PEASANT REVOLTS 129 



long-continued provocation and oppression once gain 

 the upper hand.^ 



It is difficult to ascertain the exact number of the 

 ruling classes in these remote times. Hallam speaks 

 of the peers of the realm as ''a small body varying 

 from about 50 to 80 persons." Green states, but 

 does not give his authority, that "Under Edward II 

 little more than 70 were commonly summoned to 

 Parliament ; little more than 40 were summoned 

 under Edward III " (Vol. I, p. 457). That they were 

 a very small number there is no doubt. In an old 

 and rare book, referring to a later date, a good 

 authority gives the whole number of peers — including 

 the lords spiritual — at 203, and of these only forty were 

 summoned to Parliament.^ 



To reckon the noble classes in the fourteenth cen- 

 tury at 10 per cent of the population would be a high 

 estimate, and to put the number of those who swayed 

 legislation and were responsible for it at 5 per cent 

 of the population, would be equally above the mark. 

 But it is to the administration of the laws — which was 

 under their control — rather than to the laws them- 

 selves, that the student must look. The proverb, 

 " Those that administer govern," was never better 

 illustrated than it was in those days. The barons 

 were so powerful that they could make bad laws worse 

 by the manner in which they were administered, and 



1 During the past few months our hearts have gone out in sympathy 

 for men shot down for seeking an interview with their sovereign and for 

 the brave priest who stood by them. We have felt for people led like 

 sheep to the slaughter at the will of a shameless and criminal autocracy ; 

 surely we should have nothing but warm sympathy with Englishmen in 

 their struggles against a still greater tyranny. 



2 "An exact Catalogue of the Nobility of England," by Robert Dale, 

 Pursuivant and Deputy-Register of the College of Arms, 1697. 



