Commons 1509-1558

Bridgwater had been a flourishing seaport and clothing town, but when Leland visited it at about the time of its inclusion in the Act for the re-edifying of towns westward (32 Hen. VIII, c.19) the inhabitants claimed that within living memory over 200 houses had fallen into decay. A later Act for the viewing and selling of cloths called Bridgwaters (2 and 3 Phil. and Mary, c.12) was intended to protect cloth manufacture in Bridgwater, Taunton and Chard from the competition of country clothiers.

As lords of the manor of Wells the bishops of Bath and Wells exercised considerable authority within that city, but by the 16th century all that they retained in Bath (where their palace was let out) was the fee-farm, amounting in 1535 to £8 10 s.2 d., and even this was surrendered to the crown by Bishop Barlow in 1548.

The Somerset elections were held at Ilchester by the sheriff of Somerset and Dorset. In April 1554 a bill to make Glastonbury the shire town was introduced in the Commons but proceeded no further than its second reading, when it was committed to Sir John Sydenham. Election indentures survive only for the Parliaments of 1545, March and October 1553 and 1558, together with the sheriff’s schedule for 1545.

A minor inland port on the Severn, Shrewsbury was the county town, regularly visited by the council in the marches of Wales, but was none the less declining in prosperity with the loss of its strategic importance. Still a centre for fulling and other finishing processes of the cloth trade, its two chief companies being the drapers and the mercers, it was included in the Acts for urban renewal of 1536 and 1544 (27 Hen. VIII, c.1 and 35 Hen.

Wenlock, a market town ‘environed with hills’, was the trading centre of a predominantly agricultural district, with a weekly market and a three-day fair in June. The town had grown up under the lordship of a Cluniac priory, and at least until the mid 14th century it paid a fee-farm to the crown on the ground that the priory was ‘still in the King’s hand’. In 1468, at the instance of John Wenlock, Lord Wenlock, ‘the parish of the Holy Trinity of Wenlock’ was incorporated as the bailiff, burgesses and community.

Ludlow was the headquarters of the council in the marches of Wales and both Prince Arthur and Princess Mary held court there. Apart from some clothmaking, the town depended for its livelihood on the presence of the council, and the most prominent craft guild seems to have been that of the ‘hammermen’, an amalgamation of smiths, armourers, masons, ironmongers, saddlemakers and others. The London merchant Rowland Hill gave the money for a new bridge over the Teme, and the annual St.

Bridgnorth had long been the leading borough in Shropshire after Shrewsbury, but by 1536 so many houses in the town centre were becoming ‘ruinous’ that it was included in the Act for urban renewal (27 Hen. VIII, c.1) and by 1540 the town walls were ‘all in ruin’. An important factor in its prosperity had been trade by the river Severn, navigable from Bristol to Pool Quay in Montgomeryshire, and by the main road linking Bristol, Chester and Shrewsbury.

Shropshire was a largely agricultural county, with increasing emphasis on cattle-rearing. This was promoted by a considerable enclosure movement, which was less extensive than contemporaries claimed and provoked little violent resistance. There were deposits of coal, iron and lead, ‘easily ported by boat into other shires’, and a trade in undressed cloth from Wales and the Oswestry district. Apart from serious epidemics in 1550-1 and 1557-8, both following bad harvests, the county suffered few setbacks to its growing prosperity.J. Thirsk, Agrarian Hist. Eng.

The election of knights of the shire for Rutland took place at meetings of the county court held at Oakham. Indentures survive for the Parliaments between 1542 and 1558, all written in English except the first, which is in Latin. The contracting parties are the sheriff and ‘the inhabitants and freeholders’, between 20 and 40 being named, most of them yeomen. In 1529 Sir Everard Digby returned himself.C219/18B/65v, 66, 18C/91, 19/78, 20/97, 21/123, 22/56v, 57, 23/103v, 104, 24/129, 25/84v.

Oxford, which received its first charter in 1156, was constituted a city in November 1546. At this time municipal authority was exercised by a mayor and two bailiffs, with two chamberlains who were chosen from among 24 common councilmen, and by a number of lesser officials: four aldermen formed an inner council with the mayor and were joined by eight assistants to the mayor in 1554. The customs of Oxford resembled those of the city of London, and its mayor, who was elected annually on the Monday before St.