Commons 1604-1629

<p>Winchester, the county capital of Hampshire and seat of England&#8217;s richest bishopric, received a charter in 1290 and first sent Members to Parliament seven years later. The city&#8217;s clothing and leather industries, and annual fair, fell into a prolonged period of economic decline after the Black Death, and throughout the Tudor period the corporation repeatedly applied for remission of its fee farm, and for royal subsidies to repair the walls.<fn> <em>VCH Hants</em>, v.

<p>Stockbridge, a small town situated where the road from Winchester to Salisbury crosses the Test, had been part of the duchy of Lancaster since the fourteenth century.<fn> <em>VCH Hants</em>, iv. 484; R. Somerville, <em>Hist. Duchy of Lancaster</em>, i. 18, 37, 313n.</fn> Though enfranchised at the instigation of the chancellor of the duchy in 1563, it was never incorporated, and consequently its municipal institutions remained primitive.

<p>Guildford, the county town of Surrey, is situated on the River Wey 30 miles south of London. It received its first recorded charter in 1257, and was incorporated in 1488. The corporation consisted of the &#8216;approved men&#8217; who annually elected the mayor from among their number. A self-selecting oligarchy controlled entry to the ranks of the &#8216;approved men&#8217;, who usually numbered around 25, by insisting on previous service as a bailiff, an office chosen by the &#8216;approved men&#8217;.

<p>The medieval lordship of Glamorgan was formed after the Norman invasion of the Welsh kingdom of Morgannwg in the last years of the eleventh century. The lordship extended from the River Rhymni in the east to the upper reaches of the Tawe in the west, and was bounded to the north and south by the lordship of Brecon and the Bristol Channel respectively.<fn> <em>Glam. Co. Hist</em>. ed. T.B. Pugh, iii.

<p>Camden described Lewes as &#8216;for largeness and populousness one of the chief towns&#8217; of Sussex, and it has been estimated that its population at this period may have substantially exceeded 2,000. This considerable figure was due less to commerce than to its functions as a sessions&#8217; town and as the social centre for the three rapes of East Sussex: the appalling local roads almost required even minor gentry families to maintain houses in Lewes for winter use.

<p>Newton, a small market town near Wigan, appeared in the Domesday book as one of the townships in the &#8216;fee of Makerfield&#8217;, lying within Winwick parish in West Derby hundred, and was often named Newton-in-Makerfield or Newton le Willows.<fn>J.H. Lane, <em>Newton</em><em> in Makerfield</em>, i. 3-6.</fn> Although it received charters for a market and a fair in 1257 and 1301, it was never incorporated.<fn><em>CChR</em>, ii. 1, iii. 2; <em>VCH Lancs</em>. iv.

<p>Situated two miles from Reigate in east Surrey, Gatton was described by William Camden in the late sixteenth century as &#8216;scarce a small village&#8217;. Camden also stated that Gatton had previously been &#8216;a famous town&#8217;, but there is no evidence that the village was considered a borough until it started to return Members to the Commons in 1450. Never incorporated, it had no borough officials and consequently the returning officer was the high constable of Reigate hundred.<fn> <em>VCH Surr</em>. iii. 196-7; W.

<p>An ecclesiastical peculiar founded by St. Wilfrid in the seventh century, Ripon returned MPs to three Parliaments under Edward I. The Crown offered representation to Ripon and five other northern boroughs in negotiations with the Pilgrims of Grace in 1536, but Ripon was only re-enfranchised in 1553, by which time the Minster estates had passed to the duchy of Lancaster; control of the liberty returned to the archbishop of York in 1556. Borough government, under a prescriptive charter only codified in 1598, was consigned to a wakeman [mayor] and around 30 aldermen.

<p>Lying 15 miles south-east of Worcester, close to the borders with Gloucestershire and Warwickshire, Evesham grew up around Evesham Abbey. Though it sent representatives to Parliament in 1295 and 1337, it did not do so subsequently.<fn> <em>VCH Worcs</em>. ii. 371-7.</fn> Lewis Bayly, the vicar of All Saints, Evesham, since 1600, was appointed chaplain to Henry, prince of Wales soon after James&#8217;s accession,<fn> O.G. Knapp ‘Evesham Parsons’, <em>N and Q Concerning Evesham and Four Shires</em> ed. E.A.B. Barnard, ii. 79; T.

<p>Droitwich, six miles north-east of Worcester, had a population of about 760 in the 1560s, rising to over 1,000 a century later.<fn> P. Clark and J. Hosking, <em>Population Estimates of English Small Towns</em> (Cent. for Urban Hist. Working Ppr. v), 165</fn> It had been famous since Anglo-Saxon times for the production of salt, a trade which continued to dominate the town in the early seventeenth century, although only one brine-pit at Upwich and two in Netherwich remained in operation.<fn> Nash, i.