To Simon’s faith and faithfulness alone our peace we owe,
He raised the weak and hopeless and made the proud to bow,
He set the realm at one again and brought the mighty low.[48]
And now in the summer of 1264 Earl Simon was to show what he could do for England, for the victory of Lewes had placed power in his hands, and he stood indisputably the foremost man in the realm. For one short year his counsel was to guide the destinies of England and to make that year memorable for all time by the creation of the first representative Parliament.
A new scheme of government was at once drawn up. Three electors chosen by the barons were to appoint a council of nine for the guidance of the king, and Simon of Montfort, Gilbert of Gloucester, and Stephen Berksted, Bishop of Chichester, were speedily chosen as the three electors. Hugh le Despenser remained justiciar, and Thomas Cantilupe, the bishop’s nephew, became chancellor. (This Thomas subsequently became Bishop of Hereford, died in Italy, and was canonized.)
Then in December came the issue of writs for Simon of Montfort’s famous Full Parliament of 1265. Two knights are to be returned from each shire, and for the first time from each city and borough the burgesses are to send two representatives. Hitherto Parliament had consisted of barons and clergy, and knights sent by the king’s tenants, and the representation of the townspeople was unknown. Simon’s earlier policy at Oxford had done nothing to extend the basis of government or create a national responsibility for the laws. “The provisions of 1258 restricted, the constitutions of 1264 extended the limits of parliament.... Either Simon’s views of a constitution had rapidly developed, or the influence which had checked them in 1258 were removed. Anyhow, he had had genius to interpret the mind of the nation and to anticipate the line which was taken by later progress.” (Stubbs.)
This development of Simon’s views may fairly be traced to his close and intimate connection with the Dominican friars.[49] Simon’s father, the warrior of the Albigensian wars, had been the warm friend of St. Dominic. Simon himself was equally the friend of Bishop Grosseteste, the champion of the friars. As far back as 1245 Simon had founded a Dominican priory at Leicester. In 1263 he had been present at a General Chapter of the Dominican Order in Holborn, London, and the Parliament of Oxford had met in a Dominican priory in that city. All along the friars had supported the popular movement.[50]
Now the peculiarity of the Dominican Order of Friars is its representative form of government. Each priory sends two representatives to its provincial chapter, and each province sends two representatives to the general chapter of the order.
Simon of Montfort, when the opportunity came to him for striking out a reform in the English Parliament, adopted the plan which he had studied and seen at work amongst the Preaching Friars. “The idea of representative government had ripened in his hand,” and his genius interpreted the mind of the nation. In spite of all the scorn that has been poured on popular elections and the Houses of Parliament, in spite of all the imperfections that necessarily are attached to any constitutional system devised by the wit of man, the idea of representative government has become the inspiration of the nations of the world. The failings of democracy are obvious, the weak spots in popular electoral systems glaring; but mankind, once grasping the idea of freedom in politics, clamours eagerly for responsibility in law-making and the administration of justice, and refuses to rest satisfied under any despotism or bureaucracy, benevolent or malevolent. Suppressed by dictators, perverted by demagogues, abused by the unscrupulous in power, there still seems nothing better in politics for mankind than self-government. “Better is he who rules his own temper than he who storms a city,” wrote Friar Adam of Marsh to Simon of Montfort. “Better self-government for a people than world-wide conquest,” the average man declares, and the opinion slowly moulds the destinies of nations, till “patriotism” becomes the word for good service in politics.
The verse of the thirteenth century chronicler:—