Minehead

This constituency was literally overshadowed by Dunster Castle, the ancient seat of the Luttrells located on a promontory three miles to the south east. Both overlooked the Bristol Channel. Passing through in 1635, Sir William Brereton* found Minehead ‘no market town’ but ‘a long straggling-built village, wherein there is great recourse of passengers for Ireland’. W. Brereton, Travels in Holland, the United Provinces, England, Scotland and Ireland ed. E. Hawkins (Chetham Soc. i), 170. The manor of Minehead fell within the honour of Dunster, which, like the castle, had belonged to the Luttrells since the late fourteenth century. Som. RO, DD/L(P), 29/48. The 1640 rent roll of the manor reveals that it had over 100 tenants, who paid quarterly rents totalling £22 16s 2d. Som. RO, DD/L(P), 30/91. However, relations between the Luttrells and the townspeople had long been strained. The town had been incorporated by royal charter in 1559 and the corporation thus created had acted as a counterweight to their landlord. But that charter had been revoked in 1604. Moreover, it had never been clear whether the 1559 charter had created a right for the town to return MPs and its revocation had only increased that uncertainty. The householders had nevertheless elected two MPs for every Parliament since 1620. Apart from in 1625, when they had elected Thomas Luttrell†, the son and heir of George Luttrell, the Minehead voters had usually tried their best to ignore the Luttrells’ influence. Thomas had succeeded his father in 1629.

The family which throughout this period most obviously dominated the Minehead elections were not the Luttrells but the Pophams. This was rather surprising as the Pophams’ Somerset estates were mostly located in the far north of the county. Their success, certainly at first, was in fact a case of indirect Luttrell influence. Thomas Luttrell’s mother was a Popham and the Popham candidate in the first of the 1640 elections was his brother-in-law Alexander*. At the outset, Alexander Popham had an eye on one of the two county seats and he also took the precaution of standing for Bath. Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 150, 155, 156. Minehead was therefore merely a convenient way of spreading his risk. Two other candidates also presented themselves. Once Edmund Wyndham*, who had sat for Minehead in 1625 and 1628, decided to stand instead for Bridgwater, his younger brother, Francis*, came forward. Edmund’s estates at St Decumans were located further down the coast just beyond Dunster and so they were the Luttrells’ principal rivals for influence within the area. Opposition to Francis Wyndham came in the form of Arthur Ducke*, a London-based civil lawyer, who, as chancellor of the dioceses of London and of Bath and Wells was closely associated with the controversial religious policies of his patron, the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Unlike the other two, Ducke had represented the constituency in the past, having been the town’s MP in the 1624 Parliament. On that occasion, he had owed his election to the backing of the bishop of Bath and Wells, Arthur Lake, whom he had already been serving as chancellor. That Ducke still held that position, that his wife was from Wells and that he held estates at North Cadbury in the south east of the county meant that he was not a complete outsider, but he lacked the local connections so obviously enjoyed by Wyndham and, to a lesser extent, by Popham. Even so, he managed to split the vote. Two election indentures from rival groups were returned, one dated 24 March 1640 and the other six days later on 30 March. Both named Popham, but divided over according the other seat to Wyndham or Ducke. C219/42, pt. 2, ff. 7, 8. The indentures were delivered to the sheriff, Sir Thomas Wroth*, on 26 March and 2 April. C219/42, pt. 2, f. 8v. However, on 2 April, just three days after some of the Minehead electors had chosen him, Bath gave one of its two seats to Popham. On 16 April, three days after Parliament had assembled, Popham informed the Commons that he intended to sit for Bath, thereby allowing both Ducke and Wyndham to become the Minehead MPs. CJ ii. 3b; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 42; Aston’s Diary, 148.

None of the three candidates who had stood in the Short Parliament election did so the following October. The Wyndhams were conspicuous by their absence; Francis seems to have made no attempt to seek re-election and Edmund again preferred to stand for Bridgwater. Ducke probably declined to stand anywhere, while Popham relied on Bath a second time. Popham’s place was therefore taken by his father, Sir Francis Popham*, Thomas Luttrell’s father-in-law. Luttrell’s influence was also evident in the choice for the other seat, his son and heir, Alexander*. C219/43, f. 143. The latter cannot then have been aged more than about 18. Yet both MPs died during this Parliament – in Alexander’s case, just two years later. The writ to replace him was issued on 11 June 1642. CJ ii. 604a; C219/43, f. 126. Sir Francis saw this as an opportunity to gain a seat for his nephew, Thomas Hanham*, who, as a Dorset country gentleman, had no other connections at all with north Somerset. Hanham had taken his seat at Westminster before 12 September 1642. CJ ii. 762a, 763a.

By then the country was descending into civil war. In the vicinity of Minehead, that war primarily took the form of attempts by both sides to gain control of Dunster Castle. In September 1642 and January 1643 royalist forces tried to do so without success. Speciall Passages and Certain Informations no. 8 (27 Sept.-4 Oct. 1642), 57-8. (E.119.24); H.C. Maxwell Lyte, Dunster and its Lords 1066-1881 (1882), 86-7. But, in June 1643, after the royalists had secured most of the rest of Somerset, Thomas Luttrell agreed to hand the castle over to Francis Wyndham, now a staunch royalist army officer. Clarendon, Hist. iii. 78; Bellum Civile, 47-8. When in the summer of 1645 Parliament regained control of Somerset, Wyndham continued to hold out, only surrendering in April 1646. Lttrs. of Robert Blake, 3-4. But Minehead itself was in parliamentarian hands by the autumn of 1645 and, with elections now being held elsewhere, it was decided to allow a by-election there. The Commons ordered the required writ on 25 October 1645. CJ iv. 322b. It was issued five days later. C219/43, f. 125. However, no election had been held by 27 January 1646, when the Commons criticised the sheriff, Sir John Horner*, for his lack of urgency in making the Somerset returns. CJ iv. 420a. The election at Minehead had taken place by 25 February, when one of the borough’s new MPs, Edward Popham, took the Covenant in the House.

This new election was necessary because both seats had become vacant. Hanham had weakly pursued a course of near-neutrality during the war, but at some unknown point, quite possibly after he had attended the Oxford Parliament, he had been expelled from the Commons. CJ iv. 313b. Sir Francis Popham had died the previous year, but his son Edward was available to take his place. Edward Popham had by 1645 risen to become the colonel of a regiment in the New Model army and he and his men had assisted in the recent parliamentarian re-conquest of Somerset. This combination of strong local connections and links with the army made him the obvious successor for his father’s old seat. A further advantage in supporting Popham was that it allowed the local hard-line parliamentarians to balance him with a candidate with no links at all to the town. Walter Strickland* was a Yorkshireman who quite possibly had never visited Somerset (and may never have done so subsequently) and who, at the time of the election, was not even in the country, as since 1642 he had been serving as Parliament’s envoy to the United Provinces. Someone in Somerset, possibly Edmund Prideaux I*, presumably calculated that Strickland’s Independent friends at Westminster might return the favour on such a shameless piece of electoral management. Even when he did sit in Parliament during his occasional return visits from the Netherlands, Strickland showed no interest whatsoever in his constituency. Both he and Popham continued to sit as MPs under the Rump. Popham died in August 1651 while serving as one of the generals-at-sea.

Minehead was too insignificant a town to retain either of its parliamentary seats under the 1653 Instrument of Government. A. and O. When in 1656 the new head of the Luttrell family, Francis Luttrell*, wanted to stand he had instead to seek one of the county seats. Alexander Popham did likewise. Only in 1659, when the old franchises were restored for Richard Cromwell’s* only Parliament, did Minehead regain direct representation at Westminster. Somewhat surprisingly, Luttrell seems not have stood on this occasion. It is not certain that Popham did so either. The contemporary printed list of MPs stated that the two men elected at Minehead included ‘Alexander Popham Esq.’. A Perfect List of the Lords of the Other House, and of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses (1659). But the earlier MP Alexander Popham* had since been summoned to the Other House and, although he had never taken up that place, his eligibility to sit in the Commons was still open to question. That he did so was not impossible: Sir Arthur Hesilrige* had been allowed to take his seat in the Commons in January 1658 and would do so again in this Parliament. Furthermore, none of the other Somerset men called Alexander Popham – among whom were his second cousins Alexander Popham (1598-1688) of Sherston and Alexander Popham (d. by 1663) of Thurloxton – seems a plausible alternative. Whoever the man elected was, he was paired with Richard Hutchinson*, the treasurer of the navy. But Hutchinson was also elected at Rochester and opted to sit for that constituency. The new writ to fill the vacancy was ordered on 10 March. CJ vii. 612a-b. Since this related only to Hutchinson’s seat, it would appear that no objection had been raised to the Popham return. If a new election was held before Parliament was dissolved, it is possible that it saw the return of Gilbert Gerard, son of Sir Gilbert Gerard*, who was sitting in the House by early April and whose family had close links with the borough. Infra, ‘Gilbert Gerard’. With the resumption of the Rump on 7 May, Strickland once again, at least nominally, represented the town in Parliament.

Over time the earlier hostility between the Luttrells and the town had visibly declined. The decades after the Restoration saw a more consistent pattern of Luttrell influence over its parliamentary elections than previously. In 1660 Francis Luttrell secured the return of himself and of his kinsman, Charles Pym*, and from then until 1708 Luttrell or his sons, Francis† and Alexander†, invariably gained one of the seats.