Great Bedwyn

Great Bedwyn, which had sent two representatives to Parliament intermittently since 1295 and regularly since the later thirteenth century, was incorporated by charter in 1468. By that time its heyday was already in the past. Overshadowed by Marlborough and Hungerford, respectively a few miles to the north west and to the north east, it was essentially an agricultural village. It had a market, two annual fairs, and what its neighbours considered in 1648 an over-generous provision of alehouses to serve inhabitants and travellers on the road from Oxford to Salisbury which ran through the parish. It lacked a separate structure of self-government: its bailiff (with the authority of a magistrate) and portreeve were also officers of the lord of the manor’s court leet. VCH Wilts. xvi. 9-12, 33, 38, 42-3. Both John Leland in the early sixteenth century and Daniel Finch in the later seventeenth dismissed it as a place of little consequence. VCH Wilts. xvi. 11; HMC Finch, ii. 54.

Traditionally electoral influence had been exercised principally by the lords of the manor, who for decades had been the Seymours, earls of Hertford, seated at nearby Wolf Hall. VCH Wilts. xvi. 20-23, 26-8; HP Commons 1604-1629. The Hungerfords, who through their ownership of the manors of West Bedwyn and Marten, shared with the estate of a prebendary of Salisbury control of much of the land, also had a substantial interest. This was, however, somewhat reduced in 1630 by the sale of Stock manor by Sir John Hungerford† to Sir John Danvers*, and by the decision of part of the family to reside in Oxfordshire. VCH Wilts. xvi. 19-20, 23-5, 44; HP Commons 1604-1629.

There is evidence that at least one local inhabitant shared the resistance of Sir Francis Seymour* to the demands of central government for extraordinary taxes in the 1630s, and thus that support might be relied upon when it came to the elections of spring 1640. CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 57-8; 1636-7, p. 538. An indenture dated 31 March, with five signatures or marks including those of the bailiff and the portreeve, declared that the burgesses had chosen two Seymour candidates – outsider Richard Harding*, half-brother of the notorious monopolist (Sir) Giles Mompesson, who had sat for the borough in 1614 and 1620, and Sir Francis’s son Charles Seymour*. C219/42, pt. ii, no. 59. However, on 16 April, the first day of the session, the committee of privileges made it a priority to hear a petition challenging the return. CJ ii. 3b. As the diarist Sir Thomas Aston reported, Sir John Danvers, who had recommended one Cordwell (perhaps a connection of Samuel Cordwell, the royal gunpowder contractor), claimed that day that an attorney acting for the Seymours, one Franklyn (possibly John Francklyn*, the town clerk of Marlborough, anxious to repair previous rifts with the dominant local family), had delayed the day of the election. He had used the extra time to choose a new portreeve and ‘threaten the commonalty that they should lose their markets and commons’. A court leet was then called, at which Franklyn ‘chose the jury and managed the election himself’. Contrary to custom, he had sworn ‘the commoners, whereas none shall have a voice but only the portreeve or those that have been portreeves and not above seven’. In reply, Franklyn blamed the sheriff for misdirecting the writ and asserted that ‘the portreeve or bailiff being ignorant desired his assistance, so all he did was by his consent’. Aston’s Diary, 146-7; PJ ii. 4-5.

There was probably some truth on both sides. On the one hand, the franchise at early seventeenth century elections had been exercised by a maximum of 12 people. HP Commons 1604-1629. On the other hand, the proportion of marks on the sparingly signed indenture indicates either lack of education or a delegation of responsibility. However, from the outset MPs on the privileges committee – including John Glynne*, John Maynard* and John Hampden* – inclined in such cases of uncertainty to prefer a wider franchise. Aston’s Diary, 147. When the committee finally reported on 28 April it upheld that conclusion: ‘being not satisfied that it did belong to the ancient burgesses by prescription, they remitted the election to inhabitants that paid Scot and Lot’. Danvers did not contest the report, but his argument that Franklyn was guilty of misdemeanours was accepted. The House resolved that the election of Harding and Seymour should stand; any action against Franklyn disappears from view. CJ ii. 14b, 15a; Aston’s Diary, 78-9.

Charles Seymour, who in any case was under age, made no visible contribution to the Parliament and probably did not stand in the autumn. An indenture dated 31 October, with five signatures, announced that the portreeve, bailiff and burgesses had again elected two Seymour candidates. C219/43, pt. iii. no. 32. This time Harding was partnered by Sir Walter Smyth*, a London-born lawyer and long-standing local resident with a record of resistance to non-parliamentary taxation. Both seem to have left Westminster before summer 1642; both followed the Seymours in supporting the king and subsequently attended the Oxford Parliament, for which they were disabled.

The fluidity of the military situation in Wiltshire delayed until 9 January 1646 the issue of a writ for a by-election. CJ iv. 109a, 109b. The disruption that month to elections at Marlborough from a party of royalist cavalry from Oxford doubtless contributed to a postponement at Great Bedwyn until 27 July. With proceedings in the hands of his friend Alexander Thistlethwayte*, and the Seymours’ influence removed, this was an opportunity for Sir Edward Hungerford*, a notable member of the committee of the west, to reassert his family’s interest. According to the indenture, the ‘portreeve and burgesses’ returned Sir Edward’s half-brother and protégé Henry Hungerford*, a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, with Edmund Harvey I* in first place. C219/43, pt. iii. no. 34. It is not clear whether either Sir Edward or Sir John Danvers recommended Harvey, a London draper who had been a colonel of horse in the City militia. Both knights had City connections, although Harvey’s subsequent career in the Rump places him more in the orbit of Danvers than of the Hungerfords, who were Presbyterians. However, Harvey’s military record may have commended him generally to parliamentarian activists both locally and nationally.

By the time another election was held, on 2 December 1658, both Sir Edward and Sir John were dead. While the Hungerford estates had been amalgamated into the hands of Henry’s nephew Edward Hungerford*, Danvers’ lands had been divided among youthful heiresses. Here this left Danvers’s daughter Anne Lee’s mother-in-law, Anne Wilmot, dowager countess of Rochester, in effective control. It is not known if she attempted to promote a crypto-royalist candidate, as she did her son Sir Henry Lee* at Malmesbury in this election and as she did Sir Francis Henry Lee† and Ralph Verney* at Great Bedwyn in February/March 1660. Mems. of the Verney Fam. iii. 464-7, 475; HP Commons 1660-1690. If so, she was (as in 1660) unsuccessful. ‘With the consent of the greater part of the inhabitants of the said borough who have votes’, Henry Hungerford was again elected His partner, Thomas Manby*, was another Lincoln’s Inn lawyer but not an obvious associate. C219/48. Manby’s engagement in business for the council of state and enthusiasm for the protectorate suggests that for once the influence of central government was at work in the borough.