View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, Vol. 3

by Henry Hallam

London.

From the middle of the twelfth century to that of the thirteenth the traders of England became more and more prosperous. The towns on the southern coast exported tin and other metals in exchange for the wines of France; those on the eastern sent corn to Norway—the Cinque Ports bartered wool against the stuffs of Flanders.[f] Though bearing no comparison with the cities of Italy or the Empire, they increased sufficiently to acquire importance at home. That vigorous prerogative of the Norman monarchs, which kept down the feudal aristocracy, compensated for whatever inferiority there might be in the population and defensible strength of the English towns, compared with those on the continent. They had to fear no petty oppressors, no local hostility; and if they could satisfy the rapacity of the crown, were secure from all other grievances. London, far above the rest, our ancient and noble capital, might, even in those early times, be justly termed a member of the political system. This great city, so admirably situated, was rich and populous long before the Conquest. Bede, at the beginning of the eighth century, speaks of London as a great market, which traders frequented by land and sea.[g] It paid 15,000l. out of 82,000l., raised by Canute upon the kingdom.[h] If we believe Roger Hoveden, the citizens of London, on the death of Ethelred II., joined with part of the nobility in raising Edmund Ironside to the throne.[] Harold I., according to better authority, the Saxon Chronicle and William of Malmsbury, was elected by their concurrence.[k] Descending to later history, we find them active in the civil war of Stephen and Matilda. The famous bishop of Winchester tells the Londoners that they are almost accounted as noblemen on account of the greatness of their city; into the community of which it appears that some barons had been received.[m] Indeed, the citizens themselves, or at least the principal of them, were called barons. It was certainly by far the greatest city in England. There have been different estimates of its population, some of which are extravagant; but I think it could hardly have contained less than thirty or forty thousand souls within its walls; and the suburbs were very populous.[n] These numbers, the enjoyment of privileges, and the consciousness of strength, infused a free and even a mutinous spirit into their conduct.[o] The Londoners were always on the barons' side in their contests with the crown. They bore a part in deposing William Longchamp, the chancellor and justiciary of Richard I.[p] They were distinguished in the great struggle for Magna Charta; the privileges of their city are expressly confirmed in it; and the mayor of London was one of the twenty-five barons to whom the maintenance of its provisions was delegated. In the subsequent reign the citizens of London were regarded with much dislike and jealousy by the court, and sometimes suffered pretty severely at its hands, especially after the battle of Evesham.[q]

Notwithstanding the influence of London in these seasons of disturbance, we do not perceive that it was distinguished from the most insignificant town by greater participation in national councils. Rich, powerful, honourable, and high-spirited as its citizens had become, it was very long before they found a regular place in parliament. The prerogative of imposing tallages at pleasure, unsparingly exercised by Henry III. even over London,[r] left the crown no inducement to summon the inhabitants of cities and boroughs. As these indeed were daily growing more considerable, they were certain, in a monarchy so limited as that of England became in the thirteenth century, of attaining, sooner or later, this eminent privilege. Although therefore the object of Simon de Montfort in calling them to his parliament after the battle of Lewes was merely to strengthen his own faction, which prevailed among the commonalty, yet, their permanent admission into the legislature may be ascribed to a more general cause. For otherwise it is not easy to see why the innovation of an usurper should have been drawn into precedent, though it might perhaps accelerate what the course of affairs was gradually preparing.

First summoning of towns to parliament, in 49 H. III.

It is well known that the earliest writs of summons to cities and boroughs, of which we can prove the existence, are those of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, bearing date 12th of December, 1264, in the forty-ninth year of Henry III.[] After a long controversy almost all judicious inquirers seem to have acquiesced in admitting this origin of popular representation.[t] The argument may be very concisely stated. We find from innumerable records that the king imposed tallages upon his demesne towns at discretion.[] No public instrument previous to the forty-ninth of Henry III. names the citizens and burgesses as constituent parts of parliament; though prelates, barons, knights, and sometimes freeholders, are enumerated;[x] while, since the undoubted admission of the commons, they are almost invariably mentioned. No historian speaks of representatives appearing for the people, or uses the word citizen or burgess in describing those present in parliament. Such convincing, though negative, evidence is not to be invalidated by some general and ambiguous phrases, whether in writs and records or in historians.[y] Those monkish annalists are poor authorities upon any point where their language is to be delicately measured. But it is hardly possible that, writing circumstantially, as Roger de Hoveden and Matthew Paris sometimes did, concerning proceedings in parliament, they could have failed to mention the commons in unequivocal expressions, if any representatives from that order had actually formed a part of the assembly.

Authorities in favour of an earlier date. St. Albans.

Two authorities, however, which had been supposed to prove a greater antiquity than we have assigned to the representation of the commons, are deserving of particular consideration; the cases of St. Albans and Barnstaple. The burgesses of St. Albans complained to the council in the eighth year of Edward II., that, although they held of the king in capite, and ought to attend his parliaments whenever they are summoned, by two of their number, instead of all other services, as had been their custom in all past times, which services the said burgesses and their predecessors had performed as well in the time of the late king Edward and his ancestors as in that of the present king until the parliament now sitting, the names of their deputies having been constantly enrolled in chancery, yet the sheriff of Hertfordshire, at the instigation of the abbot of St. Albans, had neglected to cause an election and return to be made; and prayed remedy. To this petition it was answered, "Let the rolls of chancery be examined, that it may appear whether the said burgesses were accustomed to come to parliament, or not, in the time of the king's ancestors; and let right be done to them, vocatis evocandis, si necesse fuerit." I do not translate these words, concerning the sense of which there has been some dispute, though not, apparently, very material to the principal subject.[z]

This is, in my opinion, by far the most plausible testimony for the early representation of boroughs. The burgesses of St. Albans claim a prescriptive right from the usage of all past times, and more especially those of the late Edward and his ancestors. Could this be alleged, it has been said, of a privilege at the utmost of fifty years' standing, once granted by an usurper, in the days of the late king's father, and afterwards discontinued till about twenty years before the date of their petition, according to those who refer the regular appearance of the commons in parliament to the twenty-third of Edward I.? Brady, who obviously felt the strength of this authority, has shown little of his usual ardour and acuteness in repelling it. It was observed, however, by Madox, that the petition of St. Albans contains two very singular allegations: it asserts that the town was part of the king's demesne, whereas it had invariably belonged to the adjoining abbey; and that its burgesses held by the tenure of attending parliament, instead of all other services, contrary to all analogy, and without parallel in the condition of any tenant in capite throughout the kingdom. "It is no wonder, therefore," says Hume, "that a petition which advances two falsehoods should contain one historical mistake, which indeed amounts only to an inaccurate expression." But it must be confessed that we cannot so easily set aside the whole authority of this record. For whatever assurance the people of St. Albans might show in asserting what was untrue, the king's council must have been aware how recently the deputies of any towns had been admitted into parliament. If the lawful birth of the House of Commons were in 1295, as is maintained by Brady and his disciples, is it conceivable that, in 1315, the council would have received a petition, claiming the elective franchise by prescription, and have referred to the rolls of chancery to inquire whether this had been used in the days of the king's progenitors? I confess that I see no answer which can easily be given to this objection by such as adopt the latest epoch of borough representation, namely, the parliament of 23 E. I. But they are by no means equally conclusive against the supposition that the communities of cities and towns, having been first introduced into the legislature during Leicester's usurpation, in the forty-ninth year of Henry III., were summoned, not perhaps uniformly, but without any long intermission, to succeeding parliaments. There is a strong presumption, from the language of a contemporary historian, that they sat in the parliament of 1269, four years after that convened by Leicester.[a] It is more unequivocally stated by another annalist that they were present in the first parliament of Edward I. held in 1271.[] Nor does a similar inference want some degree of support from the preambles of the statute of Marlebridge in 51 H. III., of Westminster I. in the third, and of Gloucester in the sixth, year of Edward I.[c] And the writs are extant which summon every city, borough, and market town to send two deputies to a council in the eleventh year of his reign. I call this a council, for it undoubtedly was not a parliament. The sheriffs were directed to summon personally all who held more than twenty pounds a year of the crown, as well as four knights for each county invested with full powers to act for the commons thereof. The knights and burgesses thus chosen, as well as the clergy within the province of Canterbury, met at Northampton; those within the province of York, at that city. And neither assembly was opened by the king.[d] This anomalous convention was nevertheless one means of establishing the representative system, and, to an inquirer free from technical prejudice, is little less important than a regular parliament. Nor have we long to look even for this. In the same year, about eight months after the councils at Northampton and York, writs were issued summoning to a parliament at Shrewsbury two citizens from London, and as many from each of twenty other considerable towns.[e] It is a slight cavil to object that these were not directed as usual to the sheriff of each county, but to the magistrates of each place. Though a very imperfect, this was a regular and unequivocal representation of the commons in parliament. But their attendance seems to have intermitted from this time to the twenty-third year of Edward's reign.[f]

Barnstaple.

Those to whom the petition of St. Albans is not satisfactory will hardly yield their conviction to that of Barnstaple. This town set forth in the eighteenth of Edward III. that, among other franchises granted to them by a charter of Athelstan, they had ever since exercised the right of sending two burgesses to parliament. The said charter, indeed, was unfortunately mislaid; and the prayer of their petition was to obtain one of the like import in its stead. Barnstaple, it must be observed, was a town belonging to Lord Audley, and had actually returned members ever since the twenty-third of Edward I. Upon an inquisition directed by the king to be made into the truth of these allegations, it was found that "the burgesses of the said town were wont to send two burgesses to parliament for the commonalty of the borough;" but nothing appeared as to the pretended charter of Athelstan, or the liberties which it was alleged to contain. The burgesses, dissatisfied with this inquest, prevailed that another should be taken, which certainly answered better their wishes. The second jury found that Barnstaple was a free borough from time immemorial; that the burgesses had enjoyed under a charter of Athelstan, which had been casually lost, certain franchises by them enumerated, and particularly that they should send two burgesses to parliament; and that it would not be to the king's prejudice if he should grant them a fresh charter in terms equally ample with that of his predecessor Athelstan. But the following year we have another writ and another inquest; the former reciting that the second return had been unduly and fraudulently made; and the latter expressly contradicting the previous inquest in many points, and especially finding no proof of Athelstan's supposed charter. Comparing the various parts of this business, we shall probably be induced to agree with Willis, that it was but an attempt of the inhabitants of Barnstaple to withdraw themselves from the jurisdiction of their lord. For the right of returning burgesses, though it is the main point of our inquiries, was by no means the most prominent part of their petition, which rather went to establish some civil privileges of devising their tenements and electing their own mayor. The first and fairest return finds only that they were accustomed to send members to parliament, which an usage of fifty years (from 23 E. I. to 18 E. III.) was fully sufficient to establish, without searching into more remote antiquity.[g]