St. Ives is one of the few boroughs which obtained a wider franchise at the Restoration. Under the Protectorate the corporation, consisting of the portreeve or mayor and 12 ‘burgesses’, had returned Members, but in 1660 the rights of the ‘freemen’, later defined as the inhabitants paying scot and lot, were successfully asserted.
Of all the Cornish constituencies in this period St. Germans came closest to the archetypal pocket borough. The Eliot family owned only one of the two manors into which it was divided, but they leased the other from the see of Exeter, and even after the return of the episcopal estates the bishops exercised no visible interest. The borough had never been incorporated; the returning officer was the portreeve, chosen annually at the Eliots’ court leet by a jury empanelled by their stewards. The franchise was wide, but the inhabitants poor.
The Penryn returns were made in the name of the ‘burgesses’, and only in 1689 is there clear evidence of a wider electorate than the corporation. This body consisted of 12 aldermen, one of whom was elected every year as portreeve or mayor, and 12 common councilmen, and was able to manipulate the scot and lot roll. The duchy of Cornwall normally exercised a considerable interest, since Penryn was a stannary town, and the bishop of Exeter was lord of the manor. With these interests in abeyance, the general election of 1660 was contested by four obscure candidates.
Newport, a suburb of Launceston, had no municipal organization. The manorial court every year elected two ‘vianders’, and it had been contended in 1628 that the freeholders could claim the poll in parliamentary elections only if the vianders disagreed on the choice of candidates. Normally only a couple of dozen voters attested the returns, but the indenture for the contested election of February 1679 carries 75 signatures.
Mitchell was little more than a hamlet on the high road through Cornwall. As lord of the manor Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, a Roman Catholic, exercised a discreet influence over elections, doubtless in favour of Humphrey Borlase, one of his principal tenants, who lived in the borough and had many Roman Catholic connexions. The Protestant Arundells of Trerice and the Courtneys of Trethurfe also enjoyed an interest. The system of election was peculiar.
Lostwithiel was the administrative centre of the duchy of Cornwall, a sessions town, and the usual venue of county elections. The franchise in this period was limited to the corporation, consisting of seven ‘capital burgesses’ or aldermen (one of whom acted as mayor and returning officer) and 17 assistants. This body also nominated the stannators of Foymore. In 1660 Walter Moyle and John Clayton, a Yorkshire industrialist whom he had brought in for the borough in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, stood jointly for re-election.
Although West Looe consisted only of a single street and a few straggling cottages, it had a longer corporate history than its neighbour, and its franchise was wider, consisting of eight ‘capital burgesses’ and 54 ‘free tenants’ in 1679. Perhaps in consequence the Trelawny interest was less dominant, and was exercised chiefly through the corporation, which controlled the freeman roll. At the general election of 1660 the borough returned their two most persistent rivals, John Buller of Morval, the recorder, and John Kendall of Treworgey.
East Looe, the larger of the twin boroughs, was incorporated in 1588. The Elizabethan charter established a common council of nine ‘chief burgesses’, with power to increase their numbers, and vested in them the parliamentary franchise. No provision was made for ‘inferior burgesses’, or freemen, who certainly voted at municipal elections, and sometimes attested the returns to Parliament. The borough was controlled throughout this period by the Trelawnys of Trelawne, except in 1681 when one seat was conceded to the Kendall interest.
The corporation of Liskeard, consisting of the mayor and eight aldermen, controlled admission to the franchise, but the size of the roll of freemen in 1663 suggests that they were by no means unduly restrictive, and may account for the absence of an obviously dominant interest, though by the end of the period Sir Bourchier Wrey of Trebigh for the Tories and John Buller for the Whigs were dividing the borough. As a coinage town, Liskeard was also open to the influence of the warden of the stannaries.G. R. Lewis, Stannaries, 44-45, 106; J. Allen, Hist.
As the assize town for Cornwall and one of the coinage towns for the stannaries, Launceston was usually susceptible to government influence. But a preference for local candidates enabled the Coryton and Granville families to exercise strong natural interests; while the corporation, consisting of mayor, recorder, town clerk, and eight ‘burgesses’ or aldermen, controlled admission to the franchise and nominated the stannatory of Foymore.
