Salisbury

Borough

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Elections

DateCandidate
17 Jan. 1559WILLIAM WEBBE
 JOHN WEBBE
1562/3ANTHONY WEEKES
 GILES ESTCOURT
1571JOHN EYRE
 GILES ESTCOURT
21 Apr. 1572GILES ESTCOURT
 HUGH TUCKER
17 Nov. 1584GILES ESTCOURT
 CHRISTOPHER WEEKES
6 Oct. 1586GILES ESTCOURT
 CHRISTOPHER WEEKES
22 Oct. 1588CHRISTOPHER WEEKES
 JOHN BAYLEY
1593GILES HUTCHENS
 ROBERT BOWER
21 Sept. 1597THOMAS EYRE
 GILES HUTCHENS
1601GILES TOOKER
 JOHN PUXTON

Main Article

The corporation of Salisbury during this period consisted of the mayor, the twenty-four (later known as aldermen) and the forty-eight. Until the grant of James I’s charter, the city had no recorder, but it employed a counsel. Up to his death in 1587 Salisbury’s legal adviser was Giles Estcourt, one of the twenty-four. He was succeeded by John Penruddock at a fee of 53s. 4d., and he in turn in March 1601 by Giles Tooker, who later became the first recorder. As part of a scheme to extend the city’s privileges, Salisbury, dangerously it might be thought, created the high stewardship, held by a succession of Privy Councillors, Walsingham, Hatton, (Sir) Thomas Heneage and (Sir) John Puckering.

The corporation fended off possible encroachment on its freedom of choice from the bishop of Salisbury, the earls of Pembroke and the high stewards. With an exception in 1571 and another in 1572, all the Elizabethan Members were of the twenty-four John Eyre (1571) is likely to have been a local country gentleman who owned property in the borough. In 1572 the 2nd Earl of Pembroke, who for the second time had received instructions from the Privy Council to ensure a ‘good choice’ of knights and burgesses throughout Wiltshire, asked for a nomination. The assembly agreed but ‘although the ancient orders and privileges be now at his honourable request dispensed with’, this was not to be a precedent. Pembroke’s nominee was presumably Hugh Tucker, resident in Salisbury but not a member of the twenty-four In January 1593 (Sir) Thomas Heneage, the high steward, asked in vain for a nomination, promising to choose someone who would ‘care for the good of that incorporation’ and who would ‘ease the half of your charge’. Instead the mayor and another member of the corporation were chosen.

Salisbury paid wages: £12 8s. each in 1559, £12 and £10 in 1589, and £10 each in 1593.

City of Salisbury mss D(34); Hoare, Wilts. Salisbury, 708, 711; HMC Var. iv. 229, 230, 232; Neale, Commons, 165.

Authors: R.C.G. / M.A.P.

Notes