The Great Council, which by one of the provisions of Magna Carta had been required to give its consent to the levying of feudal dues, met quite frequently during Henry III's reign. On one occasion, when Henry was in urgent need of money and the bishops and lords refused to grant it, the king took the significant step of calling to the council two knights from each county to declare what aid they would give him. These knights, so ran Henry's summons, were to come "in the stead of each and all," in other words, they were to act as representatives of the counties. Then in 1265 A.D., when the nobles were at war with the king, a second and even more significant step was taken. Their leader, Simon de Montfort, summoned to the council not only two knights from each county, but also two citizens from each of the more important towns.
THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM
The custom of selecting certain men to act in the name and on the behalf of the community had existed during Anglo-Saxon times in local government. Representatives of the counties had been employed by the Norman kings to act as assessors in levying taxes. As we have just learned, the "juries" of Henry II also consisted of such representatives. The English people, in fact, were quite familiar with the idea of representation long before it was applied on a larger scale to Parliament.
"MODEL PARLIAMENT" OF EDWARD I, 1295 A.D.
Simon de Montfort's Parliament included only his own supporters, and hence was not a truly national body. But it made a precedent for the future. Thirty years later Edward I called together at Westminster, now a part of London, a Parliament which included all classes of the people. Here were present archbishops, bishops, and abbots, earls and barons, two knights from every county, and two townsmen to represent each town in that county. After this time all these classes were regularly summoned to meet in assembly at Westminster.
HOUSE OF LORDS AND HOUSE OF COMMONS
The separation of Parliament into two chambers came in the fourteenth century. The House of Lords included the nobles and higher clergy, the House of Commons, the representatives from counties and cities. This bicameral arrangement, as it is called, has been followed in the parliaments of most modern countries.
POWERS OF PARLIAMENT
The early English Parliament was not a law-making but a tax-voting body. The king would call the two houses in session only when he needed their sanction for raising money. Parliament in its turn would refuse to grant supplies until the king had corrected abuses in the administration or had removed unpopular officials. This control of the public purse in time enabled Parliament to grasp other powers. It became an accepted principle that royal officials were responsible to Parliament for their actions, that the king himself might be deposed for good cause, and that bills, when passed by Parliament and signed by the king, were the law of the land. England thus worked out in the Middle Ages a system of parliamentary government which nearly all civilized nations have held worthy of imitation.