v. 314. On 22 July about 400 of Blagrave’s supporters, drawn from the town’s ‘freemen and inhabitants’, had prepared a rival return naming him as the winning candidate. C219/45, no. 12. Very obviously, Blagrave had attempted to stand as the rival candidate to Barkstead, but his enemies, who still dominated the corporation, had ensured that Barkstead was approved as the corporation’s choice. Blagrave had then appealed beyond the ranks of the freemen to the rest of the town’s inhabitants, exploiting the previous arguments over the extent of the franchise. The Commons seems never to have ruled on this. Barkstead had also been elected as one of the MPs for Middlesex and so exercised the option of sitting for that seat. Blagrave may have tried petitioning the Commons; if so, no record of that attempt survives.

What is known is that Blagrave tried to sue Cope in the law courts for having, as mayor, made the return in Barkstead’s favour. Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/9, f. 2. This would have been a high-risk tactic. Although the point had never been established with absolute certainty, the usual assumption since Goodwin’s case in 1604 had been that the adjudication of election disputes was the sole prerogative of the Commons. Quite possibly not as a coincidence, exactly the same jurisdictional issue arose in the dispute over the 1656 Berkshire election. As would later become apparent, Cope was evidently forced to incur some legal expenses in defending himself against Blagrave’s suit. Blagrave’s efforts were a lost cause in other respects. Even if he had established in law that he should have been elected, the protectoral council would almost certainly have excluded him anyway. However, litigation by Blagrave might deterred the Commons from ordering another election. No move was made to fill the vacancy.

The issue of the franchise certainly remained on the minds of the corporation. Throughout all this they had been seeking a renewal of the borough charter from the lord protector. When on 25 October 1656 they discussed the potential specifications of a new charter, one of their prime concerns was ‘whether the company may have the choice of a burgess for this town to serve in Parliament or whether those that pay to the poor’. Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/7, f. 57. That they remained without an MP was particularly inconvenient as they had several other issues which might have been raised at Westminster. One problem was that during the royalist occupation of the town, the corporation had entered into a bond with an inhabitant, Thomas Harrison, for the repayment of money he had lent the king and that, after the king defaulted, Harrison had sued the corporation. Those proceedings were now being continued by Harrison’s widow. Wishing to petition Parliament against her, the corporation first approached Barkstead, and then, in January 1657, the other Berkshire MPs. Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/7, ff. 57v, 63.

There had been several more twists and turns in Reading civic politics by the time the next parliamentary elections came around. By then, Blagrave had been reinstated as steward, only to be dismissed a second time. Once again, he had taken legal action to challenge that dismissal. T. Siderfin, Les Reports des divers special Cases (1683), 6-7, 49-50, 72-3; Gray’s Inn, MS 34, pp. 328-9, 349, 361-2. Moreover, the litigation resulting from the 1656 election had provided the pretext for the latest upheaval within the corporation. On 17 December 1658 Cope, the former mayor, had interrupted a meeting of the corporation to demand that they vote on whether he should be reimbursed for his legal costs in connection with the case Blagrave had brought against him for returning Barkstead at the previous parliamentary election. The mayor, Joel Stephens, refused to allow this on the grounds that Cope had acted without the consent of the rest of the corporation. Cope’s supporters then voted for Stephens’s dismissal, and Henry Frewin was elected to replace him as mayor. Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/8, f. 116; R/AC 1/1/9, f. 2; Mercurius Politicus no. 547 (23-30 Dec. 1658, E.760.26). This irreconcilable split between two factions would dominate the town’s local politics until after the Restoration.

The immediate result was that the two groups held separate elections for the 1659 Parliament and made separate returns. Stephens, asserting that he was still mayor, was presided over an election in the town hall on 30 December 1658. He had previously proclaimed the warrant from the local sheriff, Oliver Pleydell, in the market place. At 9 am on the appointed day ‘near 1000 persons’ met and unanimously elected Henry Neville* and Blagrave. Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/9, f. 1; CJ vii. 596a. It can be inferred from subsequent events that those who took part in the poll included the inhabitants who were not members of the corporation: Stephens, Neville and Blagrave were using the wider franchise. The choice of Blagrave confirms that Stephens headed the pro-Independent, anti-Presbyterian faction who had previously supported Blagrave and against whom Cope and Frewin had tried to strike. That Blagrave was now paired with Neville, the radical republican and native of the county who had previously represented Abingdon, fits that same pattern. Neville was said to have the support of ‘a great faction’. Whitelocke, Diary, 502. Frewin, also claiming to be mayor, held his election on 4 January 1659. His return, made out in the names of the aldermen and burgesses, was based on the narrower franchise. It named Whitelocke’s son, William Whitelocke*, and William Thornhull. C219/46: Reading indenture, 4 Jan. 1659; Whitelocke, Diary, 504; CJ vii. 596a. There was some previous history between Thornhull and Neville; as a militia captain, Thornhull was alleged to have helped prevent Neville get elected in the controversial Berkshire contest of 1656. A True and Perfect Relation of the Manner and Proceeding, held by the Sheriffe for the County of Berk (1656, E.891.8). Now, several weeks before the Reading election, Stephens had warned Whitelocke that his son would be defeated by Neville. Whitelocke, Diary, 503. This had evidently not deterred William Whitelocke. In the immediate aftermath of the elections, his father was of the opinion that, as he had also been elected at West Looe, William should abandon the attempt to get elected for Reading. Whitelocke, Diary, 504. However, overoptimistic reports about Whitelocke’s success at Reading, allegedly spread by Thomas Povey*, were said by Francis Buller* to have complicated Whitelocke’s attempts to get elected for the Cornish constituency. Longleat, Whitelocke pprs. XIX, f. 1.

The Commons considered the disputed result at Reading in parallel to Neville’s complaints about the Berkshire result in 1656. The report from the committee of privileges and elections was ready by 31 January 1659 and was presented to the House the following day. Burton’s Diary, iii. 17, 21-3; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, p. 89. Sir Arthur Hesilrige* claimed during the subsequent debate that, ‘there was but one negative in the committee, and a full committee in this business’. Burton’s Diary, iii. 22. Their recommendation was that Stephens’s return in favour of Neville and Blagrave was valid and so should be accepted. The Commons took the same view. CJ vii. 596a-b; Whitelocke, Diary, 506. Neville took his seat later that same day. Burton’s Diary, iii. 24. What proved to be more controversial was the proposal from Adam Baynes* that Frewin should be punished for having attempted to usurp the mayoralty. As Richard Knightley* put it when seconding this, Frewin and his allies had ‘tossed the old mayor [Stephens] like a dog in a blanket’. Burton’s Diary, iii. 22. But others, doubtless interpreting this as an Independent ploy against a staunch Presbyterian, sprang to Frewin’s defence. John Bulkeley* praised him as ‘an honest good man’. In the end, the Commons seems to have followed Bulkeley’s advice that they had more important business to discuss and moved on without formally censuring him. Burton’s Diary, iii. 22-3.

Frewin’s enemies in Reading were less forgiving. Eleven days later they dismissed Frewin and seven other aldermen, six of the assistants and Richard Bulstrode as steward. Blagrave was then reappointed as the steward. Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/9, ff. 2-3. Perhaps anxious to get as much parliamentary backing as possible, the corporation seems subsequently to have petitioned the committee for privileges, probably seeking a definitive ruling on the Reading franchises. Berks. RO, R/AC 1/1/9, f. 5. The committee heard from both sides on 19 March. Burton’s Diary, iv. 202. Reporting back six days later, Thomas Waller* informed the Commons that Neville and Blagrave had indeed been duly elected. He implied that this was because ‘the mayor, aldermen and the whole commonalty of the said borough, though not free’ had ‘a joint right’ in the election. The Commons agreed. CJ vii. 620a.

The Commons ruling in 1659 set the scene for the Reading elections throughout the Restoration period. Confirmation of the wider franchise perpetuated popular involvement, which, combined with the enduring factional tensions, made for a series of elections after 1660 almost as lively as those before.