36$
such as in by the
cities.1 By the of the century,
were borough of the most diverse
with perhaps a tendency, was
more of the in the older and
boroughs, their government in the of a
limited circle of or magistrates2; in many cf the
newer and towns, the government still popu-
lar, and in it ever remained so.3
But more closely related to the present subject is the
question of far the had succeeded :n cutting
themselves off from control, the general
government of the various
conditions, which out of the and negotia-
tions between the overlords: for the
dispositions and of the to
of the borough very
Some were republics,
country townships that the at which thty
compounded severally for their ferm, but were in all other
* See above, Part II., §11, 3-
a The corporation in England Its origin in borough history* but was
not fully developed much before the aid of the mi idle " MastUnd
has strikingly cautioned against perverting history by fedinjc corporations
before they really existed: "If , . > we introduce the persona $<t& too
soon, we shall be doing worse than if we anned Hecgist and Horsa
machine guns or pictured the Venerable correcting lor the
press."
a "Any complete generalisation upon the constitutional history of the
towns is impossible for this reason, that this history not
one point or proceed by the same At the time at which they
to take a share in the national counsels through their the
class of towns contained communities in every of
in each stage of development constituted on different principles- Hence,
by the way, arose the anomalies and obscurities as to the natare cf
constituencies, which furnished matter of deliberation to the House of
Commons for many centuries* and only ended with the Reform Act of
1832. The varieties of later on the in which
the borough found itself when it to be represented," The matter
" is noticed here in order to show that the obscurity of the subject is not a
mere result of our ignorance or of the deficiency of record, bat of a confusion
of usages which was felt at the time to be of no treatipent;
a confusion which . . . prevailed from the very first, occasioned
actual disputes before it began to the constitutional lawyers,"
Stubbs, Com^tu^mal History <?/ i 211.