The proximity of the Chatham shipyard gave the Government a strong interest in Rochester, and in normal times the cathedral chapter had considerable influence, in 1686 estimated at 50 votes. In 1660 Peter Pett, navy commissioner at Chatham, who had represented the city in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, and John Marsham, a neighbouring country gentleman, were returned. Marsham had been a Cavalier and Pett was trying to live down his record of support for Commonwealth and Protectorate.
Queenborough was a small, decaying fishing village which subsisted on its oyster beds. It was governed by a mayor, four jurats, and two bailiffs. The Herberts, who had estates on the Isle of Sheppey, had a considerable interest, as did the Hales family. The proximity of the Sheerness garrison provided government influence.
Of the 11 Members returned for Maidstone, the county town, only Sir Edmund Peirce was not resident in or near the borough, and he had a Maidstone connexion through his wife, the daughter of a former recorder. No one interest prevailed; among the neighbouring gentry the Barnhams, Tuftons, and Fanes had considerable influence, as did the relatively parvenu family of Banks.
No one interest was dominant at Canterbury, though the dissenters, nourished by the foreign churches in the city, increased in importance during the period. Of the 11 Members returned, only Heneage Finch, who belonged to a leading Kentish family, and Lewis Watson, who had married a local heiress, did not reside in or near the constituency. At the general election of 1660 Finch, whose royalist sympathies were unconcealed, was returned with Sir Anthony Aucher, who had been in arms for the King in both wars, ‘with a very universal consent of that city’.
Very little is known of Huntingdon elections at this time, but Griffith was probably right in calling attention to the significant variations in the wording of the indentures, although his pioneer study (published in 1827) has found few successors. Although the 1660 return has not survived, it is known from Samuel Pepys that this was a straight fight between the Montagu and Bernard interests.
Under the charter of 1554 the corporation of St. Albans consisted of the mayor, who acted as returning officer, and ten ‘principal burgesses’. All returns before the Revolution were made in the name of the ‘burgesses’, though it was claimed that the inhabitants at large customarily exercised the franchise, as at Hertford. The Gorhambury estate, bought by Sir Harbottle Grimston in 1652, provided the strongest traditional interest, but its owner preferred to sit for Colchester.
Hertford, an open borough throughout this period, was conspicuous for the number of its dissenters. But strong interests were enjoyed by the Cowpers of the Castle as well as by the Fanshawes of Ware Park, until they sold out to Sir Thomas Byde in 1668. At the general election of 1660 the Fanshawes were ineligible as Cavaliers, and they probably supported Arthur Sparke, a kinsman by marriage and former town clerk. The senior seat was taken by James Cowper, who had sat for the borough in the last two Parliaments, though the son and brother of Royalists.
Weobley, an insignificant market town, was re-enfranchised in 1628 at the instance of James Tomkyns, whose son Thomas sat for the borough from August 1660 to his death. The manor was held by the dowager Duchess of Somerset till 1674, when it was acquired by Thomas Thynne I, but neither seems to have exerted much political influence, presumably because the sheriff of Herefordshire conducted the elections.
In 1668, 224 houses paid hearth tax in Leominster, of which 35 were held by women; presumably the numbers on the scot and lot roll were similar. At the general election of 1660, John Birch, the intruded high steward, enjoyed the best interest, and defeated the efforts of Edward Massey to prevent his election. The other Member, Edward Pytts, was lord of the neighbouring manor of Ivington.
Hereford was an open borough with a wide franchise. Elections were notoriously expensive and sometimes riotous. Of the successful candidates, only Roger Bosworth, a physician, and Thomas Geers were permanently resident in the city; but all the others were Herefordshire gentlemen, though William Gregory, like Geers, was primarily a lawyer. For the Convention, the city returned two moderates, of royalist sympathies, Bosworth and Herbert Westfaling. On the death of the former, the ultra-royalist Sir Henry Lingen was elected.
