(_To the Editor._)
In the _Literary Magazine_ for 1792 I find the following list of
places, which _formerly_ sent members to parliament:--
Dunstable Odiham Langport
Newberry Overton Montacute
Ely Bromyard Stoke Curcy
Wisbeach Ledbury Watchet
Polurun Ross Were
Egremont Berkhemstead Farnham
Bradnesham Stoteford Kingston upon Thames
Crediton Greenwich Bradford
Exmouth Tunbridge Mere
Tremington Manchester Highworth
Liddeford Melton Mowbray Bromsgrove
Modbury Spalding Dudley
Southmolton Waynfleet Kidderminster
Teignmouth Bamberg Pershore
Torrington Corbrigg Doncaster
Blandford Burford Jervale
Winborn Chipping Norton Pickering
Sherborn Doddington Ravenser
Milton Whitney Tykhull
Chelmsford Oxbridge Hallifax
Bere Regis Chard Whitby
Alresford Dunster and
Alton Glastonbury Leeds
Basingstoke
Fareham
The three last named places were summoned during the Commonwealth--also
Manchester;--when discontinued, not known. Greenwich was summoned 4th and
5th of Philip and Mary; discontinued 6th of Philip and Mary. The other
places were principally summoned and discontinued during the reigns of
Edward the First, Second, and Third. Calais, in France, was summoned the
27th of Henry the Eighth; discontinued 3rd of Philip and Mary.
In the reign of Edward the Third, an act of Parliament, made in the reign
of William the Conqueror, was pleaded in the case of the Abbey of St.
Edmundsbury, and judicially allowed by the court. Hence it appears (says a
writer on this subject) that parliaments, or general councils, are coeval
with the kingdom itself.
The first triennial parliament was in the year 1561; the first septennial
one, in the year 1716.
Henry the Eighth increased the representatives in parliament 38; Edward
the Sixth, 44; Mary, 25; Elizabeth, 62; and James the First, 27.