Fariiament 391
repeated the provision. The statute of 1445, requiring
county representatives to be of gentle birth, completed
this important line of legislation. What the disfran-
chising statute meant is seen not only by the reflection that
forty shillings of that time had the purchasing power of
over £30 to-day,1 but also that only freeholders could
vote. A large and worthy class of people was kept from
political rights for four hundred years; but the Commons
were dealing with real dangers in the fifteenth century;
they were fighting for political existence. It must be
acknowledged that in the centuries following the forty-
shilling freeholders exercised well the great power vested
in them.2
guardians of castles were to surrender them only on the authority of the
king expressed through the "honest men of the land elected as his council,
or by the major part.'' The fifteen who were to be the king's council were
to be confirmed' by the '' twenty-four or by the major part of them.J' And
the king declared his adherence to that which his " counsellors, all or the
greater part of them . . . have done and shall do. . . ." Stubbs,
Select Charters, pp. 385-388, passim. A careful search would probably
show many other expressions of the principle before 1430.
1 When the discovery of precious metals in America made money of less
value, the forty-shilling freehold did not stand for a high property qualifi-
cation; but the copyholder or leaseholder could not vote no matter how
much his land was worth. "The qualification, however, was broader
than might appear at first glance, since the term freehold was applicable
to many kinds of property. Annuities and rent charges issuing from free-
hold lands were considered sufficient qualification, if they were of 403.
value; dowers of wives and even pews in churches might also be considered
freeholds." See further illustrations of curious freeholds and a general
discussion of the British electoral system before the reforms, in Seymour
and Frary, How the World Votes, i, ch. iv. These authors estimate that
as late as 1831 there were " less than 250,000 county electors in England
and Wales, and the proportion of county voters to population was probably
not as high as one to thirty-five."
2 In 1.294 it had been suggested that no freeholder whose estate brought in
less than 403. per year could be made to serve on a jury in the county court
(perhaps suggested by the 403. limit recently placed on county court actions.
See above, p. 184). This was to lessen the heavy burden of jury service.
It was promptly acted upon to escape also the burden of suit of court, for
by that date there was little reason to attend the court except jury service,
and there were now very few cases in the county court in which juries
were used. Hence thereafter the normal county court did not contain
these poorer freeholders. The statute of 1430 merely placed the franchise
in the normal, the legal, county court. For the lesser freeholders had so
long used the privilege of staying away that now that it was a privilege
to go, their presence could be regarded as illegal by force of prescription.
This shows the statute of 1430 not the novel and reactionary measure
sometimes represented, but, like most early statutes, declaratory of the law.