CHAPTER XIV. ELECTIVE AND PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY. OUR preceding chapter, as bearing closely upon many portions of the present, will tend in some degree to elucidate the subject upon which we have now to enter. In connection with the English representative system the town of Evesham stands conspicuously among the number of our most ancient parliamentary boroughs; being such by prescription; and, independent, therefore, of any actual charter or incorporation from the crown. For, as early as the year 1295-and no parliamentary writs are, we believe, extant prior to 1294, this borough returned two representatives to the parliament of Edward the First, convened by him for the express purpose of exacting from the trading part of the community, that pecuniary aid demanded by his Welsh and Flemish wars, which his oft-repeated levies upon the moveables of clerks and laymen had left him no other method to procure. 1295. The representatives returned on this occasion from hence were elected under a writ tested at Canterbury, 3d October, 23d Edward I.528 which summoned a parliament to meet at Westminster on the 13th of November following; though subsequently prorogued to the 27th of that month.529 The burgesses here chosen, were William de Sodinton and Robert de Hales: whose manucaptors, or sureties for their faithful performance of the representative duty, were Robert de Badsey and William de la Holte on the part of De 528 Copy preserved in the Temple Library. Petyt. Coll. tom. xv. fo. 97. Sodinton, with Peter de Croule and Richard de Verrer on the part of De Hales. William de Sodinton was so called from his estate at Sodington or Southinton, in the parish of Mamble and county of Worcester, and his arms were three leopards' heads jessant fleurde-lis, sable. Dying without issue, his lands were divided among his three sisters; as appears from an assise taken at Southampton, in the 30th of Edward the First. The youngest of these married Walter le Blond, an ancestor of the ancient family of Blount, in this county; whence, partly by descent and partly by purchase, Sodington is at present vested in sir Edward Blount of Sodington, seventh baronet of that line.530 532 From the above early period down to the incorporation of the borough by James the First, the most rigid scrutiny has failed in discovering documentary evidence of any intermediate return: although representatives appear to have been sent from hence in 1337-8 to a national council respecting trade, held during the reign of Edward III., but not a parliament. 531 Mr. Tindal in his list of parliamentary representatives for this borough, has given the names of three individuals as returned here in 1338. But Willis distinctly declares the above return to have been only to a council and Mr. Tindal refers to no authority for the ground of his own dissent.5 As respects the gap which thus occurs in its parliamentary history, this borough is by no means singular. At the first-named period, and for centuries after, the expenses of the representatives, including their wages as servants of the burgesses at large, were defrayed by the constituents of each borough. From this burthen many boroughs were anxious to become exempted; and it is equally notorious that through the connivance of the sheriff many were thus relieved. There were also other grounds upon which such omissions took place so that throughout the earlier periods the summoning of boroughs may justly be regarded as depending upon the sheriff's caprice. To cite one instance, among many such, the sheriff of Wiltshire, during the reign of Edward the Third, after making his return for Sarum and two other boroughs in Wilts, declares that there were no other cities or boroughs within his bailiwick : al 530 Vide Pedigree in Nash, ii. page 162. 531 Willis's Notitia, pref. ix. 539 Tindal's Evesham, page 330. though eight other boroughs there had previously sent members to parliament.533 As to the class of individuals who originally constituted the burgesses here, and as such elected to the parliament of Edward the First, we cannot proceed more satisfactorily than by referring to the highest legal authority upon such a point-the memorable Reports of Serjeant Glanville, who was chairman to that committee for elections in 1623 among whom "were the most celebrated names in the law-Coke, and Selden, and Finch, and Noy." And these decide that where there is "no certain custom nor prescription who should be electors and who not, we must have recourse to common right; by which more than freeholders ought to have voices in the election, namely, all men, inhabitant householders, resiants within the borough.' "534 In unison with this decision we therefore presume, in the total absence of contradictory evidence, that the right of election here was, during the return under Edward the First, vested in every male inhabitant being a householder within the borough. No further qualification could originally have been required; save that the householder must, of course, have been sworn on the view of frank-pledge, at the leet. That done, his character as a burgess was complete, and his title to all privileges and immunities ensured. Serjeant Merewether favors the opinion that Evesham, like other places in which the corporate right of election afterward prevailed, had anciently burgages or messuages within the town of the borough, by tenure of which the right of election was secured to the holder. 535 The serjeant's opinion is grounded upon a mention made of burgages as well as lands in Evesham which were conveyed to the abbey by charter in the reign of Edward I.;536 but we have no evidence to prove the exercise here of the ancient right referred to. The depositions in the Exchequer case in the reign of Elizabeth, to which we have adverted in the previous chapter, convey to us the form of the burgesses' oath as then administered by the steward 533 Hallam's Middle Ages, cap. viii. part iii. 534 Glanville's Reports, xiv. 535 Merewether and Stephens's History of Boroughs, &c. vol. i. page 526. 536 Carta Edw. R. de terris et burgagiis Johannæ de Twye in Evesham.—Hart. MS. 3763, fol. 118 b. of the leet, and as it had been administered, as proved in evidence, from time at that time beyond all memory.537 This ancient form of plighted faith was expressed in the following manner. "You shall swear to be true franchised men, and true faith and truth bear to our sovereign lady the queen's majesty, her heirs and successors, which shall be kings and queens of England: you shall also be obedient to the bailiff of this town for the time being: you shall also from time to time be aiding and assisting the aforesaid bailiff and constables of this town in the executing their offices; and you yourself not to refuse such offices as you shall be chosen and appointed to have in this town: the franchises and liberties of this town you shall not go about to impeach, any manner of way, but to your power maintain and support the same so long as you shall be inhabiting within this town: So help you God and the holy contents of this book." Throughout the greater portion of that period during which the right of election seems to have lain dormant here, the interests of the inhabitants, then tenants of the church, were doubtless sufficiently observed by the parliamentary abbots of the monastery. These personages we find to have been regularly summoned, with other spiritual peers, down to the reign of the last Henry; when their omission by summons at length appears in the year 1540. Shortly after that period the consequence and importance of the house of commons is, by our best authorities, considered as commencing; the duties and expenses of representation being at the same time considered less burthensome than of yore. Ancient boroughs which had lost their elective franchise through disuse, now petitioned to have that privilege restored; while others, anciently debarred, were at the same time admitted to an equal right, either by express acts of the legislature or by letters patent from the crown. So that from the reign of Henry VIII. to that of Charles the Second, nearly two hundred members were by these means added to the lower-house.538 This borough, as has been already intimated, was among the 537 Depositions of John Rapp, Adam Smith, and William Byddle, in Hoby v. Kighley and others. 538 Compare Editorial Preface to Glanville, ed. 1775, pp. iv. to vi. number of those to which the elective franchise was thus restored. This was effected by charter from James the First; during whose reign seven other boroughs were restored, and six others were created; among the latter were the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.539 The charter to Evesham bears date the 2d of March in the first year of James's reign. It is worthy of note that although this charter nominates individuals to fill the various offices enumerated, yet it confers no power to create burgesses, but simply directs that all vacancies which occur in the new corporation shall be filled up "out of the inhabitants of the borough ;" who, as we have lately shewn, were already burgesses prior to the charter. In the same spirit of conformity with the ancient right, representatives to parliament are further directed to be chosen by "the bailiffs, aldermen, and burgesses of the borough." The latter being thus evidently distinguished from a class termed 'capital burgesses,' first created by this charter of James. 1604.-March 15th. In thirteen days after the date of the foregoing charter, a return was made from this borough, under a summons issued prior to the charter itself, and bearing date the 31st of January, in the same year. The burgesses thus elected were sir Thomas Bigge and sir Philip Keighlie, knights. The return is made without signatures, under the common seal; but the parties named in the body of the indenture prove, from the charter, to be the bailiffs, six aldermen, and one capital burgess, beside three individuals whose names do not occur in that document. This is the only return made under the first charter of James the First. Sir Thomas Bigge, now elected, was of the family of Bigg of Lenchwick, whose arms were argent on a fesse engrailed, between three martlets sable, as many annulets, or. He was nephew to sir Philip Hoby by the mother's side; built the destroyed mansion-house at Lenchwick; died 4th May, 1613; and lies interred in the north aisle of Abbots' Norton church near Evesham, beneath a sumptuous monument surmounted with the kneeling effigies of himself and lady. By the second charter, dated the third of April in the third year of James the First, the elective franchise as originally exercised is again confirmed; representatives to parliament being herein di 539 Preface to Glanville, p. cviii. |