Borough

No estimates of the total electorate in this constituency survive, but there were 60 freemen in the principal borough in 1685, and it is reasonable to suppose that none of the four contributory boroughs exceeded this figure. The charter of 1284 provided that the constable of Caernarvon Castle, who was appointed by the crown, should also act as mayor during his term of office. Since he seems to have functioned as returning officer, this gave a potential interest to the Robartes family, constables from 1663 to 1713.

There were no contributory boroughs in Breconshire, and the freemen of Brecon, a prosperous market and industrial town ‘well-furnished with conventicles’, enjoyed the sole right of election. The dominant interest was enjoyed by Brecon Priory, which passed from the Price to the Jeffreys family. As prominent Cavaliers, neither Sir Herbert Price nor John Jeffreys is likely to have stood in 1660, and the seat was taken by a country gentleman, Sir Henry Williams, the son of a more cautious Royalist. In 1661 Price stood for both county and borough.

Beaumaris was the only corporation borough in Wales. Under its charter of 1562 the franchise lay with the mayor, two bailiffs and 21 aldermen. There were no contributory boroughs, and in normal times it was completely subservient to the Bulkeleys of Baron Hill, just outside the town. The return of the Commonwealth official Griffith Bodurda at the general election of 1660 was doubtless part of a bargain by which the qualification of Robert Bulkeley, Viscount Bulkeley, for the county was not challenged.

In 1660 Winchelsea returned a local Presbyterian, Samuel Gott, who had sat as a recruiter for the borough, together with William Howard, an Anabaptist who had become a royalist plotter and was connected with the Ashburnhams. In 1661 the electorate accepted Sir Nicholas Crisp, a great London merchant, as the lord warden’s nominee. Returned with him was Francis Finch, a distant relative of the Earl of Winchilsea, the lord lieutenant.

Seaford was added to the confederation of the Cinque Ports by Henry VIII; but its representation would not have been restored by the Long Parliament if it had been easily controllable by the lord warden. Local interests were dominant, and the lord warden’s ‘nominations’ in 1661 and 1685 only confirmed them. In 1660 the borough returned Sir Thomas Dyke, a royalist sympathizer but no Cavalier, and George Parker, whose father had represented it until Pride’s Purge. The Parker interest appears to have lapsed in 1661, the family preferring to revive their long connexion with Hastings.

The strongest independent interests at Sandwich were enjoyed by the Oxenden and Thurbarne families, both country-oriented. Only in 1661 and 1685 did the Admiralty interest achieve success, and even in 1661 one of the government candidates was defeated by James Thurbarne, the town clerk. At the general election of 1660 the corporation rejected the nomination of the Hon. Edward Montagu by his cousin Admiral Edward Montagu I, and returned Thurbarne with Henry Oxenden, a neighbouring country gentleman.

Rye was a small, decayed fishing port with a tradition of religious radicalism derived from Walloon and Huguenot refugees. During the Interregnum Herbert Morley had established a strong interest there, and at the general election of 1660 the freemen duly returned him with his neighbour and kinsman William Hay.

In 1660 New Romney returned Sir Norton Knatchbull, who had represented the port in the Long Parliament, and his son John, presumably unopposed. But in 1661 the younger Knatchbull had to make way for the court nominee, Sir Charles Berkeley. After Berkeley’s elevation to the peerage Henry Brouncker, groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of York, was nominated by his master, the lord warden.

Throughout the Cavalier Parliament (except for its first six months), and again under James II, Hythe was represented by two placemen. Nevertheless, by the end of the period it had shaken itself free from domination by the Government without falling under the sway of any of the neighbouring magnate families, such as the Derings. In this process Edward Hales I played a leading, though not always successful, part.

Hastings returned an Ashburnham at every general election in the period except 1681. In 1660 the corporation politely rejected the Admiralty candidate, the Hon. Edward Montagu, in favour of Denny Ashburnham, head of a cadet branch of the family, and Nicholas Delves, a London merchant of local origin who was the mayor’s brother. In 1661 Ashburnham was re-elected with Edmund Waller, the lord warden’s nominee. Neither stood for the Exclusion Parliaments.