es of representative
usage, and on the testimony of later facts, that the knights of the shire
were elected by the full county court."[26]

The county court or shire-moot not only elected knights for Parliament; it
often enough elected them for local purposes as well. The county coroner
was elected in similar fashion by the county. All the chief tenants and
small freeholders were therefore the county electors; but the
tenants-in-chief (who held their lands from the Crown) and the knights of
the county had naturally considerably more influence than the smaller men.
"The chief lord of a great manor would have authority with his tenants,
freeholders as they might be, which would make their theoretical equality a
mere shadow, and would, moreover, be exercised all the more easily because
the right which it usurped was one which the tenant neither understood nor
cared for."[27]

It is difficult to decide to what extent the smaller freeholders could take
an active interest in the affairs of the county. As for the office of
knight of the shire, there was no competition in the thirteenth or
fourteenth century for the honour of going to Parliament, and it is likely
enough that the sheriff, upon whom rested the responsibility for the
elections, would in some counties be obliged to nominate and compel the
attendance of an unwilling candidate.

(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.

In 1430, the eighth year of Henry VI., an Act was passed ordering that
electors must be resident in the country, and must have free land or
tenement to the value of 40s. a year at least; and this Act was in
operation till 1831.

The county franchise was a simple