Commons 1558-1603

The government of Worcester was vested in two bailiffs, a recorder, a town clerk, a council of 24 and a council of 48. The method of election, according to the chamber order book, was that the city council would meet (probably to make the actual choice of MP), then the bellman would summon ‘the rest of the commons ... as many as would come’ to ‘give their voices thereunto’. Then the ‘bailiffs and the whole council together went up to the council chamber and ... proceeded to their election’.

The 1554 charter of incorporation granted Droitwich the right to send two representatives to Parliament, who should be elected by the two bailiffs and burgesses. According to Thomas Habington, who lived four miles from the town, the possession of a phate—216 large vessels of salt water—or a portion of one, in fee simple, carried the privileges of burgess-ship, which descended in the same way as land by common law. Francis Newport I (1559), Robert Wythe (1559, 1563) and George Wild (1584, 1593), were all townsmen and all owned phates.

With the single exception of Sir Thomas Leighton in 1601, the Members for Worcestershire during this period were drawn from the leading county families. The Russell family of Strensham provided three Members: Sir Thomas Russell (1559, 1571), his son John Russell II (1584, 1586, 1589) and his grandson Thomas Russell (1601). Both Ralph Sheldon of Beoley (1563) and William Lygon of Madresfield (1589) were related to the Russells by marriage. Thomas Blount of Kidderminster (1559, 1563) came from an old-established county family.

The manor of Wootton Bassett was in Crown hands during this period, following the departure overseas of Sir Francis Englefield, a Catholic. The keepership of that part of the manor known as Little Vastern Park was granted to Henry Knyvet on 8 July 1563 following his marriage into the Stumpe family.CPR, 1554-5, p 52; 1560-3, p. 491; E178/2395; VCH Wilts. ix. 186 seq.

Wilton, a corporate town since the reign of Henry I, was dominated by successive earls of Pembroke, whose seat adjoined the borough. All the identified Elizabethan MPs were nominees of the 1st, 2nd or 3rd Earl. Return at parliamentary elections was made by the mayor and burgesses.Hoare, Wilts. Salisbury, 55-228.

Although not a corporate borough, Westbury had a mayor who was the returning officer at parliamentary elections. The 6th Lord Mountjoy had estates near Westbury, and promoted the returns of Anthony Carleton, his relative by marriage (1559), and his elder brother, Francis (1571). It is not known how either Ralph Skinner, a Durham ecclesiastical official, or John Dyster, a clerk in Chancery, came to be returned. Hugh Ryley (1563), steward of Bishop Jewel of Salisbury, may have owed his seat to his mother’s family connexions with the borough.

The corporation of Salisbury during this period consisted of the mayor, the twenty-four (later known as aldermen) and the forty-eight. Until the grant of James I’s charter, the city had no recorder, but it employed a counsel. Up to his death in 1587 Salisbury’s legal adviser was Giles Estcourt, one of the twenty-four. He was succeeded by John Penruddock at a fee of 53s. 4d., and he in turn in March 1601 by Giles Tooker, who later became the first recorder.

Old Sarum was already deserted by the end of Henry VIII’s reign. The manor, or, strictly, the adjoining manor of Milford, was owned by the bishop of Salisbury, and leased to the earls of Pembroke. With the possible exception of John Frenche (1572), an Inner Temple lawyer, and Henry Baynton (1589), a Wiltshire country gentleman, all Old Sarum Members had Pembroke connexions. Frenche died in 1579, before the last session of his Parliament, but no record of a by-election to replace him has been found.Hoare, Wilts. Salisbury, passim; E134/14 Wilts., 39/40 Eliz.

Most of the identified MPs for Marlborough were connected with Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, constable of the castle, master forester of Savernake forest and in James’s reign, high steward of the town. Among them was Hertford’s servant Lawrence Hyde (1601), uncle of the Earl of Clarendon. There are problems of identification over John Young II (1559) and Edmund Hungerford (1586). All that is known for certain about Hungerford is that he is described as of Marlborough on the return.

Malmesbury was a centre of the wool industry, and after the dissolution of the monasteries the abbey and a good deal of property in the town came into the hands of William Stumpe, a clothier, whose son John continued the family business there. His niece married into the gentry in the person of Henry Knyvet who now settled at Charleton, nearby, and Stumpe and Knyvet together represented Malmesbury in 1584.