A Fluid Elite? Social Mobility and County Representation in the Reign of Henry VI*

Late‐medieval borough representation, perhaps because of its dynamic and varied aspect, has been more intensely studied than that of the counties. The latter have generally been seen as unvaried units of representation, largely dominated, representationally, by the greater gentry who saw election as an important vindication of their local status. This article presents a different perspective, emphasising the physical and social differences between counties and the impact this had on their representative identities. In some, representation was dominated by a well‐established gentry elite, what might be termed the typical model in historiographical terms; in others, it was so broadly shared as to suggest that the notion of a dominant elite is misleading in understanding representation and perhaps, more radically, even the structure of county society. The period reviewed here is the reign of Henry VI, the last period of the late‐middle‐ages for which the parliamentary returns are near complete and for which the necessary data is available in the recently published History of Parliament volumes.