1362.] THE ASSEMBLING OF PARLIAMENTS. 123 common profit of the realm; an admission directly opposed to the prerogative of the kings, who had hitherto considered taxation as exclusively for their own benefit. It is curious to compare the simple and terse language of the ancient charter, with that of the Report of a Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1828, upon public income and expenditure, when propounding the same principle. "No taxes shall be taken but by the common consent of the realm, and for the common profit thereof," says the ancient charter. The Committee "unequivocally declare their full assent to the principle that no government is justified in taking even the smallest sum of money from the people, unless a case can be clearly established to show that it will be productive of some essential advantage to them, and of one that cannot be obtained at a smaller sacrifice."1 3. Statutes ordaining the Periodical Assembling of Parliaments. The earliest statutes that laid any obligation on the king to call the parliament together, are found in the reign of Edward III. Before that time, it rested entirely with the king to convene the parliament or not; and notwithstanding the statutes, the kings-especially those of a more advanced period of our history-claimed freedom of will with regard to the time, as well as the place of assembling parliaments, as their indisputable prerogative. We may again notice the terse as well as unqualified terms in which the earliest statutes proclaimed the law. "A parliament shall be holden every year once, and more often, if need be.”2 "For maintenance of the said articles and statutes, and redress of mischiefs and grievances which daily happen, parliament shall be holden every year, as another time was ordained by statute."3 I Report, vol. ii. p. 4. 24 Edw. III., cap. 14, A.D. 1330. Edward III. did not convene parliament in strict accordance with these laws, but he did not absolutely disregard them; for in his reign of fifty years, there were thirty-seven years in which a parliament assembled. But it must not be imagined that these statutes were passed with reference to any political desire for annual parliaments: they were intended to ensure an annual session, rather than an annual election; for an eager desire for a seat in parliament did not then exist;-on the contrary, in the following reign, of Richard II., it was found necessary to make a statute "for compelling the attendance of the members of both houses. The king did will and command' the attendance of all who had the summons, be he archbishop, bishop, prior, duke, earl, baron, banneret, knight of the shire, citizen, or burgess, on pain of being amerced, or otherwise punished; except they could reasonably and honestly excuse themselves to the king." Punishment was, in the same statute, imposed upon sheriffs who were negligent in making returns of writs to the parliament, or who left out any cities or boroughs, "which be bound, and of old time were wont, to come to the parliament,"-an enactment which seems to imply that a sort of favouritism,-perhaps under the direction of the crown, was exercised by the sheriffs, by exempting cities and boroughs from returning members, and from the consequent burden of the members' wages.1 4. Statutes which Regulate the Mode of Election, and the Qualifications of the Electors, of Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses. These statutes are interesting as the initiatory and progressive steps of the laws of election, and of the qualifica tions of electors, which continued unchanged, in all material respects, for above four hundred years,—that is, until the Reform Act of 1832. The first statute is in the reign of Henry IV.; it seems to be directed against the influence 15 Rich. II., stat. ii. cap. 4, A.D. 1382. 27 Henry IV., cap. 15, A.D. 1405. : 1409.] ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT. 125 of the crown. It appears from the preamble, that the commons had made "grievous complaint to the king, of the undue election of the knights of counties, which be sometimes made of affection of sheriffs, and otherwise against the form of the writs." The statute laid down how the elections should be made in future. "At the next county [court] to be holden after the delivery of the writ, proclamation should be made, in the full county, of the day and place of the parliament, and that all they that be there present, as well suitors duly summoned for the same cause, as other, shall attend to the election of the knights for the parliament; and then, in the full county, they shall proceed to the election, freely and indifferently, notwithstanding any request or command to the contrary." It is then directed. that "the names of the person chosen (be they present or absent) shall be written in an indenture, under the seals of all them that did choose them, and tacked to the writ, which should be the sheriff''s return to the writ." That statute had not ordained any penalty against the sheriffs for returns contrary to its provisions, and it was soon afterwards followed by another statute which supplied the omission, and also established a tribunal for trying the validity of the sheriff's' returns. It gave powers to the justices of assize to inquire of such returns in their sessions of assizes; and if it were found by inquest and due examination before the justices, that a sheriff had made a return contrary to the statute, he should incur a penalty of £100, and the knights so unduly returned should lose their wages.1 The generality of the expression in the statute of the seventh year of Henry IV.,-"All they that be there present,"-in reference to the electors for counties,-appears to have put the right of election on the most popular principle,—not much, if at all, short of universal suffrage,— especially when we consider that the sheriff's county was in the open air, as we may imagine it on Penenden Heath. It is not, however, generally admitted to be a correct infer1 11 Henry IV., cap. 1, A.p. 1409. ence from the statute, that the right of election extended beyond the knights, esquires, and freeholders of the county. In the Peers' Report it is observed that "it was apparently intended that the election should be by all the suitors at the county court: who were at different times suitors at the county court, and who were at that time suitors, has been a subject of much doubt; but it has generally been admitted that the suitors to the county court were declared by this statute to be the electors of the knights for each county." Mr. Hallam has found great difficulty in making up his mind on the question. "Whoever," he observes, "may have been the original voters for county representatives, the first statute that regulates their election, so far from limiting the privilege to tenants in capite, appears to me to place it on a very large and democratical foundation. For (as I rather conceive, though not without much hesitation) not only all freeholders, but all persons whatever present at the county court, were declared or rendered capable of voting for the knight of the shire."2 The election of knights, whether present or absent, was altered by a statute of Henry V., which required that the knights be not chosen unless they be resident within the shire on the day of the date of the writ of summons to parliament; and that "the knights and esquires, and others which shall be choosers of knights, be also resident within the same shires." It also confined the cities and boroughs to the choice of" citizens and burgesses resiant, dwelling, and free in the same cities and boroughs, and no other in anywise."3 After the experience of a quarter of a century of the working of the system of election prescribed by the preceding statutes, it was materially altered by a statute in the reign of Henry VI. Its language is very remarkable for the picture it gives of the license of a contested election, according to the then existing system, in the sheriff's county 1 Peers' Report, vol. i. p. 357. 2 Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. ch. 8, p. 242. 1429.] ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT. 127 court, held in the open air; and it appears to give great support to the opinion that the electors had then become much more numerous, and included many of inferior position to the knights, esquires, and freeholders. "The elections of knights of shires have now of late been made by very great, outrageous, and excessive number of people dwelling within the counties, of the which most part was of people of small substance and no value,--whereof every of them pretended a voice equivalent, as to such elections to be made, with the most worthy knights and esquires dwelling within the same counties, whereby manslaughters, riots, batteries, and divisions among the gentlemen and other people of the same counties, shall very likely rise and be, unless convenient and due remedy be provided." It was, therefore, declaredthat the electors should in future be "people dwelling and resident in the counties, who should have free land or tenement to the value of forty shillings by the year at the least above all charges,-and the elected, or they which shall be chose, shall be dwelling and resident within the same counties, and such as had the greatest number of them that may expend forty shillings by the year and above, should be returned by the sheriff's knights for the parliament."1 18 Henry VI., cap. 7, 1429.—Sir F. Palgrave, referring to the county court being held in the open air, "thinks it not too much to assert that the present political influence of the people is, in great measure, derived from the mode and manner of their meeting. The records exist which show that as the suffrage of the borough belonged to the delegated bodies acting on the part of the community [the burgesses], so the choice of the representative of the county, or rather of the county court, belonged to the magnates, or their delegates, few in number, high in station, and without any commixture of the minor suitors, who continued spectators, until they acquired a deep and general interest in the proceedings of the legislature and in the affairs of the community. They then became loud and active partisans; they were on the spot, they mingled with their superiors, they asserted the same rights; but the great, outrageous, and excessive number of people, of small substance and no value,' would never, in the angry words of the statute, 'have pretended to a voice equivalent with the most worthy |
