The Buckinghamshire elections were held at the county court at Aylesbury by the sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire: a bill to separate the two counties was introduced into the Commons in the Parliament of April 1554 but not enacted. The 16 knights whose names are known all had land in the shire, although some of them were seated elsewhere, Sir Andrew Windsor in Middlesex, Sir John Dauntesey in Oxfordshire and Edmund Verney in Hertfordshire; a few lived in London. Several of them were leading crown servants or prominent courtiers, and among these Sir Andrew Windsor and Sir John Russell may have been crown nominees, the writ of 1529 for Buckinghamshire being one of those which the King had delivered to him at Windsor. Twelve of the knights sat on the Buckinghamshire bench, although Sir Henry Lee, elected to Mary’s last Parliament before he reached 30, was not appointed to it until the reign of Elizabeth; of the remainder, Sir Thomas Windsor and the brothers Edmund and Ralph Verney were never justices of the peace and Thomas Denton, although he lived in Buckinghamshire, only served as such in neighbouring counties. (Sir) Francis Russell, William Dormer, Sir Robert Drury and Sir Robert Peckham were sheriffs of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Russell serving his term during his second Parliament; Dauntesey was sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Ten of the knights sat only for Buckinghamshire and a further three, William Dormer, (Sir) George Gifford and (probably) Francis Verney, were returned only for boroughs within the shire. Sir Andrew Windsor’s constituency in 1510 is unknown, Dauntesey sat for Oxfordshire in 1529 and Denton achieved the distinction of doing so for three counties in all, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, as well as for three boroughs in Berkshire and Oxfordshire.4

Sir Andrew Windsor was ennobled during the first session of the Parliament of 1529. When his fellow-Member Sir John Russell, after being made a baron in 1539, was raised to an earldom in 1550 the question arose whether his son could remain in the Commons; an order of 21 Jan. 1550 ruled that he could. Sir Edmund Peckham and his eldest son Sir Robert were Marian Privy Councillors, and Sir Edmund’s partner Sir Robert Drury had a brother on the Council, Sir William Drury, one of the knights for Suffolk. Edmund Verney was successively Sir Edmund Peckham’s ward and son-in-law and his aunt Mary Bray married Sir Robert Peckham. Denton was son-in-law to John, 1st Baron Mordaunt (and thus related to the Peckhams) and Sir Henry Lee to William Paget, Lord Paget. Francis Russell was no more than 17 at his first election and the Verney brothers were in their early 20s. Although the election of the Protestant Verneys in 1555 appears a striking gesture of opposition to the Marian regime, they may none the less have owed it in part to Sir Edmund Peckham, whose equally Protestant younger son Henry Peckham came in for Chipping Wycombe.

Election indentures, all in Latin, survive for the nine Parliaments which met between 1542 and 1558 and for the by-election of January 1550, although several are in poor condition. The contracting parties are the sheriff and between a dozen and 40 or more named electors, including in 1544 Sir Anthony Lee and early in 1553 George Gifford; on this occasion both the names of the Members and of the electors were added in a different hand. Sir Francis Bryan, already a favoured courtier and diplomat, was Cromwell’s preferred replacement for the ennobled Sir Andrew Windsor during the Parliament of 1529; a later Cromwellian list shows that Bryan was then sitting in this Parliament. After the by-election of Sir Thomas Windsor in 1550 his name was placed before Sir Francis Russell’s on the Crown Office list prepared for the session of 1552 but with the christian name erased and ‘miles Antony’ written over it; although there was an Anthony Windsor, this probably represents a mistaken attempt to restore Sir Anthony Lee’s name. Buckinghamshire was one of the counties where new gaols were to be erected under an Act of 1532 (23 Hen. VIII, c.2), which was renewed twice under Henry VIII and once under Mary.5