434 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



assemblies of nobles and representatives summoned by the 

 king, there re-appeared, on a higher platform, these simulta 

 neous demands for money on the one side and for justice on 

 the other. We may assume it as certain that with an average 

 humanity, the conflicting egoisms of those concerned will be 

 the main factors ; and that on each side the aim will be to 

 give as little, and get as much, as circumstances allow. France, 

 Spain, and England, yield examples which unite in showing 

 this. 



When Charles V. of France, in 1357, dismissing the States- 

 general for alleged encroachments on his rights, raised money 

 by further debasing the coinage, and caused a sedition in 

 Paris which endangered his life, there was, three months later, 

 a re-convocation of the States, in which the petitions of the 

 former assembly were acceded to, while a subsidy for war 

 purposes was voted. And of an assembled States-general in 

 1366, Hallam writes : &quot; The necessity of restoring the coinage 

 is strongly represented as the grand condition upon which 

 they consented to tax the people, who had been long defrauded 

 by the base money of Philip the Fair and his successors.&quot; 

 Again, in Spain, the incorporated towns, made liable by their 

 charters only for certain payments and services, had continually 

 to resist unauthorized demands ; while the kings, continually 

 promising not to take more than their legal and customary 

 dues, were continually breaking their promises. In 1328 

 Alfonso XL &quot; bound himself not to exact from his people, or 

 cause them to pay, any tax, either partial or general, not 

 hitherto established by law, without the previous grant of all 

 the deputies convened by the Cortes.&quot; And how little such 

 pledges were kept is shown by the fact that, in 1393, the Cortes 

 who made a grant to Henry III., joined the condition that 

 &quot; He should swear before one of the archbishops not to take or demand 

 any money, service, or loan, or anything else of the cities and towns, nor 

 of individuals belonging to them, on any pretence of necessity, until the 

 three estates of the kingdom should first be duly summoned and 

 assembled in Cortes according to ancient usage.&quot; 

 Similarly in England during the time when parliamentary 



