Note (back) — Chapter X

The creation of boroughs was also unnecessary. Parliaments packed themselves quite well enough to suit Henry's purpose, without any interference on his part. The limiting of the county franchise to forty-shilling (i.e., thirty pounds in modern currency) freeholders, and the dying away of democratic feeling in the towns, left parliamentary representation mainly in the hands of the landed gentry and of the prosperous commercial classes; and from them the Tudors derived their most effective support. There was discontent in abundance during Tudor times, but it was social and economic, and not as a rule political. It was directed against the enclosers of common lands; against the agricultural capitalists, who bought up farms, evicted the tenants, and converted their holdings to pasture; against the large traders in towns who monopolised commerce at the expense of their poorer competitors. It was concerned, not with the one tyrant on the throne, but with the thousand petty tyrants of the villages and towns, against whom the poorer commons looked to their King for protection. Of this discontent Parliament could not be the focus, for members of Parliament were themselves the offenders. "It is hard," wrote a contemporary radical, "to have these ills redressed by Parliament, because it pricketh them chiefly which be chosen to be burgesses.... Would to God they would leave their old accustomed choosing of burgesses! For whom do they choose but such as be rich or bear some office in the country, many times such as be boasters and braggers? Such have they ever hitherto chosen; be he never so very a fool, drunkard, extortioner, adulterer, never so covetous and crafty a person, yet, if he be rich, bear any office, if he be a jolly cracker and bragger in the country, he must be a burgess of Parliament. Alas, how can any such study, or give any godly counsel for the commonwealth?"[722] This passage gives no support to the theory that members of Parliament were nothing but royal nominees. If the constituencies themselves were bent on electing "such as bare office in the country," there was no call for the King's intervention; and the rich merchants and others, of whom complaint is made, were almost as much to the royal taste as were the officials themselves.