Family Lessons 140: Corrupt Elections

In 1324, a writ of complaint was issued by a Grand Jury for the Lancashire Hundred (i.e. county subdivision) of West Derby. It accused the High Sheriff of Lancashire, William le Gentil (who served 1320-22), of returning Gilbert de Haydock and Thomas de Thornton as Members of Parliament for Lancashire without the electors' consent, and for which unreasonable expenses were claimed. Dodgy elections and fraudulent expense claims are not issues unknown to our own times, and it seems that there is more continuity with our medieval past than we might imagine. To support its accusations, the Grand Jury also claimed that Sheriff le Gentil’s predecessor, Henry de Malton (who served 1317-1320), engaged in a similar practice, returning "William de Slene and William de Walton in the same manner’’. (First Acts of Edward III, in a document called Testa de Neville, cited in Baines’ History of Lancashire, Vol 1, 1868). One wonders why they never objected to that earlier, alleged instance of election chicanery.

William de Walton (born 1285), was my 23 x great-grandfather, and it is curious to think that he might have served as an MP without the electors’ actual consent. Although very few people had the vote back then, those who did jealously guarded their rights, and were loathe to see the county’s Sheriff appoint his own choice of representative on their behalf. De Walton was likely chosen because he was friends with the Sheriff, or was a known sympathiser with the King, whose officer and agent the Sheriff was, and who would vote in the 'correct' way. The good voters of West Derby Hundred may have thought otherwise. Whether his expenses, which the local taxpayers had to reimburse, were deemed unreasonable is not recorded.

It is not clear if this was brazen corruption or just administrative lethargy; an electoral system which excluded every woman and most men may hardly be commended as fair to begin with. Yet Members of the Commons who were not legitimately elected might have called the whole of the Parliament- and its decisions and laws- into question.

Let us not cut corners or be casual with our ethics. Let us do the right thing, whether it be little or large, obvious or discreet. In the long run, we shall be the better for it.

To do mercy and doom, pleaseth more the Lord, than sacrifices. Proverbs 21:3, Wycliffe's Bible

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Proverbs 21:3, New King James Version