iberty to declare unfit to be observed.[280] Even at the time
when it was enacted, the law had probably, as such, very little effect.
But still the plurality of elections were made according to ancient
usage, as well as statute, out of the constituent body. The contrary
instances were exceptions to the rule; but exceptions increasing
continually, till they subverted the rule itself. Prynne has remarked
that we chiefly find Cornish surnames among the representatives of
Cornwall, and those of northern families among the returns from the
North. Nor do the members for shires and towns seem to have been much
interchanged; the names of the former belonging to the most ancient
families, while those of the latter have a more plebeian cast.[281] In
the reign of Edward IV., and not before, a very few of the burgesses
bear the addition of esquire in the returns, which became universal in
the middle of the succeeding century.[282]

[Sidenote: Irregularity of elections.]

[Sidenote: Influence of the crown upon them.]

Even county elections seem in general, at least in the fourteenth century,
to have been ill-attended and left to the influence of a few powerful and
active persons. A petitioner against an undue return in the 12th of Edward
II. complains that, whereas he had been chosen knight for Devon by Sir
William Martin, bishop of Exeter, with the consent of the county, yet the
sheriff had returned another.[283] In several indentures of a much later
date a few persons only seem to have been concerned in the election,
though the assent of the community be expressed.[284] These
irregularities, which it would be exceedingly erroneous to convert, with
Hume, into lawful customs, resulted from the abuses of the sheriff's
power, which, when parliament sat only for a few weeks with its hands full
of business, were almost sure to escape with impunity. They were sometimes
also countenanced, or rather instigated, by the crown, which, having
recovered in Edward II.'s reign the prerogative of naming the sheriffs,
surrendered by an act of his father,[285] filled that office with its
creatures, and constantly disregarded the statute forbidding their
continuance beyond a year. Without searching for every passage that might
illustrate the interference of the crown in elections, I will mention two
or three leading instances. When Richard II. was meditating to overturn
the famous commission of reform, he sent for some of the sheriffs, and
required