Haslemere was a small market town which owed some of its modest prosperity to the iron and woollen industry in its neighbourhood. It was enfranchised in 1584, and a charter of 1596 confirmed its market and fairs. In 1601 Sir George More* purchased the lordship of the manor from the Crown, together with the hundred and manor of Godalming, of which Haslemere had originally been a tithing. More’s bailiff, who seems to have been the only officer of the borough, acted as returning officer and consequently More dominated the electoral patronage of the borough in this period.

Originally a Scottish burgh, Berwick was a key border fortress during the medieval Anglo-Scottish wars, changing hands nine times in barely 300 years. Under permanent English control from 1482, it achieved parliamentary representation at Westminster by 1512, but was not formally incorporated into England until the nineteenth century. J. Scott, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 6, 9-10, 25, 43, 56, 78-9, 84, 94-5, 99; HP Commons, 1509-58, i. 162; S.J. and S.J.

Situated in south Nottinghamshire, a mile north of the river Trent, Nottingham was dominated by its castle perched on a rock. A. Henstock, ‘Changing Fabric of the Town, 1550-1750’, in Centenary Hist. of Nottingham ed. J. Beckett, 107. During the late Elizabethan period the borough grew rapidly, so that by the beginning of the seventeenth century it was a medium-sized town of about 3,500 people, but thereafter successive outbreaks of plague served to halt the population increase. S.

During the early Stuart period Cambridge University consisted of 16 colleges and halls which, between them, housed 2,270 staff, students and servants. The largest college by far, with a population of 340 scholars and servants, was Trinity, Harl. 4017, ff. 26v. which alone was spacious enough to accommodate the Court whenever the king came to visit. C.H. Cooper, Annals of Camb. iii. 71, 84, 156, 170; LC5/132, p.

Liverpool was a small but thriving port in the early seventeenth century, a main departure point for troops and trade to Ireland, whose overseas as well as coastal commerce was steadily increasing. According to Camden it was ‘very commodious for trade … but not as eminent for its being ancient as for being neat and populous’. W. Camden, Britannia (1610), p. 748; R. Muir and E.M. Platt, Hist. of Municipal Govt. in Liverpool, 87-9; M. Gregson, Fragments relating to the Hist.

Carlisle, situated on the river Eden about six miles from the north-west coast, had long served as a strategic point on the border with Scotland, as the administrative centre of the West March, and as a port of trade with Ireland. The city’s governing body, established by an ordinance of 1445 and confirmed on 1 May 1604, consisted of a mayor, 11 other ‘worshipful persons’ or aldermen, and 24 councillors.Royal Charters of Carlisle ed. R.S.

Sudbury is situated in the extreme south of Suffolk on the left bank of the River Stour, which forms the border with Essex. In this period the Stour valley was a major cloth-producing region, which brought considerable wealth to the town. Sudbury was an ancient borough, which first received a charter in the mid-thirteenth century, but despite having a mayor by 1331 it was not incorporated until 1554, when the town was rewarded for its support of Queen Mary at her accession. W.W. Hodson, Short Hist. of Bor. of Sudbury comp. C.F.D.

Founded as a Saxon burh, Totnes benefited from its strategic location at the western end of Foss Street, eight miles from the sea on a navigable stretch of the River Dart. The main outlet for tin coined at the nearby stannary town of Ashburton, Totnes also became a centre of cloth production, particularly of Devon ‘straits’. For much of the sixteenth century it was accounted the second wealthiest community in the county, its merchants trading with western France and the Iberian peninsula in particular. W.G. Hoskins, Devon, 504; T.

Situated in south-eastern Somerset, Milborne Port was recorded as a substantial borough in the Domesday book, and returned Members to the Commons five times under Edward I. It declined thereafter as nearby Sherborne, Dorset, grew. By the time Leland visited Milborne in the 1530s, its market was defunct, although it ‘retaineth privileges of a franchised borough’. A century later a local man observed that ‘there remains nothing but a straggling town’, the population of which was probably around 400-500 in the seventeenth century.S.G.

The borough of Saltash was created in the thirteenth century out of the great feudal honour of Trematon, and formed part of the ancient demesnes of the duchy of Cornwall. The town grew up on the western bank of the Tamar, below Trematon castle, and this favourable location on the edge of Plymouth Sound ensured its status as one of Cornwall’s principal ports. Parl. Survey of Duchy of Cornw. i. ed. N.J.G. Pounds (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. n.s. xxv), 126; R. Pearse, Ports and Harbours of Cornw. 13; I.D. Spreadbury, Castles in Cornw.