Commons 1640-1660

East Retford lay just off the Great North Road, about 30 miles north of Nottingham and 18 miles south of Doncaster, in Yorkshire. D.

‘This county hath for its eastern bounds, Lincolnshire, from which for a good distance it is severed by the River Trent; for its southern, Leicestershire; for its western, the counties of Derby and York; and for its northern also Yorkshire’. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 183. The county comprised two main regions – the fertile arable lands of the southern and eastern parts, watered by the Trent and its tributaries; and the western part, dominated by Sherwood Forest with its largely pastoral economy. Blome, Britannia, 183; Wood, Notts.

Derby by the Restoration period was ‘a very large, populous, well-frequented and rich borough town – few inland towns equalising it’. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 76. The mainstays of Derby’s economy were its markets and horse fair – which attracted buyers from London and further afield – its role as a county administrative and social centre, and the malting and brewing industries. Derby Local Studies Lib. DBR/E/106-7, Derby Fair Bks. 1635-49; HMC Hastings, ii. 128; Blome, Britannia, 77; Glover, Derbys. ii. 449; Anon. Hist.

The history of Bedford in the seventeenth century is now almost entirely overshadowed by its association with its most famous resident, John Bunyan. This is misleading for, although Bunyan undoubtedly exemplifies one strand of the godliness that was a feature of the town, there was much more to Bedford than this. The county town and only parliamentary borough, Bedford was easily the most important urban settlement in Bedfordshire.

Bedfordshire was a small county dominated by more than its fair share of major aristocratic families. The St Johns of Bletso, whose head held the earldom of Bolingbroke, had long ranked as the first among equals, although with the 1st earl out of favour at court, it was Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of Cleveland, who held the lord lieutenancy in 1640. The Russells of Woburn, represented by Francis Russell, 4th earl of Bedford, were far less influential in the county in this period than they had once been and would be again.

Boroughbridge lay at the junction of the York Road and the Great North Road, at the point where the latter crossed the River Ure, some 17 miles north west of York.

Like Knaresborough, Pontefract was renowned for its castle, which dominated the Aire Valley to the south west of Leeds and the Pennine clothing district. The town lay close to the dividing line between the Pennines and the lowlands of southern Yorkshire and was thus an important market for the exchange of produce between the arable lands to the east and the pastoral and clothing region to the west. Its economy was based primarily upon its ‘very great market for corn, cattle, provisions and divers country commodities’. R.

Malton straddles the River Derwent some 15 miles north east of York on the southern edge of the Vale of Pickering – the region of the North Riding between the Yorkshire Moors and the northern boundary of the East Riding. VCH N. Riding, i. 529. In the early Stuart period, the greater part of the town lay in the manor and quondam borough of New Malton – so-called to distinguish it from the original manorial settlement of Old Malton. R. Carroll, ‘Yorks. parliamentary boroughs in the seventeenth century’, NH iii.