A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 1

A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 1

A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days

Showing the State of Political Parties and Party Warfare at the Hustings and in the House of Commons from the Stuarts to Queen Victoria

 

 

Author: Joseph Grego

“I think the Tories love to buy

‘Your Lordships’ and ‘Your Graces,’

By loathing common honesty,

And lauding commonplaces....

I think the Whigs are wicked Knaves

(And very like the Tories)

Who doubt that Britain rules the waves,

_And ask the price of glories_.”

 

W. M. PRAED (1826).

 

“A friend to freedom and freeholders--yet

No less a friend to government--he held

That he exactly the just medium hit

’Twixt place and patriotism; albeit compell’d,

Such was his sovereign’s pleasure (though unfit,

He added modestly, when rebels rail’d),

To hold some sinecures he wish’d abolish’d,

But that with them all law would be demolish’d.”

 

LORD BYRON.

 

 

 

 

PREFACE.

 

 

Apart from political parties, we are all concerned in that important

national birthright, the due representation of the people. It will be

conceded that the most important element of Parliaments--specially

chosen to embody the collective wisdom of the nation--is the legitimate

method of their constitution. Given the unrestricted rights of

election, a representative House of Commons is the happy result;

the opposite follows a tampering with the franchise, and debauched

constituencies. The effects of bribery, intimidation, undue influence,

coercion on the part of the Crown or its responsible advisers, an

extensive system of personal patronage, boroughmongering, close or

pocket boroughs, and all those contraband devices of old to hamper

the popular choice of representatives, have inevitably produced a

legislature more or less corrupt, as history has registered. Bad as

were the workings of the electoral system anterior to the advent

of parliamentary reform, it speaks volumes for the manly nature of

British electors and their representatives that Parliaments thus basely

constituted were, on the whole, fairly honest, nor unmindful altogether

of those liberties of the subject they were by supposition elected to

maintain; and when symptoms of corruption in the Commons became patent,

the degeneracy was not long countenanced, the national spirit being

sufficiently vigorous to crush the threatened evils, and bring about a

healthier state of things.

 

The comprehensive subject of parliamentary elections is rich in

interest and entertainment; the history of the rise, progress, and

development of the complex art of electioneering recommends itself to

the attention of all who have an interest in the features inseparable

from that constitution which has been lauded as a model for other

nations to imitate. The strong national characteristics surrounding, in

bygone days, the various stages of parliamentary election--peculiarly a

British institution, in which, of all people, our countrymen were most

at home--are now, by an improved elective procedure, relegated to the

limbo of the past, while the records of electioneering exist but as

traditions in the present.

 

With the modifying influence of progress, and a more advanced

civilisation, the time may come when the narrative of the robustious

scenes of canvassing, polling, chairing, and election-feasting, with

their attendant incidents of all-prevailing bribery, turbulence, and

intrigue, may be regarded with incredulity as fictions of an impossible

age.

 

It has been endeavoured to give the salient features of the most

remarkable election contests, from the time when seats began to

be sought after until comparatively recent days. The “Spendthrift

Elections,” remarkable in the annals of parliamentary and party

warfare, are set down, with a selection from the literature, squibs,

ballads, and broadsides to which they gave rise. The illustrations

are selected from the pictorial satires produced contemporaneously

upon the most famous electoral struggles. The materials, both literary

and graphic, are abundant, but scattered; it is hoped that both

entertainment and enlightenment may be afforded to a tolerant public by

the writer’s efforts to bring these resources within the compass of a

volume.

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS.

 

 

CHAPTER I.

 

PAGE

 

The assembling of parliaments--Synopsis of parliamentary

history--Orders for the attendance of members--Qualifications

for the franchise: burgesses, burgage-tenures, scot and lot,

pot-wallopers, faggot-votes, splitting--Disqualifications:

alms, charity, “faggots,” “occasionality”--Election of knights

of the shire, and burgesses--Outlines of an election in the

Middle Ages--Queen Elizabeth and her faithful Commons--An

early instance of buying a seat in the Commons--Returns

vested in the municipal corporations; “Money makes the

mayor to go”--Privileges of parliament--“Knights girt with

a sword”--Inferior standing of the citizens and burgesses

sent to Parliament--Reluctance of early constituencies to

sending representatives to parliament--Paid members--Members

chosen and nominated by the “great families”--The Earl of

Essex nominating his partisans and servants--Exemption

from sending representatives to the Commons esteemed

a privilege--The growth of legislative and electoral

independence--The beginning of “contested elections”--Coercion

at elections--Lords-lieutenant calling out the train-bands for

purposes of intimidation--Early violence--_Nugæ Antiquæ_; the

election of a Harrington for Bath, 1658-9; the present of a

horse to paid members--The method of election for counties,

cities, and boroughs--Relations of representatives with their

constituents--The “wages” of members of parliament--“Extracts

from the Proceedings of Lynn Regis”--An account rendered to the

burgesses--The civil wars--Peers returned for the Commons in

the Long Parliament after the abolition of the House of Lords. 1

 

 

CHAPTER II.

 

Influence of administration under Charles I.--Ballad on

the Commonwealth--House of Commons: “A General Sale of

Rebellious Household Stuff”--The Parliament under the

Restoration--Pepys and Prynne on the choosing of “knights

of the shire”--Burgesses sent up at the discretion of the

sheriffs--The king’s writ--Evils attending the cessation of

wages to parliamentary representatives--Andrew Marvell’s ballad

on a venal House of Commons--The parliament waiting on the

king--Charles II. and his Commons--“Royal Resolutions,” and

disrespect for the Commons--The Earl of Rochester on Charles

II.’s parliament--Interference in elections--Independence

of legislators _versus_ paid members--The Peers as “born

legislators and councillors”--“The Pensioner Parliament”

coincident with the remission of salaries to members of the

Commons--“An Historical Poem,” by Andrew Marvell--Andrew

Marvell as a paid member; his kindly relations with his Hull

constituents--Writ for recovering arrears of parliamentary

wages--Uncertainty of calling another parliament--The

Duke of Buckingham’s intrigues with the Roundheads; his

“Litany”--Degradation of parliament--Parody of the king’s

speech--Relations of Charles II. and his Commons--Summary

of Charles II.’s parliaments--Petitioners, addressers, and

Abhorrers--The right of petitioning the throne--The Convention

Parliament--The Long Cavalier Parliament--The Pensioner

Parliament and the statute against corruption--“The Chequer

Inn”--“The Parliament House to be let”--The Habeas Corpus

Parliament--The country preparing for Charles II.’s fourth

parliament--Election ballads: “The Poll,”--Origin of the

factions of Whigs and Tories--Whig and Tory ballads--“A

Tory in a Whig’s Coat”--“A Litany from Geneva,” in answer

to “A Litany from St. Omer”--The Oxford Parliament of eight

days--“The Statesman’s Almanack”--A group of parliamentary

election ballads, 1679-80--Ballad on the Essex petitions--The

Earl of Shaftesbury’s “Protestant Association”--“A Hymn

exalting the Mobile to Loyalty”--The Buckingham ballad--Bribery

by Sir Richard “Timber” Temple--The Wiltshire ballad--“Old

Sarum”--Petitions against prerogative--The royal pretensions to

absolute monarchy--The “Tantivies,” or upholders of absolute

kingly rights over Church and State--“Plain Dealing; or, a

Dialogue between Humphrey and Roger, as they were returning

home from choosing Knights of the Shire to sit in Parliament,

1681;” “Hercules Rideing”--“A Speech without-doors, made

by a Plebeian to his Noble Friends”--Philippe de Comines