Pricking For Sheriffs

In England, when the yearly list of persons nominated for the office of sheriff is submitted to the queen, she took a pin, and to insure impartiality, as it is said, she let the point of it fall upon one of the three names nominated for each county, etc., and the person upon whose name it chanced to fall was sheriff for the ensuing year. This is called "pricking for sheriffs." Atk. Sheriffs, 18.

The name of an old method of electing the sheriffs of the different counties of England. Originally, the sheriffs were chosen by the people in their folkmote or county court; but these popular elections growing tumultuous, and the crown also seeking to augment its influence in parliament, they were put an end to by 9 Edw. II. st. 2, and it was enacted that the sheriffs should be assigned by the chancellor, treasurer, barons of the exchequer, and by the justices, and, in the absence of the chancellor, by the others, without him; and since the time of Henry VI. it became the custom for these or some of these distinguished and learned persons was latterly altered to the morrow of St. Martin, by the act for abbreviating Michaelmas term, 24 Geo. II. ch. 48, § 12), and then and there to propose three persons to the king (or queen), who afterwards appointed one of them to be the sheriff, and this was done by marking each name with the prick of a pin; and for that reason this particular election was generally termed pricking for sheriffs. Brown.