Cinque Ports

Even by contemporary standards Winchelsea’s privilege of sending representatives to Parliament was regarded as an obvious anachronism. Defoe identified the town as one of the worst examples of a decayed borough. ‘What can the Members who have served for the town of Winchelsea answer’, he wrote, ‘if they were asked who they represented; they must answer they represent the ruins and vaults, the remains of a good old town, now lying in heaps?’ In The Art of Governing by Partys, John Toland also saw Winchelsea as exemplifying the iniquities of the electoral system.

In 1671 the Commons had determined that the right of voting in Seaford lay in ‘the populacy’, those who presumably paid scot and lot, but unless the leading local influences found themselves in conflict, the formalities of election were completed behind closed doors by the corporate assembly, an elite comprising a bailiff, two jurats and up to 17 freemen. Only twice in this period was the electorate called upon to vote. Nomination was exercised by two Whiggish pro-government influences in the locality, those of Sir William Thomas, 1st Bt., and of the Pelham family.

During this period Sandwich was eclipsed in terms of economic activity by Deal. To Celia Fiennes, Sandwich was ‘a sad old town, all timber building’, whereas Deal had new buildings and ‘looks like a good thriving place’. It was Deal’s prosperity that enabled the port books of Sandwich to show a healthy trade, and which no doubt prompted Deal’s agitation in 1699 for its own charter. Economic stagnation saw Sandwich fall prey to the political influence of outsiders, chiefly that of neighbouring gentry and merchants.

In the 1690s Rye was beginning to feel the effects of decline from its former prominence as a port. The corporation could still boast in 1701 that it was the only harbour on the long coastline between Dover and Portsmouth large enough to accommodate ships, though it was by now heavily silted and only suitable for fishing vessels. The town’s governors attached great importance to restoring the harbour to its ‘ancient goodness’, which they saw as the key to a rejuvenated local economy, but though there was much discussion of the subject, little headway was made.

New Romney offered the peculiar spectacle of a freeman borough which operated to all intents and purposes as a corporation borough. The franchise was vested in the freemen, but entry into this body was restricted to the sons of freemen and those made free by the common assembly. Numbers were so tightly controlled that their number never exceeded the mayor, 12 jurats and 26 common councilmen allowed by the town’s charter, and MPs were only invited to take up the freedom after their election to Parliament.

Hythe’s decline paralleled that of many of the other Cinque Ports; by the 16th century its harbour had disappeared and consequently so had its national political and economic importance. Between 1690 and 1715 the town’s electorate remained very small. Corporation records show that undisputed elections attracted few voters, but the numbers grew over time, reaching a peak in 1710. Between them, the candidates owned most of the land surrounding Hythe, and local rivalries gave added impetus to their political differences.