Wesley began his accustomed grace, “The name of God, high over all——” when suddenly the room darkened, and all the apparitions vanished.
The story of the creation, subsequent history, and extinction of those English boroughs which were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832, and which were commonly designated as pocket or rotten boroughs, is too curious an episode in Parliamentary history to be allowed to remain in the limbo of Parliamentary reports—a charnel-house of the bones of facts—unclothed with the personal reminiscences and local details which invest these dry bones with flesh, and give to them a living interest.
In a very few years there will not be a man alive who can recall the last election for them. Their story is this: They were creations of the Crown when its tenure of power was insecure, and the object aimed at was to pack the House of Commons with members who were mere creatures of the Crown. The shock of the Reformation had upset men’s minds. What had been held sacred for ages was sacred no longer, and the men who had been encouraged to profane the altar were ready enough to turn their hands against the throne. The revolt of the Parliament under Charles I. was long in brewing; its possibility was seen, and the creation of pocket boroughs was devised as an expedient to prevent it.
In order that the Crown might have a strong body of obedient henchmen in the House, a number of villages or mere insignificant hamlets were accorded the franchise, villages and hamlets on land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall that went with the royal family as an appanage of the Prince of Wales, or were under the control of pliant courtiers. As the country was in a ferment of religious passion, many, if not most, of these new boroughs were specially chosen because far removed from ecclesiastical influence, either because they lay at the junction of several parishes, or because they were places remote from churches.
In Cornwall in the reign of Edward VI. eight petty places were given the privilege of returning two members apiece. These were Bossiney, a mound in a field, with a farmhouse adjoining, West Looe, Grampound, Penryn, Newport, Camelford, and Mitchell.
Queen Mary followed by raising S. Ives to the position of a borough; Elizabeth proceeded to confer the same privileges on S. Germans, S. Mawes, Tregony, East Looe, Fowey, and Callington. Those called into existence by Edward were all under Duchy influence with the exception of Mitchell, “the meanest hamlet within or without Cornwall,” which was under the control of the Arundels of Lanherne.
Four of the new boroughs had been places belonging to monastic establishments, but since the suppression of the religious houses they had passed under the domination of the Crown. S. Ives, which had been constituted a borough by Philip and Mary, was in the hands of Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, who could be relied upon. For the same reason Callington was given two members in 1584, as this also was held by the Paulets. The fear of ecclesiastical influence is conspicuous in numerous instances. Camelford is two miles distant from a church, and the only chapel in it was confiscated and demolished. Saltash was another churchless place; it belonged to the parish of S. Stephen’s, two miles distant, and had in it no other place of worship than a municipal chapel. Grampound was at a like distance from its parish church, S. Creed; Tregony was planted at the junction of several parishes; Mitchell divided between two equidistant churches two miles away. Another remarkable feature in these boroughs is that they rapidly slipped away from the influence of the Crown, and fell under the control of great landlords. Founded for the servile support of the Throne, they became a prey, not even to Duchy tenants, but to private owners, and resolved into saleable commodities, that passed rapidly from hand to hand. In 1783 it was noticed that seven peers directed or influenced the return of twenty members; eleven commoners controlled the election of twenty-one; and the people one only, that of S. Ives. It was a recognised thing that the man who held six boroughs in his hand, that is to say, who could return twelve members to support the Ministry, could demand and obtain a peerage. Even a foreign Jew who, at a pinch, could assist the Ministry by means of three boroughs which he had bought, could exact a baronetage in part payment.
Cornwall returned forty members, as many, excepting one, as the entire kingdom of Scotland; more by two than Durham, Northumberland, and Yorkshire together; and along with Wiltshire, where was another nest of pocket boroughs, more than Yorkshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Warwick, Worcester, and Somersetshire.
Another interesting feature in the pocket boroughs was the various methods of voting. In some it was close and secret; in others open and democratic. In some the electors were nominated by the patron; in others they maintained a measure of independence, and disposed of their votes to the highest bidder.
One of the most notorious of the rotten boroughs was Mitchell, Modishole, or, as it was sometimes called in error, S. Michael. It is a wretched hamlet on a bleak portion of the great backbone of Cornwall, exposed to every blast from the Atlantic, without trade, without manufacture, almost without agriculture, so poor and unremunerative is the soil. It owed its origin solely to the fact that it was a convenient centre for the distribution of contraband goods that had been run ashore in the bays between Crantock and Newquay. When raised into a borough it existed, without thriving, on the two demoralising businesses of smuggling and elections. In Parliamentary lists it figures as S. Michael’s, but the archangel has never had anything to do with it, never had even a chapel there. The place belongs in part to the parish of S. Enoder, in part to that of S. Newlyn.