amended in the ninth year of Henry the Third all notice of these clauses is omitted; and it is directed that scutage should be taken according to the rates used in the time of Henry the Second. So little importance seems to have been attached to this change that the contemporary historian Matthew Paris* appears to have been altogether unaware of the fact; and describes the two Charters as being in all respects alike. So far as it relates to scutage, the change is easily explained. Scutage was a commutation for military service, and was in the nature of a Royal indulgence. The service formed a legal obligation which, or the equivalent of which, the military tenants were bound to render. The aids, on the contrary, were free gifts. There was no reason, then, why the tenants in capite should assess the sum at which their exemption from service should be valued. If they objected to the amount fixed by the Crown, they had the alternative of rendering their stipulated service in the field. But the Crown or its advisers could never have intended to weaken the right of the tenants to give or to withhold the voluntary aids, or their right to ascertain the amount or the form of their gift. It must have been supposed that that right was secured by former Charters and general usage. But it is probable that the greater Barons did not approve of the equality of the suffrage claimed by the smaller tenants of the Crown. This equality, so offensive to the great lords, was probably not felt in practice to be inconvenient, when the attendance of the minor Barons was scanty and irregular. It may well, however, have been doubted. whether means should be taken not only to induce, but to compel, the attendance of all the tenants of the Crown.t No effectual or permanent compromise could be made

* Lords Report, 79.

+ Hallam, Middle Ages, iii. 215.

but by representation; and the hour for representation, although at hand, was not yet come.

Assemblies

§ 3. The origin and the principles of our Representative System form the subject of a separate chapter. For the present purpose the fact of their existence may Financial be assumed. Perhaps the success of representa- become polition in the assemblies of the military tenants tical councils. for supply, perhaps the example of Spain and the King's Spanish connections, perhaps the increase of wealth and the growing spirit of freedom since the meeting at Runingmede, or, perhaps, the concurrent influence of all these considerations, may have induced Edward the First to adopt the representative principle as a political not less than a financial instrument. Whatever may have been his motives, it is certain that Edward sought, with the aid of this principle, to give a new character to the existing political machinery. A man of rare natural endowments, who had seen the cities and manners of many men, he was resolved to rescue his kingdom from the disorder into which it had fallen during his feeble father's protracted reign. He, therefore, contemplated large measures of reform, and was, consequently, obliged to consider the means of accomplishing them. It was no part of his design to carry his changes, however beneficial, with a high hand. In words that well became the noble King of a free people, he acknowledged that "what touched all should be approved by all." But these words conveyed a different meaning in the thirteenth century from that which they imply in the nineteenth. In those earlier days the cohesion of our national elements was still imperfect. It is only in an advanced state of political development that the social organism exhibits that interdependence of its various parts which binds them, whether for good or evil, into one

national life. Five centuries ago the divisions of society, now so minute and so intertwined, were few and distinct. There was little in common between the Burgher and the Knight. There was still less sympathy between these two classes and the Cleric. The general interest, therefore, and the general approbation, which were assumed to be inseparable, were the interest and the approbation of each great class of the community. Each class was concerned in its own affairs; and was neither competent nor desirous to interfere with the affairs of others. Edward, accordingly, seems to have designed to establish Councils of Advice for each of the great interests that then existed in the kingdom. While he retained his own authority and the services of his Great Council for legislation, he invited* the assistance of all the tenants of the Crown, either personally or through their representatives, on all questions relating to estates and tenures; of the clergy in like manner on all questions relating to ecclesiastical affairs; and of the citizens and burgesses, through their representatives, on all matters relating to trade and commerce. It had at all times been the duty of these several classes to meet for the purpose of considering the wants of the King and the propriety of affording him pecuniary assistance. They were now asked under a more complete organization to perform the additional function of giving to their Sovereign information and advice as to their own respective wants and the means of their satisfaction. Thus out of the financial assemblies Edward formed special consultative bodies, each dealing exclusively with its special class of subjects. In legislating upon these several subjects he sought the advice of the appropriate assembly, although the legislation still proceeded from the King and his council. But in matters

*See Guizot, Rep. Govt., 420.

not directly affecting any of these classes, or when not charge was directly imposed upon any of them, the King in his council was free to legislate as he thought fit.

*

No formal recognition of the changes thus introduced. by Edward is found in any documents of the period that have come down to us. But these documents furnish evidence favourable to the view I have attempted to indicate. The writ by which in 1295 the clergy were convened recites and adopts the principle that what touches all should be approved by all. The same principle is emphatically asserted in an official letter in the same reign from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Pope. Not long afterwards the kindred and complemental maxim that community of danger requires community of sacrifice was recognized. It seems, therefore, to have become a settled constitutional principle that in any change or other important question those persons whose interests were directly affected should be consulted. In accordance with this doctrine it might be expected that the King in Council would not exercise his power of legislation on any subject directly affecting any class without previous consultation with the persons who were qualified to express the sentiments of that class. But as the Legislative power still resided in the King and his council, it was also probable that he would seek for advice from each class in its own concerns exclusively; and would, therefore, transact business separately with each assembly. These antecedent probabilities are confirmed by the facts of which we still possess the records. The several assemblies met during the reign of Edward the First frequently, if not invariably, at different times and in different places. Their respective grants of money were made independently of each other,

11 Edw. III., Parry's Parliaments, 106.

and generally for different amounts. Laws, too, were made, apparently at the request or with the consent of one only of these assemblies, and without the presence or the consent of the others. The ordinance* upon which was founded the Magna, or as it was afterwards called the Antiqua, Custuma—that is, an export duty upon wool, woolfells, and hides-was granted by the "graunz" of the realm upon the prayer of the "commune des marchands." In a charter of the following year granted in full Parliament at Westminster and extending these duties to Ireland, this grant is described as having been made by the archbishops and other prelates, earls, barons, and "communitates" of the Kingdom of England. While the military tenants in 1283 were sitting at Shrewsbury as a court to try for treason their fellow-vassal David Prince of Wales, the citizens and burgesses were deliberating at Acton Burnel on reforms. in Mercantile Law. In the autumn of 1294 successive meetings of these various bodies were held, apparently for the transaction of different business, with a brief interval between each meeting. When the object of their meeting was merely financial, their action seems to have invariably been independent. Through the whole reign of Edward the First the clergy, the military tenants, and the townsmen appear to have made separate grants, often at different times, and usually of different amounts. In 1295 $ the clergy gave a tenth of their ecclesiastical revenues; the earls, barons, knights, and other tenants granted an eleventh, and the citizens and burgesses granted a seventh, of all their movables. In the following year the citizens and burgesses granted an eighth, and the earls barons and knights a twelfth ; but the clergy, in obedience to a Papal Bull, refused to make any grant, and were thereupon placed 3 Edw. I. † Palgrave's Parl. Writs, 1. Parry's Parliaments, 56. § lb., 58.