our eyes along the map, we find any sea-port, as Sunderland or Falmouth, or any inland town, as Leeds or Birmingham, which has never enjoyed the elective franchise, we may conclude at once that it has emerged from obscurity since the reign of Henry VIII.[65] Though scarce any considerable town, probably, was intentionally left out, except by the sheriffs' partiality, it is not to be supposed that all boroughs that made returns were considerable. Several that are currently said to be decayed, were never much better than at present. Some of these were the ancient demesne of the Crown; the tenants of which not being suitors to the county courts, nor voting in the election of knights for the shire, were, still on the same principle of consent to public burthens, called upon to send their own representatives. Others received the privilege along with their charter of incorporation, in the hope that they would thrive more than proved to be the event; and possibly, even in such early times, the idea of obtaining influence in the Commons through the votes of their burgesses might sometimes suggest itself. That, amidst all this care to secure the positive right of representation, so little provision should have been made as to its relative efficiency, that the high-born and opulent gentry should have been so vastly outnumbered by peddling traders, that the same number of two should have been deemed sufficient for the counties of York and Rutland, for Bristol and Gatton, are facts more easy to wonder at than to explain; for, though the total ignorance of the government as to the relative population might be perhaps a sufficient reason for not making an attempt at equalisation, yet if the representation had been founded on anything like a numerical principle, there would have been no difficulty in reducing it to the proportion furnished by the books of subsidy for each county and borough, or at least in a rude approximation towards a more rational distribution. Henry VIII. gave a remarkable proof that no part of the kingdom, subject to the English laws and parliamentary burthens, ought to want its representation, by extending the right of election to the whole of Wales, the counties of Chester and Monmouth, and even the towns of Berwick and Calais. It might be possible to trace the reason, why the county of Durham was passed over. The attachment of those northern parts to popery seems as likely as any other. Thirty-three were thus added to the Commons. Edward VI. created fourteen boroughs, and restored ten that had disused their privilege. Mary added twenty-one, Elizabeth sixty, and James twenty-seven members.[66]