Note 551 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
The number of these was intended to be two hundred, but only ninety-three patents were sold in the first six years. Lingard, ix. 203, from Somers Tracts. In the first part of his reign he had availed himself of an old feudal resource, calling on all who held £40 a year in chivalry (whether of the crown or not, as it seems) to receive knighthood, or to pay a composition. Rymer, xvi. 530. The object of this was of course to raise money from those who thought the honour troublesome and expensive, but such as chose to appear could not be refused; and this accounts for his having made many hundred knights in the first year of his reign. Harris's Life of James, 69.