Cinque ports parliament constituencies

List

• the original five Cinque Ports:
• *Dover
• *Hastings
• *Hythe
• *New Romney
• *Sandwich
• the two Ancient Towns:
• *Rye
• *Winchelsea
• one connected town:
• *Seaford

  Peculiarities

• Whereas the MPs from a borough were called "burgesses" those from a cinque port were called barons. Barons had higher precedence than other MPs: whereas burgesses and citizens were called to a new Parliament on the first day, and knights of the shire on the second day, the barons were summoned to the Commons on the third day, along with the peers to the House of Lords.
• Whereas the returning officer in a borough was the mayor or other head of the municipal corporation, the returning officer in the cinque ports was the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports
• Until the Glorious Revolution, the Lord Warden claimed the right to nominate one of the two members returned by each cinque port. This right was contested by the corporations. In the 1620s, Sandwich and Dover burgesses objected to Lord Zouche's nominees; the Sandwich objection was rejected, while that of Dover was accepted and the MPs unseated. The right was definitively extinguished by the Parliamentary Elections Act 1689.

  Citations