Commons 1660-1690

Under the charter of 1627 the corporation of Portsmouth consisted of the mayor and 12 aldermen. This body controlled the freeman roll, and hence the composition of the electorate; but their attitude can hardly be described as restrictive. It is true that in 1661 Mayor Lardner drew the line at granting the freedom to the junior member of the navy board; but Samuel Pepys was successful on his second application only a year later, and found the charge very moderate. ‘It cost me a piece of gold to the town clerk, and 10s.

Petersfield flourished on the trade of the Portsmouth road. Its municipality consisted of a mayor, bailiff, and two aldermen, elected annually in the court leet. The mayor was the returning officer, and the burgage-holders held under the lord of the manor, Thomas Hanbury of Buriton, who, however, does not appear to have intervened in parliamentary elections. The strongest natural interest was held by Sir John Norton of Rotherfield Park, but as a Cavalier he was debarred by the Long Parliament ordinance from standing at the general election of 1660.

Newtown alias Frankville consisted, by one account, of only three or four thatched cottages; but it was a borough by prescription. The corporation consisted of a mayor, whose name was drawn out of a that every year, and 12 ‘chief burgesses’ or aldermen, who had to be chosen from the burgage-holders. There was also a body of ‘free burgesses’ whose qualifications are uncertain.

The corporation of Newport alias Medina, consisting under the charter of 1608 of a mayor and 24 ‘capital burgesses’, many of them substantial men, succeeded in retaining one seat, and sometimes two, for the Isle of Wight gentry. The Dillingtons, a parliamentarian family, represented the borough in every Parliament except that of James II.

The Lymington salterns had produced bay-salt since the 12th century, and the borough remained sufficiently prosperous to lay out £220 on a new town hall in 1684. The proximity of the New Forest attracted younger sons of such recognized county families as the Bulkeleys, the Buttons and the Whitheds to settle in the town. The rudimentary corporation consisted of mayor, recorder (though there were no borough courts), and an unspecified number of ‘burgesses’ or freemen.

The corporation of Christchurchalias Twineham consisted of the mayor, who acted as returning officer, and the freemen. Normally the lord of the manor could be sure of returning at least one candidate, but since 1639 the ownership had been in dispute between the six daughters of the 1st Lord Arundell of Wardour. As they were all Roman Catholics, they could not exercise their rights at the 1660 election, when two local men were returned, John Hildesley, a Presbyterian and former mayor, and his step-son, Henry Tulse of Hinton Admiral.

The corporation of Andover, which had monopolized the franchise since it had been restored in 1586, consisted of the bailiff, who acted as returning officer, the ‘steward’ or recorder, ten ‘approved men’ and 12 ‘burgesses’. Rulers of a market town of only moderate importance, they greatly coveted the revenues of Weyhill fair, the largest and most celebrated in the south of England, to which their Elizabethan charter gave them some claim. There was no dominant interest in the borough, but all the Members in this period except Robert Phelips were Hampshire landowners or local residents.

In 1660 Andrew Henley stood down in an electoral bargain, and two leading Presbyterians, John Bulkeley and Richard Norton, were returned, probably unopposed. In 1661 they were replaced by members of two of the prominent royalist families in the county, Sir John Norton and Lord St. John, the Marquess of Winchester’s heir. By the time St.

Elections at Tewkesbury seem to have been successfully managed by the corporation, which consisted of two bailiffs, 24 ‘principal burgesses’, and 24 assistants. The surviving returns are in the name of the ‘burgesses’, presumably the corporation, and freemen, but never carry more than 35 signatures. The representation of the borough was monopolized by the Dowdeswell family, Sir Francis Russell, and Sir Henry Capel. Russell and the Dowdeswells lived in the neighbourhood, while Capel held the Barton manor.

Gloucester’s resistance to Charles I under the governorship of Edward Massey may well have turned the tide of the Civil War, and made the city an object of particular suspicion after the Restoration, when its walls were razed. Elections were largely under the control of the corporation, and usually at least one alderman was returned. No opposition was apparently offered in 1660 to Alderman James Stephens, a zealous Parliamentarian who had represented the city in the two preceding Parliaments.