A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



Act. The deputy recorder was summoned to answer before the Privy 

 Council as a favourer of conventicles, and the mayor and the chamberlain 

 were suspended and the deputy recorder replaced. At that time and till the 

 Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 the common council admitted freemen 

 at discretion."' Towards the end of 1683 Lord Bruce, Lord Ailesbury's 

 eldest son, was in communication with Paul Cobb the mayor."' In October 

 fifty-three new burgesses were admitted, including two of the earl's sons, and 

 twenty-three more in November, including members of the Dyve and Chester 

 families. In January 1684 the body of mayor, &c., and burgesses, thus rein- 

 forced, surrendered the charter, and petitioned his Majesty for a new one 

 ' with like privileges ... or such other as he shall be pleased to grant.' His 

 Majesty was pleased to grant a new charter with the proviso that all officers 

 of the town of Bedford and their deputies and all justices of the peace should 

 take the oaths of obedience and supremacy, and further that ' no Recorder or 

 Town Clerk . . . shall enter upon such office . . . before they shall be 

 approved of by us our heirs or successors.' "* The earl brought down the 

 charter in July 1684, was received by a deputation between Elstow and 

 Wilstead, and escorted back to receive addresses and partake of a banquet."^ 



At the election of the first Parliament of James II the borough with its 

 packed burgess roll returned Sir Anthony Chester, bart., and Thomas Christie. 

 The latter had been concerned with Paul Cobb in the surrender of the 

 charter, but he does not appear to have been an ultra-Royalist, as he was 

 returned again in the convention of 1688-9, ^"^ ^" '^^ ^^^^ Parliament of 

 William and Mary."' The Whigs ' could do nothing in the remodelled 

 boroughs, but in every county where they had a chance they struggled 

 desperately. In Bedfordshire they were victorious on the show of hands, 

 but were beaten at the poll.' *" Sir Villiers Chernock and William Boteler 

 (of Biddenham) were returned ; neither had sat in any earlier, or was to sit 

 in any subsequent. Parliament.*" 



Monmouth's rising in 1685 must have aroused special attention in 

 Bedfordshire because of his liaison with Henrietta Baroness Wentworth. 

 On the discovery of the Rye House Plot he disappeared, and was supposed 

 to have gone to Holland, but after some months suddenly reappeared in 

 London, and was for a while restored to some favour with the king."' It 

 has been supposed that he was in hiding at Toddington at that time. Before 

 his execution he avowed and defended his relations with the baroness ; and 

 before many months had passed she too was laid to rest.*'" 



"' Rcc. of Corf. Z2. «" Cobb was mayor from 21 Sept. 1683 and in 1684 ; ibid. 120. 



*" Ibid. 21. 



<" Brown, Jo/is Bufiyan, 328-^^. Dr. Brown says: 'Henceforth by a simple Order in Council the 

 King could remove at pleasure any or all the members of the Corporation . . . and any officer from the Lord 

 the Recorder down to the town bailiff.' It is difficult to extract this from the terms of the patent as given in 

 the Records of the Corporation. But a Letter Mandatory which accompanied the Order in Council removing 

 the mayor and others in 1687-8 states that 'a power is reserved to his Majesty by the Charter granted to the 

 Town of Bedford to remove by his order in Council any officers in the said Town ; ' see Brown od cit ^66 



"' Ret. ofMemb. of Pari. ^ V- • i ■ 



•" Macaulay, Hist. Engl. (1873), i, 234, citing a newsletter in the library of the Royal Institution, and 

 referring to Van Citters for the strength of the Whigs in Bedfordshire. 



*" Ret. ofMemb. of Pari. Sir Villiers Chernock of Hulcote died 1694 ; F. A. Blaydes (Page-Turner), 

 Gen. Bedf. 154. His son Pynsent married in 1691 the daughter of William Boteler of Biddenham' 

 ibid. 45. ' 



*" Reresby, Mem. 286. 



"» Lysons, Mag. Brit, i, 143-4; Macaulay, op. cit. i, 307 ; Diet. Nat. Biog. sub Scott Duke of Monmouth 



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