Because of its defensible position on a fording place over the river Ouse, the site Bedford occupied was in continuous use from the Romano-British period. It assumed particular importance as a fortified burgh during the 9th and 10th centuries, and a market soon grew up within its walls for the sale of surplus produce from the surrounding farmland.
Banbury, a small market town, was enfranchised as a single member constituency and incorporated by a charter of 1554.A. Beesley, Banbury, 219-22. Twelve aldermen, one of whom served as bailiff, and 12 capital burgesses together constituted both the common council and the electorate. VCH Oxon. x. 73-4; R.K. Gilkes ‘Banbury: the Pattern of Local Govt.’, Cake and Cockhorse, v.
Positioned astride the River Welland, Stamford occupied an anomalous geographical position, as it was situated where the counties of Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland met. The borough was incorporated in 1462, with a council consisting of an annually elected ‘alderman’, 12 other ‘comburgesses’, and 12 ‘capital burgesses’. Its record of regular representation in Parliament began five years later. HP Commons 1558-1603, i.
Commanding the shortest sea passage to France, Dover, described by one observer in 1635 as a ‘long town … indifferently well built’, was the only Cinque Port to retain much economic importance, boasting as it did a substantial fleet of trading vessels. ‘A Relation of a Short Survey of the Western Counties’ ed. G. Wickham Legg, in Cam. Miscellany XVI (Cam. Soc. ser. 3. lii), 26. For the size of Dover’s fleet, see SP14/140/68; Eg. 2584, ff. 375-80v. Its prosperity, however, was achieved only at the price of constant maintenance work on pier and harbour.
