Commons 1509-1558

Leland admired the appearance of Southampton, with its ‘fair and right strong wall’ and ‘fair square quay’; he also remarked on the number of large houses, mainly belonging to merchants. Yet the town was already encountering serious difficulties. Although Hampshire was one of the pioneers in producing the ‘new draperies’ to offset the falling demand for broadcloths, the wool and cloth trades were finding other ports, such as Poole in Dorset, more convenient than the Hampshire coastal towns.

Portsmouth, a dockyard town and naval station, was a ‘member’ of the older port of Southampton, which in 1447 was erected into the county of Southampton and Portsmouth, but Portsmouth made its returns to Parliament through the sheriff of Hampshire. The town was the object of much official concern during the reign of Henry VIII, when large sums were spent on the dockyard, and it was included in the Act of 1540 for urban renewal (32 Hen. VIII, c.18).

Lying on the high road between London and Portsmouth, Petersfield was a prosperous market town whose clothiers and merchants specialized in serges and other ‘new draperies’: in 1534 it was not listed in a report on decayed towns which included Portsmouth, Southampton and Winchester. At the beginning of the 16th century the 3rd Duke of Buckingham was lord of the borough and manor of Petersfield.

Until the middle years of Henry VIII’s reign Hampshire was a relatively wealthy county. The trade of the two chief ports was flourishing and in 1513 the entire royal navy of 25 ships was based at Portsmouth. The Portsmouth dockyard, however, declined in importance with the growth of other yards less vulnerable to attack, while Southampton decayed with the diminution of the wool trade and also lost much of its subsidiary source of income, the victualling of the royal ships. A major cause of the decline was the difficulty of fortifying such a long and indented coastline.

Possessing charters from the reign of John, the royal borough of Gloucester was created a county of itself in 1483 and became a city in 1541 with the establishment of the bishopric, the former monastic church of St. Peter becoming the cathedral. The charter of 1483 incorporating Gloucester as the mayor and burgesses was confirmed six years later when the fee-farm was fixed at £60, and again in 1510 and 1553. The mayor was assisted by a town clerk, two sheriffs, 12 aldermen, a common council and, among minor officials, a chamberlain, constable, coroner and steward.

The town of Cirencester was a prosperous centre for wool and cloth, yet until the Dissolution it remained a manorial borough belonging to the local abbey. Founded by Henry I, the abbey had taken advantage of the financial needs of the Angevin kings to establish its powers over ‘the whole manor of Cirencester with the seven hundreds pertaining to the manor and its farm’. During the later middle ages the townsmen tried repeatedly to establish their right to a separate municipal authority. In 1403 Henry IV granted them a guild merchant, but in the next reign the abbot had this grant annulled.

A port and borough of ancient standing, Bristol had a population of about 11,000 in 1545. Its fee-farm of £100 formed parcel of the jointure of each of Henry VIII’s queens, and Bristol believed that it enjoyed a privileged connexion with each successive consort, applying to each with gifts and money for her favour and protection: on the King’s visit to Thornbury castle, Gloucestershire, in 1535, while he received only provisions, Anne Boleyn was given a gilt cup containing 100 ounces of gold.J. C. Russell, Brit. Med.

A wealthy county with a flourishing cloth industry, one of the largest ports in the kingdom and plentiful timber, iron, clay and building stone, Gloucestershire had gentlemen, merchants and entrepreneurs prosperous enough to show considerable independence of the central government or to influence its decisions. The Dissolution elicited almost no opposition in the county, many of the inhabitants profiting from the dispersal of monastic lands.

A small and declining port, Maldon was included in Acts for urban renewal in 1540, 1542 and 1544 (32 Hen. VIII, c.19; 33 Hen. VIII, c.36; and 35 Hen. VIII, c.4).

Colchester was incorporated in 1462. Government was vested in a common council consisting of two bailiffs, eight aldermen and 32 burgesses. On receipt of the sheriff’s precept for an election the bailiffs and aldermen—in 1523 the bailiffs alone—summoned the common council to the moothall. The seven election indentures for the Parliaments between 1545 and 1555 survive; all are in English and most of them in good condition.