Commons 1640-1660

Knaresborough before the civil war was notable chiefly for its castle, which commanded a strong position on the River Nidd where it flowed from the Yorkshire Dales into the vale of York. Although traditionally a market town, a sizeable number of Knaresborough’s 1,000 or so inhabitants had come to depend on the manufacture of linen by the seventeenth century, and the town’s economy undoubtedly suffered as a result of the disruption to the West Riding textile industry during the 1640s. Bodl. Top. Yorks. c.4, f. 79; E179/210/393, m. 30; E179/210/400, mm. 37-40; Hist.

Ripon lay a few miles to the west of the Great North Road, commanding a crossing of the River Ure where it flowed from the Yorkshire Dales into the Vale of York. The largest borough in the West Riding until the enfranchisement of Leeds and Halifax in the 1650s, the town contained approximately 350 households by the early 1670s, suggesting a population of about 1,500. E179/262/11, pp. 14-17; E179/210/400, mm.

Lying some eight miles north of Hull and the Humber estuary, Beverley was the principal market town of the East Riding. A thriving inland port and centre for the wool trade in the medieval period, it was ‘much decayed’ by 1640, and its economy rested mainly on the processing of agricultural products and the trade generated by its fairs and markets. VCH E. Riding, vi.

Hedon was described in 1658 as the ‘chief market town’ of Holderness – the coastal region of the East Riding. CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 285. Situated about five miles east of Hull and about two miles north east of the Humber Estuary, it had been a thriving port during the early medieval period, but by Tudor times was ‘much decayed’, with ‘no merchants of any estimation’. G.R. Park, Hist. of Hedon, 3. The town’s economy was centred largely on shoemaking, tanning and associated manufacturing and retailing trades. VCH E. Riding, v.

Thirsk lay on the York-Scotland road at the point where it crossed a tributary of the River Swale, about 25 miles north-west of York. W. Grainge, The Vale of Mowbray (1859), 41, 80; VCH N. Riding, ii. 59. A market town, Thirsk was also noted for its leather and saddle-making and for the brewing of ‘good ale’. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 252; Grainge, Mowbray, 75, 148. The borough contained approximately 220 householders by the mid-seventeenth century, suggesting an overall population of about 1,000. E179/216/461, mm. 83-4; N. Yorks.

Richmond was the northernmost of the Yorkshire constituencies, lying on the River Swale about 50 miles north-west of York and ten miles south of the border with County Durham. VCH N. Riding, i. 17. Situated on the dividing line between the Pennines and the Vale of York, the town was an important centre for the exchange of produce between the arable zone to the east and the pastoral uplands to the west. R. Fieldhouse, B. Jennings, Hist.

Situated at an important crossing on the River Aire some 25 miles south west of York, seventeenth-century Leeds lay close to the dividing line between the Pennine clothing district and the arable lowlands of the Vale of York. Although Leeds was described in 1628 as ‘an ancient market town’, a large proportion of its inhabitants were engaged in the cloth trade, either as clothworkers, clothiers or merchants, and by the Stuart period the town’s economy was dependent to a very large degree on the woollen clothing industry. M.W. Beresford, ‘Leeds in 1628’, NH x. 135; G.

Until the re-organisation of local government in the 1970s, Yorkshire’s three main administrative units – the East, North and West Ridings – formed England’s largest county, covering about an eighth of the entire country. D. Hey, Yorks.

Lying on the Great North Road some 30 miles north-west of York, Northallerton had become the administrative centre of the North Riding by the late seventeenth century. Anon. Hist. of North-Allerton (1791), 16, 17; VCH N. Riding, i. 418. Nevertheless, it was, and remained, essentially a small market town, with only about 180 householders – and an additional 40 or so inhabitants in receipt of ‘constant alms’ – in the early 1660s, suggesting an overall population of about 900. E179/216/461, m.

Historically the second city of the realm, York was the fourth or fifth largest urban community in early Stuart England after London, Norwich, Bristol and possibly Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Situated at major road and river junctions, it was the seat of royal government in the north, the hub of the Northern Province and the assize town of England’s largest county. Although it was in long term, indeed terminal, decline as an international port, York was the focus of a thriving regional trade where agricultural produce was exchanged for manufactured goods and services.