Oxford was first enfranchised in 1295, but the city had earlier hosted the "mad" parliament of 1258. Charles I moved parliament to Oxford during the civil war, and his son Charles II did the same in 1681. The 1832 election saw the great-great-great-grandfather of the former NS arts editor Frances Stonor Saunders elected. William Makepeace Thackeray had a go in 1859, but lost. In 1880, the city lost its right to representation altogether after an inquiry into corruption at the by-election, caused by Sir William Harcourt's elevation to the cabinet. The incriminating evidence was a letter detailing Tory payments found in the street by a boy outside the London and County bank. The deposed Tory Alexander William Hall
had the last laugh: he triumphed in the 1885 contest and Liberal domination of Oxford was broken for a generation.