John Townsend of Warwick was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1597 to 1614.
The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain. In 1801, with the union of Great Britain and Ireland, that house was in turn replaced by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
Townsend was the son of Richard Townsend of Warwick and his wife Christian.
He was bailiff of Warwick from 1589 to 1590 and then in 1597 and 1901 elected Member of Parliament for the town. After another period as bailiff in 1603–04 he was re-elected MP for Warwick to the Addled Parliament of 1614. He was finally bailiff again from 1621 to 1622. [1]
Warwick was a parliamentary borough consisting of the town of Warwick, within the larger Warwickshire constituency of England. It returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of England from 1295 to 1707, to the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and then to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until 1885.
The Addled Parliament was the second Parliament of England of the reign of James I of England, which sat between 5 April and 7 June 1614. Its name alludes to its ineffectiveness: it lasted no more than eight weeks and failed to resolve the conflict between the King, who wished to raise money in the form of a 'Benevolence', a grant of £65,000 and the House of Commons. It was dissolved by the King, who observed grimly that he was "amazed that his ancestors should have allowed such an institution to come into existence". He probably intended to rule from then on without Parliament, and in fact did so for seven years.
Townsend died after 1622. [1]
