<p>Wenlock, a market town ‘environed with hills’, was the trading centre of a predominantly agricultural district, with a weekly market and a three-day fair in June. The town had grown up under the lordship of a Cluniac priory, and at least until the mid 14th century it paid a fee-farm to the crown on the ground that the priory was ‘still in the King’s hand’.

<p>Ludlow was the headquarters of the council in the marches of Wales and both Prince Arthur and Princess Mary held court there. Apart from some clothmaking, the town depended for its livelihood on the presence of the council, and the most prominent craft guild seems to have been that of the ‘hammermen’, an amalgamation of smiths, armourers, masons, ironmongers, saddlemakers and others.

<p>Bridgnorth had long been the leading borough in Shropshire after Shrewsbury, but by 1536 so many houses in the town centre were becoming ‘ruinous’ that it was included in the Act for urban renewal (27 Hen. VIII, c.1) and by 1540 the town walls were ‘all in ruin’. An important factor in its prosperity had been trade by the river Severn, navigable from Bristol to Pool Quay in Montgomeryshire, and by the main road linking Bristol, Chester and Shrewsbury.

<p>Shropshire was a largely agricultural county, with increasing emphasis on cattle-rearing. This was promoted by a considerable enclosure movement, which was less extensive than contemporaries claimed and provoked little violent resistance. There were deposits of coal, iron and lead, ‘easily ported by boat into other shires’, and a trade in undressed cloth from Wales and the Oswestry district. Apart from serious epidemics in 1550-1 and 1557-8, both following bad harvests, the county suffered few setbacks to its growing prosperity.<fn>J. Thirsk, <em>Agrarian Hist. Eng.

<p>The election of knights of the shire for Rutland took place at meetings of the county court held at Oakham. Indentures survive for the Parliaments between 1542 and 1558, all written in English except the first, which is in Latin. The contracting parties are the sheriff and ‘the inhabitants and freeholders’, between 20 and 40 being named, most of them yeomen.

<p>Oxford, which received its first charter in 1156, was constituted a city in November 1546. At this time municipal authority was exercised by a mayor and two bailiffs, with two chamberlains who were chosen from among 24 common councilmen, and by a number of lesser officials: four aldermen formed an inner council with the mayor and were joined by eight assistants to the mayor in 1554. The customs of Oxford resembled those of the city of London, and its mayor, who was elected annually on the Monday before St.

<p>New Woodstock was incorporated in 1453, when it was granted similar liberties to those of New Windsor but was expressly exempted from the obligation ‘to choose any burgesses from the borough to come to the King’s Parliaments’, although it had done so at least twice in the early 14th century: according to a local historian the charter, with the same concession, was confirmed in 1552. A mayor and a serjeant-at-mace were the only officials mentioned in 1453 but by 1519 there were also four aldermen and 13 councilmen.

<p>Banbury owed its importance to a bridge across the river Cherwell, which divided Oxfordshire from Northamptonshire, and to a castle built there by the bishops of Lincoln. The population has been estimated at about 1,000 at the beginning of Edward VI’s reign, when a chantry certificate recorded that 460 inhabitants were of age to receive the eucharist: in 1549 12 townsmen were assessed for subsidy.<fn>Leland, <em>Itin.</em> ed. Smith, ii. 38; A.

<p>A number of courtiers and government officials sat for Oxfordshire in the early 16th century but the most prominent of them, Sir John Williams, was ennobled after he had sat four times and the county was thus saved from the difficulties facing shires where one man, generally a Privy Councillor, established a virtual lien on the senior seat.

<p>Described by Leland as a ‘great market town’, Nottingham was a centre for the wool and cloth trade and celebrated for its alabaster carving. It lay not far from the Fosse Way and commanded the river Trent which provided a waterway to the Humber and the port of Kingston-upon-Hull. The castle, owned by the crown, was the meeting-place of the county court and the assizes, and housed the shire gaol: it was outside the jurisdiction of the town, which since 1449 had been a county of itself.