Norfolk

The franchise at Thetford was enjoyed by the corporation, consisting under the Elizabethan charter of the mayor, who acted as returning officer, ten ‘burgesses’ or aldermen, and 20 common councilmen. To the great inconvenience of most of the county it was an assize town; and the proximity of the sporting delights of Newmarket and Thetford Chase ensured a strong gentry interest in a town that was otherwise little more than a posting station and a cluster of medieval ruins on the Norwich road.

A large, open constituency, Norwich appears to have shared the moderate political and religious views of its most celebrated resident, Sir Thomas Browne, and his friend and neighbour Augustine Briggs, whose only handicap as a candidate was his reluctance to ‘ride’ in the procession which local custom required before as well as after the election.

The flourishing port of Lynn served as regional capital for the conservative Marshland of West Norfolk. Its confidence and prosperity in this period are attested by such buildings as the Exchange (now the Custom House) and the Duke’s Head, and further by the return of at least one townsman at every election after the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. The town had suffered severely at the hands of the parliamentary forces in 1643, and the franchise had been restricted to the purged corporation under the Protectorate.

‘The multitude’ at Yarmouth had shown unmistakable royalist sympathies during the second Civil War, and, though the freeman roll did not rise above 600 in a population of many thousands, it was thought wise during the Protectorate to restrict the franchise to the corporation, which under the guidance of the recorder Miles Corbet (the regicide) was purged of all except Independents.

Castle Rising was a pocket borough of the Howard family, though they were usually content to nominate to a single seat. The dukes of Norfolk were lords of the manor, and most of the burgages which carried the franchise were held by their dependants and nominees. The 5th duke was a lunatic, and until 1679 the family interest was exercised by his brother Henry Howard, a Roman Catholic. On 19 Apr. 1660 it was reported that his distant cousin Charles Howard of Naworth had been elected to the Convention for Rising with the Presbyterian Royalist John Spelman.

Charters had been granted to the city of Norwich since the time of Henry II, but the sixteenth-century constitution was based in part upon the charter of 1404, which gave the city the status of an independent county and exempted it from the jurisdiction of the sheriff of Norfolk, and in part upon that of 1417 which re-stated in detail the form of the city’s government. There were no important changes during the sixteenth century.

Thetford was run by a ‘congregation’ consisting of a mayor, 10 principal and 20 inferior burgesses. The returns were in the form of indentures between the mayor and burgesses on the one hand and the sheriff on the other, and sometimes contained the phrase ‘we have assembled and congregated’ for the election.

Great Yarmouth was governed by an inner council of 24, including the two bailiffs, and a common council of 48, and these two bodies, constituting the ‘assembly’ or ‘house’, were responsible for parliamentary elections. On several occasions during Elizabeth’s reign they appointed a committee to give instructions to the MPs. The returns are in the form of an indenture between the sheriff and the bailiffs, burgesses and commonalty, the names of 24 ‘comburgenses’ being given in the return of 1597. The town assembly books record no payments of wages to MPs in this period.

The corporation of King’s Lynn consisted of the mayor, 12 aldermen and 18 common councilmen. The electors were the ‘mayor, the aldermen and common council’. Some of the surviving returns for this period recite the names of the burgesses taking part, about 24 in 1584, 21 in 1586, 18 in 1597. In 1589 the parliamentary wages were 3s.4d. a day, raised by a special tax, often collected at the same time as the fifteenths and tenths.

Castle Rising was a mesne borough, belonging to the 4th Duke of Norfolk until his attainder and execution in 1572. It was governed by a mayor and burgesses. The first parliamentary return made by the borough was in 1558, no doubt through the influence of the Duke. The 1559 return took the form of a deed in which the mayor and burgesses declared that they had chosen two burgesses to represent them in Parliament. Later returns are in the form of indentures between the mayor and certain burgesses on the one side, and the sheriff of Norfolk on the other.