Lying at the head of the Medina estuary, adjacent to Carisbrooke Castle, where the captain of the Isle of Wight resided, Newport was the most populous and prosperous of the three island boroughs. VCH Hants, v. 253, 256, 257, 259. Its seigneurial charter, confirmed by Queen Elizabeth in 1559, vested authority in two bailiffs and an indeterminate number of ‘burgesses’ or freemen. I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/2, f.
Rye had obtained charters from its overlords, the Norman abbots of Fécamp, in the twelfth century, and by the reign of Henry III it had been added to the original Cinque Ports. L.A. Vidler, New Hist. of Rye, 4, 6; VCH Suss. ix. 50. The only major natural harbour between Portsmouth and the Thames, it reached the zenith of its commercial prosperity in the mid-sixteenth century, when it emerged as ‘the most important urban economy in eastern Sussex’. S. Hipkin, ‘Closing Ranks’, Urban Hist. xxii. 321; S.
In 1614 the author of England’s Way to Win Wealth described Harwich as ‘a royal harbour’ and ‘a proper town’, whose dry beach made it an ideal location from which to put to sea fleets of fishing busses to compete with the Dutch, ‘there being no place in all Holland comparable’. However, this potential remained unexploited, local fishing activity being limited to three or four vessels which caught cod and ling off Iceland every year.
Haslemere was a small market town which owed some of its modest prosperity to the iron and woollen industry in its neighbourhood. It was enfranchised in 1584, and a charter of 1596 confirmed its market and fairs. In 1601 Sir George More* purchased the lordship of the manor from the Crown, together with the hundred and manor of Godalming, of which Haslemere had originally been a tithing. More’s bailiff, who seems to have been the only officer of the borough, acted as returning officer and consequently More dominated the electoral patronage of the borough in this period.
Originally a Scottish burgh, Berwick was a key border fortress during the medieval Anglo-Scottish wars, changing hands nine times in barely 300 years. Under permanent English control from 1482, it achieved parliamentary representation at Westminster by 1512, but was not formally incorporated into England until the nineteenth century. J. Scott, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 6, 9-10, 25, 43, 56, 78-9, 84, 94-5, 99; HP Commons, 1509-58, i. 162; S.J. and S.J.
Situated in south Nottinghamshire, a mile north of the river Trent, Nottingham was dominated by its castle perched on a rock. A. Henstock, ‘Changing Fabric of the Town, 1550-1750’, in Centenary Hist. of Nottingham ed. J. Beckett, 107. During the late Elizabethan period the borough grew rapidly, so that by the beginning of the seventeenth century it was a medium-sized town of about 3,500 people, but thereafter successive outbreaks of plague served to halt the population increase. S.
During the early Stuart period Cambridge University consisted of 16 colleges and halls which, between them, housed 2,270 staff, students and servants. The largest college by far, with a population of 340 scholars and servants, was Trinity, Harl. 4017, ff. 26v. which alone was spacious enough to accommodate the Court whenever the king came to visit. C.H. Cooper, Annals of Camb. iii. 71, 84, 156, 170; LC5/132, p.
Liverpool was a small but thriving port in the early seventeenth century, a main departure point for troops and trade to Ireland, whose overseas as well as coastal commerce was steadily increasing. According to Camden it was ‘very commodious for trade … but not as eminent for its being ancient as for being neat and populous’. W. Camden, Britannia (1610), p. 748; R. Muir and E.M. Platt, Hist. of Municipal Govt. in Liverpool, 87-9; M. Gregson, Fragments relating to the Hist.
Carlisle, situated on the river Eden about six miles from the north-west coast, had long served as a strategic point on the border with Scotland, as the administrative centre of the West March, and as a port of trade with Ireland. The city’s governing body, established by an ordinance of 1445 and confirmed on 1 May 1604, consisted of a mayor, 11 other ‘worshipful persons’ or aldermen, and 24 councillors.Royal Charters of Carlisle ed. R.S.
Sudbury is situated in the extreme south of Suffolk on the left bank of the River Stour, which forms the border with Essex. In this period the Stour valley was a major cloth-producing region, which brought considerable wealth to the town. Sudbury was an ancient borough, which first received a charter in the mid-thirteenth century, but despite having a mayor by 1331 it was not incorporated until 1554, when the town was rewarded for its support of Queen Mary at her accession. W.W. Hodson, Short Hist. of Bor. of Sudbury comp. C.F.D.
