A HISTORY OF SURREY 



at Guildford instead of at Letherhead 'as had always been the custom." 

 But in 1 195 the justices in eyre had sat at Guildford, not Letherhead ; 

 and in 1 202 Guildford Castle had been the county gaol, which would 

 make us infer that justice was there administered. At all events the 

 continual residence of John and Henry III. at Guildford, and the exist- 

 ence of the castle prison and fortress with its outbuildings of royal houses, 

 would raise Guildford to an importance unapproached by any other place 

 in Surrey except the London suburbs. It was also a corporation with an 

 early merchant guild. Southwark was also represented on its merits. 

 As times went Southwark was an important place, and like Guildford 

 partly in the hands of the king as a royal manor. 



Kingston was not represented under Edward I. but returned 

 members in 1311, 1313, 1353" and 1373. It is rather remarkable that 

 Kingston was not represented earlier and continuously. It was royal 

 demesne, specially favoured by successive kings with grants of markets, 

 tolls and so on, and clearly a place of some ancient importance. Tradi- 

 tionally the inhabitants used the royal favour to beg themselves off from 

 the expense of returning members, 3 but the wonder is that such dutiful 

 subjects were allowed to be excused. Down to Charles I.'s civil wars 

 the men of Kingston were also king's men. But when we go beyond 

 these places there was nothing that even the thirteenth century could 

 have reckoned as a large centre of population in Surrey. Reigate and 

 Blechingley returned members for de Warenne and de Clare that the 

 leaders of influential opinion in the country might have a voice in the 

 popular House. On the same principle de Clare was also represented by 

 Tonbridge and the Earl of Arundel by Arundel and Midhurst. Similarly 

 Farnham returned members in 1311 and 1460 in fact for the Bishop of 

 Winchester. The other formerly existing Surrey parliamentary boroughs 

 extinguished in 1832 were Gatton, a rotten borough called into exis- 

 tence by Henry VI. to gratify a favourite, and Haslemere, little better 

 than a rotten borough, created by Elizabeth to strengthen royal influence 

 in the Commons. 



The mercantile interest in Surrey was on one occasion at least 

 represented by others besides the borough members. In 1340 

 Edward III. called a council of merchants to sit with the Parliament, 

 and three merchants were returned from Surrey, residents in Guildford, 

 Epsom and Merrow respectively. 4 The name of the last, William le 

 Chapman, is suggestive of the travelling trader, whose home at Merrow 

 was upon the great cross road, the Pilgrims' Way. 



In the Parliaments of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there 

 also sat besides the earls the representatives of three baronies by writ 

 whose titles came from Surrey. John de St. John was summoned by 

 writ as lord St. John of Lagham, in Godstone, in 1299. Roger Hussey 



1 ' Comitatus qui semper solebat teneri apud Leddrede,' Assize Roll 873, 43 Hen. III. 

 * Prynne's Registers, p. iv. But no names preserved of representatives this year. 



3 The petition is not extant. Lysons mentions it as preserved at Kingston. 



4 Part. Writs and Returns, sub anno 1 340. 



350 



