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From 1265, two burgesses from each borough were summonded to the Parliament of England, along with two knights from each county. The electoral franchise depended on the individual borough, and some of these borough seats became rotten boroughs. With the Reform Acts, the franchise was expanded and the electorates of constituencies roughly equalised, removing much of the distinction between borough and county seats; however a distinction between urban and rural areas was retained for calculating maximum permitted election expenses on the grounds that borough seats required the candidates to undertake less traveling.