P.T.
* * * * *
ANCIENT BOROUGH OF WENDOVER.
(_For the Mirror._)
This borough sent members to parliament in the 28th of Edward I. and again
in the 1st and 2nd of Edward II.; after which the privilege was
discontinued for above three hundred years. "The intermission, (says
Britton,) was attended by the very remarkable circumstance of all
recollection of the right of the borough having been lost, till about the
period of the 21st of James I. when Mr. Hakeville, of Lincoln's Inn,
discovered by a search among the ancient parliament writs in the Tower,
that the boroughs of Amersham, Wendover, and Great Marlow, had all sent
members in former times, and petitions were then preferred in the names of
those places, that their ancient liberty or franchise might be restored.
When the King[5] was informed of these petitions, he directed his
solicitor, Sir Robert Heath, to oppose them with all might, declaring,
that he was troubled with too great a number of burgesses already," The
sovereign's opposition proved ineffectual, and the Commons decided in
favour of the restoration of the privilege. Some particulars of this
singular case may be found in Willis's _Notitia Parliamentaria_.
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