Thomas Moore had sold the manor of Heytesbury before the Civil War, but as late as 1656 the purchase price had not been paid in full, and he probably still enjoyed a proprietary interest in the borough in 1660. The other Member, John Jolliffe, stood on the interest of the purchasers, the Ashe family.

‘That lousy corporation of Bedwyn’ (as Daniel Finch described it in an uninhibited moment) lay at the gates of Tottenham Park, the residence of the Seymours and their successors, the Bruces, lords of the principal manor. The Stonehouse family, lords of Stock manor, were actually resident in the town. Nevertheless the electorate in this period was highly volatile, and Francis Stonehouse, in August 1679, was the only sitting Member to retain his seat at a general election.

The manor of Downton belonged to the bishop of Winchester, whose bailiff claimed the right to act as returning officer. This interest was of course in abeyance at the general election of 1660, which was contested by three local gentlemen and an outsider, Thomas Fitzjames. Giles Eyre’s father and John Elliott were both burgage-holders, and Fitzjames, like his brother John in Poole, probably commanded the interest of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper.

Devizes was regarded as the centre of Wiltshire nonconformity in the second half of the 17th century, with the additional peculiarity that the Baptists were the strongest of the sects. Except in the second election of 1679, the corporation were successful in excluding the freemen, numbering about 40, from the franchise. There were three candidates in 1660, but William Lewis, though a stranger, was unopposed, and there was nothing in his career to offend either Royalists or Commonwealthmen.

The irregularities for which Cricklade became notorious made their appearance only towards the end of the period. All the Members owed their return to solid territorial interests, and there is no evidence of a contest until 1685. The two Members returned in 1660 were both local landowners. Hungerford Dunch’sfather, who had married the heiress of Down Ampney, had been summoned to Cromwell’s ‘Other House’, while Nevil Maskelyne had avoided commitment, though probably royalist in sympathy.

Chippenham was incorporated in 1554, the government being vested in a bailiff and 12 ‘burgesses.’ By 1660 the franchise seems to have been exercised by inhabitant freemen holding leases of tenements in the borough lands. Until 1684, the chief interest was held by Edward Hungerford, though the Bayntuns, Spekes, Talbots, and Pophams, all of whom had property nearby, also had strong interests. In 1660 Chippenham returned Hungerford, who had sat in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, and Edward Poole, a repentant Parliamentarian.

Until 1685 Calne was a borough by prescription whose claims to incorporation could not be supported by the evidence of charters. The ‘corporation’ presented new ‘burgesses’ to the steward of the crown manor of Ogbourne St. George, and elected two guild stewards every year, who acted as returning officers. The number of electors was usually under 30, and in 1673 sank as low as 11.

Lord Ailesbury, who sat for the county in 1685 before succeeding to the peerage, commended the excellent practice in Wiltshire whereby the gentry selected two candidates at a preliminary meeting, and ‘they only meet at the place of election for form’s sake’. A rejected candidate would naturally prefer to contest one of the numerous borough seats rather than defy the wishes of his own class and put himself to the expense of a contested county election. No doubt the meeting aimed at preserving a rough geographical balance.

The small town, or rather village, of Appleby was in every sense dominated by its castle, owned, together with some 40 burgages, by the dowager countess of Pembroke until her death in 1676. Contested elections were unthinkable in her time, and Lady Pembroke was described by (Sir) Daniel Fleming as being ‘as absolute in that borough as any one in any other’. In 1660 the townsmen elected two Yorkshiremen, Sir Henry Cholmley and Christopher Clapham, who had assisted her in disputes with her tenants.

With the exception of Christopher Philipson, whose pretensions were much resented and repulsed on two occasions out of three, all the Westmorland Members in this period came from magnate families with a long parliamentary tradition. The Civil War record of the 4th Lord Wharton precluded his family from occupying a seat except in the two Conventions, and Roger North found the country interest represented by the more moderate Lowthers, who opposed the courtly Musgraves on every possible occasion.