Commons 1690-1715

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.

‘This is certainly the greatest fanatical and Whig county in England, and now the contrary party have bestirred themselves the Whigs have lost it prodigiously.’ However, the writer of this verdict on the decisive Tory victory in Northamptonshire of December 1701 appears to have overstated the pervasiveness of Whiggery in the shire during the preceding decade, since what is much more apparent is an even balance between the parties. The second election of 1701 saw a rather more adversarial climate in county politics which continued to intensify in the next two elections.

Although susceptible to aristocratic influence, and with a tincture of party politics, the Thetford corporation in this period was characterized more by venality. Bribery was often a feature of elections, and no interest could for long be maintained there without some substantial gifts to the corporation or benefactions to the town.

Norwich was still the second city in the kingdom, with a population of some 30,000. Celia Fiennes found it ‘a rich, thriving, industrious place’. There was a very large Dissenting interest: ‘every sect is represented here’, wrote another visitor. This, coupled with the fact that the weavers, by far the most numerous body among the freemen, were predominantly Whig, ensured that the High Tory faction in the city, although it had regained control over the corporation by 1690, could not monopolize parliamentary elections.

Politics in King’s Lynn were dominated by the Turners, a local family of merchants and lawyers, who provided the corporation with five of its mayors between 1691 and 1707. Sir John Turner, then a Tory, was returned in 1690 with another local Tory, Daniel Bedingfield, the recorder. However, Sir John’s nephew, Charles Turner, had in 1689 married the daughter of Robert Walpole I* of Houghton, and the Turners soon aligned themselves behind this powerful new connexion, supporting the Walpoles locally and the Whigs nationally. In 1695 Charles Turner took the place of Bedingfield.

The Members for Yarmouth were expected to work for the borough in the House and to follow the corporation’s instructions on local matters: after each session they were presented with a sum of money or a quantity of wine ‘as a token of thankfulness for their good services’. The town was described by Defoe as ‘very rich’ and also ‘very well governed’. The electorate numbered only some 600 in 1660, but had risen to about 800 by the 1720s. As one modern historian has noted,

Castle Rising had been a pocket borough of the Duke of Norfolk, who as lord of the manor controlled most of the burgages. However, the Duke was in financial difficulties and the two Members he returned in 1690, both of them Whigs, each coveted it for themselves: Hon.

At the beginning of this period the principals in the county were the Whig Sir Henry Hobart, 4th Bt., of Blickling and the Tory Sir Jacob Astley, 1st Bt., of Melton Constable. The other leading interests were in eclipse or decline: among the Whigs the Townshends were represented by a minor, while Sir John Holland, 1st Bt.†, of Quidenham, the veteran Parliamentarian, had by now retired from politics; on the Tory side Lord Yarmouth (Hon. William Paston†) had refused the oaths and was in any case sinking under his debts.