Monmouthshire

Under Tudor legislation, Monmouthshire was treated idiosyncratically as a parliamentary entity. It was given two shire Members, putting the county on a par with the English shires and bestowing on it better representation than that given other Welsh counties, which returned one knight. However, the boroughs were given a single Member, in the dispensation that applied in Wales. Monmouth was designated the county town, and six other boroughs were required to contribute to the fees settled on elected Members to meet their expenses.

The population of Monmouthshire around 1640 is at least as difficult to compute as that of adjacent English and Welsh shires. The absence of evidence that can lend itself to any kind of statistical scrutiny is striking, but a highly tentative estimate would be that the county might have totalled upwards of 27,000 people. B. Jones, C. Thomas, M. Gray, ‘Population’, Gwent Co. Hist. iii.

The franchise in Monmouth had been determined by a decision of the House in 1680, which admitted two out-boroughs, Newport and Usk, but excluded two others, Abergavenny and Chepstow. This was confirmed by the practice in the elections of 1689 and 1690. On the other hand the restriction of voting rights to resident freemen, which had been a subsidiary element in the Commons’ judgment, was almost certainly ignored throughout this period.

Although Monmouth had a comparatively large electorate, it was a complete pocket borough of the Duke of Beaufort.

Monmouth Boroughs remained under the control of the dukes of Beaufort throughout the period.E. E. Havill, ‘Parl. Rep. Mon. 1536-1832’ (Univ. of Wales MA thesis, 1949); R. D. Rees, ‘Parl. Rep. S. Wales 1790-1830’ (Reading Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1962), i. 259. They were in command of the close corporations of Monmouth and Usk.

Monmouth was under the sway of the dukes of Beaufort, who had a strong interest in all its three constituent boroughs. In Monmouth the Duke controlled the council of 15 life-members; in Usk he was lord of the manor, appointing the burgesses through the recorder; in Newport, where he was lord of the borough, his steward nominated the mayor from two candidates chosen by the aldermen.

Monmouth itself was regarded as dependent on the Raglan Castle interest, but the contributory boroughs were less subservient, though their rights were disputable. No return survives for 1660, when Sir Trevor Williams, subsequently a leading opponent of the Somersets, was elected. His interest was strongest in Usk, and in 1661 Sir George Probert was returned by the mayor, bailiffs and ‘burgesses’ of the county town alone.

Monmouth was made the shire town of the new county which came into being in 1536 as a result of the Act of Union. The town was incorporated in 1549 and the government of the borough placed in the hands of a mayor and two bailiffs. It had long been a possession of the duchy of Lancaster. The leading local duchy offices, those of steward and receiver, were held throughout the Elizabethan period by the earls of Pembroke and by another branch of the powerful Herbert family.

Situated at the junction of the rivers Wye and Monnow, the manor, town and borough of Monmouth belonged to the duchy of Lancaster. In 1536, when Monmouthshire was created by the Act of Union, the parts of the town on the English side of the two rivers were included within it. Monmouth became the shire town, although the county court was held alternately there and at Newport. Like many border towns Monmouth had suffered from the lawlessness which prevailed before the Union, and in 1544 it was included in the Act (35 Hen. VIII, c.4) for the re-edification of certain towns.