Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Government/Elections
Franchise
In the 1640s a shift was occurring in the views of citizens and their governments, with people wanting to elect those who would to rule over them. Franchise refers to the right to vote.
In a statute in 1430, franchise for a county elector was set at 40s per annum and they had to be a freeholder, which during the fifteenth century was well above what a yeoman was to make in a year. [1] By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries because of inflation, however, this was still a large amount of value, but it was also an achievable amount of money for people to have. A courtier Henry Neville was frustrated at the low threshold of the 40s in the Short Parliament election in Essex, saying that the 40s in 1430 were equivalent to 20 pounds in 1640. He further went on to say that 40s was well below the tax base, claiming that it could increase the amount of people voting, and perhaps change the vote. [2] Because of the low threshold to vote, even a gentleman with a small acreage could be eligible to vote, as about 4 or 5 acres could produce an annual income of around 40s. [3] Even before that time in 1621 the Commons heard a bill for general electoral reform, from this came “franchise in counties to freeholders of four pounds per annum and copyholders of ten poundsper annum. In the boroughs, all freemen inhabitants were to receive the franchise, except in places where there were less than twenty-four freemen; in this case, all the inhabitants were to vote, exclusive of men receiving alms.” [4] In the end this bill was defeated, but showed the feelings at the time for a change. Within elections themselves, there was a want, on behalf of the House of Commons to avoid manipulations and the power of certain individuals by protecting the due process of elections, as often times small groups of people who knew each other were part of the small minority that could vote. [5] In the Putney Debates, it was seen that a greater franchise was desired, but not to expand to the whole of the lower classes. [6] This soon became a political hot topic between the landed gentry, who could vote, and the lower classes and Levellers who desired the vote. The Levellers thought if they could get franchise expanded, that they would gain a larger percentage of the vote, something that the gentry feared. [7] The Army wanted the vote for those who fought for their country and parliament. [8] These debates were the beginning of a long and hard fought battle for the franchise which we enjoy today.
Elections
Elections themselves would be called after a parliament would be summoned by the King. This was done by convention often, and most of those who were chosen to go to parliament were selected because of their known reputation.[9] Most men at the time would say ‘no’ to the honour because of the huge amounts of cost that were associated with parliament at the time, such as transportation, living costs, as well as the long amounts of time and effort parliamentarians were expected to give in addition to the large cost of a campaign. But, by the early modern time the gentry was becoming more and more ambitious, and a seat in Parliament became sought after. [10]
- ↑ Derek Hirst The representative of the people?: Voters and voting in England under the early Stuarts, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975): 29
- ↑ Hirst, 30
- ↑ Hirst, 31
- ↑ Richard Bushman, "English Franchise Reform in the Seventeenth Century," The Journal of British Studies, 3 (1963): 37
- ↑ Bushman, 40
- ↑ Bushman, 47
- ↑ Bushman, 49
- ↑ Bushman, 49
- ↑ Mark A. Kishlansky, Parliamentary selection: social and political choice in early modern England, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986):23
- ↑ Kishlansky, 24