The Mainwarings of Whitmore, the Levesons of Trentham and the Bowyers of Knypersley exercised the principal interests at Newcastle. Two Parliamentarians, Samuel Terrick and John Bowyer, were returned to the Convention of 1660. It is possible that Edward Mainwaring, who had also supported Parliament in the early days of the war, was a candidate, since Mercurius Politicus gives him as Bowyer’s partner. In 1661 he was returned with Sir Caesar Colclough, an Anglo-Irish baronet who had influential cousins and a considerable number of tenants in the borough.

The corporation of Lichfield consisted of 21 ‘brethren’ of the common council, who elected two bailiffs and a sheriff annually. However, the bishop claimed the right, if in residence, to nominate the senior bailiff. The sheriff acted as returning officer. Canvassing the ten city companies formed an important part of the electioneering process, which was further aided by the number and excellence of the inns derived from Lichfield’s prominence on the stage-coach routes to Ireland and the northwest.

No dispute over the representation of Staffordshire in this period ended in a contested election; the desire for unanimity was great enough for the manoeuvrings that followed the announcement of the summoning of a new Parliament to end in the endorsement by the gentry of only two candidates,who would duly be elected at the county court. The choice of parliamentary candidates lay in the hands of the principal gentry, since there was no outstanding landholder in Staffordshire who could influence elections by reason of his territorial importance.

James II was told in 1687 that ‘the committee of elections have sometimes admitted Members chosen by the mayor, aldermen and burgesses only, and sometimes Members chosen by the whole town’. However, all the returns in this period are in the name of the mayor, the seven ‘masters’ or aldermen, and the 16 ‘burgesses’ of the common council. The corporation interest was very strong, and except in the Cavalier Parliament the recorder always filled one seat.

Taunton, as a result of its resolute defence in the Civil War, was notorious for its hostility to the Stuarts, a reputation that was confirmed by its cordial reception of the Duke of Monmouth in 1685. Dissent flourished, counterbalanced by the prestige and charity of the Anglican Sir William Portman, who lived just outside the town; though even his great wealth was not equal to the demands created (perhaps deliberately) by redundancies in the serge industry.J. Toulmin, Taunton, 278; CSP Dom. 1668-9, p. 114; 1680-1, p. 515; J. R. Jones, Revolution of 1688, p.

Minehead was dominated by the Luttrells of Dunster Castle, who were returned for the senior seat at every general election of the period, usually with a colleague of their own choice. All the candidates came from Somerset gentry families. Since the forfeiture of the charter in 1604 elections were held in the court feet of the manor, with the two constables acting as returning officers. The indentures are very numerously attested, those for 1661 and 1673 bearing over 120 signatures.Ibid. 38-40, 429-38; Som. RO, Luttrell mss 59/1, 4.

By Jacobean times Milborne Port could be described by a local antiquary as the mere ‘carcase’ of a once flourishing town. Nevertheless it was restored as a parliamentary borough in 1628, and provided surprisingly easy seats for the neighbouring gentry. It seems to have been a perfect oligarchy controlled by the owners of the nine capital burgages, in whose court leet the two bailiffs, who acted as returning officers, were elected.

Ilchester was a decayed borough set amid a rich dairy-farming area but remarkable in this period only for housing the county gaol. It was governed by a corporation consisting of 12 ‘capital burgesses’ (as they liked to style themselves) and a bailiff who acted as returning officer. The representation of the borough had been restored in 1621 on the initiative of Sir Robert Phelips, and the Montacute interest dominated most of the elections in this period.

Bridgwater, the chief port of Somerset, had suffered extensive damage in the Civil War as a royalist garrison under Edmund Wyndham. It became a Presbyterian stronghold, remarkable for the acrimony between churchmen and dissenters. Moreover ‘it hath always been disputed by the magistrates and the populace who should have the right of choosing burgesses’. All the Members were Somerset landowners.Collinson, Som. iii. 75-76; J. R. Jones, Revolution of 1688, p. 156; Duckett, Penal Laws (1883), 16.

Although as a rising spa and fashionable resort Bath had closer connexions with the great world than the ordinary West of England clothing town, all its Members in this period came from local gentry families. In 1660 the corporation, consisting of 20 common councilmen and eight aldermen, returned two Presbyterian Royalists, Alexander Popham and William Prynne, without opposition. On 18 Feb.