Borough

Chester was governed by 24 aldermen, 40 common councilmen and the freemen. The principal officers were the mayor, two sheriffs (to whom the election writs were sent direct), the recorder and the town clerk, known as the clerk of the pentice.

Chipping Wycombe had been owned since 1483 by the dean and chapter of Windsor, who, about 1568, leased the fee farm to Robert Christmas, a servant of the Earl of Leicester. Christmas himself came in for the borough in 1571, and within the next three years he conveyed it to one Robert Raunce, who returned his friend Geoffrey Calfield in 1584. The dean and chapter were themselves responsible for John Morley I (1584), a courtier, and the ex-provost of Eton, Thomas Ridley (1586), who had married the daughter of the dean of Windsor, George Day.

All the Members for Cambridge in this period were townsmen, with the exception of the two North brothers, who were sons of the high steward, the 2nd Lord North, and Robert Shute the recorder, who lived outside the town. Indeed, an ordinance made in the fifteenth century to ensure that only inhabitants could be returned to Parliament, was modified in 1571 to provide for an exception in the case of the recorder. Shute had been chosen on 20 Mar., ‘resigned’ as MP on the 26th, and subsequently withdrew his ‘resignation’.

Throughout Elizabeth’s reign the Pakington family were lords of Aylesbury. Although the town was incorporated in 1554, there is no evidence that the corporation challenged Pakington control over elections in this period. The original returns testify to the completeness of that control. In 1572, when the borough was under the lordship of Dame Dorothy Pakington, widow of Sir Thomas Pakington, the return reads: ... know ye, me, the said Dame Dorothy Pakington to have chosen ...

In this period Buckingham was governed by 12 principal burgesses, a bailiff and a steward, in accordance with the charter of incorporation granted to the town in 1554. The corporation chose John Fortescue I of Salden as steward by 1584. The electorate consisted of the bailiff and the capital burgesses. The Carey family, former lords of the manor of Buckingham, maintained a residual interest in the borough, and exercised the dominant patronage there, securing one seat in each Parliament except that of 1559 for their family or followers.

The borough of Wallingford was governed by a mayor, three aldermen and 12 assistants. Parliamentary returns were made by ‘the mayor, burgesses and commonalty’. The royal property in the borough was attached to the manor of Ewelme, Oxfordshire, and the constableship of Wallingford castle was in the hands of the stewards of Ewelme, who were, certainly until 1596, Sir Francis Knollys and his son Henry Knollys II.

A charter of 1556 made Abingdon ‘a body corporate and politic by the name of the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses’, and granted it the right to return one Member to Parliament. The town was to be governed by a mayor, two bailiffs, 12 principal burgesses and 16 secondary burgesses, and was to have a court leet. ‘The mayor, bailiffs and burgesses’ made the parliamentary returns.

Returns at New Windsor were made by ‘the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses of the Queen’s Majesty’s borough of New Windsor’, and the MPs were often royal servants. Electoral patronage was controlled by the constable of the castle, appointed by the Queen, and by the high steward, appointed by the borough. The two posts were sometimes held by the same man.

With the accession of Elizabeth the influence of the Catholic Sir Francis Englefield lapsed, and the borough returned two townsmen to the first Parliament of the reign. The independence of the borough was, however, shortlived, for a new charter of 1560 provided for the appointment of a steward (a high steward as the office soon came to be called), the first being Robert Dudley, later Earl of Leicester, who succeeded Englefield as constable of New Windsor in 1562, and was soon high steward there also.

The charter of 1559 confirmed that the government of Bedford was in the hands of a mayor, recorder, two bailiffs, two chamberlains and a steward. Choice of MPs was made by the ‘one consent’ of all the burgesses at a meeting in the council chamber. It is probable that some dissension arose at the election of 1588, for on 18 Dec. of that year it was suggested that canvassing prior to the meeting should be forbidden.