Two knights of the shire were to be elected for the county of Monmouth, and one Burgess for the borough of Monmouth. Fees to these representatives—"such fees as other knights of the Parliament" had—were to be levied and paid.
On only two occasions before the passing of this Act is there any record of Wales being represented in the English Parliament. The first was in 1322, when twenty-four members were summoned as representatives from South Wales and the same number from North Wales to appear in the famous Parliament of York which enunciated the great constitutional principle that all legislative changes required the assent of the three estates of the Realm. The second occasion was in 1326-7, when forty-eight representatives appeared at Westminster in the Parliament which deposed Edward the Second.[1] From the passing of this Act of 1535 to the great Reform Act of 1832 there was no further change in the number of parliamentary representatives for Wales.
Every lay and temporal Lord Marcher, by the 14th and 30th sections of this Act, was to retain all his privileges and hold his accustomed courts. This was extended to ecclesiastical Lords in the reign of Philip and Mary (1-2 Philip and Mary, c. 15).
The "laudable customs" in vogue in the three ancient shires of North Wales were saved, together with the liberties of the Duchy of Lancaster within Wales. It was expressly provided that the vested interests of persons who had enjoyed fees or offices should not be disturbed during their lives. It was also enacted that Henry's Act of 1534 (26 Henry 8, c. 6), which dealt with the trial of murders and felonies committed within any Lordship Marcher in Wales, and provided for the trial of those offences in the next adjoining shire of England, was not to be affected in any manner.
That this Act of 1535 was only meant to be an instalment
- ↑ Lingard's "Hist. of England," iii. p. 328; Stubbs's "Const. Hist.," ii. pp. 382-392; Rymer, ii. 484649.
