No person holding a lucrative office under the state or the United States, no salaried officer of a railroad company, and no officer of any court of record is eligible for membership in either house.
The chief officer of this, as of other forests, was the justice in eyre who held the justice seat, the highest forest court and the only court of record capable of entering and executing judgments on offenders; the lower courts were the Swainmote and Wodemote, the former of which is still held, in a modified form, in the Verderers' Hall of the King's House at Lyndhurst.
To remedy this defect, a statute (called the Statute of Enrolments) was passed in the same year, which provided that every conveyance by bargain and sale of freehold lands should be enrolled in a court of record or with the custos rotulorum of the county within six months of its date.
In 1618 the borough received its first charter of incorporation from James I., instituting a governing body of a mayor, 12 chief burgesses, and 12 assistant burgesses, with a recorder, deputy-recorder, townclerk and two serjeants-at-mace; a court of record every fortnight on Tuesday; and fairs at Michaelmas and on the second Tuesday after Trinity Sunday, which were kept up until within the last fifty years.
It returned two members to parliament in 1302, but no charter of incorporation was issued until that of Elizabeth in 1590, instituting a common council of a mayor and eighteen burgesses, three of whom were to be elected capital burgesses, with a recorder, steward of the borough court, two sergeants-at-mace, and a court of record every three weeks on Monday.
