Radnorshire was created from an agglomeration of several marcher lordships by the Act of Union of 1536. As practically all of these territories had been held by the monarch, the Crown enjoyed an enduring presence in the post-Union shire, but there is no evidence that this landholding was ever translated into electoral influence. Under the second union statute of 1543 the venue of the county court was meant to alternate between Presteigne and New Radnor.
Early Stuart Shropshire enjoyed a rapidly expanding agricultural economy: the lowland plains in the north produced beef and cheese, while the southern hills specialized in high-grade wool. Meanwhile, Ludlow’s dwindling broadcloth industry was surpassed by Shrewsbury’s booming trade in the finishing of Welsh cottons; the coal measures at Broseley began to be exploited on an industrial scale; and the iron industry on Cannock Chase, Staffordshire spilled over into the eastern fringes of the shire.
The divided administrative geography of Suffolk reflected the privileges enjoyed in medieval times by two great monastic foundations. The eight-and-a-half hundreds of West Suffolk formed the franchise of Bury St. Edmunds, while the eastern half of the county was divided between the liberty of St. Audrey, or St. Etheldred, and the ‘geldable’. Stowmarket was the most centrally situated town in Suffolk, and it was here that the county’s deputy lieutenants usually met; but, lying off the main roads, it failed to develop facilities for large gatherings. HMC 13th Rep.
Often referred to as the county of Southampton, Hampshire was of great strategic importance, both for its port and naval base at Portsmouth, and for its extensive forests which supplied timber for the dockyard. Its chalky soil and heath land provided for a local economy based on pasture and arable farming. The cloth industry of Winchester, erstwhile capital of England following the Conquest, declined after the Black Death, but the cathedral city remained the regional centre for local government and administration. D.A Hinton and A.N. Insole, Hants and I.o.W., 1-16; J.S.
Remote from London and dominated by the barren Pennines, Derbyshire boasted great natural beauty but little tillage, deriving most of its wealth from coarse wool and minerals. The Cavendish and Manners families had extensive interests in the lead mines, which by 1600 supplied nearly half Europe’s needs, while the Freschevilles profited on a lesser scale as ironmasters. Although the duchy of Lancaster covered more than half the shire, the Crown exerted little political influence.J.R. Dias, ‘Lead, Soc. and Pols. in Derbys. before the Civil War’, Midland Hist. vi.
Devon, England’s third largest county, was noted in the early seventeenth century both for the wildness of its upland moors and the enterprise of its inhabitants. The population at this time has been estimated at around 234,000. At least 5,000 of the adult males engaged in fishing, the fleets bringing in rich catches of pilchards and herrings from coastal waters, and regularly venturing as far as Newfoundland. Arable farming was concentrated on the southern lowland region, with great efforts made to maximize yield through enclosure and the intensive use of fertilizers.
Few counties could vie with Gloucestershire in the antiquity of its families. The Berkeleys, the Tracys and the Poyntzes were all well established before the Plantagenets. Throughout the Jacobean period, though not under Elizabeth, the county’s dominant electoral interest was that of the Berkeleys. Henry, 7th Lord Berkeley was a popular local figure, and on James’s accession, doubtless with the aid of his former brother-in-law, Lord Henry Howard, he became Gloucestershire’s lord lieutenant.
Described by Norden as ‘fat, fruitful and full of profitable things’, Essex was one of the richest counties in England. The south-eastern corner was famed for its dairy farming, particularly its huge cheeses, ‘wondered at for their massiveness and thickness’; corn production thrived in the north-west; and the area close to the Suffolk border abounded in hops. The cloth industry, concentrated at Colchester, Witham, Coggeshall, Braintree, Bocking, Halstead and Dedham, was also well represented, forming a sizeable part of the county’s economy.
Pembrokeshire was a maritime county at the south-western extremity of Wales. Administratively it comprised the hundreds of Castlemartin, Cemaes, Cilgerran, Dewisland, Dungleddy (Daugleddau), Narberth and Roose (Rhos). Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), iii. 611-12. Besides Haverfordwest (Hwlffordd), a county of itself, and the cathedral city of St.
Montgomeryshire had the lowest incidence of middle ranking estates in Wales. D.W. Howell, Land and People in 19th Cent. Wales, 21-22. Its nine hundreds (47 parishes) lay chiefly in the diocese of St. Asaph, but there were also substantial areas in the dioceses of Bangor, Hereford and St. Davids. The corn-growing eastern hundreds and a flannel district extending some 21 miles by 19 from Dolobran in the north-east to Llanidloes in the south-west were served by the Montgomeryshire and Shropshire canal, which by 1820 was open from Llanymynech to Newtown. W.
