Higham Ferrers, a small market town incorporated in 1556, was part of the duchy of Lancaster. During this period, the town was governed by the mayor, seven aldermen and 13 capital burgesses. There was also a steward of the borough, a duchy official, who among other duties, heard each new mayor’s oath of office. The borough had the right to send one burgess to each Parliament. Surviving Elizabethan returns record that the choice of MP was made by the mayor, aldermen—all named—and the capital burgesses, the return for 1584 alone claiming that they were acting with the consent of the ‘communitas’ of the town.2

Higham Ferrers returned no townsman to Parliament during this period. Its members were either nominees of the duchy of Lancaster or from the leading Northamptonshire families. John Purvey (1559, 1563) was a duchy official and held the lease of the manor of Rushden, adjoining Higham Ferrers. Presumably he had the support of Sir Ambrose Cave, chancellor of the duchy. Christopher Hatton was elected in 1571 and became steward of the borough a year later. As a courtier he would have been known to Cave’s successor, Sir Ralph Sadler, and he was, in addition, a Northamptonshire man and a duchy official. In 1589 Hatton, now lord chancellor, was himself the probable patron of Dr. Richard Swale, a civil lawyer who acted as one of his advisers. Sir Walter Mildmay of Apethorpe, another Northamptonshire gentleman, courtier and duchy official, was no doubt responsible for the return of his son Humphrey (1584, 1586) and of Edmund Downing (1572), one of his staff at the Exchequer and an executor of his will. (Sir) Edward Montagu I of Boughton, a leading figure in the county, may have been sufficiently influential to secure the election of his son Henry, the future Earl of Manchester, without any additional support. At the time of the 1601 election (Sir) Edward Montagu I was sheriff of Northamptonshire.