The early parliaments were merely the successors of the old “mickle gemot,” or Council of the Saxons; and we shall learn by whom its members were elected, from the following translation of the preamble of an ancient institute: “Withred, the King of Canterbury, in the fifth year of his reign, and the sixth day of August, in a place called Berghamstyde, gathered the principal people to Council: there were there all the clergy, and the herdsfolk, when the chiefs and the congregation established these laws.”
In the oldest writs of election now procurable, there is contained no limitation of the franchise. As time wore on, the people no longer attended the Council in a body, but they all had a voice in the election of the delegate who was to represent them there. The following is a translation of a writ of election for the county of Kent, issued in the twelfth year of Henry IV.: “This Indenture made at Canterbury, on Monday the next before the Feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude, next following after the receipt of the writ of the lord the king annexed to this Indenture. Between John Darrel, Sheriff of the said county, and R. C., V. B., J. B., J. D., I. L., W. L., &c., who to choose knights and citizens for the Parliament of the lord the king, to be holden at Westminster on the morrow of All Souls that next shall be, were empowered by virtue of the writ of the same the lord the king, in this behalf, addressed to the same sheriff, by the assent of all that county, have chosen Reginald Pympe and Willian Notaben, knights for the community of the aforesaid county; William Hinckman and William Roe, citizens, for the community of the City of Canterbury; Roger Langford and John Everard, citizens, for the community of the City of Rochester. In Witness, &c.” (Here follow the signatures.) Something very like Universal Suffrage prevailed, then, in those times, every one but the serfs having a vote. Indeed, the statute of Henry VI., which limits the right of voting in counties to freeholders of forty shillings a-year, acknowledges as much in its preamble, which recites: “Whereas, the election of knights of shires to come to Parliament of our lord the king in many counties of the realm of England have now of late been made by very great outrageous and excessive numbers of people dwelling within the same counties, of the which most part was people of small substance and no value, whereof every one of them pretended a voice equivalent as to such election to be made with the most worthy knights and esquires dwelling within the same counties, whereby manslaughter, riots, batteries, and divisions among the gentlemen and other people of the same counties shall (observe the caution of this) very likely arise and be, unless convenient and due remedy be provided: Be it enacted, &c.”
Not a word is there to be found in ancient writs of the franchise being vested in municipal corporations. In Rochester and Canterbury the right remained in the freemen at large; but in the boroughs of Wilton and Devizes, which are mentioned in a writ for the county of Wilts, issued in the reign of Henry the Fifth, in precisely the same terms that we have quoted respecting the two former cities in the writ for Kent—the franchise was usurped by a mayor, recorder, five aldermen, three capital burgesses, and eleven common councilmen in the former; and by a mayor, recorder, ten magistrates, and twenty-four common councilmen in the latter.
Many places had writs issued to them in one reign, and were unrepresented in another; and then summoned to elect members in a third—the new charter directing the manner in which the election was to be held. Devizes was made a parliamentary borough in the 23rd year of Edward the First. It was discontinued as such, in the 20th of Edward the Second; and restored to its former position in the 4th of Edward the Third. Since then, down to the year 1832, it returned members to Parliament; but the process under which the corporation usurped the franchise, is shrouded in mystery. No writ subsequent to the one we have mentioned, granting the right of election to a class, could disfranchise those in whom it was originally vested; for, says Lord Coke, “if the king newly incorporate an ancient borough, which before sent burgesses to Parliament, and granteth that certain selected burgesses shall make election of the burgesses of Parliament, where all the burgesses elected before—this charter taketh not away the election of the other burgesses. And so, if a city or borough hath power to make ordinances, they cannot make an ordinance that a less number shall elect burgesses for the Parliament, than made the election before; for free elections of members of the High Court of Parliament are ‘pro bono publico,’ and not to be compared to other cases of election of mayors, bailiffs, &c., of corporations.” Hear this, Mr. Bright!
But the corporations did monopolise the franchise and make ordinances in defiance of all law, and what happened at Devizes happened to scores of other boroughs throughout the kingdom. In the populous city of Bath, which has sent members to Parliament ever since there was a Parliament to send them to, the franchise was usurped by a self-elected corporation of eighteen persons, mostly doctors! Andover, Portsmouth, Salisbury, and Winchester were in a similar predicament.
Very early in our history—even when Parliament was a mere machine for taxing the country—the position of a member was an object of ambition and of bribery. As the power of the legislature increased, and political parties were formed, contests for the office of “Parliament man” became spirited and frequent, the issue not being confined, as at present, to what candidate should be elected, but involving intricate questions as to the right of voting, and the due appointment of the returning officer. Thus there was frequently a double return for a borough. The mayor would assume the post of returning officer, and a candidate chosen by the corporation would be elected. The bailiff of the lord of the manor, or some rival functionary, would also claim to make the return, and another candidate who had received the suffrages of the householders, or other class claiming to possess the franchise, would be sent to Parliament. The House of Commons, as a body (not a committee of it, as at present), had to decide