Under Henry VI a property qualification was established by act of
Parliament which cut off all persons from voting for countyy members
of the House of Commons who did not have an income of forty shillings
(say 40 pounds, or $200, in modern money) from freehold land. County
elections, the statute said, had "of late been made by a very great,
outrageous, and excessive number of people...of which the most part
were people of small substance and of no value."
Later, candidates for the House of Commons from the counties were
required to be gentlemen by birth, and to have an income of not less
than 20 pounds (or say 400 pounds, or $2000, in modern money). Though
the tendency of such laws was to make the House of Commons represent
property holders more than the freemen as a body, yet no apparent
change seems to have taken place in the class of county members
chosen.
Eventually, however, these and other interferences with free elections
caused the rebellion of Jack Cade, in which the insurgents demanded
the right to choose such representatives as they saw fit. But the
movement appears to have had no practical result. During the civil
war which ensued, King Edward IV compelled wealthy subjects to lend
him large sums (seldom, if ever, repaid) called "benevolences."
Richard III abolished this obnoxious system, but afterward revived it,
and it became conspicuously hateful under his successor in the next
period.
Another great grievance was Purveyance. By it the King's purveyors
had the right to seize provisions and means of transportation for the
King and his hundreds of attendants whenever they journeyed through
the country on a "royal progress." The price offered by the purveyors
was always much below the real value of what was taken, and frequently
even that was not paid. Purveyance, which had existed from the
earliest times, was not finally abolished until 1660.