Returns survive for Cumberland for 28 of the 32 Parliaments which met between 1386 and 1421 (inclusive), those for 1411, 1413 (Feb.), 1415 and 1416 (Oct.) having been lost. The names of 29 shire knights are known, of whom the great majority—20 in all—sat in the Lower House more than once, albeit sometimes for other constituencies. On the whole, however, the general level of parliamentary experience was still not particularly high.
Twenty-nine returns for Cornwall have survived from 32 Parliaments, with only those of 1413 (Feb.), 1415 and 1416 (Oct.) remaining untraced. To 14 of these Parliaments there were elected two men who both had previous experience of the workings of the Commons, and in a further ten one of the Members had sat before. So, in perhaps no more than five Parliaments—1388 (Feb.), 1391, 1402, 1413 (May) and 1420—were both knights of the shire newcomers to the House.
Cambridgeshire returns have survived for 28 of the 32 Parliaments of the period, and the judicial records of the Exchequer have supplied the names of one of the county’s Members in the Parliament of 1410 and of all four of those in the two Parliaments of 1416. Gaps therefore remain for just one seat in 1410 and for two in February 1413. No fewer than 38 men are known to have represented the shire between 1386 and 1421, and more than half—20—did so on only one occasion.
Six of the returns for Buckinghamshire are missing, leaving gaps for the three consecutive Parliaments of 1410, 1411 and 1413 (Feb.), and for the three consecutive Parliaments of 1415 and 1416 (Mar. and Oct.); and although the latter gap may be partially filled by relying on the evidence of Prynne and Lipscomb, the names of both the county’s representatives in five of the 32 Parliaments of the period remain unknown.
Berkshire elected 26 men to the 28 Parliaments of the period for which returns survive. The gaps in the returns—for the Parliaments of 1411, February 1413, 1415 and October 1416—make it impossible properly to define the frequency of repeated election during the later part of the period. Even so, it is clear that in general those with previous parliamentary experience were preferred to those without; for it happened on no fewer than 12 occasions that both men elected had sat before for this or some other constituency, and on at least 13 more an experienced Member accompanied a newcomer.
Returns survive for 27 of the 32 Parliaments which met between 1386 and the end of Henry V’s reign in 1422, those for 1410, 1411, 1413 (Feb.), 1415 and 1416 (Oct.) having been lost. We know the names of 27 of the men who represented the county during this period, and although gaps in the evidence now make it impossible to be absolutely certain about the parliamentary experience of them all, it appears that 11, an unusually large proportion, sat for Bedfordshire only once in their careers.
The largest county in England, Yorkshire is a region of enormous topographical variety. V. Wilson, British Regional Geology: E. Yorks. and Lincs.; W. Edwards and F.M. Trotter, British Regional Geology: Pennines and Adjacent Areas. The early Stuart economy reflected this diversity, with the lowlands dominated by arable farming, the Wolds and the Ryedale given over to large-scale sheepwalks, and the dales in the Moors and northern Pennines used for cattle grazing. Agrarian Hist. Eng. and Wales ed. J. Thirsk, v. pt.
One of the smaller English counties, Dorset in this period largely depended for its prosperity on its ‘great flocks of sheep’, the basis of the local cloth trade, though it was also the country’s leading producer of hemp and flax, the raw materials for rope and fishing nets. The extensive coastline boasted several good harbours, notably at Poole and Weymouth. Although its ports were less important than those of neighbouring Devon and Hampshire, there were strong trading links with France, while Poole was a major base for the burgeoning Newfoundland fisheries.
Worcestershire lies on the border between the highland and lowland zones of England. One of the wealthiest and most densely populated counties in seventeenth-century England, it was predominantly pastoral, though the south-east was mainly arable.R.H. Silcock, ‘County Govt. in Worcs.’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1974), pp. 11-13, 20. A substantial cloth industry, mostly concentrated in Worcester, produced high quality broadcloths, in addition from 1600 Kidderminster started manufacturing quantities of linsey-woolsey stuffs. A.D.
Writing in 1627 the deputy lieutenants of Surrey complained of the ‘smallness and poverty of this county’. An Elizabethan petition from some of Surrey’s inhabitants also described the county as ‘one of the least shires’ and ‘one of the barrenest’.Manning and Bray, Surr. iii. 669-70. However, both of these complaints were made in order to reduce financial burdens on the county.
