r Oxford, nor for any constituency (p. 255)
in the diocese of Winchester, but for the borough of Taunton.[720]
Crown influence could only make itself effectively felt in the limited
number of royal boroughs; and the attempts to increase that influence
by the creation of constituencies susceptible to royal influence were
all subsequent in date to 1529. The returns of members of Parliament
are not extant from 1477 to 1529, but a comparison of the respective
number of constituencies in those two years reveals only six in 1529
which had not sent members to a previous Parliament; and almost if not
all of these six owed their representation to their increasing
population and importance, and not to any desire to pack the House of
Commons. Indeed, as a method of enforcing the royal will upon
Parliament, the creation of half a dozen boroughs was both futile and
unnecessary. So small a number of votes was useless, except in the
case of a close division of well-drilled parties, of which there is no
trace in the Parliaments of Henry VIII.[721] The House of Commons
acted as a whole, and not in two sections. "The sense of the House"
was more apparent in its decisions then than it is to-day. Actual
divisions were rare; either a proposal commended itself to the House,
or it did not; and in both cases the question was usually determined
without a vote.

[Footnote 718: This seems to have been the object
of Southampton's tour through the constituencies of
Surrey and Hampshire in March, 1539; with one of
Gardiner's pocket-boroughs he did not meddle,
because the lord chamberlain was the Bishop's
steward there (_L. and P._, xiv., i., 520). There
were some royal nominees in the House of Commons.
In 1523 the members for Cumberland were nominated
by the Crown (_ibid._, iii., 2931); at Calais the
lord-deputy and council elected one of the two
burgesses and the mayor and burgesses the other
(_ibid._, x., 736). Calais and the Scottish Borders
were of course exceptionally under Crown influence,
but this curious practice may have been observed in
some other cities and boroughs; in 1534, for
instance, the King was to nominate to one of the