VI.[268]

[Sidenote: Reluctance of boroughs to send members.]

The elective franchise was deemed by the boroughs no privilege or
blessing, but rather, during the chief part of this period, an
intolerable grievance. Where they could not persuade the sheriff to omit
sending his writ to them, they set it at defiance by sending no return.
And this seldom failed to succeed, so that, after one or two refusals to
comply, which brought no punishment upon them, they were left in quiet
enjoyment of their insignificance. The town of Torrington, in
Devonshire, went further, and obtained a charter of exemption from
sending burgesses, grounded upon what the charter asserts to appear on
the rolls of chancery, that it had never been represented before the
21st of E. III. This is absolutely false, and is a proof how little we
can rely upon the veracity of records, Torrington having made not less
than twenty-two returns before that time. It is curious that in spite of
this charter the town sent members to the two ensuing parliaments, and
then ceased for ever.[269] Richard II. gave the inhabitants of
Colchester a dispensation from returning burgesses for five years, in
consideration of the expenses they had incurred in fortifying the
town.[270] But this immunity, from whatever reason, was not regarded,
Colchester having continued to make returns as before.

The partiality of sheriffs in leaving out boroughs, which were
accustomed in old time to come to the parliament, was repressed, as far
as law could repress it, by a statute of Richard II., which imposed a
fine on them for such neglect, and upon any member of parliament who
should absent himself from his duty.[271] But it is, I think, highly
probable that a great part of those who were elected from the boroughs
did not trouble themselves with attendance in parliament. The sheriff
even found it necessary to take sureties for their execution of so
burthensome a duty, whose names it was usual, down to the end of the
fifteenth century, to endorse upon the writ along with those of the
elected.[272] This expedient is not likely to have been very successful;
and the small number, comparatively speaking, of writs for expenses of
members for boroughs, which have been published by Prynne, while those
for the knights of shires are almost complete, leads to a strong
presumption that their attendance was very defective. This statute of
Richard II. produced no sensible effect.

[Sidenote: Who the