Although the original county town of Wiltshire, Wilton in 1660 had shrunk to little more than the outbuildings of the Earl of Pembroke’s splendid house, expensively rebuilt during the Interregnum. It is said to have been incorporated under Henry VIII, with a mayor, recorder, town clerk, five aldermen, three capital burgesses and 11 common councilmen; but the ‘corporation’, in whom the franchise lay, was held to consist of mayor and ‘burgesses’ only.
Westbury, a borough by prescription, came to possess a mayor, who acted as returning officer, a recorder, who conducted the borough court, and 13 ‘capital burgesses’ or aldermen. There were at least ten manors in the parish, all with burgage tenements, that conveyed the franchise; but the lord of the ‘capital manor’ possessed the controlling interest. In 1640 this was sold to the Danvers family by the 3rd Earl of Marlborough; but Heywood, one of the sub-manors, was out in jointure to his mother, who used her interest to bring in her second husband, Thomas Wancklyn, in 1661.
Several attempts had been made by the free-holders and inhabitants of Salisbury to broaden the franchise under the Protectorate, but they had all come to nothing. Though the corporation had renounced the Cromwellian charter in 1659, they were mostly hostile to the Restoration, and in 1660 it was reported that they intended to send Edmund Ludlow to the Convention.
Old Sarum, deserted since the 15th century, had already become an electoral joke. In 1660, all the burgages had fallen into the hands of five owners, the Earls of Pembroke and Salisbury, James Parham, apparently as tenant of the adjacent manor of Stratford Dean, Edward Hooper of Peartree in Southampton and John Westfield of Salisbury. It was seemingly the practice to create faggot votes proportional in number to the burgages.
‘As to Marlborough’, wrote a local clergyman, ‘I know not a more seditious, schismatical people in England.’ But these political and religious preferences were not reflected in their representatives. Efforts to extend the franchise failed, and the ‘select burgesses’ were usually prepared to accept one nomination from the Seymours and their successors, the Bruces. With this interest in abeyance in 1660, two local gentlemen, Henry Hungerford and Jeffrey Daniel, who had held office during the Interregnum, were elected.
Under a charter of 1635 the corporation of Malmesbury consisted of the alderman, 12 ‘capital burgesses’, and 24 assistants. There were also 52 landholders and a number of commoners with rights over the common land. But from 1640 to the Revolution the franchise was exercised solely by the alderman, who acted as returning officer, and the capital burgesses.
The dominant interests at Ludgershall were enjoyed by the Roman Catholic Brownes, a cadet branch of the Montagu family, as lords of the manor, and the successive proprietors of the Savernake estate, the Seymours and Bruces. In 1660 these interests were exercised respectively in favour of the Presbyterian William Prynne and William Thomas, Lord Hertford’s agent. No opposition was made to Prynne, but his fellow-Presbyterian Sir John Evelyn, lord of the adjoining manor of Everley, stood against the staunchly Anglican Thomas, and his indenture was signed by the bailiff.
The Howe family enjoyed the principal interest at Hindon, together with the Thynnes, until the death of ‘Tom of Ten Thousand’ in 1682. George Grobham Howe was returned unopposed in 1660. Anxious to exclude Edmund Ludlow, the republican general, Edward Seymour stood down in favour of Sir Thomas Thynne. According to Ludlow
Thomas Moore had sold the manor of Heytesbury before the Civil War, but as late as 1656 the purchase price had not been paid in full, and he probably still enjoyed a proprietary interest in the borough in 1660. The other Member, John Jolliffe, stood on the interest of the purchasers, the Ashe family.
‘That lousy corporation of Bedwyn’ (as Daniel Finch described it in an uninhibited moment) lay at the gates of Tottenham Park, the residence of the Seymours and their successors, the Bruces, lords of the principal manor. The Stonehouse family, lords of Stock manor, were actually resident in the town. Nevertheless the electorate in this period was highly volatile, and Francis Stonehouse, in August 1679, was the only sitting Member to retain his seat at a general election.
