The word faggot originally meant a piece or bundle of gathered firewood.
It was later applied to civilians added to a military muster roll purely to make up the numbers rather than to serve as soldiers.
Prohibition of vote buying was difficult to enforce if the faggot was an employee of the landowner.
[2] Edward Porritt found the earliest instances of faggot voting in the 1620s under Charles I.
His amendment to restrict the vote to "men who had business in the City of London" was defeated.