of
Lancashire, after the dissolution of parliament, to inquire at the
county-court into the validity of the election; and upon his neglect a
second writ issued to the justices of the peace to satisfy themselves
about this in the best manner they could, and report the truth into
chancery. This inquiry after the dissolution was on account of the wages
for attendance, to which the knights unduly returned could have no
pretence.[252] We find a third case in the 7th of Richard II., when the
king took notice that Thomas de Camoys, who was summoned by writ to the
house of peers, had been elected knight for Surrey, and directed the
sheriff to return another.[253] In the same year the town of Shaftesbury
petitioned the king, lords, and commons against a false return of the
sheriff of Dorset, and prayed them to order remedy. Nothing further
appears respecting this petition.[254] This is the first instance of
the commons being noticed in matters of election. But the next case is
more material; in the 5th of Henry IV. the commons prayed the king and
lords in parliament, that, because the writ of summons to parliament was
not sufficiently returned by the sheriff of Rutland, this matter might
be examined in parliament, and in case of default found therein an
exemplary punishment might be inflicted; whereupon the lords sent for
the sheriff and Oneby, the knight returned, as well as for Thorp, who
had been duly elected, and, having examined into the facts of the case,
directed the return to be amended, by the insertion of Thorp's name, and
committed the sheriff to the Fleet till he should pay a fine at the
king's pleasure.[255] The last passage that I can produce is from the
roll of 18 H. VI., where "it is considered by the king, with the advice
and assent of the lords spiritual and temporal," that, whereas no
knights have been returned for Cambridgeshire, the sheriff shall be
directed, by another writ, to hold a court and to proceed to an
election, proclaiming that no person shall come armed, nor any
tumultuous proceeding take place; something of which sort appears to
have obstructed the execution of the first writ. It is to be noticed
that the commons are not so much as named in this entry.[256] But
several provisions were made by statute under the Lancastrian kings,
when seats in parliament became much more an object of competition than
before, to check the partiality of the sheriffs in making undue returns.
One act (11 H. IV. c. 1)