The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0091/00911.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 34KB | 523 lines

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part XI}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{tenants
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county
knights
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king
henry
burgesses
parliament}
$Date{}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VIII: The Constitutional History Of England
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part XI

     William, the compiler informs us, having heard some of the Danish laws,
was disposed to confirm them in preference to those of England; but yielded to
the supplication of the delegates, omnes compatriotae, qui leges narraverant,
that he would permit them to retain the customs of their ancestors, imploring
him by the soul of King Edward, cujus erant leges, nec aliorum exterorum.  The
king at length gave way, by the advice and request of his barons, consilio et
precatu baronum.  These of course were Normans; but what inference can be
drawn in favor of parliamentary representation in England from the behavior of
the rest?  They were supplicants, not legislators.]

     We find nothing that can arrest our attention, in searching out the
origin of county representation, till we come to a writ in the fifteenth year
of John, directed to all the sheriffs in the following terms: Rex Vicecomiti
N., salutem.  Praecipimus tibi quod omnes milites ballivae, tuae qui summoniti
fuerunt esse apud Oxonian ad Nos a die Omnium Sanctorum in quindecim dies
venire facias cum armis suis: corpora vero baronum sine armis singulariter, et
quatuor discretos milites de comitatu tuo, illuc venire facias ad eundem
terminum, ad loquendum nobiscum de negotiis regni nostri.  For the explanation
of this obscure writ I must refer to what Prynne has said; ^x but it remains
problematical whether these four knights (the only clause which concerns our
purpose) were to be elected by the county or returned in the nature of a jury,
at the discretion of the sheriff.  Since there is no sufficient proof whereon
to decide, we can only say with hesitation, that there may have been an
instance of county representation in the fifteenth year of John.

[Footnote x: 2 Prynne's Register, p. 16.]

     We may next advert to a practice, of which there is very clear proof in
the reign of Henry III.  Subsidies granted in parliament were assessed, not as
in former times by the justices upon their circuits, but by knights freely
chosen in the county court.  This appears by two writs, one of the fourth and
one of the ninth year of Henry III. ^y At a subsequent period, by a provision
of the Oxford parliament in 1258, every county elected four knights to inquire
into grievances, and deliver their inquisition into parliament. ^z

[Footnote y: Brady's Introduction, Appendix, pp. 41 and 44.  "The language of
these writs implies a distinction between such as were styled barons,
apparently including the earls and the four knights who were to come from the
several counties ad loquendum, and who were also distinguished from the
knights summoned to attend with arms, in performance, it should seem, of the
military service due by their respective tenures; and the writs, therefore,
apparently distinguished certain tenants in chief by knight-service from
barons, if the knights so summoned to attend with arms were required to attend
by reason of their respective tenures in chief of the king.  How the four
knights of each county who were thus summoned to confer with the king were to
be chosen, whether by the county, or according to the mere will of the
sheriff, does not appear; but it seems most probable that they were intended
by the king as representatives of the freeholders of each county, and to
balance the power of the hostile nobles, who were then leagued against him;
and the measure might lead to conciliate the minds of those who would
otherwise have had no voice in the legislative assembly." Report of Lords'
Committee, p. 61.

     This would be a remarkable fact, and the motive is by no means
improbable, being perhaps that which led to the large provisions for summoning
tenants in chief, contained in the charter of John, and afterwards passed
over.  But this parley of the four knights from each county, for they are only
summoned ad loquendum, may not amount to bestowing on them any legislative
power.  It is nevertheless to be remembered that the word parliament meant, by
its etymology, nothing more; and the words, ad loquendum, may have been used
in reference to that.  It is probable that these writs were not obeyed; we
have no evidence that they were, and it was a season of great confusion, very
little before the granting of the charter of Henry III.]

[Footnote z: Brady's Hist. of England, vol. i.  Appendix, p. 227.]

     The next writ now extant, that wears the appearance of parliamentary
representation, is in the thirty-eighth of Henry III.  This, after reciting
that the earls, barons, and other great men (caeteri magnates) were to meet at
London three weeks after Easter, with horses and arms, for the purpose of
sailing into Gascony, requires the sheriff to compel all within his
jurisdiction, who hold twenty pounds a year of the king in chief, or of those
in ward of the king, to appear at the same time and place.  And that besides
those mentioned he shall cause to come before the king's council at
Westminster, on the fifteenth day after Easter, two good and discreet knights
of his county, whom the men of the county shall have chosen for this purpose,
in the stead of all and each of them, to consider, along with the knights of
other counties, what aid they will grant the king in such an emergency. ^a In
the principle of election, and in the object of the assembly, which was to
grant money, this certainly resembles a summons to parliament.  There are
indeed anomalies sufficiently remarkable upon the face of the writ which
distinguish this meeting from a regular parliament. But when the scheme of
obtaining money from the commons of shires through the consent of their
representatives had once been entertained, it was easily applicable to more
formal councils of the nation. ^b

[Footnote a: 2 Prynne, p. 23.]

[Footnote b: "This writ tends strongly to show that there then existed no law
by which a representation either of the king's tenants in capite or of others,
for the purpose of constituting a legislative assembly, or for granting an
aid, was specially provided; and it seems to have been the first instance
appearing on any record now extant, of an attempt to substitute
representatives elected by bodies of men for the attendance of the individual
so to be represented, personally or by their several procurators, in an
assembly convened for the purpose of obtaining an aid." Report, p. 95.]

     A few years later there appears another writ analogous to a summons.
During the contest between Henry III. and the confederate barons in 1261, they
presumed to call a sort of parliament, summoning three knights out of every
county, secum tractaturos super communibus negotiis regni.  This we learn only
by an opposite writ issued by the king, directing the sheriff to enjoin these
knights who had been convened by the earls of Leicester and Gloucester to
their meeting at St. Albans, that they should repair instead to the king at
Windsor, and to no other place, nobiscum super praemissis colloquium
habituros. ^c It is not absolutely certain that these knights were elected by
their respective counties.  But even if they were so, this assembly has much
less the appearance of a parliament, than that in the thirty-eighth of Henry
III.

[Footnote c: 2 Prynne, p. 27.]

     At length, in the year 1265, the forty-ninth of Henry III., while he was
a captive in the hands of Simon de Montfort, writs were issued in his name to
all the sheriffs, directing them to return two knights for the body of their
county, with two citizens or burgesses for every city and borough contained
within it.  This therefore is the epoch at which the representation of the
commons becomes indisputably manifest; even should