Clitheroe, a borough by prescription, had an extremely rudimentary municipal organization; its two bailiffs acted as returning officers. During the Civil War the leading townsfolk showed parliamentarian sympathies, and until 1644 Clitheroe Castle was held against the Royalists. These sympathies were reflected in the general election of 1660, when the out-bailiff, ‘a fierce man against the King’s coming in’, returned two former Members of the Long Parliament.

For most of the period Lancashire politics were dominated by the rivalry between the Stanleys and the Gerards. Both families had suffered for their ardent royalism; the 7th Earl of Derby was executed in 1652, while Lord Gerard of Brandon (later the 1st Earl of Macclesfield) was in exile throughout the Interregnum. Political differences between them were slight, but until Hon.

The proximity of the Chatham shipyard gave the Government a strong interest in Rochester, and in normal times the cathedral chapter had considerable influence, in 1686 estimated at 50 votes. In 1660 Peter Pett, navy commissioner at Chatham, who had represented the city in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, and John Marsham, a neighbouring country gentleman, were returned. Marsham had been a Cavalier and Pett was trying to live down his record of support for Commonwealth and Protectorate.

Queenborough was a small, decaying fishing village which subsisted on its oyster beds. It was governed by a mayor, four jurats, and two bailiffs. The Herberts, who had estates on the Isle of Sheppey, had a considerable interest, as did the Hales family. The proximity of the Sheerness garrison provided government influence.

Of the 11 Members returned for Maidstone, the county town, only Sir Edmund Peirce was not resident in or near the borough, and he had a Maidstone connexion through his wife, the daughter of a former recorder. No one interest prevailed; among the neighbouring gentry the Barnhams, Tuftons, and Fanes had considerable influence, as did the relatively parvenu family of Banks.

No one interest was dominant at Canterbury, though the dissenters, nourished by the foreign churches in the city, increased in importance during the period. Of the 11 Members returned, only Heneage Finch, who belonged to a leading Kentish family, and Lewis Watson, who had married a local heiress, did not reside in or near the constituency. At the general election of 1660 Finch, whose royalist sympathies were unconcealed, was returned with Sir Anthony Aucher, who had been in arms for the King in both wars, ‘with a very universal consent of that city’.

There was no one dominant family in Kent; during this period the gentry observed the conven tion of returning one Member from the eastern part of the county and the other from the western part. In 1660 at a meeting of the gentry, under the leadership of the Earl of Winchilsea at the Star in Maidstone, ‘all the Royalists and moderate men in the county’ agreed upon Sir Edward Dering and Sir John Tufton, although the former was scarcely qualified under the ordinance.

Very little is known of Huntingdon elections at this time, but Griffith was probably right in calling attention to the significant variations in the wording of the indentures, although his pioneer study (published in 1827) has found few successors. Although the 1660 return has not survived, it is known from Samuel Pepys that this was a straight fight between the Montagu and Bernard interests.

Huntingdonshire, a small county, was always in danger of being swamped by the powerful and widespread Montagu family. Two branches were seated in the county, at Kimbolton and Hinchingbrooke, and with a remarkable family solidarity that transcended political differences, they were also prepared to find seats for their Northamptonshire cousins. At the general elections of 1660 and 1661 the Earl of Manchester’s heir and Henry Cromwell of Ramsey were returned, probably unopposed.

Under the charter of 1554 the corporation of St. Albans consisted of the mayor, who acted as returning officer, and ten ‘principal burgesses’. All returns before the Revolution were made in the name of the ‘burgesses’, though it was claimed that the inhabitants at large customarily exercised the franchise, as at Hertford. The Gorhambury estate, bought by Sir Harbottle Grimston in 1652, provided the strongest traditional interest, but its owner preferred to sit for Colchester.