History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe

by François Guizot

Functions Of The County Courts.

The county-courts, thus composed, exercised the right of election long before the regular and definitive introduction of their representatives into Parliament. Here officers invested with the powers necessary for the transaction of the county business were sometimes elected; and sometimes knights were appointed to execute the measures of the central government, or sent thither as bearers of complaints or representations. Instances of such elections are numerous. The charters have frequently prescribed them, and they are continually spoken of in the chronicles.

It cannot be affirmed that this appointment of particular knights for the transaction of specific local business was always conducted in a regular manner and by a distinct election. It was sometimes done by the sheriffs alone: but it is certain that most generally it took place "by the community of the county, with the consent and by the advice of the county, per communitatem comitatûs, de assensu et consilio comitatûs."

We gather from all these facts, first, that before the introduction of county-members into Parliament, the direct vassals of the king, who, on account of their inferior importance, had ceased to attend at the general assembly, did not form a distinct body in the county-courts, or a particular class of landowners invested with peculiar rights; but that, on the contrary, they were merged in the general class of freeholders, nearly all of whom also attended the county-court, and there exercised the same rights; and, secondly, it is unquestionable that this assembly of freeholders was in the habit, in certain cases, of appointing some one of its members either for the management of the county business, or for any other purpose.

Are we to believe that when the object in view was sending representatives of the county to Parliament, there was substituted, in place of the existing order of things, a new order by which to elect them? or, in other words, that those freeholders, who, though direct vassals of the king, were on the same footing with the other freeholders as regarded all the operations of the county-court, were distinguished from them by being alone called upon to elect members of Parliament? Nothing is less probable in itself, and in fact nothing is less true than that there was such a disorganization of the county-courts at election times.

Rights Of The Freeholders.

It is not at all probable, because, in the state of society at this period, the status quo almost always ruled. We are greatly deceived if we expect to find the institutions of the time under the sway of some general rule, and issuing in the inevitable consequences of a principle. There was no such dominant general rule or principle. When a new law appears, it is the product of facts, not of a theory. When any new demand is made upon society, it is society in its actual condition, and not a systematically constituted society, which replies to the demand.

The freeholders in general formed the county-court on every occasion, and took part in all its acts. What reason could there be for suddenly setting aside an established custom in order to create a privilege in favour of certain landowners whose position, although special in some respects, was but little distinguished from that of others? Was there any occasion for an act so unusual that it could not be put in force without subverting the customs then in vogue? There was none: on the contrary, this act appeared to the county landowners as only another circumstance allied to the many existing facts of the same description: they neither foresaw all the importance which this fact could not fail to acquire, nor all the consequences to which it would necessarily lead. This election of knights summoned to Parliament, although somewhat more important than other elections, resembled all those which were frequently made in the county-court, and in which every freeholder took part. Why should the right of voting on such occasions have belonged exclusively to particular individuals among them? Were they not all equally interested, as the majority of the taxes were levied on their personal property; and the principal duty of the deputies was the settlement of the taxes? How is it possible to believe otherwise than that this, like every other election, was made by all the members of the county-court without distinction?

Facts, I repeat, confirm these probabilities. The writs addressed to the sheriffs by the king for the election of county members, are conceived in the same terms as those issued for elections relating exclusively to the administration of local affairs.