The gentlemen of Sussex lived near enough to London to be able to frequent the court and the City without lengthy absences from home, but far enough away to prevent the shire from being dominated by the capital. As a maritime county Sussex needed efficient government and adequate defence, both seen to by its combination of resident noblemen and wealthy commoners.
Elections of knights of the shire for Surrey took place at meetings of the county court held at Guildford. Indentures survive for the last two Parliaments of Henry VIII’s reign, for both of the Edwardian and for the last three of the Marian Parliaments. Written in English, they give the contracting parties as the sheriff of Surrey and Sussex and between nine and 53 named electors ‘with divers other freeholders’ or ‘other proved and legal men’.
On receiving the writ ordering an election of knights of the shire for Suffolk the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk chose a day which he announced at both Bury St. Edmunds and Ipswich; the election took place at the shire house in Ipswich. Eight indentures survive from this period. Written in Latin, they are between the sheriff of the one part and the coroners and gentlemen of the shire of the other.
Tudor Staffordshire was a thinly populated and poor county, lacking in good communications; although traversed by three main roads from London, to Carlisle, Chester and Shrewsbury, the county also had many rivers spanned by narrow bridges which impeded the transport of heavy goods. The northern part was largely moorland, while the ancient forests of Brewood, Cannock, Kinver, the ‘New Forest’ and Needwood chase still covered a large area.
The Somerset elections were held at Ilchester by the sheriff of Somerset and Dorset. In April 1554 a bill to make Glastonbury the shire town was introduced in the Commons but proceeded no further than its second reading, when it was committed to Sir John Sydenham. Election indentures survive only for the Parliaments of 1545, March and October 1553 and 1558, together with the sheriff’s schedule for 1545.
Shropshire was a largely agricultural county, with increasing emphasis on cattle-rearing. This was promoted by a considerable enclosure movement, which was less extensive than contemporaries claimed and provoked little violent resistance. There were deposits of coal, iron and lead, ‘easily ported by boat into other shires’, and a trade in undressed cloth from Wales and the Oswestry district. Apart from serious epidemics in 1550-1 and 1557-8, both following bad harvests, the county suffered few setbacks to its growing prosperity.J. Thirsk, Agrarian Hist. Eng.
The election of knights of the shire for Rutland took place at meetings of the county court held at Oakham. Indentures survive for the Parliaments between 1542 and 1558, all written in English except the first, which is in Latin. The contracting parties are the sheriff and ‘the inhabitants and freeholders’, between 20 and 40 being named, most of them yeomen. In 1529 Sir Everard Digby returned himself.C219/18B/65v, 66, 18C/91, 19/78, 20/97, 21/123, 22/56v, 57, 23/103v, 104, 24/129, 25/84v.
A number of courtiers and government officials sat for Oxfordshire in the early 16th century but the most prominent of them, Sir John Williams, was ennobled after he had sat four times and the county was thus saved from the difficulties facing shires where one man, generally a Privy Councillor, established a virtual lien on the senior seat.
Mainly a farming county, where Leland remarked on the land around Southwell ‘very fruitful of corn’ adding ‘I never saw fairer meadows there’ on ‘both ripes of Trent’, Nottinghamshire played little part in national politics during the first half of the 16th century.
The Percy earls of Northumberland, the dominant family in their titular shire, were the northern peers most affected by the centralizing policy of the Tudors. The 5th Earl (1527-37), whose father had been largely excluded from office, was granted the wardenship of the east and middle marches shortly after his succession and a life tenure of the shrievalty of Northumberland in 1532, but shortly before his death he made the King the heir to his estates, the conveyance being confirmed by an Act of 1536 (27 Hen. VIII, c.47).
