[(54)] This common mistake and its cause are fully explained by Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 237.
[(55)] “The two Houses had contended violently in 1675, concerning the appellate jurisdiction of the Lords; they had contended, with not less violence, in 1704, upon the jurisdiction of the Commons in matters of election; they had quarrelled rudely, in 1770, while insisting upon the exclusion of strangers. But upon general measures of public policy their differences had been rare and unimportant.” May’s Constitutional History, i. 307. The writer goes on to show why differences between the two Houses on important points have become more common in very recent times.
[(56)] The share of the Witan in early times in the appointment of Bishops, Ealdormen, and other great officers, need hardly be dwelled upon. For a debate in a Witenagemót of Eadward the Confessor on a question of peace or war, see Norman Conquest, ii. 90. For the like under Henry the Third, see the account in Matthew Paris, in the year 1242 which will be found in Stubbs, 359. The state of the case under Edward the Third is discussed by Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 184. See also May, ii. 86. But the most remarkable passage of all is one in the great poetical manifesto which I have several times quoted: it is there (Political Songs, 96) made one of the charges against Henry the Third that he wished to keep the appointment of the great officers of state in his own hands. The passage is long, but it is well worth quoting at length.
“Rex cum suis voluit ita liber esse;
Et sic esse debuit, fuitque necesse
Aut esse desineret rex, privatus jure
Regis, nisi faceret quidquid vellet; curæ
Non esse magnatibus regni quos præferret
Suis comitatibus, vel quibus conferret
Castrorum custodiam, vel quem exhibere