Note 28 — Chapter II

(2) Payment of Parliamentary Representatives.—The fact that Members of Parliament were paid by their constituents in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries[28] made certain small freeholders as anxious not to be included in the electorate as others were anxious not to be elected to Parliament. It was recognised as "fair that those persons who were excluded from the election should be exempt from contribution to the wages. And to many of the smaller freeholders the exemption from payment would be far more valuable than the privilege of voting."[29] But the Commons generally petitioned for payment to be made by all classes of freeholders, and when all allowance has been made for varying customs and for local diversities and territorial influence, it is safe to take it that the freeholders were the body of electors.