Higham Ferrers

Lying on the main London to Leicester road where it crossed the River Nene, Higham Ferrers was part of the duchy of Lancaster and, from the mid-1620s, parcel of Queen Henrietta Maria’s jointure. HP Commons 1509-1558, ‘Higham Ferrers’; VCH Northants. iii. 268; A.N. Groome, ‘Higham Ferrers in 1640’, Northants. Past and Present, ii. no. 5, pp. 243, 244. The town’s Saturday market was reportedly ‘well resorted unto’; but with approximately 150 households in this period and a population of probably less than 700, Higham Ferrers was by some margin the smallest of the Northamptonshire parliamentary boroughs. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 176; E179/157/446, mm. 15r-d; Groome, ‘Higham Ferrers in 1640’, 246. By a royal charter granted in 1556, the town was governed by a corporation comprising a mayor, seven aldermen and 13 capital burgesses. The corporation elected a mayor annually from among the burgesses and chose new burgesses from among the townsmen. New aldermen were elected from among the burgesses by the mayor and aldermen. The 1556 charter also empowered the town to return one Member to Parliament – a privilege it first exercised in 1558. Borough of Higham Ferrers: Charters and Insignia ed. A.N. Groome, 23, 27; HP Commons 1509-1558, ‘Higham Ferrers’; The franchise was confined to the corporation officeholders until 1640, when it was extended to include all the townsmen. Northants. RO, FH3467; Bridges, Northants. ii. 170; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Higham Ferrers’.

Since the late sixteenth century the duchy of Lancaster had allowed its electoral interest at Higham Ferrers to lapse – a situation that the crown sought to remedy in the elections to the Short Parliament. HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-29. It is likely that the borough was the recipient of one of the letters that Henrietta Maria’s council sent late in 1639 or early in 1640 ‘to the several burgess towns within her jointure for electing of such persons as she shall nominate’. CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 130. In the months preceding the elections that spring, legal opinion was sought from Sir Robert Heath†, Oliver St John* and Geoffrey Palmer* as to whether the parliamentary franchise at Higham Ferrers should remain vested in the corporation alone, or ‘whether the rest of the commonalty ought to have voices in the election’. Several copies of their rulings survive among the Finch Hatton manuscripts, making it reasonable to suppose that they had been solicited by the duchy of Lancaster steward of Higham Ferrers, the future royalist grandee Sir Christopher Hatton*, and that he was proceeding with at least the tacit approval of the duchy and the queen’s council. His main reason for seeking to alter the town’s franchise may well have been to outflank a growing ‘puritan’ faction within the corporation that was led by the father-in-law of the local godly gentleman and future parliamentarian Edward Harby*.

Delivering their opinions in March 1640, all three of the lawyers concluded that ‘all the inhabitants within the borough and parish, whether they be borough holders or other householders, may give their voices’ in parliamentary elections. Infra, ‘Edward Harby’; ‘Sir Christopher Hatton’; Northants. RO, FH1750, 3467, 3500; Groome, ‘Higham Ferrers in 1640’, 245-6, 247. Not content with following his colleagues in citing the absence of any clause in the 1556 charter specifically restricting the franchise to the corporation, St John – working on the assumption that Higham Ferrers had returned Members at some earlier point in its history – went further and argued that

it is not in the king’s power to restrain the freedom of the election – which before [1556] belonged to all [the borough men] – to any less number. Neither doth any usage by the mayor, aldermen and 13 [capital] burgesses sithence ... take away the freedom of election, which is to be made by all. Northants. RO, FH3467.

The election itself, on 28 March 1640, was a three-way contest between Hatton, Harby and a ‘Mr Wynn’ – almost certainly Henry Wynn*, Henrietta Maria’s solicitor-general, whom the queen’s council also recommended to the voters of Carlisle. Infra, ‘Henry Wynn’. When a poll was called, Hatton was willing to accept the opinions of learned counsel and receive votes from townsmen outside of the corporation – including the town’s Laudian vicar John Digby – while Harby apparently observed traditional electoral custom and confined himself to polling only aldermen and capital burgesses. Certainly, all of Harby’s 13 votes came from municipal officeholders, whereas Hatton did not draw upon his support within the corporation until he had polled 14 votes from among the townsmen generally. In all, he polled 21 votes, of which only six were those of officeholders. In other words, if the franchise had not been widened he would have lost the election. Only the town’s mayor voted for Wynn, in what looks like a studied gesture of loyalty to the crown’s official candidate. Northants. RO, FH880, 3468; Groome, ‘Higham Ferrers in 1640’, 246-7. Nevertheless, the election represented a victory of sorts for the crown inasmuch as Hatton was the duchy steward and one of only two Northamptonshire MPs returned to the Short or Long Parliament who would go on to support the king in the civil war (the other such MP was Sir Robert Napier). A copy of the election indenture survives and refers to the electorate solely in terms of the mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the town. Northants. RO, FH880.

A month before the election at Higham Ferrers to the Long Parliament, late in October 1640, the chancellor of the duchy, Edward Barrett†, 1st Baron Barrett of Newburgh [I], wrote to the mayor recommending one of the queen’s gentleman ushers, Sir Thomas Stafford†, ‘a gentleman of worth and abilities, to serve [as MP] in that place’. On 3 October the queen’s council also wrote to the mayor in support of Stafford’s candidacy, expressing no doubt that ‘you will give such respect unto this recommendation of her Majesty (the royal owner of that manor) as not to prefer before it the solicitation of any other person whatsoever’. Northants. RO, FH3451; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Sir Thomas Stafford’; Groome, ‘Higham Ferrers in 1640’, 248-9. The mayor politely declined Newburgh’s request on the grounds that ‘our country [i.e. county] is not the quietest ...[and] we have but one burgess-ship and many friends’. But in his letter to the queen’s council he was a little more candid.

All amongst us are not sensible of your lordships’ care; they are governed rather by their affections than their judgement. To discover the division and distemper of our corporation were to weaken ourselves both in the opinion of your lordships and the opinion of others ... Upon the first occasion of our inclination to express our duties, we found such a dislike of our purpose as would certainly (had we not prevented it) have produced such an election as would neither have satisfied your lordships nor ourselves. The truth is ... we are a poor town and have many kind neighbours, it is seldom we can express our respects to them, their favours are frequently bestowed on us. Northants. RO, FH3469/1-2; Groome, ‘Higham Ferrers in 1640’, 249.

The mayor (the man who had voted for Wynn in March) and the ‘loyalist’ interest in the corporation were apparently advising the council that Stafford commanded so little support in the borough that insisting upon his election would allow their opponents to revive Harby’s interest – an outcome that ‘would neither have satisfied your lordships nor ourselves’. At roughly the same time as this letter was sent, Hatton wrote to the queen’s chancellor, the arch-Laudian Sir John Lambe, who was the council’s electoral manager for Higham Ferrers, warning him that ‘the letter [recommending Stafford] from your board cannot carry it’ and urging that the council back his own candidacy, since ‘the board can lose nothing by recommending one like to prevail’. Northants. RO, FH2375. That Hatton sought, and secured, a safe seat that autumn at Castle Rising, in Norfolk, suggests that the council refused this request and that he made at least a show of respecting the crown’s wishes to secure a place at Higham Ferrers for Stafford. Infra, ‘Sir Christopher Hatton’.

A week or so before the election, the corporation was bitterly divided over the choice of a new mayor – in large part, no doubt, because it was the mayor who acted as the borough’s returning officer. Certainly the split among the officeholders was along very similar lines to that in the spring parliamentary election, with Hatton’s voters and most of Harby’s each appointing one of their own number for the office. Rudd’s supporters petitioned Newburgh on 22 October, urging the speedy confirmation of their man as mayor, whereupon the duchy council ordered that the serving mayor – who had supported Rudd’s candidacy – should remain in office until the dispute could be settled. Northants. RO, FH3461; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 190; Groome, ‘Higham Ferrers in 1640’, 249-51. On election day, which was presumably at some point during the last week of October, the town returned Hatton – apparently without a contest – and on 9 November he waived his election at Castle Rising and opted to sit for Higham Ferrers. Infra, ‘Sir Christopher Hatton’; Groome, ‘Higham Ferrers in 1640’, 249.

Hatton sided with the king from the very outbreak of the civil war, prompting the Commons to disable him sitting, on 7 September 1642. Infra, ‘Sir Christopher Hatton’. On 17 September 1645, the House ordered that a writ be issued for a new election at Higham Ferrers, and on 13 October the borough returned Edward Harby, who was by now a prominent member of the Northamptonshire county committee. CJ iv. 277a; C219/43/2/72. There is no evidence of a contest. Although Harby was not among those secluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648, he seems to have played very little part in the Rump’s proceedings. Infra, ‘Edward Harby’

Having lost its seats under the 1653 Instrument of Government, the borough regained them in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, which saw the return on 10 January 1659 of Ralph Suckley and James Nutley. The electoral indenture returning the two men evidently represented an attempt by the corporation to turn the borough into a two-Member constituency. It made no mention of a double return, simply stating that the ‘mayor, aldermen and burgesses’ had returned Suckley and Nutley ‘by the common consent of the said borough’. Although both men were described on the indenture as ‘fit and discreet persons of the said borough’, neither is known to have resided in the town, and the exact nature of their connection with Higham Ferrers is a mystery. C219/47, unfol. Suckley seems to have been a client of John Cecil, 4th earl of Exeter, whose first wife was a member of the Montagu of Boughton family, which had enjoyed a strong electoral interest at Higham Ferrers during the early Stuart period. Infra, ‘Ralph Suckley’. Very little is known about Nutley beyond the fact that he may have been the James Nutley, son and heir of William Nutley of Southampton, who had been called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1650. MTR iii. 1014, 1022.

On 31 January 1659, taking notice that two Members had been returned for Higham Ferrers, the Commons deemed it a double return, whereupon Suckley ‘being in the House ... did voluntarily withdraw’. CJ vii. 595b. On 11 February, Richard Knightley, one of the Members for Northamptonshire, reported the case from the committee of privileges and moved that a writ be issued for a new election at Higham Ferrers, which was ordered accordingly. CJ vii. 602a; Burton’s Diary, iii. 203. Knightley would later refer to the ‘modesty’ of both of the Members for Higham Ferrers in withdrawing from the House when their return had been questioned. Burton’s Diary, iv. 108. On 4 March, Major-general William Boteler* wrote to one of his militia captains at Titchmarsh, less than ten miles north of Higham Ferrers, concerning ‘one Mr Suckley, who is now at Higham labouring the corporation there to be their burgess in this present Parliament’. He enclosed an affidavit that had been sworn in chancery on 3 March by one of Suckley’s professional colleagues, alleging knowledge of Suckley’s residence in Oxford during the civil war, which, if true, would disqualify Suckley from serving as an MP. TSP vii. 627-8; information from A.N. Groome. Boteler urged the captain to acquaint the mayor and electors with this affidavit, but the document did not reach the borough before the by-election, held some time in early March, at which Suckley was re-elected. TSP vii. 627, 633.

Higham Ferrers was represented in the restored Rump of 1659-60 by Harby. Infra, ‘Edward Harby’. The corporation returned Harby again to the 1660 Convention, but the ‘burgesses at large’ returned Sir Thomas Dacres*, and it was his election that the Commons upheld. HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Higham Ferrers’.