Mr. Andrew Marvell, 240
Mr. Edward Barnard, 195
Mr. John Ramsden, 122
Marvell was not present at or before the election, for on the 6th of
April he writes:--
"I perceive by Mr. Mayor that you have again (as if it were grown a
thing of course) made choice of me now, the third time, to serve for
you in Parliament, which as I cannot attribute to anything but your
constancy, so shall I, God willing, as in gratitude obliged, with no
less constancy and vigour continue to execute your commands and study
your service."
A word may here be said about payment of borough members. The members'
fee was 6s. 8d. for every day the Parliament lasted. The wages were paid
by the corporation out of the borough funds. It was never a popular
charge. Burgesses in many places cared as little for M.P.'s as do some
of their successors for free libraries. Prynne, perhaps the greatest
parliamentary lawyer that ever lived, told Pepys one day, as they were
driving to the Temple, that the number of burgesses to be returned to
Parliament for any particular borough was not, for aught Prynne could
find, fixed by law, but was at first left to the discretion of the
sheriff, and that several boroughs had complained of the sheriff's
putting them to the charge of sending up burgesses.
In August 1661 the corporation paid Marvell L28 for his fee as one of
their burgesses, being 6s. 8d. a day for eighty-four days, the length of
the Convention Parliament. Marvell continued to take his wages until the
end of his days; but it is perhaps a mistake to suppose he was the very
last member to do so. It was, however, unusual in Marvell's time.[96:1]
This Pensionary Parliament, though of a very decided "Church and King"
complexion, was not in its original composition a body lacking character
or independence, but it steadily deteriorated in both respects.
Vacancies, as they occurred, and they occurred very frequently in those
days of short lives, were filled up by courtiers and pensioners.
In the small tract, entitled _Flagellum Parliamentum_, which is a highly
libellous "Dod," often attributed to Marvell, a record is preserved of
more than two hundred members of this Parliament in 1675. Despite some
humorous touches, this _Flagellum Parliamentum_ is still disagreeable to
read. But the most graphic picture we have of this Parliament is to be
found in one of Lord Shaftesbury's political tracts entitled "A letter
from a
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