PARLIAMENT 



possesnors ,,f tin* bent tencn 

 ami tin- ..i-'i.. (! i .11 ..( attendance 

 was often att.i. hed M a dir 



il lloldllm. Aft' 



N'i'i -111.111 1 ' >i ii | ii.- -i i IN- i ule \\ .1* that 

 if tin- lord en hi-, steward chose to 

 i -Mi lance excuse! tin- 

 rest of th<- .-11111111111111 \ ; Init if 

 neither proposed to attend, then 

 tin- township must -end it 

 and four l>est men. Tin- oKh^at I..N 

 liiy "ii carh i-oiiiiitunit y as a hole, 

 and the boon of representation con- 

 sisted not in the fact that the few 

 had t attend, luit in the fact that 

 nil tin- rest were thus enabled tOBtay 

 at home. The same principle waa 



extended from the shire- coir 



the kind's high court at West- 

 minster. Tin- .jivutest tenants-in- 

 chief, \vhether liishops or barons, 

 were required to come by indi- 

 vidual writs uf summons; tney en- 

 joyed no representation. But the 

 lesser tenants in-chief and the 

 cities and boroughs were excused 

 on condition of producing two 

 representatives of each shire, city, 

 and borough, to do their duty for 

 them ; and the lower clergy were 

 offered the same advantage. 



The business of these represent- 

 atives was judicial and financial ; 

 politics could only come later when 

 the people had acquired some 

 political knowledge and capacity. 

 Work of this kind had long been 

 done on the representative prin- 

 ciple in the shire-courts, and the 

 summons to Westminster was due 

 to the increasing superiority of the 

 justice administered in the king's 

 court to that which was admin- 

 istered in the local popular or 

 feudal courts. Henry II had created 

 a highly expert curia regie, with 

 which no other court could com- 

 pete, either in respect of compet- 

 ence or of power ; and in spite of 

 the reactionary attempts of the 

 barons to limit by means of Magna 

 Cart a the jurisdiction of the king's 

 court, it developed rapidly during 

 the reign of Henry III. 



Hearing of Pleas 



Xew writs were devised to remedy 

 abuses ; no court could use them 

 but the king's, and this meant that 

 an increasing number of suitors 

 were continually being attracted to 

 Westminster Hall, where three 

 committees of the king's court, 

 common pleas, exchequer, and 

 king's bench, were gradually 

 formed to deal with their petitions. 

 A parliament was properly a joint 

 session of these committees, with 

 the non-judicial members of the 

 council, and its preliminary was a 

 proclamation that all who had 

 petitions to present should present 

 them by a certain date ; receivers 

 and triers of petitions were then 

 appointed, and the pleas were 



B93 



advantage of a 

 i fee* were 

 charged li a petition 



I this Hort were 



held |,efi.re the l.ll-lll.-- 



presentation wan organized l.\ 

 means of the writs to the sheriff* 

 and the n pillar return of elected 



representatives from the shires and 

 ho(-iiu'.'h> ; ii >f the shire** 



and horoiiL'h*' had oft* 



t IP n [;, I i.usines* ut Westminster. 



Simon de MontfortV parliament of 



1265 was an extension and appli- 

 cation of this kind of assembly to 

 the political purpose of placing the 

 royal authority in commission. It- 

 defect was that it consisted solely 

 of his partisans, and there is little 

 evidence that this gathering had 

 either the means or the will to 

 perform the legal functions ulii. Ii 

 long continued to be the principal 

 business of parliament. The re^'ii- 

 lurisatioii of this legal business was 

 largely due to financial reasons. So 

 long as land was the only source 

 of direct taxation, only the chief 

 landholders had been consulted 

 Taxation and Representation 



But as the financial necessn 

 government increased, the basis of 

 taxation was extended to personal 

 property and to a larger section of 

 the community ; and taxation be- 

 came the mother of representation. 

 At first the king sent his agents 

 round to the shires and boroughs 

 to negotiate locally for grants ; 

 but it was soon found more ex- 

 peditious and profitable to sum- 

 mon agents of the localities to 

 make their grants in the king's 

 presence at Westminster. Thus 

 representatives were summoned to 

 attend the parliaments of the 

 council (a) to make grants of taxa- 

 tion and (6) to present petitions 

 for legal redress. They were not 

 asked to legislate. What legis- 

 lation there was took the form of 

 ordinances in council, devised by 

 the judges and enacted by the 

 crown, and Edward I himself 

 enacted most of his legislation 

 before he summoned his model 

 parliament of 1295. 



These parliaments were held in a 

 single chamber, at the upper end 

 of which sat the king on his throne. 

 At his feet sat the chancellor on 

 one of the four woolsacks, arranged 

 in a sq uare on which sat the council, 

 the judges of the king's bench on 

 the chancellor's right, and the 

 judges of common pleas on his 

 left ; opposite the chancellor sat 

 the masters in chancery. The 

 council was the original core of 

 parliament, and all the other 

 dements were accretions. Outside 

 this inner square of councillors the 

 bishops and abbots sat on benches 

 running down from the right of the 



PARLIAMENT 



throne, and the earls and baron* on 



It* left. At tlii- lower end of th" 



clmmlM-r Ix-yond th<- l.ar t-.od th 

 i '.mm.. i, - with the Hprsker at 



.id, on the rare and * 

 occasion* on which they appeared 

 in parliament. 



The business was opened \>\ t he 

 !lor or some other councillor. 

 who explained the caune of sum- 

 mons and the royal needs ; and 

 the various estate* < ' 

 that there were only three is a 

 iui_' liction) separated to 

 deliberate on the answers they 

 should make. The lower clergy 

 withdrew to tiirirown convocation. 

 and in the 1 ltd century ceased 

 altogether to come to parliament. 

 The knight* <>f the shires and 

 -CH at rirst withdrew to 

 separate rooms, but before the 

 middle of the 1-lth century co- 

 alesced to deliberate, first in the 

 refectory, and then in the chap- 

 ter house of the Abbey across the 

 way. The specially summoned pre- 

 lates, earls, and barons asserted, 

 probably in Edward II's reign, a 

 claim to remain in the parliament 

 chamber with the king's council, 

 thus making it a magnum con- 

 cilium, and the parliament chamber 

 was thus also known as camera 

 tnagni concilii. 



As soon as the various estates 

 had agreed upon their answers 

 they returned into the parliament 

 chamber to report them, the 

 Commons by the mouth of their 

 Speaker, and the clergy by their 

 prolocutor ; and the business of 

 the representatives was at an end. 

 They might stay on to hear the 

 result of their petitions, but did 

 not do so in any numbers until 

 their individual petitions had been 

 converted into effective or common 

 petitions and made the basis of 

 legislation. In any case the council 

 continued sitting in parliament to 

 deal with parliamentary petitions 

 long after all the other elements had 

 gone home. Most of the petitions 

 presented were, however, at once 

 referred to the appropriate courts ; 

 and it was only with the residue, 

 which on account of their special 

 difficulty or the novelty of the 

 remedy required could not be so 

 referred, that the council dealt in 

 parliament. 



Formation of Two Houses 

 Parliament was thus in the 1 Ith 

 century a single chamber for its 

 solemn business, and broke up into 

 a variety of meetings for what 

 might be called committee-business. 

 The two " Houses," so familiar 

 to-day, were formed not so much 

 by the division of parliament as by 

 the amalgamation of various 

 " estates." The prelates, earls, and 

 barons clung to, and gradually 



