vol. ii. p. 310.

[279] Rot. Parl. 1 H. V. c. 1.

[280] See the case of Dublin university in the first volume of
Peckwell's Reports of contested elections. Note D, p. 53. The statute
itself was repealed by 14 G. III. c. 58.

[281] By 23 H. VI. c. 15, none but gentlemen born, generosi a
nativitate, are capable of sitting in parliament as knights of counties;
an election was set aside 39 H. VI. because the person returned was not
of gentle birth. Prynne's third Register. p. 161.

[282] Willis, Notitia Parliamentaria, Prynne's fourth Register, p. 1184.
A letter in that authentic and interesting accession to our knowledge of
ancient times, the Paston collection, shows that eager canvass was
sometimes made by country gentlemen in Edward IV.'s reign to represent
boroughs. This letter throws light at the same time on the creation or
revival of boroughs. The writer tells Sir John Paston, "If ye miss to be
burgess of Malden, and my lord chamberlain will, ye may be in another
place; there be a dozen towns in England that choose no burgess, which
ought to do it: ye may be set in for one of those towns an' ye be
friended." This was in 1472. vol. ii. p. 107.

[283] Glanvil's Reports of Elections, edit. 1774, Introduction, p. xii.

[284] Prynne's third Register, p. 171.

[285] 28 E. I. c. 8; 9 E. II. It is said that the sheriff was elected by
the people of his county in the Anglo-Saxon period; no instance of this
however, according to lord Lyttelton, occurs after the Conquest.
Shrievalties were commonly sold by the Norman kings. Hist. of Henry II.
vol. ii. p. 921.

[286] Vita Ricardi II. p. 85.

[287] Otterbourne, p. 191. He says of the knights returned on this
occasion, that they were not elected per communitatem, ut mos exigit,
sed per regiam voluntatem.

[288] Prynne's second Reg. p. 141; Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 367.

[289] Prynne's second Reg. p. 450.

[290] vol. i. p. 96, 98; vol. ii. p. 99, 105; vol. ii. p. 243.

[291] Upon this dry and obscure subject of inquiry, the nature and
constitution of the house of lords during this period, I have been much
indebted to the first part of Prynne's Register, and to West's Inquiry
into the Manner of creating Peers; which, though written with a party
motive, to serve the ministry of 1719 in the peerage bill, deserves, for
the perspicuity of the method and style, to be reckoned among the best
of our constitutional dissertations.

[292] Baronies were often divided by descent am