[354] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 536-541.
[355] Davies’ Southampton, 168. In 1422 a Winchester burgess paid £10 to be free of holding any office save that of Mayor for the rest of his life. Another paid five marks to be freed from ever taking the office of bailiff. (Gross, ii. 259-260.) In Lynn, when a man was chosen jurat, “he took time till the next assembly to bring ten pounds into the Hall, or otherwise to accept the burden.” (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 167.) Fine for refusal to go to Yarmouth as bailiff of Cinque Ports, and payment to substitute (Ibid. v. 541). In 1491 an Act was passed forbidding the burgesses of Leicester to refuse the Chamberlainship. Sixty years later another Act ordered them not to refuse the Mayoralty. By Acts of 1499 and 1500 members who absented themselves from the Court of Portmanmote at Whitsuntide and Christmas were fined. (Ibid. viii. 426.) In Canterbury certain powers were exempted by writ from serving on juries, 1415. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 169.)
[356] Shillingford’s Letters, xxiii.
[357] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 527.
[358] Lyon’s Dover, Custumals, vol. ii. 267, &c.
[359] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425; Boys’ Sandwich, 679, A.D. 1493. Gross, The Gild Merchant, ii. 276.
[360] The charter of Edward the Fourth to Colchester declared that the burghers should never be appointed against their will in any assizes or any quests outside the borough; nor to any post of collector of taxes or aids, or of constable, bailiff, &c., nor should they be liable to any fine for refusing these posts. (Cromwell’s Colchester, 257.) The Winchester people paid a sum about 1422 “to excuse every citizen of the city from being collector of the King’s money within the county of Southampton.” (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 602.)
[361] Thus in Hythe there was a privileged body who were not of the franchise, but were still apparently subject to the town jurisdiction, and excused by a writ called Dormand from Hundred Court and Shire Court and inquests. See also Preston Guild Record, xii., xvi., xx., xxix.
[362] English Guilds, 394. Blomefield, Hist. of Norfolk, iii., 80.
[363] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 544-545. At one time when Preston was much distressed, it was ordained that decayed burgesses unable to pay their yearly taxes should not lose their freedom because of poverty. (Thomson’s Mun. History, 104. Custumale in Hist. of Preston Guild.)