Ludlow was the headquarters of the council in the marches of Wales. It was governed by two bailiffs, 12 principal burgesses and 25 common councilmen. There was also a recorder. The 1572 return states that the choice of MPs was made by the bailiffs ‘by assent and consent of all the burgesses of the said town to whom the said election doth appertain’. Similarly the 1588 return was made ‘with the consent of all the burgesses’.

With two exceptions all the Ludlow MPs were townsmen, and some—Berry and Poughmill for example—were also connected with the council in the marches. This probably accounts for Ludlow being able to retain its independence, threatened, as far as can be seen, on only two occasions in this period. In 1581 no less a person than Philip Sidney was returned after the death of Robert Mason II, a tanner. But Philip’s father, Sir Henry Sidney, the president of the council in the marches, had taken the precaution of having him returned also at Shrewsbury, thereby causing a second by-election, the vacancy then being filled by a townsman, Robert Berry, returned for the first of his seven consecutive Parliaments as Member for Ludlow. This same Berry provided the occasion for the second intervention by the president of the council, in 1597. For some time one John Bradford had been charging the corporation, Berry among them, with various malpractices. In August 1597 Bradford brought an Exchequer suit against the Berry faction, when ‘the greatest part of the aldermen and burgesses’ petitioned the Privy Council about those‘burgesses that dissent from the rest’. This gave the Privy Council an opportunity to ask the Earl of Pembroke, then president, to ensure that the peace was kept, and Pembroke an opportunity to oust Berry from his seat in the Commons. With the connivance of the sheriff—there appears to have been some irregularity involving the election precept—Pembroke’s servant Hugh Sanford was returned. When the committee of privileges discussed the matter on 12 Nov. it agreed that the return was defective, and some were for punishing the sheriff, others the borough. In the event a new election was held, and Berry replaced Sanford. There was a sequel in the House on 6 Feb. 1598 when a Thomas Bashfield was put in the serjeant’s custody for ‘disturbing by way of an appearance of Robert [B]erry a member of this House returned a burgess for the town of Ludlow’.5