BOROUGH. 



739 



Borough, posiron, however, appears to be contradicted by 

 ' "" '"' the expressions employed by all ancient historians, 

 in mentioning the Wittenagemote. The members 

 are almost alway called the principes, satrapce, op- 

 timates, magnates, proceres ; which terms seem to 

 apply only to an aristocracy, and to exclude the 

 commons. Besides, the boroughs, from the low 

 state of commerce, were, in those times, so small 

 and so poor, and the inhabitants lived in such a 

 state of dependence upon the feudal nobility, that 

 it does not appear at all probable they would be 

 admitted as a part of the national councils. We 

 have already seen how slowly they emerged from this 

 dependent state ; and how gradually they acquired 

 those privileges which entitle them to the rank of 

 free men, and enabled them to exert an influence on 

 the affairs of government. It may be remarked, too, 

 that the commons are well known to have had no 

 share in the governments established by the Franks, 

 Burgundians, and other northern nations; and it is by 

 no means probable, that the Saxons, who remained long- 

 er barbarous and uncivilized than those other tribes, 

 could have ever thought of conferring such an ho- 

 nourable privilege on trade and industry. Indeed, in 

 those rude ages, all who could boast the rank of free 

 men were soldiers, and therefore the military profes- 

 sion was alone considered as honourable. The arts 

 of industry were held in little repute, and were chief- 

 ly cultivated by persons in a servile condition. Even 

 at the period of the conquest, as appears from Domes- 

 day-book, the greatest boroughs were scarcely more 

 than country villages j and the inhabitants were of a 

 station little better than servile. These boroughs 

 were not then so much as incorporated ; they formed 

 no community ; they were not regarded as a body po- 

 litic ; and being merely formed of a number of low, 

 dependent mechanics, living in neighbourhood to- 

 gether, without any particular civil tie, they were in- 

 capable of being represented in the states of the king- 

 dom. The first corporation, even in France, which 

 made more early advances in arts and civilization than 

 England, is sixty years posterior to the conquest ; 

 and in Normandy, the constitution of which was 

 most likely to be William's model in raising his new 

 fabric of English government, the states were entire- 

 ly composed of the clergy and nobility ; and the first 

 incorporated boroughs, or communities, of that 

 duchy, were Rouen and Falaise, which enjoyed their 

 privileges by a grant of Philip Augustus, in the 

 year 1207. The famous charter, as it is called, of 

 the conqueror, to the city of London, although 

 granted at a time when he assumed the appearance of 

 gentleness and lenity, is nothing but a letter of pro- 

 tection, and a declaration that the citizens should not 

 be treated as slaves. 



It i3 remarkable, that all the English historians, 

 when they mention the great council of the nation, 

 call it an assembly of the baronage, nobility, or great 

 men ; and none of their expressions can, without the 

 utmost violence, be tortured to a meaning, which will 

 admit the commons to be constituent members of that 

 body. If, in the long period of two hundred years, 

 which elapsed between the conquest and the latter end 

 of the reign of Henry III., and which abounded in fac- 

 tions, revolutions, and convulsions of all kinds, the 



House of Commons never performed one single legis- Borough, 

 lative act, so considerable as to be once mentioned by " . 

 any of the numerous historians of that age, they must 

 have been totally insignificant ; and what reason, 

 then, can be assigned for their ever being assembled ? 

 Every page of the subsequent histories discovers their 

 existence ; yet these histories are not written with 

 greater accuracy than the preceding ones, and indeed 

 scarcely equal them in that particular. The Magna. 

 Charta of King John, enumerates the persons enti- 

 tled to a seat in the great council, viz. the prelates 

 and immediate tenants of the crown, without any 

 mention of the commons : an authority, as Mr Hume 

 observes, so full, certain, and explicit, that nothing 

 but the zeal of party could ever have procured credit 

 to any contrary hypothesis. 



The statutes and records, upon which the argu- 

 ments on the other side of the question are founded, 

 are chiefly of dates posterior to the period, when the 

 commons are admitted, upon all hands, to have form- 

 ed a part of the parliaments ; and besides, they ad- 

 vance merely general principles and maxims of go- 

 vernment, without any reference to particular facts. 

 With regard to the claims of St Albans and Barn- 

 staple, Mr Madox has shewn, that no such tenure was 

 known in England, as that of holding by attendance 

 in parliament, instead of all other service ; and that, 

 moreover, the borough of St Albans never held of 

 the crown at all, but was always demesne land of the 

 abbot. It is no wonder, therefore, says Mr Hume, 

 that a petition, which advances two falsehoods, should 

 contain one historical mistake, which, indeed, amounts 

 only to an inaccurate and exaggerated expression ; no 

 strange matter in ignorant burgesses of that age, who 

 wanted to shake off the authority of their abbot, and 

 to hold of the king, without rendering any services 

 even to the crown. 



The first notice which is given by historians of any 

 representatives being sent to parliament by the bo- 

 roughs, occurs during the reign of Henry III. in the 

 year 1265 j at the period when the Earl of Leices- 

 ter had usurped the royal authority, and summoned 

 a new parliament to London, where he knew his 

 power was uncontrollable. This assembly he fixed 

 upon a more democratical basis, than any which had 

 been called together, since the foundation of the mct^ 

 narchy. Besides the barons of his own party, and 

 several ecclesiastics, who were not immediate tenants 

 of the crown, he ordered returns to be made of two 

 knights from each shire, and, what is more remark- 

 able, of deputies from the boroughs ; being the first 

 time that this order of men appear to have been sum- 

 moned to parliament. This period, accordingly, is com- 

 monly considered as the epoch of the House of Com- 

 mons in England. The precedent, however, appears to 

 have been regarded as the act of a violent usurpation, and 

 to have been discontinued in subsequent parliaments, 

 until the 23d year of Edward I., who, in consequence 

 of his pecuniary embarrassments, occasioned by his 

 foreign and domestic military expeditions, again had 

 recourse to the measure of summoning the represen- 

 tatives of the boroughs to parliament ; aud this pe- 

 riod seems to be the real and true epoch of the House 

 of Commons, and the dawn of popular government. 



At first, these representatives of boroughs did not, 



