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present at the county court ; according to the popular inter-
pretation of that law, as the statute informs us, they were
made by persons of little substance and no value¹, that is, by
the medley multitude that held up their hands for or against
the nominees of the hustings. It is a natural inference from
the changes which had been going on since 1381, to suppose
that the self-enfranchised villeins may have formed a formidable
part of these assemblies ; or that the Wycliffite or socialist
mobs that rose under Jack Sharp, in 1431², attempted
in certain cases to turn the election in favour of unworthy
candidates. But these are mere conjectures. It happens for-
tunately that the returns of both 1429 and 1431 are extant;
and a careful scrutiny of the lists of the two parliaments will
show that there is no difference whatever in the character and
position of the knights elected. In both parliaments they are
almost exclusively members of families which furnished knights
to both preceding and succeeding parliaments, and out of whose
number the sheriffs were selected. The alteration of the
franchise made no change in this ; and the necessary inference
from the fact is that the words of the statute, describing the
character of the elective assemblies with a view to their re-
form, must not receive a wider interpretation than literally
belongs to them ; the county courts were disorderly, but it
does not follow that unfit persons were elected, or that any
great constitutional change was contemplated.

Into the status of the forty-shillings freeholder it is im-
possible to inquire with complete certainty; that sum was
the qualification of a juror and was probably for that reason
adopted as the qualification of an elector. But on any showing,
if £50 was the annual expenditure of a small country squire,
an act which lodged the franchise in the hands of the forty-
shillings freeholder cannot be regarded as an oligarchic re-
striction. The later effects of the change in the law cannot
have been within the contemplation of its authors.

With the more distinct evidence of the act and writs of
1445 and 1447 ɪf ɪ⁸ ɪ⁶⁸⁸ easyto deal, for the returns of previous

¹ See above, p. 426.                  '² See above, p. 115.

years are incomplete, and it must be allowed that unfit persons General in-
had probably made their appearance as knights of the shire, the subject.
But the act of 1445 did not alter the franchise, it merely
attempted the more complete regulation of the elective assem-
blies, and the exclusion of members who were below the
customary rank ; in this point following the precedents of the
earlier reigns. These considerations then do not much qualify
our general conclusion that both before and after the act of
1430 the franchise was in the hands of the substantial free-
holders, and that both before and after 1445 the repre-
sentation of the counties was practically engrossed by the
gentry ; the election of a yeoman as knight of the shire was not
impossible or improbable, but no proof of such election having
been made is now forthcoming. It may be remarked by the
way that in 144g political feeling was already rising, and that
in 144^l7 it had risen to a dangerous height. Duke Humfrey,
whose overthrow was contemplated in the parliament of the
latter year, was, however undeservedly, a favourite with the
commons, and it would not have been a strange weapon in the
hands of political agents to term the leaders of the opposing
party yeomen, ignoble, neither knights nor gentlemen.

484. From the condition of the commons of the shires we Condition of
turn to a much more intricate subject, the condition of the ⅛ t⅛^mm°^n,
commons of the boroughs, and the questions touching town ^bo*^oughs∙
constitutions generally, which have arisen since we left them
in an earlier chapter, just achieving municipal independence.

The difficulty of this investigation consists in the fact that
whilst certain general tendencies can be traced throughout the
whole of the borough history, the details of their working vary
so widely, and the results are so divergent. It is possible Absence of
to detect a certain development, now towards liberty, now j⅛⅛°^f
towards restriction, and to account for local struggles as
resulting in definite steps one way or the other ; but it is
not easy to combine the particulars into a whole, or to formu-
late any law of municipal progress. It is possible that, had
there been any such law, or had there been more decided
concert between the several boroughs, the influence of the

vol. in.                    P p

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