Creation of The additions made by Henry VIII to the representation boroughs, of the country are free from the suspicion of any sinister motive. One cannot say the same of the twenty-two new members added in the reign of Edward VI. Fourteen of these were returned by seven Cornish boroughs, and from the number of persons represented and the qualifications of the electors in the year 1816 it may be concluded that with all due allowance for changes in the fortunes of these boroughs they never were expected to be anything but corrupt. The constituencies were as follows : Interference with elections. Bossiney, mayor and freemen chosen by the mayor . who need not reside Grampound, mayor, recorder, aldermen and freemen St. Michael's, portreeve, lord of the manor and in- 9 62 42 38 18 9 Mary added or revived fourteen boroughs, Elizabeth, thirtyone 1. The clear intention of these additions was to form a court party in the House of Commons, and to obtain seats for friends of the Crown or its ministers, placemen who would vote as they were told but who had no local interest, such as would ensure their return, unless constituencies were made or found for them. The creation of new boroughs, or the revival of old ones, would not, however, have been of much use if the Court had not taken active steps to fill them with suitable representatives. This was done either by general. directions to the 1 of the boroughs added by Mary ten were newly enfranchised, of those added by Elizabeth twenty-five. About this time members habitually ceased to press for their wages, and this among other reasons inclined boroughs which had ceased to return members to ask for a revival of their privileges. returning officers for the election of members of a certain character, or by express recommendations of individuals. A circular addressed to the sheriffs in 1553 is an illustration of both forms of interference. It bids the sheriffs give notice to the electors that they should, in the first instance, choose residents of knowledge and experience, but that, if the Privy Council should make special recommendation of men of learning and wisdom, such direction should be regarded. Such interference with elections by the Privy Council or by individual ministers of the Crown or noblemen did not take place without exciting some resentment in the Commons. The practice of nominating courtiers or placemen could not well be carried out consistently with the statute of Henry V, which required residence as a qualification for election. Accordingly in 1571 a bill was brought in to make valid the election of non-residents. The bill was supported on the ground that it would give to every constituency the choice of the best available candidates, and thus was raised the question whether a member represented the general interests of the whole kingdom or the local interests of those who returned him. The opponents of the bill did not merely maintain that if the requirement of residence was abolished local interests might suffer; they alleged the risk of such interference with the representation as we have been discussing, the probability that candidates would be nominated by noblemen and courtiers and that lords' letters would bear sway.' The bill progressed so far as to be committed, but was then dropped. of their It would not be difficult to collect other instances and Cessation illustrations of interference by the Crown or its ministers modes of with freedom of election: but the wholesale creation of &c. constituencies ceased with the accession of James I. The additions made in his reign to the representation were mostly by way of revival of constituencies which had ceased to return members, and were the result of the action of the House of 1 D'Ewes, Journal, 168. The Undertakers. Commons ordering a warrant for the issue of a writ. An illustration is afforded by the cases of Pontefract and Ilchester in the year 1620, as to which the following entry appears in the Commons' Journals of the report of the Committee of Privileges 1: : For Pomfrett that 26 Ed. I it sent burgesses which continued a good while after. That by reason of the barons war it grew poor. That 10 Hen. VI, a return was made they could not send burgesses by reason of poverty. 4th Jac. the king granted all their former liberties and customs. That the Committee thinketh it to stand both with law and justice that a writ should go for choice of burgesses. For Ilchester:-till Hen. V time sent burgesses. Upon question, Pomfrett to send burgesses. Upon like question, Ilchester to send burgesses, and writs for both. By This shows that the right of sending members to Parliament began to be prized as the Commons grew more independent and the general interest in politics more keen, and serves to explain how it was that the Stuart kings first had recourse to other measures for influencing Parliament. the advice of Bacon, James I endeavoured to form a Court party in the House, not merely of placemen or nominated members, but of aspirants for Court favour, who might influence the temper of the Commons in the king's interests. These persons were called 'Undertakers.' Such a group of members, professing to form a channel of communication between Crown and Commons, came into existence again in the time of Charles II, and reappears under somewhat different conditions in the king's friends' of George III. But attempts to influence the House of Commons were not very congenial to kings who maintained, as James maintained, that the privileges of the House were derived from the grace and permission of his ancestors and himself' and might be 'retrenched' at his pleasure: or who, like Charles I, 1 Com. Jour. ii. 576. could, through the mouth of his ministers, threaten the House that if they trenched on his prerogatives they might bring him out of love with Parliaments 1.' mentary Restora Interference with freedom of debate, such as has been Parliaspoken of under the head of Parliamentary privilege, and manageinvasion of the province of Parliament by independent ment after legislation and taxation, were the rough methods employed tion. by Charles, and it is not until after the Restoration that we find a revival of attempts to influence members. Charles II ventured only upon one addition to the constituencies, that of Newark, by royal charter, an exercise of the prerogative which did not pass unquestioned by the Commons 2, during his reign. The forfeiture and re-modelling of the borough charters at the end of the reign of Charles II and at the commencement of the reign of James II is the last form of violent external measures used by the king to affect the representation. The ill success of the attempts of James II to dispense with the forms of the constitution made it clear that, if the House of Commons was to be made an instrument for carrying out the policy of the Crown and of the ministers of the Crown, some mode of treatment must be discovered other than tampering with the representation of the country in Parliament, or interference with freedom of debate. difficulties After the Revolution the House of Commons by means of Increased its control over supply, and over the existence of the standing of execu army, had become the chief power in the State. In order to tive. carry on the business of government it was necessary that the ministers of the Crown should have the continuous support of a majority of that House. But such continuous support was not easy to secure. Throughout the reigns of William and of Anne party spirit was, on the whole, sufficiently vehement to supply to some extent the want of party dis 1 Gardiner, Hist. of England, vi. 110. 2 Com. Journals, ix. 403. The city and county of Durham were enfranchised by 25 Car. II, c. 9. System atic cor Parlia cipline. Yet the corruption of members by places and bribes was common, and the management of elections through the returning officers was an important object of ministerial care 1. But it was not till after the accession of the Hanoverian ruption of kings that Parliamentary management became a system under the hands of Walpole. He realised to the full the 18th cen- importance of a working majority in the Commons, and the difficulty of keeping it together. ment in tury. How it was pos sible. The difficulty was serious. The engrossing political issues of the seventeenth century were in a great measure laid to rest, and there was not excitement enough in politics to create genuine party divisions. The House debated with closed doors, and its members were free from external criticism. The constituencies in many cases were so small or so corrupt as to care little what their members said or did. In the absence of any external control over the conduct of members, and of any real political interests or issues to keep parties together, in the demoralisation of politics, which was partly due to the moral collapse of the Restoration, partly to the risks and uncertainties of political life during the past forty years, it was not easy for Walpole to get a majority to support his ministry out of mere public spirit. Nor did he try to do so. He accepted the condition of public morality. He kept his majority together by the simple process of bargain and sale. But that which had been done intermittently during previous reigns, he did in a businesslike and systematic way. Bribery is not easily proved where it is to the interest of all parties concerned to keep the secret; but Walpole's hints to his successor, Henry Pelham, as to the best mode of keeping together the rank and file of the party, are quite sufficient 1 In the Wentworth Correspondence, p. 135, the defeat of the Whigs in 1710 is attributed to an electioneering blunder. They had thought there would be no election till the next year, so had directed her Majesty's choice of sheriffs, almost throughout England, of Tories; their friends they kept off till next year, when they thought they should have use of them in the elections of Parliament men.' |