We may here observe that the two or three Knights, chosen by the several counties, did represent those counties, and according to the form of the writ, consulted upon and consented to this grant of a fifteenth.
So also in the 22d Edward the First there were neither Citizens nor Burgesses summoned to the Parliament of that year. On the 8th of October the king issued writs directed to every sheriff in England to cause two discreet Knights to be chosen for each county, with full powers, “so that for defect of such powers, the business might not remain undone.” And on the following day the king issued other writs to the sheriffs to cause to be elected two knights more, to be added to the former two, making four for each county, and these four Knights for each county, and the Earls, Barons, and Great Men, on the day of their meeting gave the king a tenth part of all their goods.
[39]. This was only a grant of forty shillings for every Knight’s fee.—See Rolls of Parliament, vol. 2, p. 112, a. hereinafter referred to in 14 of Edward III.
[40]. Proxies in Parliament is a privilege appropriated to the Lords only; the first instance of a Proxy that occurs in the History of the English Parliament, is in the reign of Edward the first.
In a Parliament at Westminster in the reign of Edward the second, the bishops of Durham and Carlisle were allowed to send their Proxies to Parliament.
In the early period of the History of Parliament, the Lords were not obliged to make Barons only their Proxies as the custom now is; the Bishops and Parliamentary Abbots usually gave their letters of proxy to Prebendaries, Parsons, and Canons; but since the first year of king Henry the eighth, there appear in the journals no Proxies but such as were Lords of Parliament.
In the 35th of king Edward the third, 1360, the following Peeres were summoned by writ to Parliament, to appear there by their Proxies, namely, Mary, Countess of Norfolk; Eleanor, Countess of Ormond; Anna, Baroness Despenser; Philippa, Countess of March; Joanna, Baroness Fitzwalter; Agneta, Countess of Pembroke; Mary de St. Paul, Countess of Pembroke; Margaret, Baroness de Roos; Matilda, Countess of Oxford; Catherine, Countess of Athol. These ladies were called ad colloquium et tractatum by their Proxies.
[41]. The club was in use at the Norman Conquest, and in the succeeding ages. St. Louis had a band of Guards armed with clubs, and was himself very dextrous in the use of it.
Pennant, in describing the customs of the ancient Bards and Minstrels of Wales, says, that the lowest of the musical tribe was the Datceiniad pen pastwn, or he that sung to the sound of his club, being ignorant of every other kind of instrument. When he was permitted to be introduced, he was obliged to stand in the middle of the hall, and sing his cowydd or awdl, beating time, and playing the symphony with his pastwn or club; but if there was a professor of music present, his leave must be first obtained before he presumed to entertain the company with this species of melody. Wherever he came he must act as a menial servant to the bard or minstrel.
[42]. Among the Romans it was not infamous to be beaten with a stick.