Commons 1690-1715

The chief interest at Tavistock was that of the Russells, earls and (after 1694) dukes of Bedford, the lords of the manor. The returning officer was the portreeve, who was chosen at a court leet by 24 freeholders selected by the lord’s steward. The Russells enjoyed the support of fellow Whigs such as Sir Francis Drake, 3rd Bt., who owned nearby Buckland Abbey and property in the borough itself. On the Tory side the leading interest was that of the Manatons of Kilworthy (just over a mile from Tavistock), who were trustees of the parish lands. In 1690 Hon.

‘Plympton’, reported Defoe in 1705, was ‘a little town, all Low Church and very well united, but a poor place’. The recorder, Sir George Treby, possessed such a strong interest that Defoe described the borough as ‘Treby’s town’. Property in the borough, castle and manor was subdivided, however, between several individuals, including Treby, George Parker and John Pollexfen. There were also other prominent local families such as the Strodes, Heles, Drakes and Fortescues.HMC Portland, iv. 270; Willis, Not. Parl. ii. 333–6; J. B. Rowe, Hist. Plympton, 177.

Plymouth was described by Defoe as ‘a town of consideration and of great importance to the public’, and its dual importance, both as a naval and military base and a trading port, were closely reflected in its electoral politics. The corporation was only able to exert partial control over the allocation of its parliamentary seats while at the same time, certainly in the 1690s, their difficulties were complicated by party struggles.

There was no decisive proprietorial interest in Okehampton during this period, although the influence of several local families enabled them to command its parliamentary seats over two or more elections without the trouble of a contest. In 1690 the Members elected to the Convention were returned again. They were William Cary of Clovelly, a Court Tory whose elder brother Sir George† had forged strong connexions with the borough in the 1680s and served as recorder until his death in 1685, and Henry Northleigh, another Tory who owned property in the borough.

Celia Fiennes found Honiton ‘a pretty large place, a good market, near it a good church’ and ‘a very large meeting of Dissenters’, its principal industry being the making of ‘fine bonelace in imitation of the Antwerp and Flanders lace’. The representation was shared between Sir Walter Yonge, 3rd Bt., a Whig and a Dissenter, who had much property in and nearby the borough and Sir William Drake, 4th Bt., Yonge’s Tory relation, who owned one of the local manors. They were unopposed at the first three elections of King William’s reign.Journeys of Celia Fiennes ed. Morris, 214; A.

With its population of some 13,000 in 1689 and its prominence in trade and woollen manufacture, Exeter was one of the four or five leading cities in the kingdom. Politically, it occupied a key position in the south-west. As Lord Poulett, a sometime lord lieutenant of Devon, commented in 1705, ‘the spirit of that city does not only in a great degree influence Devonshire, but Cornwall also’. There was a strong tradition of Whiggish politics in the city, dating back to the Civil War and underpinned by the influence of the powerful Presbyterian minority who provided in the region of 500 votes.

Bere Alston was arguably the most nondescript of Devon’s boroughs, consisting of ‘a few cob cottages, a market house and a poor house’. Browne Willis* observed that there were fewer than ‘80 poor houses’. Several ‘persons of quality’ owned freeholds and property in the borough, though by far the largest landowner was Sir Francis Drake, 3rd Bt. In 1690 the lordship of the manor was in the hands of Sir John Maynard*, a friend of Drake to whom he had granted the leases of mills and other borough property.

Barnstaple’s economic decline was well advanced by the late 17th century, much of its trade in wool having been lost to nearby Bideford. Control over the town’s parliamentary seats during this period was shared between the corporation and the proprietors of the adjacent manor of Raleigh. The Chichester family had been the chief gentry family in the Barnstaple area for many generations, the manor having been in their possession for much of the century.

Ashburton, which consisted ‘chiefly of one long street’, was the principal town in south Devon and was dominated by the woollen industry. Elections were mainly under the control of the gentry owners of the two moieties of the manor, although the extent to which they might exert such control was often determined by the inclinations of the ‘independent interest’ within the town, an important element of which was the Dissenting tradesmen (indeed the portreeve and leading inhabitants petitioned in December 1696 against the landed qualification proposed in a bill regulating elections).

There was a strong tradition in Devon of restricting the shire seats to a handful of the county’s chief gentry families. Intra-gentry squabbling had frequently accompanied the post-Restoration elections, but during the reigns of William and Anne agreement was usually reached without any real struggle, thus satisfying an all-round preference for consensus and inexpensive contests. The Courtenays and the Rolles, two of the wealthiest families in the county, had monopolized the county seats during much of the 17th century and continued to do so.