Queenborough

Queenborough was a minor settlement dominated by a once-important castle, situated at the western tip of the Isle of Sheppey, a region ‘more celebrated for the fertility of the soil than the salubrity of air, which is gross and thick, causing aguish infirmities’. T. Philipott, Villare Cantianum (1659), 379. The site of a Saxon fort, Queenborough was effectively founded by Edward III, who named it in honour of his consort, Philippa of Hainault. Edward’s castle, built by William of Wyckham, was finished in 1367. Later rebuilt by Henry VIII, as part of a systematic strengthening of the region’s coastal defences, it remained part of the crown estate until 1649. Having briefly served as a prison during the republic, the castle was sold by the regime in 1650, and appears to have been demolished before 1660. J. Castle, Queenborough and its Church (Sheerness, 1907), 4; Hasted, Kent, vi. 233, 235, 236; R. Kilburne, A Topographie (1659), 220; W. Lambarde, The Perambulation of Kent (1656), 268-70; Philipott, Villare Cantianum (1659), 379; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 263, 265; E121/2/11/13. The town received a new charter in 1625, ostensibly in order to enable measures to be taken against disorderly strangers and seamen, and thereafter the borough was governed by a mayor, four jurats, two bailiffs, and a steward, as well as an unspecified number of freemen. Castle, Queenborough, 23; C. Eveleigh Woodruff, ‘Notes on the municipal records of Queenborough’, Arch. Cant. xxii. 172-3.

Despite its strategic importance, the town proved difficult to develop, ‘because the situation of this place was unhealthy’. It was apparently in recognition of this fact that Edward III granted Queenborough its first charter, and the right to hold twice-weekly markets and biannual fairs, ‘to allure inhabitants’. Such efforts proved vain, despite the area’s emergence as a centre for copperas production, and by the early seventeenth century it was little more than a minor fishing village; in the late sixteenth century it consisted of only 23 inhabited dwellings. CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 74; Philipott, Villare, 379; Castle, Queenborough, 8; Hasted, Kent, vi. 234, 237-8. The town’s relative poverty ensured that it was required to contribute a mere £10 towards Ship Money in 1635. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/FVc1/29. An assessment levied in 1658 to pay the minister’s wages revealed that there were only 41 householders, and in the late seventeenth century, the Compton census recorded the presence of 107 conformists of communicable age. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/FVc1/46; Compton Census, 29.

Queenborough was enfranchised in 1571, with an electorate consisting of the freemen, of whom there appears to have never been more than 30 in the seventeenth century. Castle, Queenborough, 19. Electoral influence was shared between local gentry magnates, including members of the Hales family, as well as by the Herbert family, in their capacity as local landowners and crown servants. During the early part of the seventeenth century the crown estate on Sheppey was alienated to Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, and the latter became constable of the castle in 1617, a position which traditionally brought control over one of the seats. Philipott, Villare, 380; Hasted, Kent, vi. 237.

The elections for the Short Parliament in March 1640 saw the return of Sir Edward Hales, who had represented the borough in 1625, on his own interest as a prominent local landowner. The second seat was taken by John Harrison, who was made a free burgess on the day of the election, upon which he gave 40 shillings to the town’s poor, and 20 shillings to the serjeant. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 138v. Harrison, a leading customs farmer later fined a substantial sum by the Long Parliament and a future active royalist, was probably returned on the court interest, at the behest of Pembroke. That the election witnessed a contest, however, is suggested by the fact that one Benjamin Dowle was made a free burgess immediately before the election, although details regarding any poll which resulted are unknown. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 138v. Dowle, who may have been a client of Hales – he was married to the daughter of the minister of the latter’s parish at Tunstall – was also the borough steward. Canterbury Mar. Licences, 1619-1660, 295; CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 35; Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, ff. 120, 129, 138v, 142, 143, 184. Harrison immediately expressed his thanks ‘for your good opinions and love towards me in electing me one of your burgesses’, and discharged the fees due to him. Cent. Kent. Stud. QB/Ci/37. However, having been returned for two constituencies, he opted to sit for Lancaster, and on 16 April a writ was ordered to be issued for the election of his replacement. CJ ii. 3b. There is no evidence that the subsequent election was contested, and having been admitted as a freeman on 16 April, Sir John Wolstenholme, the son of Harrison’s old friend and employer, and another customs farmer, was elected four days later. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 139; PROB11/181/581.

The election in the following autumn, for the Long Parliament, appears once again to have been contested. Hales’ position as the sitting MP was probably not seriously threatened, but the fact that he faced two other candidates indicates that the court sought to unseat him. His rivals were William Harrison and Phineas Andrews, both of whom were admitted as freemen on the day of the election, 19 October, when Hales and Harrison were returned. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 144. Harrison was a son of Sir John Harrison, and his return may have represented an attempt to protect his father from the inevitable wrath of the reformers in Parliament, who sought to punish with hefty fines those who had advanced money to the crown, thus enabling the recent bishops’ wars. Andrews, a former servant of John Ashburnham*, was a nephew of Sir John Harrison, was involved in customs and crown finance during the 1630s, and became a farmer of the duties on imported Rhenish wines in 1639. CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 450, 467; 1628-9, p. 248; 1639-40, p. 232; CCAM 1343; SP28/252ii, f. 90v. A royalist in the civil wars, Andrews was responsible for sending money to both his kinsmen and the king at Oxford. CCAM 1343.

Harrison’s death while fighting for the king in June 1643 ensured a recruiter election in September 1645, upon a writ which was ordered to be issued by the House of Commons on 1 September. The resulting election appears to have witnessed another electoral contest. CJ ii. 259b. The first candidate was a local man, Sir Michael Livesay, who had been admitted as a freeman in September 1641, when he had paid 10 shillings to the steward, and 5 shillings to the serjeant. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 153. Livesay, of Eastchurch in Sheppey, was a grandson of Sir Michael Sondes† of Throwley, who had represented Queenborough on five occasions between 1586 and 1604, and was a colonel of horse and dragoons during the first civil war. As one of the county’s most prominent parliamentarians, he had served as sheriff in 1643. A future regicide, by 1645 Livesay was already a controversial figure, whose relations with his military superiors were sometimes strained, and who was prevented from assuming military office in the New Model army as a result of a ‘mutiny’ with the ranks of his regiment. Nevertheless, while it seems likely that he stood on his own interest, he may have had the backing of at least sections of the county committee.

Livesay’s candidacy would not have been welcomed throughout the parliamentarian ranks in Kent, however, and an attempt appears to have been made to prevent his return. On 9 September, six days prior to the election, Augustine Garland was admitted as a freeman, upon which he made the standard payments to the steward and serjeant, as well as 40 shillings to the town’s poor. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 171. Garland too had a personal connection to Queenborough, and one which was even more powerful than that of Livesay, having inherited property in the borough upon his father’s death in 1638. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 128v; Qb/FAg1, unfol.; PROB11/176/80. Whether or not Garland’s interest resulted in a poll is unknown, and Livesay was returned on 15 September. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 171v; Qb/RPr/6. Garland’s opportunity came, however, in 1648, when another recruiter election was held, in order to replace the local magnate, Sir Edward Hales, who had been removed from the Commons as a delinquent. The writ was ordered to be issued on 10 May, and Garland was chosen, apparently without a contest, on 26 May. He subsequently waived his fees as the borough’s representative at Westminster. CJ v. 556a; Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 177; Qb/RPr/7; Qb/ZB/49.

Plans for electoral reform and the ‘new representative’ during the Rump Parliament involved reducing the borough’s representation to one seat. That such plans reflected more than just recognition of the town’s limited importance, however, is evident from the controversy which this proposal generated. Certain members may have been concerned about the possibility of the corporation returning men opposed to the commonwealth, and when on 16 March 1653 the Commons divided on the proposal, Livesay acted as one of the tellers in favour of the motion. The idea was only approved, however, upon the casting vote of the Speaker. CJ vii. 268a. Although such legislation was incomplete at the dissolution of the Rump, Queenborough lost one of its seats under the terms of the Instrument of Government of December 1653, albeit perhaps for different reasons. By this time the government may have been concerned to prevent the return of those, like Livesay, who were opposed to the Cromwellian regime. Although relatively little is known about the election for the first protectorate Parliament on 11 July 1654, the government’s strategy appears to have paid off, and having read the printed copy of the Instrument of Government which had been sent to the borough by the sheriff, the borough kept their faith in Augustine Garland. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/Ci/39.

The nature of the borough’s representation in 1656 is less certain. During debates on the constitution on 6 December 1654, a motion to retain the town as a single-Member constituency was defeated in the Commons, which resolved that the burgess formerly appointed for Queenborough should be added to the county of Kent. CJ vii. 396b. This decision, perhaps reflecting the influence of those supporters of the protectorate who feared that Garland’s support for the government was at best lukewarm, clearly generated a degree of opposition, however, and on 2 January 1655 Garland acted as a teller in a successful bid to reject this decision. But when the Commons then considered a motion to preserve the constituency, Garland and his supporters were narrowly defeated, by a group which included the county’s future major-general, Thomas Kelsey*. CJ vii. 411b. This decision would suggest that Queenborough was unrepresented in the 1656 Parliament, yet the official press reported that the seat still existed, and that it was taken by Gabriel Livesay, son of the borough’s former MP, Sir Michael Livesay, who had effectively retired from public life as a result of his opposition to the protectorate. Mercurius Politicus no. 325 (28 Aug.-4 Sept. 1656), 7221 (E.497.14); S. Robertson, ‘The church of All Saints, Eastchurch in Sheppey’, Arch. Cant. xiv. 379. The borough records offer no evidence with which to confirm that this election took place, although Livesay’s absence from the House was noted on 31 December. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMS4; Qb/C1; Burton’s Diary, i. 285.

For the elections to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament in 1659, Queenborough regained its two seats. The effect appears to have been to restore the electoral influence of the Herbert family, and the first seat went to one of the sons of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke. James Herbert had been a recruiter MP in the Long Parliament, but had not sat after Pride’s Purge, and had played no role in public life during the commonwealth. Although a younger son, Herbert had succeeded to his father’s estate in Sheppey in 1650, and had recently been made a freeman of the borough. Philipott, Villare, 383; Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 208. Whether or not Herbert’s return was considered a foregone conclusion is uncertain, but the second place was evidently contested between Thomas Bayles and Peter Pett*, both of whom were made freemen on 12 January, the day of the election. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 208. Pett, from a long line of master shipwrights at Chatham, was an important figure in parliamentarian naval affairs in the civil wars, and during the 1650s served not merely as an assessment commissioner in Kent, but also as a navy commissioner. HP Commons, 1660-1690. His rival, Bayles, an Essex royalist with strong Catholic connections, had no known connections with the borough. Although he owned land in Kent, this did not lie in the vicinity of Sheppey, and he was not active in local politics and administration in the county. It is possible, however, that as an agent for a number of royalist landowners, Bayles may have established connections with members of the Hales family. At the election, Herbert and Bayles were returned, and Pett secured a seat at Rochester. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/RPr/8. Herbert subsequently retained his seat in both the Convention and Cavalier Parliaments, and during much of the remainder of the seventeenth century it was the Herbert and Hales families which continued to dominate the borough’s electoral politics. HP Commons 1660-1690.