Corfe Castle

Corfe Castle first sent Members to Parliament in 1572. Almost certainly, enfranchisement was requested by Christopher Hatton who in 1571 or thereabouts received a grant whereby he became lord of the manor of Corfe, constable of the castle and vice-admiral and lieutenant of the Isle of Purbeck. Hatton, who exercised his offices by deputy, never lived in Corfe and this presumably explains why his patronage at elections there did not become fully established until 1586. The borough itself was governed by a mayor, two bailiffs and a council of barons and burgesses. The 1584 return states that the election was made by the mayor, bailiffs and barons, with the consent and agreement of ‘all the other’ barons and burgesses.Hutchins, Dorset, i. 470, 474; E. St. John Brooks, Sir C. Hatton; C219/29/46.

The 1572 and 1584 MPs for Corfe all seem to have been local men, some of whom were returned on the strength of family influence, others being reliant on Hatton. Edmund Uvedale (1572) was from a Dorset landowning family and his father was sheriff of the county in election year. Charles Mathew (1572) has not been identified but possibly he was a local man related by marriage to the influential Dorset family, the Turbervilles. John Leweston replaced Mathew at a by-election in 1579. Captain of Portland and a Dorset landowner, Leweston may well have been Hatton’s deputy lieutenant for Purbeck. Francis Hawley, Hatton’s deputy as vice-admiral, was returned in 1584, together with John Clavell, of the nearby manor of Barneston, many of whose family lived in Corfe. By 1586, Hatton’s influence was such that the election return of that year was made out as a ‘blank’ and referred to him.C219/30/25. This time, Hawley had to be content with the second seat, the other being taken by Hatton’s nephew and heir, Sir William. The same two Members were returned at the next election. On the death of his uncle, Sir William inherited the estate and was presumably responsible for the return of the 1593 MPs. William Tate, a relative of the Hatton family, came from Northamptonshire and acted as a trustee for sir William. Francis Flower, a gentleman pensioner, had served Sir Christopher and was later to bequeath a diamond to Sir William.PCC 8 Cobham.

In 1597 Sir William Hatton died and his widow, Lady Elizabeth, a niece of Sir Robert Cecil, inherited the Corfe estate. Subsequently, Lady Elizabeth married Edward Coke, an alliance encouraged by Cecil, and the two men were responsible for the patronage at Corfe for the last two Parliaments of the reign. In 1597 Corfe returned its ‘well beloved friends’C219/33/67. Francis James, a follower of Cecil, and the lawyer John Foyle, an associate of Cecil’s confidential agent John Budden and later a servant of Edward Coke. In 1601 the senior seat went to John Durninge, once servant to Lord Burghley, and the junior seat to John Davies, a lawyer who had been supported by Coke in the past and had dedicated a poem to him.