Commons 1509-1558

The Berkshire elections were held at Abingdon under the direction of the sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire. The two shires had the same sheriff until 1567 and many gentlemen had interests in both, as well as in Buckinghamshire. In Berkshire itself there was no resident temporal peer and before the reign of Elizabeth no family powerful enough to dominate the shire. Until the Dissolution the major landholders, next to the crown, were the great Benedictine abbeys of Reading and Abingdon.

The burgesses of Bedford held the town of the crown at a fee-farm said to be £46 in 1447, when it was reduced by £22 for 60 years. In 1504 the remission (then stated to be £26) was made permanent, the burgesses arguing that if they had to pay in full ‘they would necessarily be obliged to retire from thence and leave the town totally destitute’. Bedford was included in the Act of 1540 for re-edifying of towns (32 Hen. VIII, c. 18). A borough by prescription, it had charters dating back at least to the 12th century and these were confirmed in 1509, 1515, 1547 and 1557.

Near enough to London for government servants to have their chief residences there, Bedfordshire was controlled by three or four inter-related families; some of them, like the Mordaunts, were long-established in the county and others, like the Gascoignes and the St. Johns, more recent arrivals. Eight of the ten known knights could be included in one family tree. All ten held land in Bedfordshire, nine served on the commission of the peace there and seven were sheriffs of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire.