A HISTORY OF SURREY at Guildford instead of at Letherhead 'as had always been the custom." But in 1 195 the justices in eyre had sat at Guildford, not Letherhead ; and in 1 202 Guildford Castle had been the county gaol, which would make us infer that justice was there administered. At all events the continual residence of John and Henry III. at Guildford, and the exist- ence of the castle prison and fortress with its outbuildings of royal houses, would raise Guildford to an importance unapproached by any other place in Surrey except the London suburbs. It was also a corporation with an early merchant guild. Southwark was also represented on its merits. As times went Southwark was an important place, and like Guildford partly in the hands of the king as a royal manor. Kingston was not represented under Edward I. but returned members in 1311, 1313, 1353" and 1373. It is rather remarkable that Kingston was not represented earlier and continuously. It was royal demesne, specially favoured by successive kings with grants of markets, tolls and so on, and clearly a place of some ancient importance. Tradi- tionally the inhabitants used the royal favour to beg themselves off from the expense of returning members, 3 but the wonder is that such dutiful subjects were allowed to be excused. Down to Charles I.'s civil wars the men of Kingston were also king's men. But when we go beyond these places there was nothing that even the thirteenth century could have reckoned as a large centre of population in Surrey. Reigate and Blechingley returned members for de Warenne and de Clare that the leaders of influential opinion in the country might have a voice in the popular House. On the same principle de Clare was also represented by Tonbridge and the Earl of Arundel by Arundel and Midhurst. Similarly Farnham returned members in 1311 and 1460 in fact for the Bishop of Winchester. The other formerly existing Surrey parliamentary boroughs extinguished in 1832 were Gatton, a rotten borough called into exis- tence by Henry VI. to gratify a favourite, and Haslemere, little better than a rotten borough, created by Elizabeth to strengthen royal influence in the Commons. The mercantile interest in Surrey was on one occasion at least represented by others besides the borough members. In 1340 Edward III. called a council of merchants to sit with the Parliament, and three merchants were returned from Surrey, residents in Guildford, Epsom and Merrow respectively. 4 The name of the last, William le Chapman, is suggestive of the travelling trader, whose home at Merrow was upon the great cross road, the Pilgrims' Way. In the Parliaments of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there also sat besides the earls the representatives of three baronies by writ whose titles came from Surrey. John de St. John was summoned by writ as lord St. John of Lagham, in Godstone, in 1299. Roger Hussey 1 ' Comitatus qui semper solebat teneri apud Leddrede,' Assize Roll 873, 43 Hen. III.
- Prynne's Registers, p. iv. But no names preserved of representatives this year.
3 The petition is not extant. Lysons mentions it as preserved at Kingston. 4 Part. Writs and Returns, sub anno 1 340. 350
