The National Register. — London, England, 1817-04-07 00:00:00

l I I kt SI No. 478.—V0r.. N. POLITICAL OF UNIVEASAL SUFFR %GE AND IwRATION OF rAUJJ &MEN 1" . Mr. Brougham is reported to have said (Friday 31st Jan.) that "he should Le gratified if any of the *enters of the Petitions for itafbrin could produee au historical voucher, substantiating Universal Sunrag,e and Aanael Parlitunents," that they most have known the reverse, &c. This Iturnage excited curiosity, and induced a hasty review of some of the ancient authorities, and abstracted from any opinion or wish to substantiate annual parliaments or universal suffrage, the result may tend to elucidate parts of the discussion, I. As to Unit-cr.:al Sqrrage,—lt does not appear by the ancient records that this was at any time the practice or law of this kingdom, even when the sim plicity of early dotes and the numbers of men were every where much smaller, and all could readily be seen and known, when the country wus divided into tithings and deeennaries, and no one could pass from one to the other without being sought out and ques tioned, The antamt view of frank pledge took cog. nizance of every man within its jurisdiction. The act of $ lien. VI. e. 14, restrained the tight of voting fur knights of the shire to freeholders of 40s. per annum, in lands or tenements, because of the very great, out rageous, and excessive number of people dwelling with in the county. These, it may be presumed, came to the full county court. The freeholders were inha bitants, and freeborges, or land-owners ; for those who were not such, were of an inferior class, villains, and labourers. The freeborges were burgesses, or frank pledgers, in their respective tythings and hundreds, which afterwards became incorporated into burghs.— Co, Lit. 209. In the great annual courts of frank pledge, every householder was incorporated with nine other neigh bouring householders (the titled men excepted) which constituted tithings ; all others attended the court to be sworn to arms and allegiance, yet the ten house holders or treehorges, who pledged all the rest and had a fixed habitation, and paid scot and lot, being ilea ners, were suitors at the county courts, (since become vested in the land-owners. The citizens of borough towns, now incorporated, derive their title from the frechurges who so pledged one another in their tith logs, std, being deciners, gave title also to householder' paying lot and scot ; which burgage tenure is now the title by which Westminster, Southwark, and many other towns vote at elections—paying an annual rent; Littelton 109, b ; and none else had the privilege. It is thus clear that universal suffrage was not the custom of this realm. See Gr. Sharp on Congregational Courts, No. 2 ; awl this will appear more especially it' we con. eider that these meetings or great councils were corn. postal of the wise men, the Witten's. ; there was some mode adopted by which the Selection from the whole people was made—luec sunt institute qua Edgarus Rex etviediu supientum suurum instituit ; and also, hwc runt nstitutiones quay Res Edmundus et EpLccopi sui cum sapientibus suis instiluerunt ; and their duty, even ac cording to the modern usage and design of parliament, was, novis injuriis onersis nova constituere Vleta, 1. 2, c. 2. This common council of the realm is recognized as existing at the time of King:John's charter, which de clares ne scutagium vel auxilium ponatur in rarto, nisi per commune amedium regni, &c. the nuiescuage [war tax] or aid shall be laid upon the kingdom, but by the common council of' the kingdom. Articles upon which the great charter was framed, Bishop Burnett's MSS. copy, art. 9. In the original great charter in French, art IR, the above is much enlargsd ; and the following words arc the foundation of'parliattwut, and of its mode of meeting at this day—'' Et aient le common conseil," Sas— " And AS fir coming to the common council of the king dom, and for assessing aids (except in the three cases aforesaid), and as fir the assessing of escuage [the hel met, or war tax], we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, hisfops, abbots, earls, and the greater ha rms, each in party agar, by our letters ; and moreover, we will casts to los summoned, in general, by our she riff( and alb that hold of us in chief, at a certain day, to wit, fitly days after at least, an 1 at a certain place, and in our cud letters we will express the cause of the SIIIII;11011A. And when the summons shall be so =ode, Isuaitiess shall go on at the day assigned, by the nail Our tling, Conlititutton anti MONDAY, APRIL 7, 181.7. advice of such as aro present, though all that are sum moned do not appear.'' Hence it is fair to conclude, that in the earliest times of the British history, the three estates of the realm consisted of the king, or monarchical hoists, who could not make laws without the uid of his coaucil assembled, consisting of the principal men, or uristooratical assist ants of the crown ; and the' freehorgos, liheri tencntes, who were eimarn and culled by snminaus to represent themselves and all the rest of the people, in grand ge. mote or common council of the realm, chosen as above stated, by those who paid an animal rent as house. holders I.it. 109, b. 11. As to Axxuat. Pattit.tstENTs.—Parliaments must be allowed to be of very great antiquity, coeval with the British constitution. The wittenagemote, amongst our Saxon ancestors, moons the same thing, and differed little from a folkmotc, only that the last was annual, anti chiefly sat about the standing affairs of the nation ; the other was culled at the king's plea sure upon emergencies of the state, and to make laws (Spam. Gemotum). The tblkmote was introduced by King Arthur, and met yearly on the kalends of May, ' as we find in the laws of King Edward the Confessor. Quod Artherus Res inclytus Britoronn inrenit.—At this yearly folkmote or parliament met once a year the prinees of the realm (peers were so called), bishops, magistrates, and freemen. All the laymen were sworn in the presence of the bishops into a mutual covenant with each other, into their fealty to the king ; and to preserve the rights of the kingdom, they consult the common safety, of peace, of war, and of promoting the public profit. Spel. 315. This part of their functions had at least the authority of parliament. And as a proof that this folkmote made all the laws, the coronation oath of Bic. 11. (taken twice) may be adduced :--Cos. cedisjustas leges et consuetudines e.esc tenendas ; d pro m/His per le esse protegendas et ad itonorum Dei corm borandus quas vulgar clegerit seeunduns vire: teas? Respondehit, concede el prondlto. I Hen. IV. number 4t) inter decem scriptures, p. 2746.—t-Do you grant that the just laws and customs, which are of the Mika chus ing, shall be kept; do you promise that they shall he protected, and to the honour of God receive affirmance by you to the utmost of your power ? The king shall answer—l grant and promise. The statutes and writs arc our first authority. But upon the authority of Horne 's Mirror, in the time of Edward I. and 11. we learn that Alfred caused the counties to meet, and ordained it fbr a perpetual usage what had already been the custom during the heptar ehy. (Ginn. 1. 13, c. 9.c. i .-10 Rep. Inst. 52.), the last two times yearly, or oftener, if need were, in time of peace, they should assemble at London to sit in parliament ; and he states, as the second abuse of the law, that parliaments did meet but seldom, and at the king's will, for aids and gathering of treasure ; and that the kin! , made ordinances instead of the parliament. Thus then the case stood till Edw. I. A.1).1.27 , 2. But we may refer back to 1:235, Q 0 Hen. 111. when we find in the preamble to the stat. of Merton made upon the assembly there to the marriage of Heury with Queen Elinor, that this law was made as well by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops, Earls and Barons, as by the king himself and others. It cannot be supposed that this parliament weld have been com posed of any other than the peronages named with these others, and that they were the original freeborges of the realm, and deeennaries. In It 266, the .51 Hen. 111. seems from its language to be an ordinance of the king minis.. 6, which is in tosluced by the words " By consent of the whole rettlin," the assize of flour, &c. and from this date writs are pref,rred. which have been issued to stunmon knights, citizens and burgesses to parlianamt. In the following year I'2(i7, the stat. of Marlborough is pia-them . ' by these words, " 'lke more discreet men of the realm being called togethur us well of the higher as of the lower estate," which lower estate, it is fairly to be presumed, consisted of the same persons as are above mentioned. In the preamble of the stet. of' Westminster, I Edw. Al),I. . It is with the assent of the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, and all the com monalty of the realm being thither sum:none:l. The friends of Universal Suffrage have here a claim t o the extensive meaning of the term county, but if the above explauatiou of the liveltorges who were called to the county camas, on view of frank pledge, can be sttrat. , l to have prevailed, the &tate must have con stituted this eaptemnalty, slid not the whole people at vtioirr+ Pitter: 9,),d. large, which is and always must have been impracti cable. In Edw. I. Legate to the ,pope, there is ft testimony to the practice of parliaments meeting twice in a year, well worthy of our observation ; it relates to a yearly tribute of 1000 marks, which the popes from the time of King John enacted. and of which there were at this time some arrears. The kin g 's excuse to the nuncio was, that from the pressure of business, and I,is own sickness, he haul not come to any resolution in his par liament which he had accustomed to hold at Easter, but by common advice, he would give him an answer In his 'Michaelmas parliament, thus rpcakirg of them both as customary. Pro firm° sciheri pie pelt rrt domino, quad in alio porliamo. nostro quad ad Pstion preer. petur. intendimus, daele domino, cciebrarr, hahio cl ronnonnirata ea-cilia emus prelatio et proceribus me moratis vends super pramissis ipsorum consilio aahinus responsionem. " Know, pious father and lord, that in our other parliament, which we desire to hold at the next feast of 't. Michaelmas, with God's permission, we and the prelates, and peers aforesaid, in council had thereon, will by their advice, give you an ans-.euer. on premises.—See clause rolls 3, Edw. I. in. 9, scedula. Prvin p. 158. It no where appears that prorogation or any length of' adjournments were practised in those days ; and the law being that parliaments should be held twice cr oftener, this record is a complete proof that there were two parliaments in that year. The sitting of parliament was usually 40 days, so low as Rie. II.; and if they were longer detained the subject of the wages of the knights and burgesses came into dispute ; and Knyghtun, p. has preserved one memorable record of this fact, Meant <giant, 4-c. " In short they say that they have an ancient statute, whereby if the King wilfully absent himself from his Parliament, not having any infirmities or other cause of necessity, but per immoderatam roluntatem proiervi , Bx. 40 days, not caring for the vexation of his people and their heavy expense, it shall then be lawful fir them all to withdraw from the chnnigerioregis, and re turn to their own homes. It is supposed by Lord Coke that until 8 Henry IV. the whole parliament sat together, because at that date they ordered their speaker to put his seal to their uct concerning the succession to the crown ; previous to which date there is no such instan , se, but, an the contrary, at the parliament of :28 Edward the First, in the letters then sent to the Pope, the coneltte ing► teste is, In cu/as rei leslitnun:uni sigilla nat. tra tam pro nobis ream pro tulu eunmunitahr pred. Regni Anglia presentik stint appensa. Certain, it is, that ut the first both houses sat together, as it silvan in the treatise De nwdo tenendi Parliontentum.— And in the parliamentary rolls of Edward 111. nu. and 6 Edward 111. in divers places; and that the commons had no continual speaker ; but after consultation had, they agreed upon some one or more of them that had greatest aptitude fine present business to deliver their resolution, which wrought great delo!ys of proceeding, and thereupon the houses were divided ; and the surest mark of the time of the divition of then is, when the House of Commons at the first had a con. tinual speaker, us at this day it bath. After the divi. sion, the commons sat in the chapter house if the abbot of Westminster. (Rol. Par. 30 Ed. 111. nu. 8.-4 kora, .!.) until I Edw. VI. 1517, when the statute iNf that year, ch. 14, having vested in the crown the (alleges, chapels, and chauntries of monastic foundation, the king became possessed of the ancient unl beautiful Irre chipel of St. Stephen, founded lJy King Stephen ; and since that time it has served for the Ihru,se of Comracus, 4 Inst. '25.1 In these early times it dory ant appear haw tte , sc mem. wi re acco‘tomed to :pienitile, unr whether they :vet in ode or in different ; tint ia Kir. II otos to ; ;an ericn in, 1317, and a:ital.:l till I 3 119 , the Ott in Ito limo. s s :mil this was the case at the ilittlimoielli holden . at )lort•OVer—lst Cotton's alit Moneta c 1 Cie Records in the .r„„„,.. 5 Edw. IL. A. I). 131'4. It Iltat a raslim. meta shalt tie held one sir too time, a uri a hat9l ii may ire atttril, that the rule of ultee w yi•iir is SMACChati,,Cti into mace or to jet,. • 3'; Edw. LI I. .t. I). t203--Hot maintenance of : the .sill articles and statute.,, anti ri•slreAs of dncr, ini‘chiets, which (laity h a ppen, positameet ••1i..1; he beide , * c , ct**% year ; as , f ec t • , stmt tune m slateed ity .1.0%4, Edw. 111. , i s order' d, that a porilanient shall be Ismail, et el. year mice, - r t . 41, N , 0" - aml mere ofti n it need be. .." 'tat* 50 Edw. 111. A. 1). l:;77 -The parliament's demon() Sto, 1 „. ;;; ,„, thitt a milli - mm.o may lit li•-kt• every yele the j ki t i 4 ; l l A Of IL L : rill nt Wily he chosen Pt :h. talicl . stoutt- • 0- mid that lite sheriff lit e.:l,brmt he Tlic king's aloe rr ia a to the parliament !lure are • • ,j!jra •