Aristocracy: The Constituted Bodies 37
even to qualify as a burgess one must own land of an annual rental value of £300.
It was estimated in 1740 that there were only 2,800 men in all England with £600
a year from land, and hence able legally to sit for the English counties. The Act of
1710 was often evaded (though not fully repealed until 1858); landless men did sit
in the eighteenth- century House, but only through the sponsorship or connivance
of landowners.
The House of Commons was elected, in a sense, and thus differed from the
more purely self- perpetuating and closed constituted bodies of the Continent. But
Parliament as a whole may almost be said to have recruited its own members, es-
pecially when we consider that the King, through his ministers, was part of the
Parliament, and remember that the Lords really named many members of the
Commons. Many elections saw no contest at all. In seven general elections from
1760 to 1800 less than a tenth of the county seats were contested. Of the bor-
oughs, some were purely inert in that their owners sold the seats or appointed the
members without question; some seats were as much a property as seats in the
French parlements. A few boroughs saw relatively democratic electoral contests;
and in others small cliques and factions fought savagely, but without regard to
public issues, to put their own men in the House. It may be added that Scotland
sent forty- five members to the House of Commons. But the Scotch counties had
fewer voters than the English, since the modern equivalent of forty fourteenth-
century shillings was required in land. There were only 2,665 county voters in all
Scotland, of whom 1,318 were what was frankly called “nominal and fictitious,”
that is, temporarily provided with land by some magnate in order to deliver a vote.
The Scotch boroughs were generally “closed”; 25 men, with a quorum of 13, chose
the members from Edinburgh.
The eighteenth- century House of Commons has lately been subjected to statis-
tical analysis. It appears that over half of all persons who sat in it for the century
from 1734 to 1832 had a close blood relative in the House before them; if more
were known of more distant relationships the proportion would be higher. There
were 21 Mannerses, 17 Townshends, and 13 Grenvilles. A Wyndham sat in every
Parliament but three from the Restoration to 1800, and indeed in half of all Par-
liaments from 1439 to 1913. After 1790 the number who had had fathers, grand-
fathers or greatgrandfathers in the House of Commons perceptibly increased. The
trend in the eighteenth century, that is, was toward more family rule. A quarter of
all members were baronets or sons of peers at the time they sat (i.e., noble by Con-
tinental standards); almost half were peers, sons of peers, or baronets when they
died. The trend was toward an increase in this direction. The House elected in 1796
had 220 knights, baronets, sons of peers, and actual peers (that is, Scotch and Irish
peers not sitting in the House of Lords). There was also a rising proportion of men
who had been to the English public schools and to Oxford and Cambridge, where
they absorbed the group spirit of a governing class. More also tended to be career
officers in the army or navy. In 1754 career officers in the House outnumbered
those trained in the law. The House elected in 1790 had 85 professional military
officers, almost a sixth of its membership. On the other hand—and the point is
very significant—an increasing proportion of the members had commercial inter-
ests, either as their sole economic concern or in addition to their interest in the