Wallingford

In common with the other three Berkshire parliamentary boroughs, Wallingford’s prosperity had always depended on its location on the Thames. It had been represented in Parliament since 1295. By the seventeenth century, however, it had long been outperformed by the neighbouring towns of Abingdon and Reading, and there was little doubt that it was now, by some margin, the least wealthy of the Berkshire boroughs.1 CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 251. The corporation consisted of a mayor, three aldermen, a chamberlain and 16 burgesses. The right to elect MPs was vested in the freemen, however. Earlier in the century the strongest electoral interest had been that of the town’s high steward, Viscount Wallingford (William Knollys†), but that interest, which had never been undisputed, died with him in 1632. He had been succeeded as high steward by the 1st earl of Berkshire (Thomas Howard†), who would be able in 1640 to make some use of the influence that gave him.2 Berks. RO, W/AC1/1/1, ff. 115, 118v. Berkshire combined the high stewardship with the office of constable of Wallingford Castle. In 1632 the corporation had also taken the opportunity to remove those freemen who had proved to be inactive, including every former MP who had been given the freedom at the time of their election, except for the two MPs who had sat in 1628, Sir Robert Knollys† and Edmund Dunch*.3 Berks. RO, W/AC1/1/1, f. 115v.

The two men elected to the Short Parliament had both represented Wallingford previously. Dunch was the head of a local gentry family and Unton Croke I* was a prominent Oxford lawyer who had represented the constituency in 1626.4 C219/42, pt. 1, f. 57. The election for the Long Parliament proved to be more contentious. The initial return, dated 15 October and probably made by the corporation, again elected Dunch, but this time paired him with Anthony Barker*, who, since the previous year, had been serving as recorder. Croke was not elected elsewhere and so would have been available, but members of the corporation may have preferred to use their own professional lawyer this time. But the return of Dunch and Barker was soon to be challenged. On hearing a petition against the result on 15 February 1641, the Commons ruled that the election was void and that a new writ should be issued.5 CJ ii. 85b. According to Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, the result was overturned because Dunch and Barker were ‘not chosen by the commonalty’. D’Ewes also mentions that the pair ‘had sat diverse months in the House’ and, having been present when this decision was made, then withdrew.6 Procs. LP ii. 453. The writ was sent out the following day.7 C219/43, pt. 1, f. 72. In the new election, in which the freemen were presumably allowed to make the choice, Dunch was re-elected but the other seat was won by Berkshire’s younger son, Thomas Howard*. Dunch had resumed his seat at Westminster by 16 March 1641 at the latest.8 CJ ii. 105b.

Once the fighting started between the king and Parliament, Howard unambiguously supported the king and in January 1644 he sat in the Oxford Parliament. He thereby became one of those MPs expelled from Parliament by order of the Commons on 22 January 1644.9 CJ iii. 374a. Dunch, on the other hand, remained at Westminster and supported Parliament for the duration of the war. In the meantime, Wallingford Castle was a major royalist stronghold. Its location made it the perfect forward defence to protect Oxford from any attack from the direction of London, and the castle, controlled for the king by Colonel Thomas Blagge, held out until after the fall of Oxford. On 17 July 1646 the Commons approved the articles by which the Wallingford garrison was to surrender and Sir Thomas Fairfax* gained control of the castle on 27 July, two days earlier than had been planned.10 CJ iv. 620b-621a. Arthur Evelyn was then appointed as the new governor, Fairfax was ordered to provide troops to secure it, and days of thanksgiving were held on 8 and 22 September to mark this and the capture of the other pockets of royalist resistance.11 CJ iv. 628b, 652a, 676a.

Until then, royalist occupation had prevented the Commons from authorising ‘recruiter’ elections to fill the parliamentary vacancy at Wallingford. A new writ for an election to replace Howard was moved on 15 September 1646 and then issued on 5 November.12 CJ iv. 668a; Perfect Diurnall no. 164 (14-21 Sept. 1646), 1313 (E.513.11); C231/6, p. 67. The candidate returned was Robert Packer*, who had actively supported the parliamentarian cause as a local Berkshire official and who, like his new constituents, had direct experience of the economic hardships the county had experienced during the recent fighting. The election must have taken place before 9 December, when Packer took the Solemn League and Covenant in the Commons as the new MP.13 CJ v. 7b. Packer sat only until December 1648, when he was removed in the army’s purge of the Commons, but Dunch continued to represent the town until the Long Parliament was dissolved in 1653.

Wallingford was one of the two Berkshire boroughs that lost their right to elect MPs under the terms of the 1653 Instrument of Government.14 A. and O. It was therefore in 1659, with the general revival of the pre-1653 constituencies, that the town next held a parliamentary election. On that occasion the freemen elected two men closely associated with the corporation. William Cooke* belonged to the group of committed parliamentarians who had dominated the corporation since 1648, when those aldermen deemed to have been too sympathetic to the royalists had been purged. By 1659 Cooke had already served twice as mayor. He was joined in the return with his friend, Walter Bigg*, a prosperous Merchant Taylor and former sheriff of London, who had been born in Wallingford, who had retired to the town and who later that year would endow a salary for the local schoolmaster.

The elections in 1660 and 1661 enabled Packer to return to Westminster for his old constituency and in the first of those elections he was elected along with Dunch’s son, Hungerford†. The 1661 election had the character of unfinished business from 1648 and the years in-between. Packer’s opponents attempted to purge the corporation of the beneficiaries of the 1648 purge, headed by Cooke who was now serving his third term as mayor. When that attempt failed, Packer was re-elected, but one of those opponents, George Fane*, gained the other seat.15 HP Commons 1640-1660.