Commons 1386-1421

By 1377 Ipswich had a population of about 2,260; but although it was probably the largest town in Suffolk, it was only half the size of Colchester, its geographically nearest rival as a port. Its charter of 1200 permitted the burgesses to elect two bailiffs (who until 1317 were required to take their oaths of office in the Exchequer), two coroners, and 12 portmen to govern the town. In 1256 the bailiffs were granted the right of return of royal writs, and after 1291 they became responsible for payment to the Crown of the fee farm, then fixed at £60 a year.

Dunwich was a royal borough paying fee farm to the Crown. Its earliest charter, for which the inhabitants were charged 300 marks by King John, dates from 1199; in May 1421 the town procured a second copy after accidentally losing the original.Rot. Chart. ed. Hardy, i. 51; Pipe Roll 1 John (Pipe Roll Soc. n.s. x), 290; CPR, 1416-22, p. 363. Dunwich was one of the 27 towns summoned to the Council of 1286, and it returned Members to Parliament from 1296.

Returns for Suffolk have survived for 28 of the 32 Parliaments of the period, leaving gaps for those of 1413 (Feb.) and the three consecutive Parliaments of 1415, 1416 (Mar.) and 1416 (Oct.). The names of 24 knights of the shire are known. Apparently, over a third (nine) were elected for the county just once; but 12 sat three or more times each, and Sir William Wingfield was returned on ten occasions and Sir Richard Waldegrave on as many as 12.

During the Middle Ages Stafford occupied an important strategic position on the major route from London to Chester and the north-west. Standing at a crossing-place on the river Sow at the junction of several small valleys, it was chosen in 913 by Aethelflaeda of Mercia as the site of a ‘burh’, and by 1016 it had assumed the status of a county town with a royal mint.Eng. Med. Bors. ed. Beresford and Finberg, 163-4; W.H. Duignan, Notes on Staffs. Place Names, 141. The years immediately after the Norman Conquest proved a troubled period in its history.

Taking its name from the ‘new castle’ built by the Crown in the mid 12th century, the borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme began as a small settlement designed to serve the needs of the garrison, but because of its situation on the main route between London and Chester it soon became a flourishing market town. The burgesses obtained their first royal charter in about 1173, and although this document was later lost, it seems to have made provision for the holding of regular markets.

Returns for Staffordshire have survived for all but five of the 32 Parliaments summoned between 1386 and 1421, the others having been lost. We know the names of 24 of the men who represented the county during this period. Even allowing for the limitations of the evidence, it is clear that the electors of Staffordshire had a marked preference for candidates with experience of the Commons, and on six occasions, if not more, they chose MPs who, although new to the county, had previously been returned elsewhere.

By the late 14th century Wells was one of the largest of Somerset towns: its population in 1377 was estimated to be about 1,352. The main cathedral town of a large diocese, it was under the lordship of the bishop of Bath and Wells, to whom, no communal fee farm having ever been established, its people still individually paid their fixed rents. The borough owed its privileges originally to a series of episcopal grants, these, however, being subsequently confirmed and extended by royal charters.

In 1377 Taunton’s taxable population of those over 14 years of age was estimated to be 539. This indicates a smaller town than the nearby port of Bridgwater or than the cathedral city of Wells. However, Taunton still seems to have been commercially prosperous in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. The charter exempting its burgesses from tolls throughout England, originally granted by Stephen, was confirmed to Taunton’s lord, Bishop Wykeham of Winchester, in 1381, and regulations affecting trade were prominent in the town’s custumal which dates from about the same time.

Bridgwater was a thriving port situated a few miles up the navigable Parrett. In 1377 it had an adult population of over 850, comparable with that of Bath, but the lay subsidy returns of the earlier 14th century suggest that it had then been the wealthiest of the Somerset towns, higher in the list than Bath, Wells and Taunton, and perhaps this was still the case. ‘Bridgwater’ was the name given to a kind of broadcloth manufactured locally, and the port had trading connexions with Bayonne, Bordeaux and Ireland as well as a share in the coastal traffic.

Of the 32 Parliaments convened during the period 1386 to 1421 returns for Somerset are missing for five, and the names of the knights of the shire in the Commons of 1415 and 1416 (Mar.), have been supplied solely on the authority of Collinson, the county’s historian. Assuming that these particular names are correct, 25 individuals are known to have sat for Somerset in this period.