In 1430, the eighth year of Henry VI., an Act was passed ordering that electors must be resident in the country, and must have free land or tenement to the value of 40s. a year at least; and this Act was in operation till 1831.
The county franchise was a simple and straightforward matter compared with the methods of electing representatives from the boroughs. All that the sheriff was ordered to do by writ was to provide for the return of two members for each city or borough in his county; the places that were to be considered as boroughs were not named. In the Middle Ages a town might have no wish to be taxed for the wages of its Parliamentary representative, and in that case would do its best to come to an arrangement with the sheriff. (It was not till the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that a considerable increase of boroughs took place. The Tudors created "pocket" and "rotten" boroughs in order to have the nominees of the Crown in Parliament.) The size of the borough bore no relation to its membership till the Reform Act of the nineteenth century, and as the selection of towns to be represented was arbitrary, so the franchise in the towns was equally unsettled. One or two places had a wide franchise, others confined the vote to freemen and corporation members. But in spite of the extraordinary vagaries of the borough franchise, and the arbitrary selection of towns to be represented, these early medieval Parliaments really did in an imperfect way represent the nation—all but the peasants and artisans.
"Our English Parliaments were unsymmetrical realities. They were elected anyhow. The sheriff had a considerable licence in sending writs to boroughs, that is, he could in part pick its constituencies; and in each borough there was a rush and scramble for the franchise, so that the strongest local party got it whether few or many. But in England at that time there was a great and distinct desire to know the opinion of the nation, because there was a real and close necessity. The nation was wanted to do something—to assist the sovereign in some war, to pay some old debt, to contribute its force and aid in the critical juncture of the time. It would not have suited the ante-Tudor kings to have had a fictitious assembly; they would have lost their sole feeler, their only instrument for discovering national opinion. Nor could they have manufactured such an assembly if they wished. Looking at the mode of election, a theorist would say that these Parliaments were but 'chance' collections of influential Englishmen. There would be many corrections and limitations to add to that statement if it were wanted to make it accurate, but the statement itself hits exactly the principal excellence of these Parliaments. If not 'chance' collections of Englishmen, they were 'undesigned' collections; no administrations made them, or could make them. They were bona fide counsellors, whose opinion might be wise or unwise, but was anyhow of paramount importance, because their co-operation was wanted for what was in hand."[[30]]
(3) The political position of women in the Middle Ages.—Abbesses were summoned to the convocations of clergy in Edward I.'s reign. Peeresses were permitted to be represented by proxy in Parliament. The offices of sheriff, high constable, governor of a royal castle, and justice of the peace have all been held by women. In fact, the lady of the manor had the same rights as the lord of the manor, and joined with men who were freeholders in electing knights of the shire without question of sex disability.[[31]] (A survival of the medieval rights of women may be seen in the power of women to present clergy to benefices in the Church of England.)
In the towns women were members of various guilds and companies equally with men, and were burgesses and freewomen. Not till 1832 was the word "male" inserted before "persons" in the charters of boroughs. "Never before has the phrase 'male persons' appeared in any statute of the realm. By this Act (the Reform Bill), therefore, women were technically disfranchised for the first time in the history of the English Constitution. The privilege of abstention was converted into the penalty of exclusion."
No Theory of Democracy in the Middle Ages
The years of Simon of Montfort and Edward I., which saw the beginnings of a representative national assembly, were not a time of theoretical discussion on political rights. The English nation, indeed, has ever been averse from political theories. The notion of a carefully balanced constitution was outside the calculations of medieval statesmen, and the idea of political democracy was not included among their visions.
"Even the scholastic writers, amid their calculations of all possible combinations of principles in theology and morals, well aware of the difference between the 'rex politicus' who rules according to law, and the tyrant who rules without it, and of the characteristics of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, with their respective corruptions, contented themselves for the most part with balancing the spiritual and secular powers, and never broached the idea of a growth into political enfranchisement. Yet, in the long run, this has been the ideal towards which the healthy development of national life in Europe has constantly tended, only the steps towards it have not been taken to suit a preconceived theory."[[32]]
Each step towards democracy has been taken "to suit the convenience of party or the necessities of kings, to induce the newly admitted classes to give their money, to produce political contentment."
The only two principles that are apparent in the age-long struggles for political freedom in England, that are recognised and acknowledged, are: (1) That that which touches all shall be approved by all; (2) that government rests on the consent of the governed. Over and over again these two principles may be seen at work.