THE KING'S GOOD SERVANTS: THE COMMONS HOUSE IN 1491.

详细信息   

• 作者：CASPER ; DALE EDWARD.
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：1980
• 毕业院校：University of Minnesota
• 专业：History, European.
• CBH：8025426
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：5233948
• Pages：130

文摘

Little is known about the composition of the House of Commons in the English parliament during the later fifteenth century. No returns for the period between 1478 and 1529 survive. This lack of evidence has prevented historians, with one notable exception,('1) from analyzing the social composition of the Commons' membership. A single membership list was published in 1925 when Winifred Jay identified four hundred and ninety-four names written in an early sixteenth-century hand as being the Commons' membership of Henry VII's fourth parliament, which was summoned in 1491.('2) This list, the accuracy of which was verified through a check of the calendars of the patent rolls and inquisitions post mortem, has provided the essential data from which an analysis of the social composition of the Commons' membership in a late fifteenth-century parliament can be made.;An examination of the Commons' membership of 1491 reveals significant social and political characteristics of those men elected to the Commons. Seventy-three of the known four hundred and ninety-four men who sat in the 1491 Commons had one or more years of experience as a member of parliament. In violation of the residency requirement of the statute of 1413, forty-three men who were not residents dwelling in the boroughs and shires which elected them were named to the Commons in 1491. Various occupations and professions were evident in the Commons of 1491. Thirty-three merchants were elected to sit in the Commons. Seventy-eight members were lawyers. The royal household or government employed fifty men who sat in the Commons of 1491.;The most significant fact revealed through a study of the 1491 Commons' membership is that over a third of the members had reason, by way of personal honor or profit received from the Crown, to support the royal program in parliament. This revelation confirms earlier studies of fifteenth-century parliamentary representation undertaken by J. S. Roskell('3) and May McKisak('4) which revealed a change in the representation of English boroughs and shires from an election of local men to an election of men who were outside the local political unit, and in particular men who were careerist royal officials.;No evidence exists to show that Henry VII exercised a consistent and systematic effort to secure the election of a majority of individuals to the Commons who would readily support his parliamentary actions. But there is documentation proving that the royal government, possessing both the ability and opportunity, did interfere with elections to the Commons during the reign of Henry VII.('5) Similarly, it is known that servants of Henry VII without any local connections were returned as members of parliament.('6) Support from a third of the Commons' membership, connected to leadership exercised in the House by such high government officials as Sir Reginald Bray, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and under-treasurer of England, may have been sufficient to insure adherence to royal pleasure.;;('1)May McKisak, The Parliamentary Representation of the English Boroughs During the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1932). ('2)Winifred Jay, "List of Members of the Fourth Parliament of Henry VII," BHR (1925-1926), pp. 168-175. The list of names was contained in B. M. Harl. MS 2252. ('3)J. S. Roskell, "The Social Composition of the Commons in a Fifteenth-Century Parliament," BIHR 22 (1950):152-172. ('4)McKisak, The Parliamentary Representation of the English Boroughs, pp. 44-65. ('5)William Campbell, Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, 2 vols. (London: Longman and Co., 1873), 2:456. ('6)Kenneth Pickthorn, Early Tudor Govenment: Henry VII (Cambridge University Press, 1949), p. 106.