que ne fuit
rebaile as commons.

A singular assertion is made in the Year Book 21 E. IV. p. 48 (Maynard's
edit.), that a subsidy granted by the commons without assent of the
peers is good enough. This cannot surely have been law at that time.

[249] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 244.

[250] Coke's 4th Institute, p. 15.

[251] Glanvil's Reports of Elections, edit. 1774; Introduction, p. 12.

[252] 4 Prynne, p. 261.

[253] Glanvil's Reports, ibid. from Prynne.

[254] Glanvil's Reports, ibid. from Prynne.

[255] Id. ibid. and Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 530.

[256] Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 7.

[257] 3 Prynne's Register, p. 187. This hypothesis, though embraced by
Prynne, is, I confess, much opposed to general opinion; and a very
respectable living writer treats such an interpretation of the statute 7
H. IV. as chimerical. The words cited in the text, "as others," mean
only, according to him, suitors not duly summoned. Heywood on Elections,
vol. i. p. 20. But, as I presume, the summons to freeholders was by
general proclamation; so that it is not easy to perceive what difference
there could be between summoned and unsummoned suitors. And if the words
are supposed to glance at the private summonses to a few friends, by
means of which the sheriffs were accustomed to procure a clandestine
election, one can hardly imagine that such persons would be styled "duly
summoned." It is not unlikely, however, that these large expressions
were inadvertently used, and that they led to that inundation of voters
without property which rendered the subsequent act of Henry VI.
necessary. That of Henry IV. had itself been occasioned by an opposite
evil, the close election of knights by a few persons in the name of the
county.

Yet the consequence of the statute of Henry IV. was not to let in too
many voters, or to render elections tumultuous, in the largest of
English counties, whatever it might be in others. Prynne has published
some singular sheriff's indentures for the county of York, all during
the interval between the acts of Henry IV. and Henry VI., which are
sealed by a few persons calling themselves the attorneys of some peers
and ladies, who, as far as appears, had solely returned the knights of
that shire. 3 Prynne, p. 152. What degree of weight these anomalous
returns ought to possess I leave to the reader.

[258] The majority of prescriptive boroughs have prescriptive
corporations, which carry the legal, which is not always the m