At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign the borough of Gatton was owned by the Copley family and patronage there was in the hands of Sir Roger Copley’s widow. Thomas Copley, her son, who had already represented Gatton in 1554 and 1558, returned himself in 1559 and 1563. It is not known how Thomas Farnham, a Leicestershire country gentleman and a court of wards official, came to be returned for Gatton in 1559. Sir Robert Lane (1563) was Thomas Copley’s brother-in-law from Northamptonshire.
Bletchingley formed part of the possessions of Sir Thomas Cawarden, who died in 1559. It was sold by his executors in 1560 to William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham, in whose family it remained for the rest of this period.CPR, 1558-60, p. 364.
Sudbury was first enfranchised at the beginning of this period, probably through the efforts of the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Sir Ambrose Cave. Both 1559 men were returned through Cave’s influence, the return being made probably direct from the duchy office without the sheriff being a party to it, by the ‘bailiffs’ of the borough, the duchy officials for the manor of Sudbury.
Only one genuine townsman was returned for Orford during this period, John Cutting (1584); and only one local country gentleman independent of a patron, William Forthe (1597). In the earlier part of this period the most important influence was that of the Wingfields of Wantisden, and their relatives the Sones.
Ipswich was incorporated in the fifteenth century. In the Elizabethan period the elections appear to have been made in the ‘assembly’, consisting presumably of the bailiffs, ‘portmen’ or aldermen, and common councilmen.
The borough was included in the royal honour of Eye, where in Elizabeth’s reign the Crown still appointed the keeper, or constable, of the castle. The government of the borough was confirmed by a charter of 1559, but partly owing to overlapping jurisdictions, disputes broke out, and following a Star Chamber case, ordinances for ‘better government’ were drawn up in 1565. Confirmed by a new charter ten years later, these described the governing body as 12 principal burgesses, including the two bailiffs, and 24 common councilmen.
The right of election at Dunwich was in the ‘bailiffs, burgesses and commonalty’. By the beginning of this period the port was declining through the ‘force and violence of the rages of the sea, nigh whereunto it standeth’ and the governing body (two bailiffs, 10 aldermen and 24 common councilmen) was anxious to return MPs who would serve without wages. Hence the Chancery suit between the borough and the local gentleman Sir Edmund Rous, who having said that he would serve as MP ‘freely without receiving any wages’, afterwards ‘nothing regarding his said promise’ claimed £19.
Aldeburgh was incorporated in 1547 and was governed by two bailiffs assisted by ‘the twelve’ and ‘the twenty-four’. The Duke of Norfolk was lord of the borough, and presumably it was he who secured its enfranchisement in 1571. Its right to return Members was challenged in the House and referred to the returns committee, 6 Apr. 1571.Weinbaum, Charters, 108; HMC Var. iv. 280-1; CPR, 1548-9, p. 102; CJ, i.
Tamworth, partly in Warwickshire and partly in Staffordshire, had never returned Members to Parliament when it received a charter of incorporation in 1560. The charter itself made no mention of parliamentary burgesses. Nevertheless two men were sent up by the borough to the 1563 Parliament, probably at the suggestion of Simon Harcourt, who, a few months after the election, married the widow of William Robinson, owner of the manor of Drayton Bassett which bordered on Tamworth.CPR, 1560-3, pp.
The borough of Stafford, associated for a long time with the family of the same name, may not have had a clearly defined municipal organisation in the sixteenth century. Though the town was incorporated by Edward VI in 1550, it was not until 1605 that the composition of the common council was laid down by charter.J. Bradley, Stafford Charters, 79-132; CPR, 1550-53, p. 21; J.
