pleasure and commandment, that Robert Sacknell and John Bridges[1] should be burgesses of the Parliament for the same city of Canterbury; by virtue whereof, according to our bounden duty, immediately upon the sight of your said letter and contents thereof perceived, we caused the commonalty of the said city to assemble in the court hall, where appeared the number of four score and seventeen persons, citizens and inhabitants of the said city; and according to the King's pleasure and commandment, freely with one voice, and without any contradiction, have elected and chosen the said Robert Sacknell and John Bridges to be burgesses of the Parliament for the same city, which shall be duly certified by indenture under the seal of the said citizens and inhabitants by the grace of the blessed Trinity.'
The first election, therefore, had been set aside by the absolute will of the Crown, and the hope that so violent a proceeding might be explained tolerably through some kind of decent resignation is set aside by a further letter, stating that one of the persons originally chosen, having presumed to affirm that he was 'a true and proper burgess of the city,' he had been threatened into submission by a prospect of the loss of a lucrative office which he held under the corporation.[2]
- ↑ The two persons whom Cromwell had previously named.
- ↑ Letters of the Mayor of Canterbury to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, vol. v.In my first edition this affair is referred to the election of 1539. We are left often to internal evidence to fix the dates of letters, and finding the second of those written by the Mayor of Canterbury, on this subject, addressed to Cromwell as lord privy seal, I supposed that it must refer to the only election
