Footnote
[A] Scutage, or shield-money, was the commutation paid in lieu of military service by all who owed service to the king.
XLIV.—AN EARLY ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT.
The following preliminary sketch by J. R. Green, the historian, serves as an introduction to Palgrave's picture of an election under Edward I:
"It was Edward the First, who first made laws in what has ever since been called Parliament. For this purpose he called on the shires and larger towns to choose men to 'represent' them, or appear in their stead in the Great Council; the shires sending knights of the shire, the towns burgesses. These, added to the peers or high nobles and to the bishops, made up Parliament.
"The business of Parliament was not only to make good laws for the realm, but to grant money to the king for the needs of the state in peace and war, and to authorize him to raise this money by taxes or subsidies from his subjects. So at first people saw little of the great good of such Parliaments, but dreaded their calling together, because they brought taxes with them. Nor did men seek, as they do now, to be chosen members of Parliament, for the way thither was long and travel costly, and so they did their best not to be chosen, and when chosen had to be bound over under pain of heavy fines to serve in Parliament."
1. During the last half-hour the suitors had been gathering round the shire-oak awaiting the arrival of the high officer whose duty it was to preside. Notwithstanding the size of the meeting, there was an evident system in the crowd. A considerable proportion of the throng consisted of little knots of husbandmen or churls, four or five of whom were generally standing together, each company seeming to compose a deputation. The churls might be easily distinguished by their dress, a long frock of coarse yet snow-white linen hanging down to the same length before and behind, and ornamented round the neck with broidery rudely executed in blue thread. They wore, in fact, the attire of the carter and plowman, a garb which was common enough in country parts about five-and-twenty years ago, but which will probably soon be recollected only as an ancient costume, cast away with all the other obsolete characteristics of merry old England.
An Early Election to Parliament.
2. These groups of peasantry were the representatives of their respective townships, the rural communes into which the whole realm was divided; and each had a species of chieftain or head-man in the person of an individual who, though it was evident that he belonged to the same rank in society, gave directions to the rest. Interspersed among the churls, though not confounded with them, were also very many well-clad persons, possessing an appearance of rustic respectability, who were also subjected to some kind of organization, being collected into sets of twelve men each, who were busily employed in confabulation among themselves. These were "the sworn centenary deputies" or jurors, the sworn men who answered for or represented the several hundreds.
3. A third class of members of the shire court could be equally distinguished, proudly known by their gilt spurs and blazoned tabards as the provincial knighthood, and who, though thus honored, appeared to mix freely and affably in converse with the rest of the commons of the shire.
4. A flourish of trumpets announced the approach of the high-sheriff, Sir Giles de Argentein, surrounded by his escort of javelin-men, tall yeomen, all arrayed in a uniform suit of livery, and accompanied, among others, by four knights, the coroners, who took cognizance of all pleas that concerned the king's rights within the county, and who, though they yielded precedence to the sheriff, were evidently considered to be almost of equal importance with him. "My masters," said the sheriff to the assembled crowd, "even now hath the port-joye [B] of the chancery delivered to me certain most important writs of our sovereign lord the king, containing his Grace's high commands." At this time the chancellor, who might be designated as principal secretary of state for all departments, was the great medium of communication between king and subject: whatever the sovereign had to ask or tell was usually asked or told by, or under, the directions of this high functionary.
5. Now, although the gracious declarations which the chancellor was charged to deliver were much diversified in their form, yet, somehow or other, they all conveyed the same intent. Whether directing the preservation of peace or preparing for the prosecution of a war, whether announcing a royal birth or a royal death, the knighthood of the king's son or the marriage of the king's daughter, the mandates of our ancient kings invariably conclude with a request or a demand for money's worth or money.
6. The present instance offered no exception to the general rule. King Edward, greeting his loving subjects, expatiated upon the miseries which the realm was likely to sustain by the invasion of the wicked, barbarous, and perfidious Scots. Church and state, he alleged, were in equal danger, and "inasmuch as that which concerneth all ought to be determined by the advice of all concerned, we have determined," continued the writ, "to hold our Parliament at Westminster in eight days from the feast of St. Hilary." The effect of the announcement was magical. Parliament! Even before the second syllable of the word had been uttered, visions of aids and subsidies rose before the appalled multitude, grim shadows of assessors and collectors floated in the ambient air.
7. Sir Gilbert Hastings instinctively plucked his purse out of his sleeve; drawing the strings together, he twisted, and tied them in the course of half a minute of nervous agitation into a Gordian knot, which apparently defied any attempt to undo it, except by means practiced by the son of Ammon. The Abbot of Oseney forthwith guided his steed to the right about, and rode away from the meeting as fast as his horse could trot, turning the deafest of all deaf ears to the monitions which he received to stay.
8. The sheriff and the other functionaries alone preserved a tranquil but not a cheerful gravity, as Sir Giles commanded his clerk to read the whole of the writ, by which he was commanded "to cause two knights to be elected for the shire; and from every city within his bailiwick two citizens; and from every borough two burgesses—all of them of the more discreet and wiser sort; and to cause them to come before the king in this Parliament at the before-mentioned day and place, with full powers from their respective communities to perform and consent to such matters as by common counsel shall then and there be ordained; and this you will in no wise omit, as you will answer at your peril."
9. A momentary pause ensued. The main body of the suitors retreated from the high-sheriff, as though he had been a center of repulsion. After a short but vehement conversation among themselves, one of the bettermost sort of yeomen, a gentleman farmer, if we may use the modern term, stepped forward and addressed Sir Giles: "Your worship well knows that we, your commons, are not bound to proceed to the election. You have no right to call upon us to interfere. So many of the earls and barons of the shire, the great men, who ought to take the main trouble, burthen, and business of the choice of the knights upon themselves, are absent now in the king's service, that we neither can nor dare proceed to nominate those who are to represent the county. Such slender folks as we have no concern in these weighty matters. How can we tell who are best qualified to serve?"
10. "What of that, John Trafford?" said the sheriff. "Do you think that his Grace will allow his affairs to be delayed by excuses such as these? You suitors of the shire are as much bound and obliged to concur in the choice of the county members as any baron of the realm. Do your duty; I command you in the king's name!"
11. John Trafford had no help. Like a wise debater, he yielded to the pinch of the argument without confessing that he felt it; and, having muttered a few words to the sheriff, which might be considered as an assent, a long conference took place between him and some of his brother stewards, as well as with other suitors. During this confabulation several nods and winks of intelligence passed between Trafford and a well-mounted knight; and while the former appeared to be settling the business with the suitors, the latter, who had been close to Sir Giles, continued gradually backing and sidling away through the groups of shiresmen, and, just as he had got clear out of the ring, John Trafford declared, in a most sonorous voice, that the suitors had chosen Sir Richard de Pogeys as one of their representatives.
12. The sheriff, who, keeping his eye fixed upon Sir Richard as he receded, had evidently suspected some manœuvre, instantly ordered his bailiffs to secure the body of the member. "And," continued he with much vehemence, "Sir Richard must be forthwith committed to custody, unless he gives good bail—two substantial freeholders—that he will duly attend in his place among the commons on the first day of the session, according to the law and usage of Parliament."
13. All this, however, was more easily said than done. Before the verbal precept had proceeded from the lips of the sheriff, Sir Richard was galloping away at full speed across the fields. Off dashed the bailiffs after the member, amid the shouts of the surrounding crowd, who forgot all their grievances in the stimulus of the chase, which they contemplated with the perfect certainty of receiving some satisfaction by its termination; whether by the escape of the fugitive, in which case their common enemy, the sheriff, would be liable to a heavy amercement; [C] or by the capture of the knight, a result which would give them almost equal delight, by imposing a disagreeable and irksome duty upon an individual who was universally disliked, in consequence of his overbearing harshness and domestic tyranny.
14. One of the two above-mentioned gratifications might be considered as certain. But, besides these, there was a third contingent amusement, by no means to be overlooked, namely, the chance that in the contest those respectable and intelligent functionaries, the sheriff's bailiffs, might somehow or another come to some kind of harm. In this charitable expectation the good men of the shire were not entirely disappointed. Bounding along the open fields, while the welkin resounded with the cheers of the spectators, the fleet courser of Sir Richard sliddered on the grass, then stumbled and fell down the sloping side of one of the many ancient British intrenchments by which the plain was crossed, and, horse and rider rolling over, the latter was deposited quite at the bottom of the foss, unhurt, but much discomposed.
15. Horse and rider were immediately on their respective legs again: the horse shook himself, snorted, and was quite ready to start; but Sir Richard had to regird his sword, and before he could remount, the bailiffs were close at him. Dick-o'-the-Gyves attempted to trip him up, John Catchpole seized him by the collar of his pourpoint. [D] A scuffle ensued, during which the nags of the bailiffs slyly took the opportunity of emancipating themselves from control. Distinctly seen from the moot-hill, the strife began and ended in a moment; in what manner it had ended was declared without any further explanation, when the officers rejoined the assembly, by Dick's limping gait and the closed eye of his companion.
16. In the mean time Sir Richard had wholly disappeared, and the special return made by the sheriff to the writ, which I translate from the original, will best elucidate the bearing of the transaction:
"Sir Richard de Pogeys, knight, duly elected by the shire, refused to find bail for his appearance in Parliament at the day and place within mentioned, and having grievously assaulted my bailiffs in contempt of the king, his crown, and dignity, and absconded to the Chiltern Hundreds [E], into which liberty, not being shire-land or guildable, I can not enter, I am unable to make any other execution of the writ as far as he is concerned."
17. At the present day a nominal stewardship connected with the Chiltern Hundreds, called an office of profit under the crown, enables the member, by a species of juggle, to resign his seat. But it is not generally known that this ancient domain, which now affords the means of retreating out of the House of Commons, was in the fourteenth century employed as a sanctuary in which the knight of the shire took refuge in order to avoid being dragged into Parliament against his will. Being a distinct jurisdiction, in which the sheriff had no control, and where he could not capture the county member, it enabled the recusant to baffle the process, at least until the short session had closed.
Palgrave.