Bletchingley formed part of the possessions of Sir Thomas Cawarden, who died in 1559. It was sold by his executors in 1560 to William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham, in whose family it remained for the rest of this period.CPR, 1558-60, p. 364.
For most of this period the representation of Surrey was shared between two county families, both powerful at court, the Howards of Effingham and the Mores of Loseley. At the time of the elections for the 1559 Parliament the head of the More family, William More I, was sheriff. Unable to return himself, he supported the candidature of the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Thomas Cawarden of Bletchingley, standing with Thomas Browne of Betchworth, who had recently succeeded to his estates and made a fortunate marriage into the Fitzwilliam family.
Sudbury was first enfranchised at the beginning of this period, probably through the efforts of the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Sir Ambrose Cave. Both 1559 men were returned through Cave’s influence, the return being made probably direct from the duchy office without the sheriff being a party to it, by the ‘bailiffs’ of the borough, the duchy officials for the manor of Sudbury.
Only one genuine townsman was returned for Orford during this period, John Cutting (1584); and only one local country gentleman independent of a patron, William Forthe (1597). In the earlier part of this period the most important influence was that of the Wingfields of Wantisden, and their relatives the Sones.
Ipswich was incorporated in the fifteenth century. In the Elizabethan period the elections appear to have been made in the ‘assembly’, consisting presumably of the bailiffs, ‘portmen’ or aldermen, and common councilmen.
The borough was included in the royal honour of Eye, where in Elizabeth’s reign the Crown still appointed the keeper, or constable, of the castle. The government of the borough was confirmed by a charter of 1559, but partly owing to overlapping jurisdictions, disputes broke out, and following a Star Chamber case, ordinances for ‘better government’ were drawn up in 1565. Confirmed by a new charter ten years later, these described the governing body as 12 principal burgesses, including the two bailiffs, and 24 common councilmen.
The right of election at Dunwich was in the ‘bailiffs, burgesses and commonalty’. By the beginning of this period the port was declining through the ‘force and violence of the rages of the sea, nigh whereunto it standeth’ and the governing body (two bailiffs, 10 aldermen and 24 common councilmen) was anxious to return MPs who would serve without wages. Hence the Chancery suit between the borough and the local gentleman Sir Edmund Rous, who having said that he would serve as MP ‘freely without receiving any wages’, afterwards ‘nothing regarding his said promise’ claimed £19.
Aldeburgh was incorporated in 1547 and was governed by two bailiffs assisted by ‘the twelve’ and ‘the twenty-four’. The Duke of Norfolk was lord of the borough, and presumably it was he who secured its enfranchisement in 1571. Its right to return Members was challenged in the House and referred to the returns committee, 6 Apr. 1571.Weinbaum, Charters, 108; HMC Var. iv. 280-1; CPR, 1548-9, p. 102; CJ, i.
All the MPs in this period were Suffolk country gentlemen. The only man whose election as knight of the shire may partly have depended upon an official position outside the county was Thomas Seckford I, the master of requests. (Sir) Owen Hopton’s story is a little unusual, in that he was appointed lieutenant of the Tower between his first election for his native Suffolk in 1559 and his second in 1571, and it was no doubt because of his central office that he went on to sit for Middlesex, thus becoming one of the comparatively few men to sit for two counties.
Tamworth, partly in Warwickshire and partly in Staffordshire, had never returned Members to Parliament when it received a charter of incorporation in 1560. The charter itself made no mention of parliamentary burgesses. Nevertheless two men were sent up by the borough to the 1563 Parliament, probably at the suggestion of Simon Harcourt, who, a few months after the election, married the widow of William Robinson, owner of the manor of Drayton Bassett which bordered on Tamworth.CPR, 1560-3, pp.
