The want of all judicial authority, either to issue process or to examine witnesses, together with the usual shortness of sessions, deprived the house of commons of what is now considered one of its most fundamental privileges, the cognizance of disputed elections. Upon a false return by the sheriff, there was no remedy but through the king or his council. Six instances only, I believe, occur, during the reigns of the Plantagenet family, wherein the misconduct or mistake of the sheriff is recorded to have called for a specific animadversion, though it was frequently the ground of general complaint, and even of some statutes. The first is in the 12th of Edward II., when a petition was presented to the council against a false return for the county of Devon, the petitioner having been duly elected. It was referred to the court of exchequer to summon the sheriff before them.[251] The next occurs in the 36th of Edward III., when a writ was directed to the sheriff of Lancashire, after the dissolution of parliament, to inquire at the county-court into the validity of the election; and upon his neglect a second writ issued to the justices of the peace to satisfy themselves about this in the best manner they could, and report the truth into chancery. This inquiry after the dissolution was on account of the wages for attendance, to which the knights unduly returned could have no pretence.[252] We find a third case in the 7th of Richard II., when the king took notice that Thomas de Camoys, who was summoned by writ to the house of peers, had been elected knight for Surrey, and directed the sheriff to return another.[253] In the same year the town of Shaftesbury petitioned the king, lords, and commons against a false return of the sheriff of Dorset, and prayed them to order remedy. Nothing further appears respecting this petition.[254] This is the first instance of the commons being noticed in matters of election. But the next case is more material; in the 5th of Henry IV. the commons prayed the king and lords in parliament, that, because the writ of summons to parliament was not sufficiently returned by the sheriff of Rutland, this matter might be examined in parliament, and in case of default found therein an exemplary punishment might be inflicted; whereupon the lords sent for the sheriff and Oneby, the knight returned, as well as for Thorp, who had been duly elected, and, having examined into the facts of the case, directed the return to be amended, by the insertion of Thorp's name, and committed the sheriff to the Fleet till he should pay a fine at the king's pleasure.[255] The last passage that I can produce is from the roll of 18 H. VI., where "it is considered by the king, with the advice and assent of the lords spiritual and temporal," that, whereas no knights have been returned for Cambridgeshire, the sheriff shall be directed, by another writ, to hold a court and to proceed to an election, proclaiming that no person shall come armed, nor any