Peterborough’s governors did not constitute a corporate body. The dean and chapter of the cathedral were lords of the manor and the city officials were elected annually at a court leet held at the town hall. The city’s ‘chief gentry’, with the addition of some merchants and principal tradesmen, formed a body of ‘feoffees’ responsible primarily for administering the various charities and guild properties, but they also oversaw other matters of a municipal character.
Visitors to Northampton towards the end of the 17th century were impressed by its wide streets and well-appointed stone buildings. The town had been almost entirely rebuilt following the devastating fire of 1675, and its appearance was an undoubted source of pride to its civic masters. In 1701 a gentleman tourist, Sir John Perceval†, remarked on the many gentrified families living within the town and its outlying districts who were a vital ‘support’ to the local economy, and they, rather than leading townsmen, supplied the candidates for the borough seats.
The disposal of the single Higham Ferrers seat lay chiefly in the hands of whoever controlled the manor, the lordship of which belonged to the duchy of Lancaster. It had been granted by Charles II to his consort, Catherine of Braganza, with reversion to the 2nd Earl of Feversham, the Queen’s chamberlain from 1680 until her death in 1705. Feversham seems to have shown no interest in nominating candidates except in 1689 when he put forward his heir, his sister-in-law’s husband, Hon. Lewis Watson†, who in a short while succeeded his father as 3rd Lord Rockingham.
Brackley’s governing body, in whom the right of election lay, was a corporation by prescription consisting of a mayor, six aldermen, sometimes called ‘capital burgesses’, and 26 ‘burgesses’. Its lord of the manor, the Egerton earls of Bridgwater, commanded at least one of the parliamentary seats throughout the period. The Wenman family had formerly enjoyed greater electoral influence, but this interest was silenced in 1690 with the death of Viscount Wenman (Richard†), followed by the long minority and later political apathy of his son. From the early 1690s, however, Hon.
Northampton had a very wide franchise, comprising about two-thirds of all resident adult males. The labouring class, except those in receipt of poor relief, were entitled to vote; and there was a large Dissenting element in the population. Yet its politics were mainly personal in character and subject to aristocratic influence. ‘I have always understood’, wrote the Duke of Newcastle in 1768, ‘that when my Lord Halifax and my Lord Northampton agreed ... their interest was secure’;Add. 32989, f.
The most important interest at Peterborough was that of the Fitzwilliam family who owned large estates in the neighbourhood and almost invariably returned one Member. But it was ‘by no means ... a commanding interest’;Matthew Lamb to Ld. Fitzwilliam, 28 Dec. 1767, Fitzwilliam mss, Northants RO. it always required attention, and was expensive to maintain. Richard Terrick, bishop of Peterborough, wrote to Lord Hardwicke, 6 Oct. 1762:Add. 35607, f. 2.
Higham Ferrers was a pocket borough of the Marquess of Rockingham, and after his death in 1782, of his nephew and heir, Earl Fitzwilliam.
Brackley was always counted as a pocket borough of the Duke of Bridgwater. In 1754 Bridgwater, a minor, was on the grand tour, and his affairs were managed by his uncle the Duke of Bedford. At Brackley a complete stranger, Thomas Humberston, bribed a majority of the corporation into promising him single votes. Bedford, with Dickinson and Vernon, the Bridgwater candidates, went down to try and retrieve the situation.
Earl Fitzwilliam, the principal property owner, was unopposed parliamentary patron of this open borough throughout the period. He described Peterborough in 1796 as ‘a place where we have no trouble, but where we always pay great attention’. French Laurence, after his return, informed his patron, 16 Nov.
Despite its large electorate which increased during this period to over 1,300 voters and included a strong dissenting component, Northampton went to the poll only three times: the balance of interests and the memory of the ruinously expensive contest of 1768 were sufficient to discourage protracted struggles.Oldfield, Boroughs, i. 427; Add. 51573, Smith to Lady Holland, Tues.