As women were Burgesses and Liberi Homines, the right was _given_ to them as well as to men. Plowden (“Jura Anglorum,” p. 438) remarks that “the Knights of the Shire represented landed property, the Burgesses the interests of manufacture or trade”; as women could be Traders they were recognised as having the rights of Traders. The qualifications of Electors in Boroughs were very far from uniform or certain, as may have been noted in the Gatton case. In Bath the Franchise was limited to the Mayor and Corporation. Sometimes it was limited to freeholders, sometimes to freeholders resident, at other times to inhabitants, in other cases to inhabitants paying Scot and Lot. In London the Franchise was exercised by all paying Scot or Lot. In Newcastle-on-Tyne, the Parliamentary Franchise devolved on a Freeman’s widow, who could also carry on his business. (Brand’s “History and Antiquities of Newcastle,” vol. ii., p. 367.) The ordinances of Worcester (6 Edward IV., 49)—“Also that every eleccion of citizens for to come to the Parliament, that they be chosen openly in the gelde Halle of such as ben dwellynge within the fraunches and by the moste voice, accordinge to the lawe and to the statutes in such cases ordayned and not privily” (“Early English Gilds,” J. Toulmin Smith). In Shrewsbury, prior to the Reform Act, the right of returning members of Parliament for the Borough was vested exclusively in _Burgesses_ paying Scot and Lot. (“Mun. Com.,” p. 2014.) Rhuddlan—“Here, as in the other contributory boroughs to Flint, the franchise is exercised by all resident inhabitants paying Scot and Lot.” (“Mun. Com.,” p. 2840.) In the Reports of Controverted Elections, Luders mentions that of Lyme Regis, 1789. The dispute was whether non-resident burgesses could record their vote. Among the old burgess lists brought forward to elucidate the qualifications for electors, that of 29 Sept., 19 Eliz., was produced. The first three names on the list were of three women—“Burgenses sive liberi tenentes Elizabetha filiæ Thomæ Hyatt, Crispina Bowden Vidua, Alicia Toller Vidua,” then follow the names of several men. To these were added in 21 Eliz. two names of “liberi burgenses jure uxoris.” Later records show an increased number of women’s names on the register of this borough. The case of Holt _v._ Lyle or Coats _v._ Lisle in 14 James I., in discussing the right of a clergyman to vote, affirms as a side issue that “a _feme sole_, if she have a freehold, can vote for a Parliament man, but if she is married, her husband must vote for her.” A limitation again expressed in Catherine _v._ Surrey, preserved in Hakewell’s “Manuscript Cases.”