Note 2 — INTRODUCTIONToC
Reading edition
The Instrument of Government (December 1653) established a franchise qualification of rent or personal estate to the value of £200. This certainly would have enfranchised a large number of copyholders and leaseholders, some of whom were much better off than the small freeholders. For an estate of £299, 15s. 4d. left at death by a tenant “Husbandman"” see Nottingham Borough Records under the year 1599 (vol. iv. pp. 249–252). It was made up as follows: “Money in purse and his clothes, £15; value of beasts, £74; corn sowne in fields, £35; value of furniture in hall, £2, 13s.; in parlour, £5, 14s., and other miscellaneous possessions.” For wills of husbandmen and yeomen see Surtees Society, vol. lxxix., pp. 181–182, 263–264, 294, 310. For the restoration of the franchise to the freeholders, see Gardiner, The Commonwealth, iii. 78.