Note 765c — PART IV. From the Reformation to the present time. (continued 3)
Reading edition
The mayor and corporation had before, it seems, taken upon themselves to send whom they pleased to parliament, without allowing the freemen at large to have any voice on the occasion. But the members sent to that parliament appear to have been chosen by the freemen at large: and they were the first ever so chosen here; as we learn from one of the old MSS.