West Looe, also known as Port Looe and Portpighan, by the beginning of this period was part of the duchy of Cornwall. In 1574 it received a charter of incorporation which describes the governing body as a mayor, 12 principal burgesses and a steward. Membership of this council, a self-perpetuating body, was for life, but the rest of the inhabitants helped choose a new mayor each year from two nominated principal burgesses.
Liskeard, a duchy of Cornwall borough, had sent Members to Parliament since the reign of Edward I. It owed its prosperity to fairs and markets and to its position—re-established early in Elizabeth’s reign—as one of the ‘coinage’ towns of the stannaries.Carew’s Surv. Cornw. ed. Halliday, 202; CPR, 1566-9, p. 236. Elizabeth confirmed its privileges by charter in 1587. The town was governed by a common council of nine capital burgesses or governors, from whom a mayor was chosen each year.
Grampound was a duchy of Cornwall borough, forming part of the manor of Tybesta. The town was decayed in Elizabeth’s reign and, according to the antiquary Richard Carew, ‘the corporation but half replenished with inhabitants, who may better vaunt of their town’s antiquity, than the town of their ability’.E. F. Halliday, Richard Carew of Anthony.
Helston, a stannary town, was part of the duchy of Cornwall. The borough’s privileges were confirmed in 1559, and it was incorporated as the mayor and aldermen of Helston in 1585. Government was vested in the mayor, four aldermen and a number of burgesses.G. R. Lewis, The Stannaries, 126; Duchy of Cornwall, receiver gen. accts.; Weinbaum, Charters, 115; H. S. Toy, Hist. Helston, 166, 495.
‘Those buildings commonly known by the name of Launceston’, wrote Richard Carew, ‘consist of two boroughs, Dunheved and Newport’. Dunheved was the old borough around Launceston castle, Newport the more recently enfranchised borough by the ruins of Launceston priory. The Elizabethan returns and Crown Office lists were usually consistent in making the distinction, political commentators of later periods less so.’
Once hand in glove with the local pirates, the citizens of Fowey, according to Richard Carew, made ‘great amendment of their former defects’ and turned to honest trade. The borough first sent MPs to Westminster in 1571, and the implication must be that the 2nd Earl of Bedford, lord lieutenant of the county and lord warden of the stannaries, was behind this. But there was evidently a breakdown in communications, for the borough’s right to the franchise was challenged—unsuccessfully—in the House on 6 Apr. that year.
Callington was the last Cornish borough to be enfranchised.Oldfield, Rep. Hist. 253It was jointly owned by Sir William Paulet 3rd Marquess of Winchester and William, 7th Lord Mountjoy, but in a number of cases no connexion is obvious between either of these noblemen and the man elected. This applies to Thomas Lawton, a London lawyer and one of the first two MPs. The other was also a London lawyer, who, however, had been retained by Mountjoy in the past.
Camelford, a duchy of Cornwall borough in the parish of Lanteglos, north of Bodmin, received its first charter from Henry III. The borough probably began to send Members to Parliament in the reign of Edward VI. Queen Mary confirmed its privileges in 1553.Cal. Charter Rolls, ii. 26; J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, ii. 327. The principal officer was the mayor or portreeve whose post was apparently hereditary: Christopher Cock appears as mayor on every surviving parliamentary return between 1555 and 1563, and his son John from 1572 to 1604.Maclean, ii.
At the accession of Elizabeth, Bodmin, formerly part of Bodmin priory, was governed by a mayor and 36 burgesses. In 1563 it received a charter of incorporation, confirmed in 1594, vesting the parliamentary elections in the mayor and all 36 burgesses, but elevating 12 of the 36 into capital burgesses, of whom the mayor was to be one.Weinbaum, Charters, 12-13. A formal stipulation was made that the charges and costs of its MPs should be met by the borough, but no evidence has been found of any such payments in this period.
The manor of Tintagel, which belonged to the duchy of Cornwall, received a charter and two confirmations of its liberties during the medieval period. By 1547, however, when it probably first sent Members to Parliament, the names of two hamlets within its boundaries, Bossiney and Trevena, were used to describe the parliamentary borough. The earliest election return was made out by the burgesses of Trevena, and later returns use sometimes ‘Bossiney’, sometimes ‘Trevena’, and sometimes ‘Bossineyalias Trevena’.
