432
Constitutional History.
[chap.
Complex At Lynn in 1384 the members were elected by John a Titles-
Lynn and hall and eleven others forming a jury1. How this jury was
° ' chosen we learn from the Lynn records of 1432 and 1433 :
the mayor, with the assent of the town meeting, nominated
two of the twenty-four, and two of the common council ; these
four chose four more, two out of each body ; and these eight
co-opted two more, and the ten two more ; these twelve, being
sworn according to custom to preserve the liberty of the town,
chose two burgesses to go to parliament2. A similar rule was
adopted at Cambridge, whence probably it had been borrowed
by Lynn; in 1426 the members were elected by a select body
of eight buɪgesses; this election by eight is described in the
year 1502 : the mayor and his assessors nominated one person,
and the commonalty another, these two elected eight, and the
eight elected the members. The custom had been maintained,
and is called the custom of the borough, notwithstanding an
ordinance of the corporation made in 1452 directing that the
election of the burgesses of the parliament should be made ‘ by
the most part of the burgesses in the guildhall at the election,
and not one for the bench by the mayor and his assistants and
another by the commonalty as of old time hath been used 3.*
Varietyof These instances are sufficient to prove that the exercise of
qualification ,
ofvoters. the local franchise was a matter of local regulation until the
cognisance of elections was claimed and recognised as a right
and duty of the house of commons. As it is difficult even
Conjecturally to realise the formal process of the election, it
is more difficult to say in whom the right of suffrage in the
boroughs was supposed to lie : the whole of our medieval
1 Beloe, OurBorough, p. 25.
2 ‘1433, June 17. The king’s writ was then publicly read for electing
members of parliament. And for electing them the mayor called two of
the twenty-four and two of the common council, which four chose two
more of the twenty-four and two of the common council, and they chose
four others, who all unanimously chose John Waterden and Thomas
Spicer to be burgesses in parliament.’ 1437, Jan. 7, a similar election
was held, the mayor nominating the first two by the assent of the
whole congregation ; Extracts from the Records of Lynn, Archaeologia,
xxiv. 320. Very full and interesting details of rhe proceedings at the Lynn
elections will be found in the Appendix, part iii, to the eleventh report of
the Historical MSS. Commission.
∙i Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, i. pp. 173, 205, 272.
XX.]
BoroujJi Elections.
433
history scarcely furnishes more than one or two instances of
a contested county election : the town histories too are nearly
silent. And the differences and difficulties, -which arise as soon
as political life wakes again in the seventeenth century, show
that this obscurity is not new. The franchise, as soon as its
value was ascertained, became a subject of dispute between
different classes of men, or different candidates for the re-
presentation, in every town : the great addition of borough Obscurity
members to the house of commons, caused by the measures of dι⅜eι∞ty of*
the Tudor sovereigns, brought an influx of strange novelties ; ⅛on.
the old towns which had never been troubled with a contest
had no precedents of custom to allege ; in some instances the
rules for municipal elections were applied to the parliamentary
elections, in others the custom of the county courts was fol-
lowed, and in others the inhabitants were left to follow their
own political instincts of freedom or repression. The increased
strength and exclusiveness of the corporations in the chartered
towns had in some instances withdrawn the choice of the mem-
bers altogether from the body of townsmen : in others the
weakness of the magistrates had let it slip altogether into the
hands of the freemen. In all cases the elections were becoming
direct and primary.
It is impossible to argue back from the parliamentary judg- illustrations
ments of the seventeenth century to the practice of the middle modem
ages : but, as it is improbable that any completely new system procedure∙
of franchise was introduced in the sixteenth century, we may
briefly indicate the several theories or customs which are found
in working when our knowledge of the subject begins. The Dnersities
, 1 /. 1 « ,. , τ ,. Offidnchise.
most ancient, perhaps, oɪ the ɪranehises was that depending on
burgage tenure ; this was exactly analogous in origin to the
freeholder’s qualification in the counties ; but as the repressive
principle extended, the right of a burgage vote had become in
many places attached to particular houses or sites of houses,
probably those which were originally liable for a quota of the
fiɪma burgi ∙, in others the right still belonged to the whole
body of freeholders ; and this may be regarded as a second sort
of franchise. A third custom placed the right to vote in the
vol. Ш. ï f