History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe

by François Guizot

The second is of no greater worth. It is founded upon the supposition that those only who have a voice in the election of representatives ought to contribute to the payment of their salary. Now this supposition is explicitly contradicted by a writ of Edward III., which proves that even the villani, the simple husbandmen, who certainly took no part in the election, were required to contribute to the payment of the fees. If it appear, then, that the freeholders demanded release from this impost, it cannot thence be concluded that they had no share in the election.

In these demands there is nothing extraordinary. The office of member of Parliament was originally more an onerous burden than an advantage. The person elected was compelled to give security to guarantee his attendance at the assembly. A curious instance is mentioned of an elected knight who could not find the required bail; the sheriffs, therefore, seized his oxen and farm-horses to compel him to fulfil the duties of his office. In a short time, to render the charge less onerous it was made lucrative: fees being awarded to the representatives. These fees were levied on the entire county, with the exception of certain particular immunities. A writ of Edward III. proves this distinctly. It is true that the vassals of the barons, chiefly under the reign of Edward III., made frequent claims of exemption from payment of the salaries due to the members: but these were not founded upon the circumstance that they had had no share in the election; they rested on a pretext derived from feudal law, maintaining that, as their lords sat in Parliament in their own right, that is to say, in their quality of peers, they were represented by them, and ought not to pay the salaries of the county representatives. It is evident that these claims proceeded from confusing ideas of the ancient feudal representation (a fiction which rendered the noble in some sort the proxy of his vassals) with ideas of the new system of representation. These facts in no way prove that the vassals of the barons took no part in the election of the county members; all that they indicate is that the collection of the members' salaries was very arbitrary, and was regulated by different customs in each county; no conclusion can, however, be drawn from them relative to electoral rights.

Now that I have reduced to their just value these two arguments, the sole support of the opinion which I oppose, it appears very nearly certain that all the freeholders who attended the county-court united in the election of the representatives, whatever might be the nature of their feudal relation to the crown.

Election Of Borough Representatives.

Having completed our researches into the election of county members, let us next examine how the election of the representatives of boroughs was conducted.

Although in the county-courts no fixed rule nor systematic distinction regulated the distribution of electoral rights, there was at least something general and identical in them throughout England. The counties were territorial districts of the same nature; the county-courts, wherever situated, were the same institution, and the freeholders formed one class of men. Out of circumstances nearly everywhere alike, there naturally arose an electoral system in all places the same.

It was not, nor could it be thus with respect to the boroughs. They had acquired their liberties successively to a greater or less extent, and under a thousand different forms. The political state of one town gives no clue to that of other towns, as they were not at all correspondent to one another. Sometimes the municipal rights belonged to the more or less numerous corporation which held the town in fee-farm; sometimes to the general body of freeholders who held their houses in burgage-tenure, a kind of tenure analogous to the tenure in socage; sometimes to the entire body of householders; occasionally, but more rarely, to the whole of the inhabitants. When any particular borough was summoned to send deputies to Parliament, it occurred to no one to consider this new right as distinct from their municipal rights, and to regulate the electoral system on a separate basis. This summons had reference to the borough in its existing condition, and did not introduce the slightest innovation into the exercise of the civic authority. The citizens who, in virtue of their charter, enjoyed the right of managing the affairs of the borough, also exercised that of naming its representatives. There was then nothing general or uniform in the foundation of this new right, and it would be impossible to reduce the elections in towns and boroughs to any common principle. We can only examine a number of particular facts, and derive from them the following results:—

I. The political right of electing members of Parliament was not distinct from the municipal rights of the borough, and was exercised in the same manner and by the same citizens.
II. From this it follows that the election was commonly made by the council, who directed the local interests of the borough: the number of electors, therefore, was very limited at the outset.
III. Where a corporation held a town in fee-farm, it also possessed the right of appointing the members of Parliament. These corporations were generally composed of a few individuals.
IV. As the freeholders of many boroughs sat in the county-courts, not a few of the elections of borough members took place originally in these very county-courts, and by the borough freeholders who repaired thither, and who exercised this power either on their own account, or as authorized by their fellow-citizens.