Bury St Edmunds

For seven centuries the abbey of Bury St Edmunds, centred on the shrine of the saint-king, Edmund the Martyr, had been one of the great churches of the kingdom. The town laid out in the eleventh century to the west of the abbey precincts was entirely a creation of the abbey authorities and, within the limits of the liberty of St Edmundsbury, successive abbots ruled almost unchallenged. As one of the most powerful of the king’s subjects, the abbot had received regular summons to Parliament as a spiritual peer and twice, in 1267 and 1447, he had hosted Parliaments in the town. All this changed at the Reformation, but the peculiar status of the town continued to cause confusion. In the absence of a corporation, no single body governed the town and by the 1580s none of the leading citizens were quite sure what the system was supposed to be. J.S. Craig, ‘The Bury Stirs revisited’, Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. xxxvii. 210. By default, the civic business of the town was largely conducted by a local charity, the Guildhall Feoffment Trust, which had been set up by a local man, Jankyn Smyth, in the late fifteenth century. The inhabitants had to wait until 1606 before the incorporation of the borough brought some order to this confusion. The new corporation, however, did not seek to supersede the Guildhall trustees, who retained many of the functions which elsewhere would have been the corporation’s responsibility. The trust also acted as a useful source of loans to the borough. It was this precedent which probably inspired the unusual decision by the corporation (whose members may have feared that their charter was about to be withdrawn) to hand over their lands in 1630 to a trust consisting of themselves. The suppression of the abbey and the decline of the East Anglian clothing industry had together removed the earlier sources of the town’s wealth, and two major disasters – a fire in 1608 and the loss of about a tenth of its population in an outbreak of the plague in 1637 – hindered recovery. Yet it did have its advantages, for, as the local antiquary, Matthias Candler, observed, ‘many of the gentry buy or hire houses in Bury because of the pleasantness of the place’. Soc. Antiq. MS 667, p. 212. Equally important was its central location and administrative roles, for the assizes, the archdeaconry court of Sudbury and the commissary court of the bishop of Norwich were all based there, and these advantages together allowed the town to remain the equal of its great rival, Ipswich. As one visitor to Suffolk in 1635 put it, both Bury and Ipswich were ‘well deserving the title of cities for their great commerce, fair buildings, pleasant situations, gentle inhabitants and for their prudent government’. A Relation of a Short Survey of the Western Counties ed. L.G. Wickham Legg, Cam. Misc. XVI (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. lii.), 4.

Incorporation of the town in 1606 was quickly followed by its enfranchisement in 1614. The terms of this grant restricted the franchise to the corporation (an alderman, 12 capital burgesses and 24 common councilmen) and two of the candidates in the 1713 election dispute correctly argued that the corporation had enjoyed this right ‘without any interruption by the populace upon any pretence whatsoever till the year 1680’. R. Reyce, Suff. in the XVIIth Century ed. F. Hervey (1902), 255. The most obvious consequence of this restriction of the franchise to the corporation was the repeated return of Sir Thomas Jermyn* in the earliest parliamentary elections held in the town. His successes in the two 1640 elections were simply the continuation of the pattern established in all five elections held during the 1620s. As someone whose estates lay at Rushbrooke just outside the town and as a rising courtier, who by 1640 was the comptroller of the royal household and a privy councillor, Jermyn had an unchallenged claim to one of the seats. In most of the elections before 1640 other local families, such as the Crofts, the Springs and the Herveys, had taken it in turns to occupy the junior place. This pattern was broken in the first 1640 election, held on 26 March, for the MP returned along with Jermyn was the talented London barrister, John Godbold. C219/42/2, no. 21; Harl. 298, f. 148. However, as Godbold had been the corporation’s recorder since at least 1628, he cannot be considered an outsider. Suff. RO (Bury), HD921/1. How far Godbold had Jermyn’s backing is not known, but his support, once elected, for conciliation with the king may reflect Jermyn’s influence. There were even a couple of occasions when one seems to have spoken immediately after the other in debate in the Commons. Aston’s Diary, 20; Procs. Short Parl. 190.

A challenge to the Jermyn interest emerged later that year in the form of William Spring*. In early October Spring told the sheriff of Suffolk, Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, that a number of his friends had persuaded him to stand for one of the Bury seats. Interventions by the Jermyns had however dispelled his initial optimism. Sir Thomas had probably already made known that he wished the second seat to be given to his eldest son, Thomas*. Spring calculated that he was four votes short of the 19 he needed to secure a majority among the members of the corporation. He therefore asked D’Ewes to put pressure on one potential supporter. Harl. 384, f. 191. A second letter by Spring to D’Ewes, seemingly written several weeks later, probably records what happened next. Nine of the voters whose support he had hoped for failed to back him on the day, apparently because of ‘threatenings that scared them’. Harl. 387, f. 127. The result was that Spring lost by one vote. As news spread around the town about the way the vote was going, 100 freeholders made their way to the town hall to demand their say. All were turned away. Harl. MS 387, f. 127. Further details are lacking, as no election indentures survive and the borough records in this period are sparse, but it can be inferred that both the Jermyns were returned.

Well before the fighting had broken out between the king and Parliament, the aged Sir Thomas Jermyn had left Westminster for his sick bed at Rushbrooke. He was now seriously unwell and Parliament’s growing hostility towards the king only added to his reasons for staying away. Thomas Jermyn, as a groom of the bedchamber to the prince of Wales, in the meantime followed the royal court to Oxford. The Commons eventually took action against the son, voting on 14 September 1643 to discharge Thomas from his place in the Commons. CJ iii. 241b. Four months later he attended the rival meeting of Parliament called by the king to Oxford. Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 574. His father was similarly expelled from the Commons by a resolution on 5 February 1644. CJ iii. 389b. Sir Thomas died less than a year later in January 1645. Bury remained without representation at Westminster for 18 months. The new writs agreed by the Commons for Southwark on 21 August 1645 created the necessary precedent for the principle that vacancies created by disablement could be filled by fresh elections. Robert Reynolds* acted immediately, moving new writs for Bury on the grounds that Sir Thomas was dead and his son had ‘gone to the king’. This motion was agreed, so that Southwark and Bury, together with Hythe, became the first three constituencies to be issued with writs for recruiter elections – in the case of Bury, on 6 September 1645. Add. 31116, p. 453; CJ iv. 249b; C231/6, p. 17. The by-election at Bury presumably took place soon after and one of the new Members (Barnardiston) had taken his seat in the Commons by 29 October. CJ iv. 326a.

The parliamentarian presence in the town at this time was strong. The standing committee for Suffolk, which had taken over much of the administration of the county, was based in the town and there was an effective faction on the corporation, led by Samuel Moody* and Thomas Chaplin*, which supported the war against the king. The corporation now used the two seats within its gift to send to Westminster two of the leading figures in the county. The Barnardistons could claim to be the most powerful of the Suffolk families and their head, Sir Nathaniel, who had sat for the senior county seat since 1640, was an enthusiastic supporter of Parliament. It was a sensible move for the Bury corporation to give one of their seats to Sir Nathaniel’s heir, Sir Thomas Barnardiston. The Barnardiston estates in the south west of the county were far closer to Sudbury, where a by-election was also being held at about this time (in which Brampton Gurdon* was returned), but Sir Thomas and his father may have judged that there was greater honour to be gained in representing the larger town. Sir William Spring was another local gentleman of considerable status and firmly parliamentarian views whose influence the town could usefully cultivate. His estates at Pakenham lay a short distance from the town and his father, Sir William†, had sat for the constituency 20 years earlier. Neither Spring nor Barnardiston sat in the Commons after the purge of December 1648.

In early 1654 the corporation wrote to the lord protector, Oliver Cromwell*, congratulating him on the conclusion of peace with the Dutch and offering thanks to God for ‘bearing you up through the midst of those dangers to which you have been exposed, and using you all along as an instrument in his hand for our deliverance from slavery, and the accomplishment of our just rights and liberties’. Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 151-2. Bury’s size and importance had ensured that the bill for a new representative considered by the Rump in March 1653 had been amended to allow the town to retain both its MPs and the same principle was then incorporated into the Instrument of Government. CJ vii. 270b; A. and O.

On receiving the writs for the 1654 Parliament, the first under the reformed electoral system, the corporation arranged for the election to be held in the town on 29 June. Suff. RO (Bury), D4/1/2, f. 6v. That plan was subsequently revised, with the poll being delayed until 8 July. C219/44/2, no. 27. The corporation had then to adjust to the new circumstances, in which the availability of 10 county seats rather than the traditional two, tempted the strongest candidates to stand for those seats. Both Barnardiston and Spring thus preferred to wait until the county contest four days later, when their confidence was confirmed with the two of them topping the poll. Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v. The town, in the meantime, had not looked far for its new MPs. Samuel Moody’s role in the corporation has already been mentioned and, from the late 1640s onwards, John Clarke had been one of his colleagues most closely associated with him. The third member of this trio, Thomas Chaplin, headed the list of the chief burgesses who signed the indenture confirming their election. C219/44/2, no. 27.

This result was repeated two years later in the elections to the next Parliament. The corporation arranged to meet in the Guildhall on the afternoon of 16 August 1656. Suff. RO (Bury), D4/1/2, f. 13. Four days later, the local major-general, Hezekiah Haynes*, wrote to the secretary of state in London, John Thurloe*, informing him of the success of Clarke and Moody at Bury. Haynes probably meant to imply that this was the one bright spot in an otherwise bleak picture, for he was depressed that elsewhere in East Anglia ‘the profane, malignant and disaffected party and scandalous ministry are only gratified’. TSP v. 328.

The town seems again to have been out of step with the mood elsewhere during the 1659 elections. By then Moody was dead, but the rearrangements this required when the corporation met on 6 January were small. His colleague in the 1654 and 1656 Parliaments was now re-elected as the senior Member, and their old friend, Thomas Chaplin, was elected to the other place. C219/48: Bury St Edmunds election indenture, 14 Jan. 1659. Seven months later, when the question of the arrears due to former aldermen was raised, Clarke asked the corporation for the payments due to him for his service as their MP and was supported by Moody’s son who also wanted the money which had been due to his father. This matter was then deferred and seems never to have been raised again. Suff. RO (Bury), D4/1/2, f. 25.

The Restoration brought major upheavals to the Bury corporation. The 1660 election saw a double return, with the Commons eventually ruling against Chaplin and Clarke. Their successful opponents, Sir Henry Crofts and Sir John Duncombe, were moderates who had not held office during the 1650s. This was the last election in which the group who had so recently dominated the corporation exercised visible influence on the outcome. Both Chaplin and Clarke were among the 19 at Bury who stepped down from their civic offices to pre-empt their probable removal by the commissioners enforcing the Corporation Act. Suff. RO (Bury), D14/1/1; D11/11/2; W. Symonds, ‘The Booke of Subscriptions’, Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. xiii. 44-56; M. Statham, The Book of Bury St Edmunds (Buckingham, 1988), 58. However, the continuation of the trust created in 1630 meant that the corporation’s estates were still in the hands of trustees consisting of their predecessors. The result was a legal case in chancery which ended in 1662 in the favour of the current corporation. The trustees (including Chaplin and Clarke) managed to hold out until 1669 before agreeing to re-convey these lands to the corporation, whose rights had just been reaffirmed by a new charter. Suff. RO (Bury), D10/3; D7/1/4. In that way, the divisions arising between 1660 and 1662 were finally resolved.