SOUTH TRANSEPT, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

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By the time of Henry II. the elements of the Council had grown to be completely modified. The accepted usage of his reign was to summon the whole body of tenants holding directly from the crown (the tenants-in-chief); but except on special occasions, none but the magnates, the bishops, earls, and royal officers—"the greater barons"—were likely to attend. The Council gradually acquired organisation. We learn from Magna Charta that the "greater barons" received special summonses, addressed to them individually, while the "lesser barons" were summoned by a general writ, addressed to the sheriffs of each county. As a rule, the latter probably found that the trouble and expense of attendance were greater than their legislative zeal. This was the assembly that gave us the Great Charter, and in which during the reign of Henry III. the opposition to the royal will gained consistency and purpose under Simon de Montfort. The offshoots of the Great Council are important. The Curia Regis, or king's court, originally a committee of the Great Council, became first a small circle of confidential advisers, and then developed, under Henry I., into a high court of justice, with its two courts of the Exchequer and the King's Bench. The necessity of a more intimate body of ministers to advise the king upon knotty points continued, and by a process, which is exceedingly obscure, the Royal Council, known also as the "Perpetual" or "Ordinary" Council, was brought into being. Its chief feature was its permanence, and its importance dates from the minority of Henry III. It was in this body that the unpopular foreign advisers exercised their influence, and against which the majority of the Great Council fought. It continued to grow in importance until it developed into that powerful body, the Privy Council, of the era of the sovereigns of the House of Lancaster.

While the Great Council and the Royal Council were acquiring strength and authority, the idea of popular representation by means of organised estates was gradually assuming shape. The election of a few to represent the wants and aspirations of the many was by no means unknown in Anglo-Saxon times. It was, for instance, the custom of the reeve and four best men of each township to attend the county court; but there was no such body as a representative national deliberative body in existence. Parliament, in the words of Bishop Stubbs, is "the concentration of all the constituents of the shiremote in a central assembly." The Great Council contained the higher clergy and the baronage; the work was obviously to be completed by the addition of the lower clergy and the commons. Taxation was the spur which roused the nation to political life. It was felt, as the old legal maxim had it, that "what touched all should be allowed of all." The royal wants rapidly necessitated new sources of revenue, and so money was raised from personal property, or "movables." The first of these taxes was the Saladin tithe, imposed in 1188, and it soon became evident that the methods in vogue to obtain the consent of the taxed—such as the selection of a body of twelve men bound by oath, from the community of each shire to treat with the king or his representative—were slow and uncertain. Accordingly an important step was taken in 1213 when the Great Councils are found to contain other than their usual elements, one summoned to St. Albans being attended by men chosen from the towns, that to Oxford by men chosen from the shires. Again, in 1254, the sheriffs were directed to see that their several shires returned two knights, to settle what aid they were willing to give to the king; and similar instances occur during the intervening years, both sides being anxious to strengthen their case by an appeal to popular sympathy. The first instance of a combination of the representatives of the towns with those of the counties is Simon de Montfort's famous Parliament of 1265, which was attended by one hundred and seventeen dignified clergymen, twenty-three lay nobles, two men summoned from each shire through the sheriff, and two men summoned from each city and borough. It cannot, however, as we have seen, be regarded as a perfect Parliament. During the next thirty years there are many recorded instances of these immature assemblies. For instance, in 1282, there were two provincial Parliaments—one at York, and one at Northampton—in which the lower clergy and the commons were represented, but from which the lay nobility were absent. Again the gathering at Acton Burnell, held to see that David of Wales was tried, contained no clergy, and representatives only of twenty-one cities and boroughs. At last, in 1295, Edward I., surrounded by difficulties and vexations, resolved to throw himself upon the united nation. In October he issued writs for an assembly, which was a complete image of the nation, and in November it met. It was composed of ninety-seven of the greater clergy, the bishops, abbots, and priors; sixty-five earls and barons; thirty-nine judges and proctors, representing the lower clergy; and representatives of the counties, cities, and boroughs, summoned through the sheriff. It is most probable that the representatives of the shire were elected in the full county court, while the proceedings in the case of borough members seem to have been extremely various. No details exist of the earlier elections, except in the case of the city of London, and when we come to later times freedom of election had become seriously impaired through royal and aristocratic influence and the political lethargy of the citizens.

It was some time before the new deliberative body exercised all the powers which had belonged to its predecessor, the Grand Council. One of them, indeed—the judicial—it has taken care never to assume, and it was some time before the commons had any share in legislation. Summoned primarily for purposes of taxation, they at first confined themselves to that important function. In other respects the magnates were summoned, ad tractandum, to treat; the commons, ad consulendum et consentiendum, for their counsel and consent—that is, they were regarded as having inferior privileges. Nor were the elements of the Parliament at first by any means fixed. It seemed possible in the reign of Edward I. that there would be sub-estates of merchants and lawyers, as well as the three great estates of clergy, nobles, and commons; but these abnormal bodies soon ceased to have a separate existence. Nor was it clear how the line of cleavage would lie. The knights of the shire showed a disposition to coalesce with the barons, the representatives of the towns forming a second body, and the clergy a third. Eventually, however, the knights of the shire threw in their lot with the town members; the upper clergy formed a joint estate with the barons, of lords spiritual and temporal; while the lower clergy, following an unwise policy of isolation, preferred to tax themselves in convocation, and withdrew altogether from Parliament. The House of Lords, originally consisting simply of lay magnates, who received special writs of summons when their services were required, was rapidly converted into an assembly of the hereditary counsellors of the crown, whose title, created by royal patent, remained secure to them and their heirs for ever. This process took less than fifty years; and Parliaments, being summoned with regularity, became an essential feature in the constitution, and acquired a formidable defence of privilege.

All these circumstances marked the reign of Edward I. as one of the most important in our history. The organic principles which he introduced into the constitution struck deep and indestructible roots there, and have, by their permanent and progressive operation, made us in a great measure, as a nation, what we are.

Edward had a numerous family by his two wives, but a great many of his children died in their infancy. By his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, Edward, his heir and successor, was the only son, out of four, who survived him. Of eleven daughters by the same queen, four only appear to have lived. Joan was married, first to the Earl of Gloucester, and after his death to Ralph de Monthermer. Margaret married John, Duke of Brabant. Elizabeth married, first John, Count of Holland; and secondly, the Earl of Hereford. By his second wife, Margaret of France, Edward had a daughter who died in infancy, and two sons—Thomas, created Earl of Norfolk and Mareschal of England; and Edmund, made Earl of Kent by his brother, Edward II.

CHAPTER XXIX.