Helston was a duchy manor and a coinage town, much of the tin being loaded on to ships in the local harbour. The corporation (consisting of a mayor, four aldermen and 12 common councilmen) could make freemen at will. The patron was the recorder, Lord Godolphin (Sidney†), whose estate was six miles away.Defoe, Tour ed. Cole, 240; Polsue, Complete Paroch. Hist. Cornw. ii. 169; History, xv. 109.
The chief interest at Grampound was in the corporation consisting of a mayor, eight aldermen, a recorder and a town clerk. On being elected, the mayor
chose from among the aldermen two who were called eligers, who with himself had the power of selecting 11 freemen. Those 14 formed a jury; they made presentments, appointed the municipal officers and created freemen. Payment by scot and lot was the only qualification. By the magistrates and freemen the Members of Parliament were elected.
Browne Willis* thought Fowey ‘very commodious for shipping’, and Defoe mentioned the ‘great many flourishing merchants in it, who have a great share in the fishing trade, especially for pilchards’. Other observers noted the old trade of wrecking, which after the pillaging of an East Indiaman which went aground near the port, led to a bill being brought in to prevent Cornishmen stripping English wrecks. Corporate affairs were in some disarray following the Revolution and on 4 Feb. 1690 the corporation and inhabitants petitioned the crown for a new charter to replace that granted in 1685.
The franchise at Camelford was in the mayor, who acted as returning officer, eight aldermen or capital burgesses, a recorder, and an indeterminate number of freemen. In 1690 the Manatons, two Tories whose family reputedly owned two-thirds to three-quarters of the borough, retained both seats. At the next general election, Robert Molesworth, a Country Whig, was able to use his cousin, Sir John Molesworth, 2nd Bt.*, who had an estate at Pencarrow, to secure his return with Ambrose Manaton.
The chief interests at Callington were those of the Rolles of Heanton Satchville, Devon, who held the manor and lordship under the duchy of Cornwall, and the Corytons, whose seat at Newton Ferrers was only two and a half miles away, and who owned land in the borough. Both families were Tories and it seems that they were able to return themselves or their nominees without any contests during the period.Ibid. 171–4; W. P. Courtney, Parlty Rep. Cornw. 267–8.
Thomas Tonkin* wrote that Bossiney, also known as Tintagel, ‘is a very small village, and contains scarcely 20 houses, and those not better than cottages’ which with the ‘equally mean’ hamlet of Trevenna made up the whole borough. Bossiney was a duchy manor leased by the townsmen and ‘whoever has free land in the borough and lives in the parish is a freeman’. The mayor was chosen at the court leet. The advowson was owned by the dean and chapter of Windsor, and the lessees of the ruined Tintagel Castle also had an interest.
The corporation, consisting of 12 aldermen (including the mayor) and 24 common councilmen, possessed a strong interest at Bodmin. Its income from tolls and corporate lands was said to be worth £200 p.a. However, the corporation had to share electoral power with the 2nd Earl of Radnor (Charles Bodvile Robartes†), whose seat at Lanhydrock lay in the adjacent parish to the south. The Glynns of Glynn in the neighbouring parish of Cardinham to the east also had an interest, as did the Hoblyns, who held the manor of Bodmin Francis.
When Chester was incorporated in 1506 it was granted the status of a county in itself. Only the city’s castle remained within the jurisdiction of the county palatine of Cheshire, and consequently the borough not only possessed a large governing assembly, consisting of a mayor, 24 aldermen and 40 common councillors, but two sheriffs, elected annually and who served as the borough’s returning officers in parliamentary elections.
For a freeman borough Cambridge was furnished with a relatively small electorate, amenable to management by an entrenched oligarchy of aldermen and senior common councilmen, who were, however, generally content that the parliamentary representation should be left in the hands of neighbouring squires. Such political passions as did occasionally arise stemmed from squabbles within this civic elite or between the country gentlemen who were jockeying for the corporation’s favour. Rarely is there evidence of plebeian involvement in elections, or in borough politics generally.
In Anne’s reign Wendover parish had between 250 and 300 resident families, comprising about 1,100 ‘souls’, but no person of quality resident in the borough. The Hampdens, resident at nearby Great Hampden, had the chief interest at Wendover. As lords of the manor, they appointed the constables, who acted as returning officers. Whereas in 1689 the Hampdens had monopolized the representation through Richard I* and his son John†, in 1690 neither was returned.
