East Looe

Borough

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Right of Election:

in the corporation 1660-84; in the freemen after 1685

Number of voters:

about 10 in 1660-84; 36 in 1685

Elections

DateCandidate
17 Apr. 1660HENRY SEYMOUR I
 JONATHAN TRELAWNY I
 GEORGE STRELLEY
 NATHANIEL MOYLE
  Double return. SEYMOUR and TRELAWNY declared elected, 16 May 1660
5 Apr. 1661HENRY SEYMOUR I
 ROBERT ATKYNS
18 Feb. 1673WALTER LANGDON vice Atkyns, appointed to office
3 Mar. 1677CHARLES OSBORNE vice Langdon, deceased
18 Feb. 1679(SIR) JONATHAN TRELAWNY I
 HENRY SEYMOUR I
 John Kendall
1 Sept. 1679(SIR) JONATHAN TRELAWNY I
 HENRY SEYMOUR I
 John Kendall
 William Treville
23 Feb. 1681(SIR) JONATHAN TRELAWNY I
 JOHN KENDALL
21 Apr. 1685CHARLES TRELAWNY
 SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL
11 Jan. 1689CHARLES TRELAWNY
 HENRY TRELAWNY

Main Article

East Looe, the larger of the twin boroughs, was incorporated in 1588. The Elizabethan charter established a common council of nine ‘chief burgesses’, with power to increase their numbers, and vested in them the parliamentary franchise. No provision was made for ‘inferior burgesses’, or freemen, who certainly voted at municipal elections, and sometimes attested the returns to Parliament. The borough was controlled throughout this period by the Trelawnys of Trelawne, except in 1681 when one seat was conceded to the Kendall interest. No constituency more blatantly defied the Long Parliament ordinance against the return of Cavaliers at the general election of 1660. Mayor Dobbins and 18 ‘burgesses’ witnessed the return of Jonathan Trelawny I, a royalist colonel in the Civil War, and his brother-in-law Henry Seymour I, a courtier who had been repeatedly imprisoned during the Interregnum as a conspirator. Dobbins may have hoped to insure against trouble by sending up a second indenture with only six signatures in favour of George Strelley of Plymouth and a younger brother of Sir Walter Moyle, but only succeeded in attracting the wrath of the Commons. On the report of Edward Turnor on 5 May they agreed that none of the four candidates should sit until the merits of the election had been determined, and went on to summon Dobbins to appear in a fortnight at his own cost ‘to answer his misdemeanour in making an insufficient return’. They may not have waited for his arrival, since they accepted only 11 days later the recommendations of the elections committee that Seymour and Trelawny should sit, and that the other indenture should be withdrawn. 1

At the general election of 1661 Seymour, who had acquired an independent interest in Cornwall by marrying the heiress of the Killigrews of Landrake, was re-elected. Trelawny, returned as knight of the shire, was able to offer the junior seat at East Looe to the accomplished lawyer, Robert Atkyns, who was eager to atone for his services to the Protectorate. After playing an important part in supply legislation he was made a judge in 1672. William Treville, who held manorial property in the neighbourhood, probably offered himself as a country candidate, but was promptly picked as sheriff at the instance of Walter Langdon, the heir to a modest estate, who had married the sister-in-law of Lord Treasurer Clifford. It is not clear whether the contest went to a poll, but Langdon was elected. On his death Seymour’s nephew, Speaker Edward Seymour, wrote to Trelawny on behalf of his dissolute but able friend the Earl of Ranelagh (Richard Jones). Clifford’s successor Danby insisted on nominating his own brother Charles Osborne, the surveyor-general of customs. There was a rumour that Sir Walter Moyle would stand in opposition, but on visiting the constituency Osborne found the Treasury interest so strong that he could have dispensed with Trelawny’s support.2

Trelawny, now head of the family and a baronet, returned to East Looe for the Exclusion elections. In 1679 he and Seymour as court supporters twice defeated John Kendall of Treworgey. In February they were returned by the mayor and six ‘capital burgesses ... with their unanimous consent and assent equally’. Kendall’s petition never emerged from committee, but Trelawny was sufficiently concerned to alter his tactics in the autumn. Not only did he insure himself by standing also at Liskeard, he procured no less than 80 signatures on his indenture at East Looe. A London opposition newspaper alleged that 29 of them had been sworn in as freemen only after the reception of the writ, but it is improbable that they were polled, since a petition from Kendall and Treville was never reported. Seymour retired after the second Exclusion Parliament, and in 1681 Trelawny divided the borough with Kendall, though he was again elected for Liskeard. He died before the Oxford Parliament met, but no writ was authorized. The corporation produced a loyal address in 1682 abhorring the ‘Association’.3

The charter of East Looe was surrendered to the lord lieutenant, the Earl of Bath, on 20 Oct. 1684. Its successor, issued on 28 Mar. 1685, nominated Bath as recorder, and increased the number of aldermen to 12. The crown reserved the usual power to remove officials by order-in-council, and 36 freemen were nominated in the charter, but the corporation was not limited in its power to add to their numbers. At the general election in the following month the bishop of Bristol, who now managed the family interest, secured the election of his younger brother Charles Trelawny with a placeman, Sir William Trumbull. The royal electoral agents described East Looe as at the bishop’s devotion in 1688, and approved Trelawny, an army officer, and Kendall as court candidates. On 12 Aug. the Privy Council ordered the removal of the mayor, town clerk, and four aldermen; but the new charter remained in force after the Revolution. At the general election of 1689 Trelawny and his brother Henry, who had both gone over to William of Orange in November, were returned by the mayor and 24 ‘burgesses’, including Kendall, ‘of our free and unanimous assent and consent’.4

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

  • 1. T. Bond, East and West Looe, 1-2; A. L. Browne, Corp. Chrons. 18; CJ, viii. 12, 33; PCC 40 Bunce.
  • 2. Lysons, Cornw. 327; CSP Dom. 1672-3, pp. 119, 213; Eg. 3330, ff. 73, 75, 83.
  • 3. CJ, ix. 570, 638; True Dom. Intell. 30 Sept. 1679; London Gazette, 8 June 1682.
  • 4. Browne, 22-24, 26; Duckett, Penal Laws (1882), 380; (1883), 217