Name Index

To

Devon County Members of Parliament, Part V. The Stuart Period (1603-1688)

Trans. Devon Assoc., vol. 48, (1916), pp. 320-340

by

J.J. Alexander

Prepared by Michael Steer

The paper was read at the Association’s July 21, 1916 Plymouth meeting.  The 17th century, asserts the author, is undoubtedly the most important century in the growth of English parliamentary institutions. It is also interesting with regard to Devon’s local history. These 17th-century parliaments form an epitome of our whole parliamentary history from the 13th century to the present time. Nearly every remarkable situation and strange anomaly in the records of other centuries has its parallel in the Stuart parliaments. At the end of the Tudor period Devon was represented by 18 members, two for the county at large, and two each for the eight boroughs of Exeter, Barnstaple, Totnes, Tavistock, Plympton, Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Bere Alston. Tiverton was granted the same privilege in 1615 by James I, because the town had been lately burnt with a loss of  approximately £35,000, and he wished to benefit the inhabitants by giving them full corporate rights. Three older boroughs, Ashburton, Honiton, and Okehampton were added in the Long Parliament of 1640. These additions were merely a revival of dormant rights, as Ashburton had made returns in 1298 and 1407, and the other two in the reign of Edward II. The paper is from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal that can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.
N.B. Page 336 of this article has been omitted from the index due to a significant copying problem with that page.