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Dorsetshire Elections, 1604-1640

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

John K. Gruenfelder
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Extract

Dorsetshire's elite, the leaders of its “county community,” continued to exercise their customary influence in the county's elections from 1604-1640. However, there was a notable change from the Elizabethan age. During the great Queen's reign, no one family was able to establish a preponderant voice in the county's elections. A “sustained monopoly” was, it seems, impossible and the best any influential squire could hope for was to be twice returned for the county. Indeed, it is probable that only Sir Ralph Horsey of Clifton Maubank, chosen in 1586 and 1597, and Andrew Rogers of Brianston, elected in 1586 and 1588, achieved that degree of eminence. Even the great Sir Walter Raleigh, after establishing himself at Sherborne, only managed to serve for Dorsetshire once, in 1597.

That changed after 1604. Dorsetshire elected eleven men to its eighteen knightships of the shire from 1604-1640, and one man, Sir John Strangways of Chirk Castle and Melbury Sampford, established what can be described as a “sustained monopoly.” He served for the county in 1614, 1621, 1624, and 1628; his repeated victories were recognition of his wealth and estate, his close connections with John Digby, Earl of Bristol (1622) and with other county families of note. Strangways had married into the Trenchard family of Warmwell and Wolveton, near Dorchester; one of his daughters married, first, into the influential Rogers family of Brianston and later, in 1624, took as her second husband the stepson of the Earl of Bristol, Sir Lewis Dyve. Strangways was, no doubt, an active supporter of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Trenchard, in Dorset's 1621 election and, in a bitterly fought contest in 1626, it was Strangway's power and influence that accounted for the return of Sir George Morton. Altogether, Sir John's influence can be credited with five, and more probably six (or one-third), of Dorsetshire's knightships through 1640. Given his ability to win a place for Morton in the face of fierce opposition in 1626, it is possible that his influence was even more widespread in the county's elections.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Spring 1978 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1978

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References

1 Neale, J.E., The Elizabethan House of Commons (London, 1949), pp. 53–55Google Scholar.

2 Keeler, Mary F., The Long Parliament, 1640-1641 (Philadelphia, 1954), pp. 353-354, 364Google Scholar; Nichols, J., ed., The Progresses, Processions … of King James the First.…, 4 vols. (London, 1828), II: 706 & n.Google Scholar; Hutchins, John, The History and Antiquities of the county of Dorset, Shipp, W. and Hodson, F. W., eds., 4 vols. (3rd ed.; Westminister, 1861–1870), III: 22Google Scholar. Thomas Trenchard served as a justice of the peace and sheriff in Dorset, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Calendar of the State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles I, 23 vols., (London, 1858–1897), VII: 1634–35, 420Google Scholar; VIII; 1635, 114, 502, 525. [Hereafter cited as CSPD.]

3 For Somersetshire's election and its long term results in the county, see Farnham, Edith, “The Somersetshire Election of 1614,” English Historical Review, 46 (1931): 579–599CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Barnes, Thomas G., Somerset, 1625-1640 (London, 1961), pp. 133, 281–298CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of voter control and the methods frequently employed to sustain voter loyalty, see Hirst, Derek, The Representative of the People? (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 110–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Hutchins, , Hist. Dorset, I:11bGoogle Scholar; II:845; IV: 17, 86, 97, 99, 367, 379, 453.

5 Hutchins, , Hist. Dorset, I: 616, 617, 624Google Scholar; II: 487, 491, 500-501; IV: 2, 189. An idea of the wealth of Dorset's MP's can be gleaned from an apparent assessment for the subsidy in 1609. Sir Thomas Freke and Sir Ralph Horsey, the Elizabethan MP and father of Sir George Horsey, returned by Dorset in 1624, were rated at £60. Strangways was rated at £30 while his father-in-law, Sir George Trenchard, was rated at £40. Morton's father, who died in 1611, was also rated at £40 as was Sir John Browne, father of John Browne of Dorchester, who challenged Sir George Morton in the 1626 election. John Williams of Tyneham was only rated at £20. Gleason, J. H., The Justices of the Peace in England, 1558 to 1640 (Oxford, 1969), Appendix G, p. 249Google Scholar.

6 Cokayne, G. E., Complete Peerage of England. … 8 vols. (London, 1887–1898), II: 180–181Google Scholar; Moir, Thomas, The Addled Parliament of 1614 (Oxford, 1958), pp. 38, 123, and Appendix II, p. 180Google Scholar; Stone, Lawrence, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641 (Oxford, 1965), pp. 192, 631, 668Google Scholar; Hutchins, , Hist. Dorset, III: 671Google Scholar; “The Diary of Mr. William Whiteway of Dorchester, Dorset., November 1618 to March 1634”, BL Egerton MS 784, f. 27. [Hereafter cited as Whiteway's Diary.]

7 Whiteway's diary, fols. 37v, 38, 38v, DNB, “Sir Gerard Napier,” Horsey's financial debacle was a sorry tale; he was selling up property to pay his debts as early as 8 Jac. 1, and his son's wild spending only compounded his difficulties, and those too of Sir George Morton who, when Horsey's son was in Newgate, was forced to flee to Wales to avoid the obligations he had incurred for the Horsey family. In 1639, Horsey was living with his brother-in-law, John Freke at Shraton; he had been outlawed for a £10 debt. However, the situation grew much worse, for in February 1640 Sir George Horsey was linked in another outlawry with his friend Morton over an unpaid debt of £500. Horsey died in abject poverty and distress in the county gaol. Hutchins, , Hist. Dorset, IV: 160, 162, 231, 300-301, 367, 427, 429, 454Google Scholar; CSPD 1639-1640, XV: 423.

8 Whiteway's diary, fols. 49-49v; Keeler, , Long Parliament, pp. 165–167Google Scholar.

9 “Election of Knights of the Shire for Dorset in 1626, from an MS in the Cambridge University Library (Dd. 11. 73), Collectanea Whiteway,” Somerset and Dorset Notes & Queries, 4 (1894–1895): 23–24Google Scholar. Morton inherited a considerable estate in Dorsetshire which included his father's principal residence at Milborne St. Andrew in addition to at least a dozen other manors. Hutchins, , Hist. Dorset, I: 140, 142, 145, 199Google Scholar; II: 594-595, 597-598. Morton apparently was an absentee; at least, during the election, he was repeatedly criticised as an outsider to the county.

10 Somerset and Dorset Notes & Queries, pp. 23-24.

11 Ibid.; Whiteway's Diary, f. 55v; Keeler, , Long Parliament, pp. 118-119, 355–356Google Scholar.

12 Somerset and Dorset Notes & Queries, pp. 23-24; Commons Journal, I: 818, 821; Whiteway's diary, fols. 56-56v.

13 Somerset and Dorset Notes & Queries, pp. 23-24; Keeler, , Long Parliament, pp. 118–119Google Scholar.

14 For other examples of the urban electorate's influence in county elections, see Hirst, , Representative of the People?, pp. 40–41Google Scholar.

15 Keeler, , Long Parliament, pp. 118-119, 353-354, 364Google Scholar. Morton's political views in 1626 are unknown. He left no trace in the Journal of the House of Commons and never served in parliament again. In 1646, Morton compounded for his estates for £600. He denied he had ever been in arms “but his estate being extended for debts, he was obliged to repair to his friends and kindred, though they were in the King's quarters, for subsistence.” He was in Exeter when it was taken by Sir Thomas Fairfax. Morton was still involved in the settlement of Sir George Horsey's estate in 1652-1653. Great Britian, Public Record Office, Calendar of the proceedings of the committee for compounding … 1643-1660, 1 vol in 5 pts. (London, 1889–1892), pt. I: 118Google Scholar; pt. V: 3272, 3273, 3275; Nichols, , Progresses … of King James, I: 120Google Scholar; III: 530 & n.

16 Somerset and Dorset Notes & Queries, pp. 23-24; John Horner and others to the Earl of Hertford, 14 Dec. 1620, House of Lords Record Office, Historical Collections of the House of Commons Library, Election Papers, 6: Wells, 14 Dec. 1620, concerning L. Beauchamp's candidacy; Owen Wynn to Sir John Wynn, 2 Dec. 1623, National Library of Wales, Wynn MS 1172 (9059E); Gruenfelder, J. K., “The Electoral Patronage of Sir Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 1614-1640,” The Journal of Modern History, 49 (December 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Strode, to SirCoke, John, 5 May 1627, Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of the Earl Cowper, K.G., … 3 vols. (London, 1888–1889), I: 305Google Scholar; the bailiff and inhabitants of Bridport to the Duke of Buckingham, 28 Jan. 1626, P.R.O., St. P. Dom. 16/19:69; Tibbutt, H. G., ed., The Life and Letters of Sir Lewis Dyve, 1599-1669, (Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 1948), XXVII: 8–9Google Scholar; Commons Journal, I: 820, 822–823Google Scholar; DNB, “Sir Lewis Dyve”; DNB, “Edward Clarke”; Keeler, , Long Parliament, p. 44Google Scholar; Hirst, , Representative of the People? p. 119Google Scholar. The reasons for the quarrel between Strode and Strangways, beyond the dispute over the Bridport election remain obscure. Strode, Strangways, and Sir George Horsey, along with many other west country gentry, were involved in an attempt to enclose Sedgmoor in Somersetshire. Strode had even offered a plan for draining and enclosing the property sometime in 1626. He was also involved with Sir Walter Erie in a petition to the Privy Council over the export of cattle to New England, CSPD 1625-1626, I: 525Google Scholar, CSPD 1627-1628, III: 256Google Scholar; Great Britain, Public Record Office, Acts of the Privy Council of England, 11 vls. plus (London, 1921- ), 1625-1626, p. 376Google Scholar. Bristol denied being part of any plot against Buckingham during the Oxford session of the 1625 parliament. His electoral influence was probably limited to Dorsetshire although evidence of his intervention does not survive. Nothing suggests he tried to emulate Pembroke's electioneering in 1626. Willson, D. H., The Privy Councillors in the House of Commons, 1604-1629, (Minneapolis, 1940) pp. 180-181, 183–186Google Scholar, and the sources cited therein; Rowe, Violet A., “The Influence of the Earls of Pembroke on Parliamentary Elections, 1624-41,” English Historical Review, 50 (1935): 246–250Google Scholar. Attempting to read political motivations into Strode's actions or, for that matter, into the actions of any of his contemporaries in the Dorset election of 1626 is a risky, if not impossible, business. Morton's views are unknown. Browne, who had married into a staunch puritan family, was, if the diarists of the Parliament of 1621 are correct, a si let member. His opposition to the Crown was much more apparent in the 1630s than before. And he remained true to his views; he consistently opposed the King throughout the civil war. Strangways, on the other hand, became a roayiist who, along with his son, Giles, suffered imprisonment and a fine of £10,000 for his services to the King, Notestein, W., Reif, F. H., and Simpson, H., eds., Commons Debates, 1621, 7 vols. (New Haven, 1935)Google Scholar, contains no references to John Brown, M.P. for Bridport; Keeler, Long Parliament, pp. 118-119, 352-354. Indeed, since Bridport's election was held ten days before the county election, the angry Strode, upset by Clarke's rejection at the hands of Strangway's son-in-law, may have backed Browne against Morton for revenge, Official Return of Members of Parliament, 2 vols. (London, 1878), I: 469Google Scholar. It is possible, too, that the Strode-Strangways quarrel was similar to the feuds that developed in Elizabethan Norfolk between the county community, determined to preserve its authority in local affairs, and other local gentry who were willing to support increasingly interventionist court policies for their own purposes. Sir Richard Strode, for example, was on good terms with Buckingham; Strangways, on the other hand, was one of the Duke's severest critics, Smith, A. Hassell, County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558-1603 (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar.

18 Whiteway's diary, f. 68v; Keeler, , Long Parliament, pp. 165-167, 353–354Google Scholar.

19 Keeler, , Long Parliament, p. 44Google Scholar; The Victoria History of the Counties of England, The Victoria History of the County of Dorset, III: 147–149Google Scholar.

20 Keeler, , Long Parliament, pp. 44, 132-133, 157, 325–326Google Scholar; DNB, “George Dilby, 2d earl of Bristol”; VCH Dorset, II: 147–149Google Scholar; Hirst, , Representative of the People, pp. 183, 185Google Scholar.

21 As in Dorsetshire's contested elections, failure to achieve a pre-election agreement could lead to a quarrelsome election contest. The Somersetshire election of 1614 was another example and its gentry, as the correspondence in the Phelips manuscripts reveals, attempted to avoid a similar battle in 1624 and again, it seems, in 1628. Even the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Arthur Lake, lent his good offices to keep the 1624 election quiet. Farnham, Edith, “The Somerset Election of 1614,“ English Historical Review, pp. 580, 582–584Google Scholar; Barnes, T. G., Somerset, 1625-1640, p. 285Google Scholar; John Poulett to Richard Weeks, 29 March 1614, Somersetshire RO, Bundle 21, DD SF 1076, MS, 36; Edward Hext to his son, 19, 20 January 1624, Somersetshire RO, Phellps, MSS, vol. 2, Fols 20, 20v and vol. 18, f.63; Phelips to ?, 22 Jan. 1624, Phelips MSS, vol. 4, fols. 214-215; Phelips to Portman, 9 Feb., and two undated probably for 1628, Phelips MSS, vol. 14, fob. 3, 5, 7. Hampshire was another county where such agreements were probably attempted since its three candidates in 1614 refused to compromise, and when others, fearful of a contest, urged them to decide “by lot or hazard” which would tep down, a bitter election fight resulted, Moir, T., The Addled Parliament of 1614, pp. 35–37Google Scholar; P.R.O., St. Ch. 8/293/11; HampshireRO, Whitehead's Letter Book, fob. 68v-70. For a survey of Yorkshire's elections and the contested election of 1621 when an outsider, Sir George Calvert, was returned, see Gruenfdder, J. K., “The Electoral Patronage of Sir Thomas Went worth, Earl of Strafford, 1614-1640,” The Journal of Modern History, pp. 557–574Google Scholar. For similar discussions of other early seventeenth century county elections, see Gruenfdder, “The Parliamentary Elections, 1604-1640,” forthcoming, Transactions of the Radnorshire Society, “The Wynns of Gwydir and Parliamentary Elections in Wales, 1604-1640,” forthcoming, The Welsh History Review, Cylchgrawn Hanes Cymru, and “The Northamptonshire and Worcestershire Parliamentary Elections of 1604,” forthcoming, Midland History.