Commons 1660-1690

Arundel had been represented in the Model Parliament. Its customary privileges were confirmed by letters patent in 1586. The governing body consisted of the mayor and an indefinite number of ‘burgesses’, while returns ran in the name of mayor, burgesses and commonalty. During this period the borough slipped from aristocratic to gentry control. The Howard family, who took their second title from the town and normally resided in the castle, may have been responsible for the return of Lord Falkland at the general election of 1660, and more certainly for his replacement, John Trevor, in May.

By the 17th century the convention of returning one Member from West and one from East Sussex was well established, and for most of the period it was represented by a Member of one of the principal families in each division. The county court at which elections were held met alternately at Lewes and at Chichester, although this did not necessarily mean that elections were held alternately in each town. East Sussex had supported Parliament in the Civil War whereas the west was predominantly royalist.

Under a charter of 1551 the borough of Southwark was a mere dependency of London, although the Surrey justices exercised a concurrent jurisdiction. The corporation appointed the aldermen of Bridge Without, the steward, who kept the court of record, and the bailiff, who acted as returning officer. But public order was always at risk in so densely populated an area, and the militia was entrusted to the lord lieutenant of Middlesex. The parish of St.

At the Restoration the principal manor of Reigate was held in moieties by the regicide Viscount Monson and the scarcely less enthusiastic republican John Goodwin. The bailiff, who acted as returning officer, was chosen in their court leet. Other important property interests were in the hands of the royalist conspirator John Mordaunt, John Hele of Flanchford, and Roger James, who owned the Rectory manor. Most of the indentures bear the names and signatures of between 40 and 50 ‘burgesses’.

The Mores of Loseley were lords of the manor of Haslemere, and their bailiff acted as returning officer. Sir William More was under age at the first two elections of the period, and the family interest was managed by his uncle James Gresham, who lived outside the borough but within the tithing of Haslemere. In 1660 he stood as a Royalist with Roger Heath of Shalford, the recorder of Guildford, and obtained from the bailiff Yalden an indenture duly signed and sealed, and witnessed by seven other ‘burgesses’.

The ‘approved men’ or corporation of Guildford, from whom the mayor was elected, consisted of eight aldermen and up to 20 ‘bailiffs’, or common councilmen. The franchise was not determined until the end of the period, and the electors are variously described; but the dominant Onslow interest was never shaken. In 1660 Sir Richard Onslow and his son Arthur were declared elected by the mayor, aldermen, and other ‘burgesses’, 37 in number, the poll having been apparently postponed as an insurance policy against defeat in the county election.

Gatton, already a classic case of a ‘pocket borough’, was controlled by Thomas Turgis, the son of a London Grocer, who bought the manor in 1654 and sat for the constituency in 13 consecutive Parliaments. His cautiously country politics harmonized with those of the owners of Upper Gatton, which passed from the Oldfield family to the Thompsons during this period. The constable of the parish acted as returning officer, and the indentures were signed by some 15 or 20 ‘inhabitants’ and ‘burgesses’, many of them local gentlemen, others imported from London for the occasion.

From 1643 to 1677 the 2nd Earl of Peterborough was lord of the manor of Bletchingley, but he appears to have exerted little or no influence on the elections. All the Members represented local territorial interests, and three of them were past or present inhabitants of the parish. At the general election of 1660 the two representatives of the borough in the Long Parliament, Sir John Evelyn of Godstone and Edward Bysshe of Burstow, were opposed by John Goodwin, a resident, and Edmund Hoskins of Oxted, who had sat for Bletchingley in 1659.

One of the Surrey seats had been occupied by the Onslows since 1628, but Sir Richard Onslow lost the 1660 election

by building too much upon his interest there, and very imprudently insisting upon the choice of his eldest son with him. They both stood, and by that neither succeeded ... the party violence of the Royalists in his own county, with a mixture of envy, being then very strong against him.

Before the Civil War the franchise at Sudbury seems to have been confined to the corporation, which under the charter of 1554 consisted of the mayor, six aldermen, and 24 ‘burgesses’. But the freedom of the borough was easily obtained, either by birth, service or purchase at the standard charge of £5 in 1662; and the freemen claimed the vote at most elections of the period.