Newton—‘a little poor market’ Leland called it—first sent Members to Parliament in 1559. No authority has been found for its enfranchisement, but its first Members were not challenged in the House. The 1559 return is to testify that we, the free men of the borough of Thomas Langton, knight, baron of Newton ...
Preston received a charter of confirmation in 1557 and was incorporated in 1566, its common council consisting of the mayor, two bailiffs, and 24 principal burgesses. From 1542 onwards, a meeting of the guild merchant was held at intervals of 20 years. Neighbouring noblemen and gentry customarily obtained admission to the guild as ‘foreign burgesses’ and, by 1602, outnumbered the local or ‘inburgesses’.
Clitheroe was a small borough run by two bailiffs who were also the returning officers. An insight into the way elections were conducted in this period is provided by a letter sent by the bailiffs to ‘the sergeant of our borough and corporation of Clitheroe’ 10 Oct. 1601:
Lancaster, the northern centre of duchy activity, was enfranchised under Henry VIII, but was not incorporated until 1604. A code of customs, drawn up and ratified in 1572, reveals that it was governed by a mayor, two bailiffs and 12 capital burgesses. Parliamentary election was made by the mayor, bailiffs, burgesses and commonalty. The dominant influence on the borough’s parliamentary returns was that of the duchy of Lancaster.
Rochester was an incorporated borough, elections were held in the guildhall and returns were made in the name of the mayor and citizens. The size of the electorate is unknown, but the franchise was not confined to members of the corporation. Indeed, at Rochester, unusually for the period, not one MP was mayor or held other borough office apart from the wardenship of Rochester Bridge.
A county in itself from the time of Edward IV, Canterbury had its own sheriff, tax assessors, escheator and justices of the peace. A charter of 1498 provided for a mayor, 12 aldermen and a common council of 24. The right of parliamentary election belonged to the freemen. Parliamentary writs were received and returned by the city’s sheriff.
December 1559 Maidstone obtained a new charter to replace one granted by Edward VI. The 1559 charter restored the corporation and gave the town, among other privileges, the right to send two burgesses to Parliament. Maidstone first returned Members in this period to the 1563 Parliament, but unlike most returns made for the first time, Maidstone’s return was not challenged in the Commons. The electorate consisted of the mayor, jurats and commonalty defined in the 1559 charter as persons dwelling in the town, having freehold lands or tenements.
Queenborough was one of the smallest boroughs enfranchised during Elizabeth’s period, its adult male population in 1585 amounting to only 35. By a charter of 1368, confirmed in 1559, the government of the town was in the hands of a mayor and two bailiffs. The mayor had to take an oath before the constable of Queenborough castle. This office was held from 1559 by Sir Robert Constable, who lived in the north and appears not to have involved himself in the borough’s electoral affairs.
Though there was a connexion with the duchy of Lancaster going back to the thirteenth century, it has not proved possible to associate more than one Huntingdon MP in this period with the chancellor of the duchy. Perhaps there were more—it has been stated that Sir Robert Cecil asked for a seat late in the reign, and some of the nominations attributed below to great men may have been contrived through the duchy—but no links have been established.
The town of St. Albans, much of which reverted to the Crown at the dissolution of the monasteries, received its first royal charter in 1553. The new corporation was to consist of a mayor and ten capital burgesses, who could nominate an unspecified number of ordinary burgesses to assist them.Clutterbuck, Hist. Herts. i. App. IV. According to a petition entered in the corporation court book in 1587, a common council of 24 men, drawn from the trading guilds, had been in existence since Edward VI’s charter, or even before.
