Only one genuine townsman was returned for Orford during this period, John Cutting (1584); and only one local country gentleman independent of a patron, William Forthe (1597). In the earlier part of this period the most important influence was that of the Wingfields of Wantisden, and their relatives the Sones.
Ipswich was incorporated in the fifteenth century. In the Elizabethan period the elections appear to have been made in the ‘assembly’, consisting presumably of the bailiffs, ‘portmen’ or aldermen, and common councilmen.
The borough was included in the royal honour of Eye, where in Elizabeth’s reign the Crown still appointed the keeper, or constable, of the castle. The government of the borough was confirmed by a charter of 1559, but partly owing to overlapping jurisdictions, disputes broke out, and following a Star Chamber case, ordinances for ‘better government’ were drawn up in 1565. Confirmed by a new charter ten years later, these described the governing body as 12 principal burgesses, including the two bailiffs, and 24 common councilmen.
The right of election at Dunwich was in the ‘bailiffs, burgesses and commonalty’. By the beginning of this period the port was declining through the ‘force and violence of the rages of the sea, nigh whereunto it standeth’ and the governing body (two bailiffs, 10 aldermen and 24 common councilmen) was anxious to return MPs who would serve without wages. Hence the Chancery suit between the borough and the local gentleman Sir Edmund Rous, who having said that he would serve as MP ‘freely without receiving any wages’, afterwards ‘nothing regarding his said promise’ claimed £19.
Aldeburgh was incorporated in 1547 and was governed by two bailiffs assisted by ‘the twelve’ and ‘the twenty-four’. The Duke of Norfolk was lord of the borough, and presumably it was he who secured its enfranchisement in 1571. Its right to return Members was challenged in the House and referred to the returns committee, 6 Apr. 1571.Weinbaum, Charters, 108; HMC Var. iv. 280-1; CPR, 1548-9, p. 102; CJ, i.
In 1510 Henry VIII confirmed Orford’s medieval charters granting the inhabitants the town and mill. The town was governed by two constables assisted by a council of 12 of the leading burgesses. No municipal records survive from the early 16th century. The castle, with property in Orford itself worth £20 a year, was held of the crown by William, 11th Lord Willoughby. On his death in 1526 his widow’s interest in the crown lease was contested by the heir male, her brother-in-law Sir Christopher Willoughby of Parham.
The borough of Ipswich was governed by two bailiffs and 12 portmen assisted by 24 of the commonalty; the bailiffs and four portmen were justices of the peace, and the bailiffs served as coroner and escheator and exercised admiralty jurisdiction within the liberty. This constitution, developed from privileges first obtained in 1200, had been included in a charter of incorporation of 1446 which was confirmed in 1463, 1512, 1518 and 1547. The municipal records for the early 16th century survive almost complete.CChR, vi. 54-55; LP Hen. VIII, i. g. 1123(33); iii, g.
In spite of its progressive erosion by the sea, Dunwich in the early 16th century still had some 230 taxable persons. Its status as a royal borough, dating from a charter of John, had earlier been threatened on the renewal of the fee-farm by a proviso that the burgesses should pay whatever any purchaser was prepared to give for it. This proviso was repeated at the next renewal in 1506 but was omitted in 1525 when the amount was fixed at £12 6s.8d. In 1547 the borough obtained a confirmation of the rights set out in an inspeximus of 1463.
By 1377 Ipswich had a population of about 2,260; but although it was probably the largest town in Suffolk, it was only half the size of Colchester, its geographically nearest rival as a port. Its charter of 1200 permitted the burgesses to elect two bailiffs (who until 1317 were required to take their oaths of office in the Exchequer), two coroners, and 12 portmen to govern the town. In 1256 the bailiffs were granted the right of return of royal writs, and after 1291 they became responsible for payment to the Crown of the fee farm, then fixed at £60 a year.
Dunwich was a royal borough paying fee farm to the Crown. Its earliest charter, for which the inhabitants were charged 300 marks by King John, dates from 1199; in May 1421 the town procured a second copy after accidentally losing the original.Rot. Chart. ed. Hardy, i. 51; Pipe Roll 1 John (Pipe Roll Soc. n.s. x), 290; CPR, 1416-22, p. 363. Dunwich was one of the 27 towns summoned to the Council of 1286, and it returned Members to Parliament from 1296.
