Page:VCH Surrey 1.djvu/423

 POLITICAL HISTORY In 1327 the county of Surrey had chosen not to be represented. It was the first year of Edward III. Parliament was called to meet at Lincoln, and its business was chiefly to provide money for a Scotch war and to take measures against the Scots overrunning the northern counties. The sheriff of Surrey endorsed the writ to the effect that no County Court was to be held between the day on which he received the writ and the day fixed for the meeting of the Parliament and that therefore he held no election. 1 It seems conclusive evidence that elections were held at the ordinary meetings of the County Court. But in fact Lincoln was a long way off, and expenses there and back would be heavy. The Scots were still further off, and for long after this time the south of England could not find much interest in a Scotch war. In geographical proximity to the seat of Parliament Surrey was as a rule much better off than many counties. Parliaments usually met at Westminster, and though sometimes they went far afield to York, Gloucester, Leicester and once even to Carlisle the more common places besides Westminster were London and Winchester and once Windsor, all near Surrey. The reluctance to be represented was marked in the towns. The dropping out from the list of parliamentary boroughs of Kingston and Farnham may be ascribed to this general feeling. Boroughs were assessed more highly than counties for extraordinary taxation, paying tenths instead of fifteenths, and their methods of election were as we have seen still more unsatisfactory than those of counties. If the county of Surrey was not compelled often to send her representatives far afield, the reason that the court was in her neighbour- hood was not altogether a benefit. A mediaeval king lived and travelled at the expense of the lieges. Purveyance meant that supplies could be bought up compulsorily for the king's service at a rate not fixed by the sellers, and carts could be impressed for the carriage of the royal house- hold goods when the court changed its quarters. Later under the Tudors 220 carts were required, and when the court moved within or upon the borders of the county Surrey usually had to provide from 80 to no of them. John and Henry III. were continually at Guildford. John, by nature and circumstances restless, never stayed very long in one place, but was at Guildford more often than at most other royal houses in England. He kept the Christmas feast of 1200 there with his newly captured second wife Isabella d'Angouleme, and he was there nineteen times in eleven different years. Henry III. made extensive additions to the castle as a royal palace, erecting no doubt the buildings which remain as ruins south-west of the keep. The keep itself was the prison for Surrey and Sussex. Henry's sons were brought up at Guildford for some time as children. These buildings were badly in want of repair in Richard II. 's 1 ' Nullus fait comitatus ante diem in brevi isto contentum tenendus, et ideo electio militum nee breve istud ballivis civitatum et burgorum pro brevitate temporis fieri non potuerunt. Et ideo de executione istius brevis nihil actum est ad presens' (Returns Printed by Order of House of Commons, 1878). The sheriff's Latin is curious but his meaning is clear, that elections were held at the regular not special meetings of the comitatus. i 353 AA