time; but four years afterwards, after two debates, it was carried on the question, by 125 to 73, that by virtue of the charter granted to the town of Newark, it hath right to send burgesses to serve in parliament.[68] Notwithstanding this apparent recognition of the king's prerogative to summon burgesses from a town not previously represented, no later instance of its exercise has occurred; and it would unquestionably have been resisted by the Commons, not, as is vulgarly supposed, because the act of union with Scotland has limited the English members to 513 (which is not the case), but upon the broad maxims of exclusive privilege in matters relating to their own body, which the house was become powerful enough to assert against the Crown. It is doubtless a problem of no inconsiderable difficulty to determine with perfect exactness, by what class of persons the electoral franchise in ancient boroughs was originally possessed; yet not perhaps so much so as the carelessness of some, and the artifices of others, have caused it to appear. The different opinions on this controverted question may be reduced to the four following theses:--1. The original right as enjoyed by boroughs represented in the parliaments of Edward I., and all of later creation, where one of a different nature has not been expressed in the charter from which they derive the privilege, was in the inhabitant householders resident in the borough, and paying scot and lot, under those words including local rates, and probably general taxes. 2. The right sprang from the tenure of certain freehold lands or burgages within the borough, and did not belong to any but such tenants. 3. It was derived from charters of incorporation, and belonged to the community or freemen of the corporate body. 4. It did not extend to the generality of freemen, but was limited to the governing part or municipal magistracy. The actual right of election, as fixed by determinations of the House of Commons before 1772, and by committees under the Grenville act since, is variously grounded upon some of these four principal rules, each of which has been subject to subordinate modifications which produce still more complication and irregularity.