[265] It is a perplexing question whether freeholders in socage were liable to contribute towards the wages of knights; and authorities might be produced on both sides. The more probable supposition is, that they were not exempted. See the various petitions relating to the payment of wages in Prynne's fourth Register. This is not unconnected with the question as to their right of suffrage. See p. 115 of this volume. Freeholders within franchises made repeated endeavours to exempt themselves from payment of wages. Thus in 9 H. IV. it was settled by parliament that, to put an end to the disputes on this subject between the people of Cambridgeshire and those of the Isle of Ely, the latter should pay 200_l._ and be quit in future of all charges on that account. Rot. Parl. vol. iv. p. 383. By this means the inhabitants of that franchise seem to have purchased the right of suffrage, which they still enjoy, though not, I suppose, suitors to the county-court. In most other franchises, and in many cities erected into distinct counties, the same privilege of voting for knights of the shire is practically exercised; but whether this has not proceeded as much from the tendency of returning officers and of parliament to favour the right of election in doubtful cases, as from the merits of their pretensions, may be a question. [266] The wages of knights and burgesses were first reduced to this certain sum by the writs De levandis expensis, 16 E. II. Prynne's fourth Register, p. 53. These were issued at the request of those who had served, after the dissolution of parliament, and included a certain number of days, according to the distance of the county whence they came, for going and returning. It appears by these that thirty-five or forty miles were reckoned a day's journey; which may correct the exaggerated notions of bad roads and tardy locomotion that are sometimes entertained. See Prynne's fourth Register, and Willis's Notitia Parliamentaria, passim. The latest entries of writs for expenses in the close rolls are of 2 H. V.; but they may be proved to have issued much longer; and Prynne traces them to the end of Henry VIII.'s reign, p. 495. Without the formality of this writ a very few instances of towns remunerating their burgesses for attendance in parliament are known to have occurred in later times. Andrew Marvel is commonly said to have been the last who received this honourable salary. A modern book asserts that wages were paid in some Cornish boroughs as late as the eighteenth century. Lysons's Cornwall, preface, p. xxxii; but the passage quoted in proof of this is not precise enough to support so unlikely a fact. [267] 3 Prynne, p. 165. [268] 4 Prynne, p. 317. [269] 4 Prynne, p. 320. [270] 3 Prynne, p. 241. [271] 5 R. II. stat. ii. c. 4. [272] Luders's Reports, vol. i. p. 15. Sometimes an elected burgess absolutely refused to go to parliament, and drove his constituents to a fresh choice. 3 Prynne, p. 277. [273] 3 Prynne, p. 252.