Wilton

In the Anglo-Saxon period, Wilton had been the seat of kings of Wessex, while after the Norman conquest it remained for a time the administrative centre of Wiltshire. Even in the early modern period there was a bailiff representing the landed interests of the crown, and from 1649, ‘the state’ and then the protector. Wilts. RO, G25/1/21, pp. 400, 402, 404. But well before the dissolution of the monasteries led to the destruction of its ancient abbey, and the reformation to the ruin of some of its many churches, Wilton’s industries and market were in decay and many houses were demolished. By the mid-sixteenth century a diminished population mainly lived close to the centre of the borough. VCH Wilts. vi. 1-4. The scale of its decline was much less pronounced than nearby Old Sarum – 234 adult males took the Protestation in 1641-2 – but it too was insignificant compared with the new county town, Salisbury, just over three miles to the east. Compton Census, 119.

Wilton had sent Members to Parliament regularly since the thirteenth century. The right of election was vested in the freemen, who originally numbered upwards of 80. Hoare, Hist. Wilts. ii. (Branch and Dole), 55; VCH Wilts. vi. 27. However, there were only 28 voters in 1628 and by the seventeenth century the franchise, like the government of the town, appears to have been confined to the mayor and burgesses. HP Commons 1604-1629; VCH Wilts. vi. 21-2; C219/42 pt. ii, no. 69; C219/43 pt. iii, no. 24; C219/48. These numbered 25 in September/October 1639 and 1640, and 32 in September 1658, the very minor fluctuations in between testimony to a remarkably stable body. Wilts. RO, G25/1/21, pp. 374-414. In 1634 the borough order book specified an £11 fee for those undertaking mayoral office more than once; among those who did so more than twice from 1630 to 1660 were Christopher and Walter Gray, representatives of one of the two families of local clothiers who achieved gentry status during this period. Wilts. RO, G25/1/25/1, f. 5; VCH Wilts. vi. 24-5; Ramsay, Wilts. Woollen Industry, 70n.; cf. Surveys of the Manors of Philip, first Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery 1631-2 ed. E. Kerridge (Wilts. Arch. and Nat. Hist. Soc. ix), 82-5. Further orders of the 1630s displayed a determination to bind the corporation together in formal attendance at communion in the parish church and (from 1638) ‘every sabbath day ... both forenoon and afternoon’. Wilts. RO, G25/1/25/1, ff. 3-6. Richard Chaundler, who had become rector of St Mary’s, Wilton, in 1621, and subsequently master of the local hospital, was among the burgesses in 1639 and remained so until his death in 1657, his Presbyterianism evidently to the taste of a majority of his colleagues. Wilts. RO, G25/1/21, pp. 374-411; Al. Ox.; VCH vi. 32. He is not recorded as having exercised his vote in the parliamentary elections of 1640.

From their arrival at Wilton in the 1540s, the Herberts, soon earls of Pembroke, consistently wielded electoral influence. The beautification of their house and grounds in the first half of the seventeenth century both obliterated some medieval remains of the town and emphasised their dominance over it. VCH Wilts. vi. 6, 18; V.A. Rowe, ‘The Influence of the earls of Pembroke on Parliamentary Elections’, EHR l. 256. Yet there appear to have been subtle differences in the degree to which Herbert nominees gained acceptance from the corporation. Sir Thomas Morgan†, a Member for the borough in every Parliament between 1607 and 1629, was listed among burgesses almost every year between 1614 and 1645, while Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire*, who sat once in 1626, was a constant presence from 1625 until his death 60 years later; his single absence from the list, on 5 October 1643, explicable perhaps by his temporary political difficulties, but perhaps simply by error. John Herbert* and Richard Grobham Howe* were admitted as burgesses two months before their election to the 1659 Parliament; Sir Henry Vane I* and Sir Benjamin Rudyerd* were never admitted. Insofar as none utilised their status in order to vote, or indeed participate in other borough activities, so far as can be seen, it was a formality, but the differentiation between Members does suggest varied perceptions of engagement with local interests. It should also be noted that in all three parliamentary elections in this period, a significant minority did not append their names to the official borough record, while the indentures reaching Westminster seem to contain fewer signatures. Wilts. RO, G25/1/21, pp. 376, 379, 414 and passim; C219/42 pt. ii, no. 69; C219/43/pt. iii, no. 24; C219/48.

In 1640 at least, commanding the votes of the small oligarchy may have required some assurances that candidates would promote the cloth trade. For all its decline, in the early 1630s Wilton had been named among the 14 towns in the county proposed for development as centres for cloth inspection, and opposition to the subsequent related activities of government-appointed inspector Anthony Wither was perhaps as strong as elsewhere in the area. Ramsay, Wilts. Woollen Industry, 2, 87. While their links with the borough were relatively slender, Rudyerd and Vane, returned twice that year, were seasoned MPs, critical of government policy over the previous decade. The former was a long-standing friend and trustee of both William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke, and Philip Herbert*, 4th earl; both Rudyerd and Vane were identified among ‘puritans’ at court. Although, like Pembroke, they entertained reservations about the parliamentarian war effort, they sat in the Long Parliament until Pride’s Purge.

The borough itself experienced occupation by the royalists for a short time in 1644. VCH Wilts. vi. 6. On the face of it, however, the corporation appears unaffected by the fortunes of war in the region. Wilts RO, G25/1/21, pp. 382 seq. In spring 1645 the removal of the county committee’s seat from the north to Falstone House, just south of the town, is testament to its relative stability. Waylen, ‘Falstone Day Bk.’ 343-91. Wilton did not return Members again until the third protectorate Parliament, but the election for knights of the shire was held there on 3 January 1655; several Wilton burgesses voted on that occasion. C219/44 pt. 3, no. 4.

The Herbert interest endured. On 27 December 1658 Christopher Gray and other longstanding burgesses joined in the election of the ‘Hon. John Herbert’, fourth surviving son of the late 4th earl, and Richard Grobham Howe*, who was new to the House. Wilts RO, G25/1/21, p. 414; C219/48. Both candidates shared the distinctly lukewarm commitment of the Herberts to the regime. Herbert died suddenly before the end of the Parliament, having despatched a secret donation to the exiled Charles Stuart, but was not replaced. Grobham Howe survived to sit again in 1660, while Thomas Herbert sat in the Exclusion Parliaments. HP Commons 1660-1690.