738 



BOROUGH. 



Borough, liest periods of the Saxon government down to the 

 ''D ' reign of Charles I. Hence it is concluded, that the 

 right of the commons must have been incontestibly 

 established by custom, and interwoven into the ori- 

 ginal frame of our constitution. Again : If we sup- 

 pose, with some, that the sitting in Parliament was 

 at that time considered only as a trouble and burden; 

 the imposition of such a burden on orders of men, 

 who had been previously exempt from it, must have 

 been on their part resisted and opposed. But from 

 the words of the act of the 4th Edw. III. by which 

 " It is accorded, that a parliament shall be holdeu 

 every year once, and more often, if need be," it may 

 be inferred, that it was rather regarded as a privi- 

 lege of which they earnestly desired the frequent en- 

 joyment, than as a burden from which they wished to 

 be exempt. There were some boroughs, indeed, 

 which, on account of their poverty, were unable to 

 bear the expense of sending members to Parliament, 

 and therefore declined the exercise of that privilege ; 

 but it were unfair to form any general conclusion 

 from these particular instances. Besides, there are 

 examples of boroughs petitioning to be restored to 

 the use of the privilege of sending members to Par- 

 liament, after a very long interruption. 



It appears incredible, that, if the whole legislative 

 power had, before the reign of Henry III. been al- 

 ways placed in the hands of the nobility and the 

 king, they should not have opposed the extension of 

 it to so many persons of inferior rank ; nor is it pro- 

 bable, that any new measure of such magnitude and 

 importance, introduced by the Earl of Leicester, 

 while acting at the head of the nobles and the people 

 in a very dangerous contest against the crown, should 

 have been confirmed and perpetuated by Edward I. 

 But among the close rolls of the 24th of that king, 

 there is a writ of summons to Parliament, in which it 

 'is asserted, not as an innovation introduced by the 

 Earl of Leicester, " but as a maxim grounded on a 

 most equitable law, established by the foresight and 

 wisdom of sacred princes, that what concerns all, 

 should be done with the approbation of all ; and that 

 dangers to the whole community should be, obviated 

 by remedies provided by the whole community," a 

 species of language which could not, with propriety, 

 have been used by Edward I. if the practice of sum- 

 moning the commons to Parliament had been a mea- 

 sure of recent introduction. It is, moreover, obser- 

 ved, that there is not the slightest intimation, in any 

 of the oldest writs for sending up representatives 

 From cities or boroughs, that such elections were a 

 novelty. Two claims are still extant, made in the 

 reigns of Edward II. and III. which have been held 

 forth as decisive of the antiquity of the custom of send- 

 ing citizens and bu-gesses to Parliament, even from 

 towns that were held under subjects, and not imme- 

 diately of the crown. These are the claims of the towns 

 of St Albans and Barnstaple. In the petition of the 

 borough of St Albans, presented to Parliament in the 

 feign of Edward II. the petitioners assert, that 

 though they held in capite of the crown, and owed 

 only for all other service their attendance in Parlia- 

 ment, yet the sheriff had omitted them in his writs ; 

 whereas, both in the reign of the king's father, and 

 all his predecessors, they had always sent members. 



This expression, it is alleged, could not have been B.)r<>3;u, 

 used, if the commencement of the House of Commo:,-, *" ta ~"\' - ' 

 were to be dated only from the reign of Henry III. 

 Reference is also made to a statute of the 5th year of 

 Richard II. st. 2. which enacts, " that all and singu- 

 lar persons and commonalties, which from henceforth 

 shall have the summons of the Parliament, shall come 

 from henceforth to the Parliaments in the manner as 

 they are bound to do, and have been accustomed with - 

 in the realm of England, of old times. And if anv 

 person of the same realm, which from henceforth 

 shall have the said summons (be he archbishop, bi- 

 shop, abbot, prior, duke, earl, baron, banneret, knight 

 qf the shire, citizen of city, burgess of borough, or 

 other singular person or commonalty,) do absent 

 himself, &c. he shall be amerced and otherwise pu- 

 nished, according as of old times hath been used to be 

 done within the said realm in the said case." There 

 is likewise a petition of the Commons in the second 

 Parliament of Henry V. which sets forth, ' that as 

 it hath ever been their libertie and freedom, that there 

 should no statute nor law be made, unless they passed 

 thereto their assent, considering that the commune 

 of your land, the which is and ever hath been a mem- 

 ber of your Parliament, be^as well assenters as peti- 

 tioners," &c. This claim was not disallowed either 

 by the lords or the king. 



Such is the general train of reasoning by which 

 the advocates of the antiquity of the House of Com- 

 mons have endeavoured to support their cause. They 

 maintain that the people, that is the citizens and bur- 

 gesses, always formed a constituent part of the great 

 council ; that the statutes and records to which they 

 refer, are to be considered as merely sanctioning and 

 confirming an ancient privilege, and not as introdu- 

 cing any new measure of policy ; and that although 

 in some periods, and in certain instances, the people 

 seem to have for a time discontinued the exercise of 

 this privilege, yet that this discontinuance has been 

 owing to particular circumstances, and ought not to 

 have any effect upon the general argument. 



Those, on the other hand, who deny this high an* 

 tiquity of the commons, contend, and, we think, suc- 

 cessfully, that in those periods to which their origin 

 is referred, no such class of men as are denominated 

 citizens and burgesses had any political existence. 

 Although Tacitus affirms, that, among the ancient 

 Germans, the consent of all the members of the com- 

 munity was required in every important deliberation ; 

 yet he speaks not of representatives ; and this ancient 

 practice, mentioned by the Roman historian, could 

 only have place among small tribes, where every ci- 

 tizen might, without inconvenience, be assembled 

 upon any extraordinary emergency. With regard to 

 the Saxon Wittenagemote, it has not been determin- 

 ed with any degree of certainty by antiquaries, who 

 were its constituent members. Besides the prelates 

 and aldermen, or nobles, mention is also made of the 

 wites, or wise men, as a component part of this na- 

 tional council; but who these wites were, it is not 

 easy to ascertain from a review of the laws and his- 

 tory of that period. Some have supposed that they 

 were the judges, or men learned in the law ; others, 

 that they were the representatives of boroughs, or 

 what we bow call the Commons. This latter sup- 



