Unreformed House of Commons

The Witenagemot was the forerunner political institution (that of Anglo-Saxon England) which operated from before the 7th century in at least the Kingdom of Wessex until the 11th century by which time the Kingdom of England was long-established. It was an assembly of the ruling class whose main function was to advise the king; composed of the most key noblemen in England, ecclesiastic and secular. The institution is thought to represent an aristocratic development of the ancient Germanic general assemblies, or folkmoots. In England, by the 7th century, these ancient folkmoots had developed into convocations of the land's most powerful and important people: ealdormen, thegns, and senior clergy, to discuss matters of national and local significance.

Through missionaries (later made saints) sent by Gregory the Great (such as Augustine of Canterbury and Paulinus of York) the seven Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, mainly with quasi-Witenagemots, officially converted to the church, by the mid-7th century. The panoply of Anglo-Saxon monarchs were then free to arrange marriages into European royalty, which were likewise, from then, became more autocratic while feudal. The role of a consulting forum, overall, declined. In England, cross-sea Viking Kingdoms made raids and soon invasions – such times and places of conflict favoured stronger leadership, and effective autocracy. None more so than the Danelaw, among whose rulers were Cnut the Great, Sveyn Forkbeard and Cnut of Northumbria.

The latter's semi-relatives, being the people (predominantly men) of the Norman Conquest, swept aside the remnants of the witenagemots and replaced most of the nobility, while continuing to seize and defend settled lands, vassal states, abroad. These early Norman monarchs thus had an invasive military state ethos, and as conquerors, did not wish to consult with those conquered.

The Normans regularly seized on an orthodoxy of medieval times which ended with ascendant Roundhead philosophies at the start of the Age of Enlightenment. This was, as taught and professed by established people, that sovereignty (including the rulers of ancient tribes and modern kingdoms) was a birthright, by divine grace. Reciting the more worldly origin of kingship: upward from the people, seeing a King's glorification, crowning and ongoing assent to his rulership by successful men-of-arms, most transparent in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, became High Treason. The divine narrative is seized upon in sermons, the practice of orders of chivalry and the words and symbolism throughout coronation ceremonies. Leaders of the church preached that every true and Christian King, who would thus obey God's will and never irreparably defy God, had God's strong blessing. The King (or Queen) was "the Lord's anointed", due obedience from the people.[1] The King however had a duty to act as good shepherd of his people to avoid misery and ruin. Such events were often cited as proof of an evil, illegitimate King by a challenging foreign- or nobility-sponsored kinsman pretender to the throne. Such power struggles placed de facto, but not de jure limits on monarchy. At such times there were few trite constitutional conventions and the calling of a counsel or parliament was no longer routine.

Very wealthy nobility aligned with foreign powers, for example, completely thwarted a cross-kingdom powerhold for the 18+3⁄4-year reign of Stephen, King of England. This period, the much latter-dubbed Anarchy of the 12th century, was foremost among semi-coups and great compromises. These confirmed practical limits on the non-church wealth and power a monarch could seize. From the Magna Carta of 1215 it was becoming accepted, in writing that could be construed as binding law, that a King's duties included the duty to respect and take counsel from feudal magnates.[2]

Parliament emerged from such consultations (or parleys), representatives of local communities (the Commons) being added to those of the Lords (peers; senior bishops and all those ennobled, whether for loyalty or gallantry, who generally already had wealth and influence) – a process aided by the practical consideration that it was easier for the King to collect the taxes he needed if the people consented to pay them.[3]

The emergence of petitioning in the reign of Edward I of England (1272-1307) contributed to beginnings of legislative power for the Parliament of England.[4]

Representative men summoned by emerging custom, thus convention, fixed upon two to be selected by each (Parliamentary) borough and two knights of each shire (county). The latter evolved into any two men whom the fairly wealthy of the county selected. The latter electorate became standardised to forty shilling freeholders. Immediately from this, there followed a relative elite who could vote for and lobby both types of representative, so enjoyed plural voting, a relative elite who had single voting, and most other men with no right to vote.

Court-attending or royally-invested nobles and the Western church created and perpetuated much historiography – including shrines and hagiography of "good kings" – such as to Edward the Confessor and Edmund the Martyr. Elaborate royal tombs and regular prayers for the dead were features of Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey and Bury St Edmunds. Until about 1350, King Edmund the Martyr, (pope) Gregory the Great, and King Edward the Confessor were regarded as English national saints,[5] but Edward III preferred the more war-like figure of Saint George, and in 1348 he established the Order of the Garter, him as its patron.[5] At Windsor Castle, its chapel of Saint Edward the Confessor was re-dedicated to Saint George, who was acclaimed three years later patron of the English race or people, where he was revered in later stories and folklore.[5] Such a narrative was orthodoxy in the semi-autocratic reign of Henry VIII – who executed a series of his leading advisors and is used today as a slur for any excessive power, "Henry VIII power", in statute. Laden with wealth from the disappropriated church, he avoided Parliamentary dissent.

The limits of this stance were reached by Charles I of England. Found to be a "tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of the nation", his 67 Commissioner-strong trial ordered his beheading after the Civil War, following much Parliamentary sidelining, particularly taxing the people against Parliamentary will. When given the opportunity to speak, Charles refused to enter a plea, claiming that no court had jurisdiction over a monarch.[6] He believed that his own authority to rule had been due to the divine right of kings given to him by God, and by the traditions and laws of England when he was crowned and anointed, and that the power wielded by those trying him was simply that of force of arms.[6] Charles insisted that the trial was illegal, explaining, "No learnèd lawyer will affirm that an impeachment can lie against the King ... one of their maxims is, that the King can do no wrong."[6]

England had been divided into counties (or shires) since Anglo-Saxon times. These formed the cornerstone of representation, from 1265. Two knights of the shire were chosen to represent each. Before 1536 England had 39 (see list below), thus electing 78 "knights". These "knights" were local landowners who could enjoy courtesy style peerages from their living father or grandfather but lacked a proper peerage (in which case they would be members of the House of Lords). Since Wales was formally annexed to England in 1536, each of the 12 Welsh counties elected one "knight". Monmouthshire, part of the Welsh Marches, became an English county, electing two members, thus making for 92 county members.[8]

To be a candidate or elector for a county seat, a man had to own (not rent) freehold property valued for the land tax at two pounds a year. (Women could neither vote nor be elected.) This was known as the 40 shilling freehold. (There were 20 shillings to the pound). This rule was established by an Act of 1430, and as the value of money gradually declined, a slowly increasing number of landowners were admitted to the franchise.[8] By the early 19th century, for example, Yorkshire had more than 20,000 electors,[8] while Kent, Lancashire and Somerset had nearly 10,000 each. By 1831 the English county electorate was estimated at about 190,000.[8]

Such members were usually elected without a vote save amid great party strife. In every county was a group of landowning families and these would informally agree on who would stand for the county at an election. Members were often relatives or allies of the peers who owned large portions of the county or its industries. Some counties were represented by the same two or three families for centuries (such as the Lowthers of Westmorland). Sometimes a county would not see a contest for generations. Nottinghamshire, for example, did not see a contested election between 1722 and 1832. Exceptions were Middlesex, an odd concentration of big city merchants, financiers and industrialists for a county – it had several notable contests and the 1784 to 1812 unbroken returns of William Wilberforce for Yorkshire.[8]

Old Sarum in Wiltshire, an uninhabited hill that elected two Members of Parliament. Painting by John Constable, 1829.

Even in medieval times a significant proportion of the King's revenue came from taxes paid by people living in towns, and thus the House of Commons had representatives of boroughs as well as counties from an early date. A borough was a town which usually, but not always, had a Royal charter giving it the right to elect two members (known as burgesses) to the House of Commons, though some very ancient boroughs were acknowledged as having prescriptive rights. Five English boroughs elected only one member,[9] while two boroughs – the City of London and the double borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in Dorset – elected four members each. From the 16th century 12 boroughs in Wales elected one member each.

Mediaeval kings could and did grant and revoke charters at their pleasure, often to create seats in the House for their supporters, and frequently regardless of the size or importance of the town. Thus there were "rotten boroughs" (boroughs with very few voters) from very early times, but they increased in number over the years as many old towns lost population. The two most famous examples were Old Sarum, which by the 18th century had no residents at all, and Dunwich in Suffolk, most of which had fallen into the sea. The number of English boroughs fluctuated over time, until the last new borough charter was issued in 1674. From then on the number was fixed at 203, electing 405 members (see list below).

The franchise for borough seats varied enormously.[10] In some boroughs, virtually all adult homeowners could vote. In others, only a handful of landowners could vote. In others, the default maintained, members were chosen by its corporation (council), usually elected by a small group of property owners.

The types of borough franchise were as follows:

Householder boroughs

These were commonly known as "potwalloper" boroughs, because (it was said) anyone who owned a hearth which could boil a pot could vote. In these boroughs all resident male householders who were not receiving alms or poor relief could vote. There were about 12 of these boroughs,[10] including Northampton which had over 1,000 voters even in the 17th century, Preston, others of note, ranging to St Germans in Cornwall, which had only 20 voters.

While the householder boroughs were in theory the most democratic, they were in practice very corrupt, notorious for bribery of voters by candidates and their patrons, frequently with liquor, which made for riotous and expensive elections. At Aylesbury in 1761, the successful candidate simply paid the electors five pounds each for their votes. Sometimes the voters banded together and openly sold the borough to the highest bidder. This usually meant that only the rich and the corrupt could win these dozen seats.

Freeman boroughs

These were boroughs in which the franchise was restricted to "freemen of the borough". There were roughly 92 of these, the largest single group of boroughs.[10] The property qualifications to be a freeman varied widely from place to place. The City of London had about 7,000 freemen in the 18th century, and about 25 other freeman boroughs had at least 1,000 electors, but about 30 boroughs had fewer than 200 electors, and these boroughs were in practice under the control of the town corporation.

In practice the larger freeman boroughs were the most democratic part of the unreformed political system. They were contested at most elections, and the contests were frequently about political issues rather than just about who had the most money to spend. Some of these boroughs were corrupt, and others were controlled by aristocratic patrons, but many freeman boroughs valued their independence. Bristol, the seat of Edmund Burke, was the most notable of these. Most of the larger county towns such as Chester, Gloucester, Leicester, Norwich, Nottingham, Worcester and York were of this type. But some large instances, such as Cambridge, had small and undemocratic electorates because the right to be a freeman was tightly constrained.

Scot and lot boroughs

These were 37 boroughs in which the franchise was restricted to those paying scot and lot, a form of municipal taxation. These boroughs ranged in size from the most democratic borough of all, Westminster, which had 12,000 famously radical voters in the late 18th century and was held by the Whig leader Charles James Fox, down to a rotten borough such as Gatton in Surrey, which in 1831 had two voters. Some of these boroughs were in practice owned by aristocratic patrons or notoriously corrupt.

Corporation boroughs

These 27 boroughs restricted the right to vote to members of the borough corporation. In none of them was the electorate larger than 60, and in most it was much smaller. Apart from Salisbury and Bath, they were mostly small towns. As a result, these boroughs were rarely contested, since the corporation members usually decided among themselves who would be elected. They were usually known as "pocket boroughs" because they were frequently "in the pocket" of a wealthy patron, although they were not as corrupt as the rotten boroughs.

Burgage boroughs

In these 29 boroughs, the right to vote was attached to ownership of certain properties known as burgages – whoever owned a certain house or field had a vote in the borough. Since burgage properties could be bought and sold, these were the easiest boroughs for wealthy patrons to control.[11] In a small burgage borough, a patron who bought all the burgages had absolute control. At election time he would simply convey the burgages to his relatives and friends, and thereby in effect nominate two members of Parliament. These boroughs included the notorious Old Sarum, which had no resident voters at all. As a result, these boroughs were rarely contested, and even more rarely successfully contested.

Freeholder boroughs

In the remaining six boroughs, the right to vote was held by all freeholders. This was in theory quite democratic, but since they were all small towns none of them had electorates larger than 300 even in 1831.

It is not possible to calculate the size of the borough electorate with any accuracy, since many boroughs were rarely contested, and no records were made of eligible voters unless there was a contest. As well, many people owned property in more than one borough and could thus vote more than once (this was called plural voting). The total English electorate is thought to have increased from about 338,000 in the late eighteenth century to some 439,000 at the time of the Reform Act,[12] (or perhaps about 10% of adult males). Of that total, around 45% - 188,000, or slightly less - were in 1831 eligible borough voters.[13]

There was no secret ballot. Until the Ballot Act of 1872, the voter openly declared his vote at the Hustings, a public occasion, where it was recorded. That meant that the patron who dominated a borough knew how the qualified electors had voted. Even if the franchise was broad, as in a potwalloper or scot and lot borough, a small electorate could be controlled by a combination of patronage, bribes and threats. The relatively democratic constituencies combined a broad franchise with a numerous electorate.

The two ancient universities of Cambridge and Oxford elected two members each from 1603. The franchise was restricted to holders of doctoral and master's degrees, which excluded the great bulk of graduates (mostly Anglican clergy) holding bachelor's degrees. Both universities had about 500 electors in the 18th century, rising to 800 by 1832, but at most elections a much smaller number actually voted. After the Act of Union of 1801, Dublin University also elected one member.

The twelve Welsh counties elected one member each, on the same franchise as English counties. Since Wales was much poorer than England, however, the county electorates were much smaller. The Welsh county electorate was about 19,000 in 1800. The twelve Welsh boroughs also elected one member each. Until the late 18th century all of them were very small towns. The franchises for the Welsh boroughs were freemen, scot and lot and corporation but in practice they were under the control of local patrons and contested elections were rare.

The Act of Union of 1707 brought 45 Scottish members to the House of Commons, of which 30 were elected by the 33 Scottish counties, while 15 were elected from the Scottish boroughs (called burghs in Scotland).[14] The electoral system which had operated in the Scottish Parliament since its creation was preserved for the election of Scotland's representatives at Westminster.

Twenty-seven counties elected one member each (this included Orkney and Shetland, which were strictly speaking not counties but fiefs of the Crown, but were treated as if they were a county). The six smallest counties were grouped together into three groups of two (Buteshire and Caithness, Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire, and Nairnshire and Cromartyshire), with one of each pair electing a member at alternate elections.

The Scottish county franchise was even more restrictive than for the English counties. A voter either had to own land worth the equivalent of two pounds sterling "of old extent"[15] – meaning that the land had to have had that value since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in the 13th century – or to hold as a Crown tenant land to the value of 35 pounds sterling. This restricted the franchise to a handful of wealthy landowners, small privileged sets who might not even represent the county's true landed wealth.[16] In most counties there were fewer than 100 voters, and in some even less: in Sutherlandshire the Duke of Sutherland owned almost the entire county, and all the voters were his tenants, while in Orkney and Shetland there were seven voters in 1759. The total Scottish county electorate was fewer than 3,000 in 1800.

The 15 Scottish burghs consisted of the city of Edinburgh, where the 33 members of the city corporation elected a member, and 14 groups of four or five smaller burghs, each group electing one member between them.[14] The franchise in the groups of burghs was held by the corporations of each of the burghs making up the group, the corporations being self-co-opting oligarchies.[16] Each burgh corporation would choose a delegate, and the delegates would then meet to elect the member. The representation tended to rotate among the burghs in each group. Since most of the burghs were little more than villages, the leading county families could usually bribe the corporation members to get their nominees elected.

Government patronage in Scotland early ensured a docile parliamentary following;[17] and by mid-century the government of the day could usually count on a solid phalanx of Scottish supporters.[18] Subsequently under Pitt, Henry Dundas, the Scottish agent of the Tory party, had little difficulty in manipulating the Scottish representation in similar fashion, spending government funds and using Indian patronage to ensure that Tories were elected.[19] This was one reason why the Scottish members were unpopular at Westminster, being regarded as corrupt even by the standards of the day, as well as uncouth.

On the eve of Reform, Lord John Russell estimated that a Scottish electorate of some 3,600 would undergo an increase of around 60,000 voters.[20] Later figures suggest an increase from 4,579 to 64,447 voters actually took place.[21] Either way, G. M. Trevelyan's conclusion seems justified that "The Reform Bill, in England an evolution, in Scotland was a revolution, veiled in the form of law".[22]

The Act of Union of 1801 brought 100 Irish members to the House of Commons. The 32 Irish counties elected two members each, while 33 boroughs elected 35 members (all elected one member except Dublin and Cork, which elected two). The remaining seat was given to Dublin University. The franchise in the counties was the same as for England, and the total Irish county electorate, at about 220,000 in 1801, was actually larger than the English county electorate (Ireland had a larger population relative to England than it has today, and had a larger rural gentry). But the franchise was drastically raised in 1829 when Catholics were allowed to sit in the House of Commons, in order to deprive the mass of Irish Catholics of the vote and minimise the impact of this concession.

In 1801, Ireland had about one-third of the population of the United Kingdom (5.5 million people lived in Ireland and 10.5 million in Great Britain) but only 15% of the MPs (100 of 658) were Irish.

Of the Irish boroughs, only Dublin, Cork, Kilkenny, Londonderry and Waterford had a mass electorate. Belfast’s member was elected by the city corporation and the seat was never contested.

The exclusion of Catholics from the House of Commons was of most consequence in Ireland, where 80% of the population were Catholic. At the time of the Act of Union, the Irish were promised that the restriction on Catholics would be lifted but this promise was broken because of the opposition of George III. This meant that except in the Protestant northern counties, most Irishmen, no matter how wealthy, were excluded from politics until Catholic Emancipation was finally achieved in 1829.