Knights of Buckinghamshire


This article contains a list of the known knights of the shire who represented Buckinghamshire in the Parliament of England and similar bodies of lesser status between 1290 and 1660. It also includes details of Parliaments from 1265 to which elected knights of the shires were summoned.

Preliminary notes

The parliamentary electoral constituency, representing the historic county of Buckinghamshire, was created in : see Montfort's Parliament for further details and History of Buckinghamshire for maps of the historic county. This county constituency was represented by two knights of the shire until 1832 and three 1832-1885.
Knights of the shire are known to have been summoned to most parliaments from 1290 and to every one from 1320.
Although at some periods several Parliaments were held in a year, at others there were considerable gaps between Parliaments. Knights of the shire were also summoned to meetings which have not been classified as Parliaments by modern expert opinion. The names of the members in some Parliaments are not known.
The English civil year started on 25 March until 1752. The years used for parliaments in this article have been converted to the new style where necessary. Old style dates would be a year earlier than the new style for days between 1 January and 24 March, for example the Parliament of 18 March 1313 – 9 May 1313 would be 18 March 1312 – 9 May 1313. No attempt has been made to compensate for the eleven days which did not occur in September 1752 in both England and Scotland as well as other British controlled territories, so as to bring the British Empire fully in line with the Gregorian calendar.
The names of knights of the shire, taken from the list in The History and Antiquities of Buckinghamshire by George Lipscomb, are given in alphabetical order for each group of representatives.
There are some minor variations in names from the source used, which unless the contrary is known, are assumed to relate to the same person. It is possible that some entries relate to different persons of the same name. Where such cases have been identified the persons have been distinguished by a Roman number after the name ; except where the number used to distinguish different candidates of the same name during the same period, by the authors of the books on the House of Commons mention in the references section, are used.
As the dates of Parliaments came from a twentieth century source and the names of persons elected came from Lipscomb it was sometimes impossible to be certain, from those sources, who served in a Parliament and who attended other meetings accorded lesser status. There is also some uncertainty as to whether Lipscomb did or did not use new style years and if so whether the method used in his list is consistent. An attempt has been made to give the best fit possible and to indicate the year from Lipscomb's list. The places of some Parliaments were indicated in footnotes to Lipscomb's list and are given here as they may assist with further research to confirm the link between specific knights of the shire and a particular Parliament.

Knights of the shire 1265-1660

The lists below commence with Montfort's Parliament in 1265, when for the first time elected representatives from counties, cities and boroughs were summoned to Parliament.
It is known that the Sheriffs of the English Counties were ordered to send knights of the shire to attend a number of Parliaments before 1265, but they were not required to have them chosen by election. No such summonses are known to have required the attendance of some citizens of cities or burgesses of other boroughs. Records of this sort of summons survive for the Oxford Parliament which was the 7th Parliament of King Henry III and the 16th Parliament of the King.
The lists before 1320 exclude Parliaments to which elected commoners were not known to have been summoned. All Parliaments are believed to have been held at Westminster, unless otherwise indicated.

Parliament of King Henry III

Parliaments of King Edward I

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Parliaments of King Henry V

Parliaments of King Henry VI

Parliaments of King Edward IV

Parliament of King Richard III

Parliaments of King Henry VII

Parliaments of King Henry VIII

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Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth I

Parliaments of King James I

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Parliaments of the Commonwealth

The Long Parliament or the selection of members from it known as the Rump Parliament functioned de facto during part of the Commonwealth of England period. It existed de jure 1640-1660, as under a pre-English Civil War law, the Long Parliament could not be lawfully dissolved without its own consent which it did not give until 1660. As it was a Parliament originally summoned by King Charles I, the overall dates of the Long Parliament are given in the previous section.
The Barebones Parliament was an appointed body, so the county was not as such represented in it. That body was summoned on 20 June 1653, first met on 4 July 1653 and was dissolved on 12 December 1653.

Parliaments of the Protectorate

During the Protectorate the county was allocated five representatives in the First and the Second Protectorate Parliaments, before reverting to two for the Third Protectorate Parliament.
The boroughs of Aylesbury, Buckingham Town and Wycombe retained one seat each in the first two Parliaments, but the traditional pattern of constituencies and of seats was reintroduced for the third.
No.AssembledDissolved1st member2nd member3rd member4th member5th member
1st3 September 165422 January 1655Bulstrode WhitelockeRichard IngoldsbyGeorge FleetwoodSir Richard PigotRichard Greenville
2nd17 September 16564 February 1658Bulstrode WhitelockeRichard IngoldsbyRichard HampdenSir Richard PigotRichard Greenville
3rd27 January 165922 April 1659Richard GreenvilleWilliam Bowyer---

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