‘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.
The manor of Downton belonged to the bishop of Winchester, whose bailiff claimed the right to act as returning officer. This interest was of course in abeyance at the general election of 1660, which was contested by three local gentlemen and an outsider, Thomas Fitzjames. Giles Eyre’s father and John Elliott were both burgage-holders, and Fitzjames, like his brother John in Poole, probably commanded the interest of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper.
Devizes was regarded as the centre of Wiltshire nonconformity in the second half of the 17th century, with the additional peculiarity that the Baptists were the strongest of the sects. Except in the second election of 1679, the corporation were successful in excluding the freemen, numbering about 40, from the franchise. There were three candidates in 1660, but William Lewis, though a stranger, was unopposed, and there was nothing in his career to offend either Royalists or Commonwealthmen.
The irregularities for which Cricklade became notorious made their appearance only towards the end of the period. All the Members owed their return to solid territorial interests, and there is no evidence of a contest until 1685. The two Members returned in 1660 were both local landowners. Hungerford Dunch’sfather, who had married the heiress of Down Ampney, had been summoned to Cromwell’s ‘Other House’, while Nevil Maskelyne had avoided commitment, though probably royalist in sympathy.
Chippenham was incorporated in 1554, the government being vested in a bailiff and 12 ‘burgesses.’ By 1660 the franchise seems to have been exercised by inhabitant freemen holding leases of tenements in the borough lands. Until 1684, the chief interest was held by Edward Hungerford, though the Bayntuns, Spekes, Talbots, and Pophams, all of whom had property nearby, also had strong interests. In 1660 Chippenham returned Hungerford, who had sat in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, and Edward Poole, a repentant Parliamentarian.
Until 1685 Calne was a borough by prescription whose claims to incorporation could not be supported by the evidence of charters. The ‘corporation’ presented new ‘burgesses’ to the steward of the crown manor of Ogbourne St. George, and elected two guild stewards every year, who acted as returning officers. The number of electors was usually under 30, and in 1673 sank as low as 11.
The small town, or rather village, of Appleby was in every sense dominated by its castle, owned, together with some 40 burgages, by the dowager countess of Pembroke until her death in 1676. Contested elections were unthinkable in her time, and Lady Pembroke was described by (Sir) Daniel Fleming as being ‘as absolute in that borough as any one in any other’. In 1660 the townsmen elected two Yorkshiremen, Sir Henry Cholmley and Christopher Clapham, who had assisted her in disputes with her tenants.
Warwick was dominated by the castle, since 1605 in the hands of the Greville family, who usually also served as recorders of the borough. As the head of the family sat in the House of Lords throughout this period as Lord Brooke, they seldom claimed a seat in the Commons, though it is unlikely that the electorate readily defied their wishes. Sir Henry Puckering, who lived at the Priory, was the most prominent resident in the town, but like the Grevilles he had few relatives to provide for.
Coventry, always an important industrial centre, had been separated administratively from Warwickshire in 1451, and held aloof from the county. Except in 1661 and (for one seat) in 1685 it invariably elected residents. Under the 1621 charter the corporation comprised the mayor, two sheriffs (who acted as returning officers), ten aldermen and 25 common councilmen. The franchise was in the freemen at large, although after the very confused general election of 1660 the Commons decision implied that it should be confined to the ratepayers.
Steyning was entirely dominated in this period by two local landowning families, the Faggs of Wiston and the Gorings of Highden. Henry Goring I, whose royalist sympathies had never brought him within the scope of the Long Parliament’s ordinance, came from a cadet branch of a well-established family. He was returned in 1660 with John Fagg, a Rumper who had become a Presbyterian Royalist. Although Fagg had acquired the Wiston estate only during the Interregnum and his title was not beyond question, he was successful for Steyning at every general election during this period.
