Borough

At the beginning of the 16th century the manor of Heytesbury was held by the Hungerford family, as it had been when the borough first returned Members in 1449, but on the attainder in 1540 of Walter, Lord Hungerford, it was forfeited to the crown. In June 1541 William Sharington obtained a lease of the demesne lands and in March 1553 Henry Wheeler, a gentleman of the privy chamber, was granted the lordship of the manor.VCH Wilts. v. 73, 114; Hoare, Wilts. Heytesbury, 82, 103-4, 122; LP Hen. VIII, xvi. g. 947(24); CPR, 1553-4, p. 243.

Great Bedwyn had once been a prosperous centre of the Wiltshire woollen industry, whereas Leland found it ‘but a poor thing to sight’. At the beginning of the century the 3rd Duke of Buckingham was lord of the manor of Bedwyn and a year after his attainder in 1521 it was granted to Sir Edward Darrell of Littlecote, Wiltshire, vice-chamberlain to Queen Catherine of Aragon.

At Downton manorial business was dealt with in the manor court and matters relating to the burgage tenements in the borough court, both of which were presided over by the bishop of Winchester’s bailiff of the borough and hundred or his deputy: the bailiff was assisted by a clerk appointed by the bishop and three officers, an alderman (sometimes called a mayor), a constable and a tithing-man, chosen each year by the inhabitants. The bailiff was responsible to the bishop’s steward. In 1509 Sir Henry Borowe held the bailiwick, and during the 1540s and 1560s Sir John Bruyn.

Devizes grew up beneath the walls of the castle built before 1106 by a bishop of Salisbury ‘upon certain boundaries (devise)’. It became an important market town and textile centre and was probably at the height of its prosperity in the first half of the 16th century when Leland found it ‘most occupied by clothiers’. It had early passed into the hands of the crown, and from the 14th century the castle, manor, parks and borough were customarily granted, with the neighbouring manors of Marlborough and Rowde and certain forests, to successive queens in jointure.

Cricklade sent three Members to the Parliament of 1275 as a villa mercatoria and from 1295 was intermittently represented as a borough proper by two Members. It had charters going back to 1155, confirmed in 1510 and 1547, but remained under the control of the lord of the manor of the hundred and borough who appointed the bailiff.

Like nearby Calne, the market town of Chippenham was founded on ancient demesne land of the crown. Although it returned Members intermittently from 1295 it was a borough only by prescription until its incorporation in 1554, and even then it remained manorial. The royal manor had eventually been split up, but from the early 15th century the two chief manors were united in the possession of the Hungerford family which held them until the attainder in 1540 of Walter, Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury.

Two thirds of the prosperous clothing town of Calne lay within a prebendal manor held by the treasurer of Salisbury cathedral, and one third within another manor, usually described as the hundred of Calne which was owned by the Zouche family until 1554, when it passed to Thomas Long. In 1540 the fee-farm of £15 paid by the Zouche family was granted to Anne of Cleves.Guild Stewards’ Bk. of Calne 1561-1688 (Wilts. Arch. Soc. recs. br. vii), x-xi; LP Hen. VIII, xv, g. 144(2).

Although it was the shire town where assizes and sessions were held, Appleby seemed to Leland ‘but a poor village, having a ruinous castle wherein the prisoners be kept’. Except where it adjoined the castle, the town was almost surrounded by the river Eden and by swampland; the only highroad ran on the other side of the river. Unlike Carlisle, Appleby had never been of much strategic value, and being unwalled it had suffered severely during Scottish raids; following one of these in 1388 the borough had had its fee-farm reduced from 20 marks to two.

Largely owing to its lack of good roads or a navigable river, Warwick during the period was a poor borough which was included in the Act of 1540 for the re-edification of towns westward (32 Hen. VIII, name known for c.19). The population was apparently not much over 2,000, and subsidy assessments for the town during the 1520s do not show it among the first 40 boroughs in England, at a time when Coventry was ranked fifth in the kingdom.

During its most prosperous period, from about 1345 to near the end of the 15th century, Coventry is said to have been the fourth largest city in England, and in 1523-7 its subsidy assessment was still higher than any save those of London, Norwich, Bristol and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. But the cloth trade was declining and the art of making blue thread, flourishing in the period and giving rise to the expression ‘true as Coventry blue’, seems to have been lost by the middle of Elizabeth’s reign.