ANCIENT BOROUGH OF WENDOVER.
(For the Mirror.)
This borough sent members to parliament in the 28th of Edward I. and again in the 1st and 2nd of Edward II.; after which the privilege was discontinued for above three hundred years. “The intermission, (says Britton,) was attended by the very remarkable circumstance of all recollection of the right of the borough having been lost, till about the period of the 21st of James I. when Mr. Hakeville, of Lincoln’s Inn, discovered by a search among the ancient parliament writs in the Tower, that the boroughs of Amersham, Wendover, and Great Marlow, had all sent members in former times, and petitions were then preferred in the names of those places, that their ancient liberty or franchise might be restored. When the King[5] was informed of these petitions, he directed his solicitor, Sir Robert Heath, to oppose them with all might, declaring, that he was troubled with too great a number of burgesses already,” The sovereign’s opposition proved ineffectual, and the Commons decided in favour of the restoration of the privilege. Some particulars of this singular case may be found in Willis’s Notitia Parliamentaria.
The celebrated John Hampden represented this borough in five parliaments.
P.T.W.