Borough

Knaresborough, ‘no great thing and meanly builded’ and ‘a pretty town, but poor and of no force’ remained part of the duchy of Lancaster throughout the Elizabethan period. The voting right was in the owners of 88 burgage houses. The three surviving Elizabethan returns show between eight and fourteen burgesses. In 1628, 46 votes were cast in a disputed election. As might be expected, the electoral patronage was divided between the duchy of Lancaster and the local gentry families, though as usual in this period, the boundaries of influence and patronage cannot be defined with any precision.

Kingston-upon-Hull was expanding rapidly in the sixteenth century. Its prosperity, based for the most part on trade with Scandinavia and the Netherlands, helped to give the port a vigorous municipal life and a large degree of independence in the conduct of its affairs. Its principal charter was granted by Henry VI in 1440. This mentions a mayor, 12 aldermen (elected for life from the burgesses), a chamberlain, a coroner and other minor officials. It also made Hull a county in its own right, with a sheriff, to whom parliamentary election writs were sent, and an escheator.

The government of Hedon was based on a charter granted in 1348 and confirmed by Elizabeth in 1565, which provided the borough with a mayor, two bailiffs, a coroner and other officers. Municipal and parliamentary elections were conducted in a general assembly of the burgesses. It is not clear how many burgesses had the right to vote and the surviving Elizabethan returns shed no light on this problem. The returns are made out by the ‘mayor, bailiffs and burgesses’. In 1601 a separate ‘blank’ return was made out for each Member.

Boroughbridge, on the main road to the north, was quite prosperous in the Elizabethan period, but, with a large Catholic element in the population, suffered as a result of the collapse of the northern rebellion in 1569. Lying within the boundaries of the parish and manor of Aldborough, it was not a chartered borough. When it outgrew Aldborough, however, it was created a separate bailiwick with certain specified privileges. The honour of Knaresborough, of which it formed a part, had been granted to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and remained within the duchy until after the Tudor period.

Beverley, which had returned MPs to Parliament in the 14th century and subsequently allowed the franchise to lapse, first returned burgesses in this period in 1563. The borough’s right to parliamentary representation was confirmed by the charter of incorporation granted in 1573, which vested the government of the borough in the mayor, who was elected annually, 12 governors, holding office for life, and the burgesses. The town was also allowed its own j.p.s; the mayor and recorder held that office, together with two of the ‘governors’.

William Lambarde, the 1563 MP for Aldborough, said of the borough that it was ‘notable for no other thing than that it sendeth Members to the Parliament’. Aldborough was a duchy of Lancaster borough and election precepts were sent by the sheriff to a bailiff appointed by the duchy. The right to vote at parliamentary elections was vested in the owners of certain specified burgage tenements. The three surviving Elizabethan returns each contains the names of between six and eight burgesses.

The government of Worcester was vested in two bailiffs, a recorder, a town clerk, a council of 24 and a council of 48. The method of election, according to the chamber order book, was that the city council would meet (probably to make the actual choice of MP), then the bellman would summon ‘the rest of the commons ... as many as would come’ to ‘give their voices thereunto’. Then the ‘bailiffs and the whole council together went up to the council chamber and ... proceeded to their election’.

The 1554 charter of incorporation granted Droitwich the right to send two representatives to Parliament, who should be elected by the two bailiffs and burgesses. According to Thomas Habington, who lived four miles from the town, the possession of a phate—216 large vessels of salt water—or a portion of one, in fee simple, carried the privileges of burgess-ship, which descended in the same way as land by common law. Francis Newport I (1559), Robert Wythe (1559, 1563) and George Wild (1584, 1593), were all townsmen and all owned phates.

The manor of Wootton Bassett was in Crown hands during this period, following the departure overseas of Sir Francis Englefield, a Catholic. The keepership of that part of the manor known as Little Vastern Park was granted to Henry Knyvet on 8 July 1563 following his marriage into the Stumpe family.CPR, 1554-5, p 52; 1560-3, p. 491; E178/2395; VCH Wilts. ix. 186 seq.

Wilton, a corporate town since the reign of Henry I, was dominated by successive earls of Pembroke, whose seat adjoined the borough. All the identified Elizabethan MPs were nominees of the 1st, 2nd or 3rd Earl. Return at parliamentary elections was made by the mayor and burgesses.Hoare, Wilts. Salisbury, 55-228.