<p>All the Members for Cambridge in this period were townsmen, with the exception of the two North brothers, who were sons of the high steward, the 2nd Lord North, and Robert Shute the recorder, who lived outside the town. Indeed, an ordinance made in the fifteenth century to ensure that only inhabitants could be returned to Parliament, was modified in 1571 to provide for an exception in the case of the recorder. Shute had been chosen on 20 Mar., ‘resigned’ as MP on the 26th, and subsequently withdrew his ‘resignation’.

<p>Throughout Elizabeth’s reign the Pakington family were lords of Aylesbury. Although the town was incorporated in 1554, there is no evidence that the corporation challenged Pakington control over elections in this period. The original returns testify to the completeness of that control. In 1572, when the borough was under the lordship of Dame Dorothy Pakington, widow of Sir Thomas Pakington, the return reads: ... know ye, me, the said Dame Dorothy Pakington to have chosen ...

<p>In this period Buckingham was governed by 12 principal burgesses, a bailiff and a steward, in accordance with the charter of incorporation granted to the town in 1554. The corporation chose John Fortescue I of Salden as steward by 1584. The electorate consisted of the bailiff and the capital burgesses. The Carey family, former lords of the manor of Buckingham, maintained a residual interest in the borough, and exercised the dominant patronage there, securing one seat in each Parliament except that of 1559 for their family or followers.

<p>The borough of Wallingford was governed by a mayor, three aldermen and 12 assistants. Parliamentary returns were made by ‘the mayor, burgesses and commonalty’.

<p>Only three Buckinghamshire gentlemen obtained a county seat on more than one occasion during Elizabeth’s reign. The first of these was Sir Henry Lee, who at Elizabeth’s accession was a young man of about 25, of good pedigree and with powerful friends. He had sat for the county in Mary’s last Parliament as junior knight of the shire; in the Parliaments of 1559, 1571 and 1572, he assumed the senior seat, and did not stand for election again.

<p>A charter of 1556 made Abingdon ‘a body corporate and politic by the name of the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses’, and granted it the right to return one Member to Parliament. The town was to be governed by a mayor, two bailiffs, 12 principal burgesses and 16 secondary burgesses, and was to have a court leet.

<p>Returns at New Windsor were made by ‘the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses of the Queen’s Majesty’s borough of New Windsor’, and the MPs were often royal servants. Electoral patronage was controlled by the constable of the castle, appointed by the Queen, and by the high steward, appointed by the borough. The two posts were sometimes held by the same man.</p><p>The first two Members in this period were Thomas Weldon, high steward to 1563, master of the Household, and Roger Amyce, an alderman.

<p>With the accession of Elizabeth the influence of the Catholic <a href="/landingpage/" title="Sir Francis Englefield" class="crossvolume">Sir Francis Englefield</a> lapsed, and the borough returned two townsmen to the first Parliament of the reign.

<p>The charter of 1559 confirmed that the government of Bedford was in the hands of a mayor, recorder, two bailiffs, two chamberlains and a steward. Choice of MPs was made by the ‘one consent’ of all the burgesses at a meeting in the council chamber. It is probable that some dissension arose at the election of 1588, for on 18 Dec. of that year it was suggested that canvassing prior to the meeting should be forbidden.</p><p>Thomas Leigh, a former MP and mayor who took the senior seat in 1559, was the only Elizabethan Member who can properly be described as a townsman.

<p>In Mary’s last Parliament the senior county Member was Sir Francis Englefield, a Catholic, one of the Queen’s Privy Councillors and master of her court of wards, who withdrew to the Continent as a religious exile in 1559. He had entered Parliament as Member for Berkshire in Mary’s first Parliament and sat for the county in four of the five Parliaments of the reign. Before that, in Edward VI’s last Parliament, the two county Members had been Sir Henry Neville I and Sir William Fitzwilliam I, in that order of precedence.