Camelford, situated where the main road crossed the River Camel in north Cornwall, had been part of the duchy of Cornwall since the fourteenth century.
The borough of Liskeard, on the road from Plymouth to Lostwithiel, had been granted a charter as early as 1240, and was incorporated into the duchy of Cornwall on its creation in 1337. A new charter, granted in 1587, established a corporation of nine capital burgesses, with a mayor, recorder and steward, and the mayor and recorder were given the right to act as justices of the peace for the town. J. Allen, Hist. of Borough of Liskeard (rev. edn.
Penryn was a little port town at the head of Falmouth Harbour, with an anchorage protected by the twin castles of St Mawes and Pendennis. At the beginning of the seventeenth century it was less prosperous than its inland neighbour, Truro, and Richard Carew† described it as ‘rather passable than notable for wealth, buildings and inhabitants’. Carew, Survey, f. 150v. In later decades Penryn also came under pressure from the newly established port at Smithwick (or Falmouth), developed by the Killigrew family. CSP Dom. 1660-1, p.
In the middle ages, Tregony had been a town of some significance, pre-dating Truro and Penryn as the main port of the Fal estuary. Parochial Hist. of Cornw. i. 282. Despite the powerful patronage of the Pomeroy family as lords of the manor, the silting of the river had choked Tregony’s economy by the early sixteenth century, and a century later it was dismissed by Richard Carew† as ‘not specially memorable … for any extraordinary worth or accident’. Parochial Hist. of Cornw. i. 278, 282-3; Carew, Survey, f.
A parliamentary borough since the middle ages, Helston owed its prosperity to its dual role as market town for the Lizard peninsula and entrepôt for the tin trade of western Cornwall. In 1642 it had a population of perhaps 1,000, and 20 years later it could boast 17 houses with five or more hearths. Cornw. Protestation Returns, 12; Cornw.
Grampound, granted its first charter in the fourteenth century, was closely connected with the duchy of Cornwall, whose manor of Tibesta surrounded the borough. Parl. Surv. Duchy Cornw. ii.
Surrey was dominated throughout this period by the Onslow interest, which had been established relatively recently. Sir Richard Onslow* of Cranleigh and West Clandon, the first member of the family to sit for the county, commenced his parliamentary career in 1628. He had then had to take second place to Sir Ambrose Browne*, who was from an old Surrey family and about ten years his senior.
A reasonably prosperous market town, Reigate had only 90 tenements in 1622 but 124 households within the borough were recorded in 1664 as being chargeable for hearth tax, with a further 34 not chargeable. VCH Surr. iii. 233; Surr. Hearth Tax 1664 (Surr. Arch. Soc. xvii.), p. cxxi. Well wooded, with plenty of common land and water, and with many inns, the town enjoyed regular communications with London, just over twenty miles away. VCH Surr. iii. 229, 230, 234; W. Hooper, Reigate: its Story through the Ages (1945), 148; J.
Bletchingley, or Blechingley as it was rendered at this period, was a market town five miles east of Reigate, situated on the road from Godstone to Redhill. VCH Surr. iv. 253. Forty-nine households were considered liable for the hearth tax in 1662, and 46 the following year. U. Lambert, Blechingley (1921), ii. 437. Although it had returned Members from 1295, it had never been incorporated as a borough.
Guildford, situated on the River Wey 30 miles south of London, received its first recorded charter in 1257. This confirmed it as the county town and as the location of assizes. VCH Surr. iii. 247; Hist. and Description of Guildford (2nd edn., ?1800), 4, 6. Incorporated in 1488, it was ruled by an oligarchical body composed of the mayor and ‘approved men’, the name given to those who had served as bailiff (between about 25 and 30 in the early seventeenth century).
