Knight by order was paid more than an Esquire, and the latter more than a citizen or burgess. Finally the rate settled down at four shillings a day for Knights of the shire, and half that sum for representatives of towns. Few questions of those times excited greater interest than this payment of members. It could not be denied that, as the earliest writ of this kind alleged,* the Knights in the discharge of their duty had "made a longer delay than they expected, and had thereby incurred no small expense which it was fit that the commonalties electing them should defray, and not themselves." But although the actual charge might be reasonable, the necessity for incurring it was not on that account the less disagreeable. Protracted and frequent meetings of Parliament were consequently highly unpopular. The Parliament which met in 1406 was continued by prorogations for nearly a year. So lengthened a period had never before been known. Several contemporary writers† concur in describing this innovation as "a great blot on this reign." It was said to be "a great loss and damage to the commonalty, for the expense of their representatives was almost equal in value to the sum demanded for the subsidy." as some attendance upon Parliament was unavoidable, individual communities earnestly struggled to escape, where they could, the charge; or if the burthen was inevitable, quarrelled among themselves as to its incidence. Towns, where the liability to contribution hardly admitted of dispute, had recourse to various expedients to escape the burthen. Poverty seems to have been accepted as a legal excuse. For nearly a century the sheriffs of Lancashire alleged in their returns this claim to exemption for the boroughs in their bailiwick. Some boroughs § such * Parry, xxxii. Hallam, Middle Ages, iii. 115. But + See Parry's Parliaments, 166. as Chard steadily persisted in not making any return; and it was probably thought useless to compel them. Torrington obtained a charter of exemption. Colchester was excused for five years in consequence of the expense it had incurred in the erection of fortifications. Norwich was so aggrieved at a summons to elect four citizens, in circumstances apparently similar to those of Bristol,* that it paid, as we have seen, a considerable sum for those times to avoid the infliction. In the counties, on the other hand, where there was in ordinary circumstances no from representation, the contest turned upon the persons liable to contribute to the wages. Sometimes the tenants of the Lords claimed exemption. Sometimes franchises. beyond the jurisdiction of the Sheriff refused to contribute. Sometimes it was insisted that lands formerly contributory ceased to be liable on passing into the hands of Lords of Parliament. Sometimes the Sheriffs sought to extend the rate not only to the freehold tenants of the Lords and Bishops but also to their villeins. Many of these disputes seem to have been settled by a statute of 1388,† of which the policy was evidently to widen the area of contribution. But under the Lancastrian Kings the question of wages was the subject of frequent petitions from the Commons. The natural laws which regulate the remuneration of services apply to the wages of members of Parliament not less than to those of their humblest constituents. Accordingly we find at an early period that competition largely influenced Parliamentary prices. There is extant an indictment of the Sheriff of Lancashire for that, in the fourteenth year of Edward the Second, he had returned two persons as Knights of the shire without the assent of the County * See Parry's Parliaments, 163. + 12 Rich. II.; Parry, xxxiv. * Court, and had levied twenty pounds for their expenses in attending the Parliament at Westminster, "whereas the county could by their own election have found two good. and sufficient men who would have gone to Parliament for ten marks or ten pounds." In the third year of Edward the Fourth the burgesses of Weymouth† were fortunate in obtaining the services of John Sackvylle for one cade of mackerel, which was half the usual rate. In this reign, indeed, there is evidence that the possession of a seat in Parliament was greatly desired by country gentlemen. But subject to such special agreements the old practice continued for nearly a century later. In the sixth year of Henry the Eighth members were forbidden to depart from Parliament or to absent themselves without leave on pain of forfeiture of their wages. In the twenty-seventh and thirty-fourth years of the same reign the Acts which extended the electoral franchise to Wales and to Cheshire S carefully made provision for the payment of the new Knights, citizens, and burgesses. The issue of the usual writs has been traced to the end of this reign. In the reign of Edward the Sixth it is recorded ¶ that John Wadham agreed to serve for Melcombe without pay. But the reign of Elizabeth may probably be taken as the period at which honorary service in Parliament became general. The importance of the House of Commons had greatly increased. The wealth of the country had also increased. Four shillings and two shillings were much less important sums to the subjects of the Tudors than they had been to the victors of Cressy or of Agincourt. The remuneration in honour thus became a sufficient inducement to serve, * Palgrave, Truths and Fictions of the Middle Ages, xvii. + Roberts, 472. § Parry, xxxv. Roberts, 472. Middle Ages, iii. 119, note. || Middle Ages, iii. 114, note. without the inducement in wages. It is of course impossible to fix a precise date for a change which was probably gradual. Sir Simonds D'Ewes, a high Parliamentary authority in the time of Charles the First, alleges that the custom of members bearing their own charges led to the resumption of their abandoned franchise by several towns, both in the reign of Elizabeth and of James. In the debates on the subject of wages in the House of Commons in 1677 it was asserted that for nearly one hundred years the practice had been disused, a date which would bring the commencement of a change about the middle of Elizabeth's reign. In the same reign, too, we meet with a very significant occurrence. The competition for seats had gone so far that the prudent Mayor of Westbury found that an election, so far from being burthensome, could actually be made profitable to his town. The borough accordingly returned, in consideration of the sum of four pounds, one Walter Long," a very simple and unfit man," who, on being questioned how he came to be chosen, confessed the entire arrangement. The election was declared void, and the mayor and his accomplices punished-a very hard measure, as they must have thought, for doing what they liked with their own. But although the right has long been in abeyance, the legal obligation of constituencies has never been removed. In the Long Parliament of Charles the Second the arrears due to members must have amounted to a considerable sum. Accordingly when one of its members, Sir Thomas Shaw, sued out his writ de expensis against the town of Colchester, a general alarm† was excited; and a bill was introduced to exonerate the electors from the payment of wages to any member of that Parliament. This measure, however, did not become law; and the old common law right still remains. The last instance in which it was exercised appears to have been in 1681,* when, in the fourth Parliament of King Charles, John King sued out his writ against the burgesses of Harwich. It thus appears that by our ancient constitutional usage no persons were bound to serve in Parliament gratuitously; that the payment of members was a charge upon the communities which those members were chosen to represent; that this payment was originally intended merely as an indemnity and not as a source of gain; and that the disuse of this practice is due to the influence of social changes, and not to any formal alteration of the law. This ancient remuneration for public service thus differs widely from that form of payment of members which has been advocated by some modern political reformers. The latter project contemplates payment not by the constituencies but by the state. Such an arrange ment would be equivalent to the creation of so many salaried offices of which the patronage was vested in the several constituencies. Daily experience shows the carelessness with which appointments are made even in cases directly affecting men's own interests, where the sense of that interest is dulled by being shared with a large number of persons. When, therefore, a large constituency has the patronage of a lucrative office for which the funds are supplied from without, there can be neither any sense of interest in dealing with their own property, nor any sense of responsibility in dealing with the property of others. There are thus no guarantees for care in selection. On the other side there would be in such circumstances a strong and increasing tendency towards a misuse of the power. It is not probable that any such remuneration |