But this
principle, however generally it may have been asserted, had hitherto
been but very partially carried out in practice, and the old borough
system had been skilfully devised by successive kings and ministers to
keep the political power in the hands of the crown and the aristocracy.
It was with that object that most of the boroughs which were first
allowed to return members under the Tudors had been enfranchised,[222] a
great noble or landholder, whose affection to the government could not
be doubted, being often able to obtain the promotion of some village or
petty town in the neighborhood of his estates to the dignity of a
parliamentary borough, and thus acquiring a great addition to his
political and social importance by his power of influencing the
election. No one could deny that the existence of such boroughs was an
abuse, or at least an anomaly, rendered the more conspicuous as time
went on by the denial of representatives to towns which contained as
many thousands of citizens as they could boast single burgesses. At the
same time it was equally undeniable that the aristocracy, generally
speaking, exerted their influence advantageously for the state. A peer
or great squire who could return the members for a borough took a worthy
pride in the abilities and reputation of those whom he thus sent to
Parliament; especially the leaders of the two parties sought out
promising young men for their seats; and it has often been pointed out
that, of the men who in the House of Commons had risen to eminence in
the country before the Reform Bill, there was scarcely one who had not
owed his introduction to Parliament to the patron of one of those
boroughs which were now wholly or partially disfranchised; while on one
or two occasions these "rotten boroughs," as, since Lord Chatham's time,
they were often derisively called, had proved equally useful in
providing seats for distinguished statesmen who, for some reason or
other, had lost the confidence of their former constituents.
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