out of the King's protection and defence. Even among the towns a further difference appears. The city of London sometimes made a separate grant. The Cinque Ports,

which were exempt from tallage, were not summoned, except on judicial business, from the time of De Montfort's Parliament to the reign of Edward the Third.* In legislative deliberations the difference between the assembly of citizens and burgesses and the other assemblies is clearly marked. The statute De Mercatoribus was passed while, as I have already observed, the military tenants were engaged elsewhere. Neither the clergy nor the citizens and burgesses appear to have been consulted respecting the great Statutes of De Donis and Quia Emptores. But in cases of a purely political nature, such as the Statute of Wales or the Ordinance for the State of Ireland § or the Statute de Prisonibus prisonam frangentibus || or de Finibus Levatis or de Falsa Moneta¶ or the Statute concerning the lands of the Templars,** the King with his council appears to have enacted laws without any further consultation. the other hand, when special interests not included in the existing assemblies were concerned, the principle of consent was applied. Welshmen were consulted on the affairs of Wales; ++ and Irish representatives were summoned to Parliament for the consideration of Irish affairs.#

On

Thus it appears that the theory of the Constitution required for every change in the law the consent of the persons directly affected by it: and that, both from the incomplete state of the national integration and from their various relations to the King, at whose command and for

whose assistance they came, certain classes were regarded as separate and independent bodies. This state of facts seems necessarily to involve the existence of separate assemblies for legislative purposes. Such assemblies, representing these several classes, did actually meet in different places at different times and for the transaction of different business. They made separate grants to the King; they presented separate petitions; they advised the enactment of separate laws. Traces of their separate action may be observed, as we shall see, at a period long after these bodies had assumed their present form.

§ 4. One of the questions which most frequently attract attention in our early political history is the separation of the two Houses of Parliament. Yet this question, Integration of House of which seems both so interesting and so difficult, is Commons. really immaterial. The evolution of Parliament has proceeded not by differentiation but by integration. Adjacent parts of our political system engaged in the performance of like functions have coalesced; and some portions of it have waxed, while others their competitors have dwindled. The Lords and the Commons can hardly be said to have been separated, for they were never united. But the circumstances which led to the consolidation of that composite body which we now call the House of Commons deserve our fullest attention. We have seen that in the time of Edward the First several political assemblies attended upon the King. These assemblies had respectively a twofold function. They were required to advise the King on all matters relating to the interests of the particular class to which they belonged or for which they appeared. They were also and more often required to supply the pecuniary wants of the Crown. As consultative bodies, they either considered the proposals of the

King in council, or they presented to him their petitions for reform. As financial bodies, they granted for themselves and their constituents a supply to the Crown, and determined the ways and means by which that supply should be raised. But all power of general legislation rested with the King and the Great Council of his Prelates, Earls, and Barons.

With this powerful body the citizens and burgesses never for a moment thought of mingling. On certain matters which affected their common interest, although not on any other matter, the Knights of the shires had an equal voice with their wealthier brethren. On all questions of tenure or other matters incidental thereto the Knights were interested not less than the greater Barons, and were therefore consulted. In all grants of aid which the Knights might make, the greater military tenants who practically formed the council were concerned, and were therefore required to assent. But although the greater Barons and the Knights were thus connected, there was a great gulf fixed between them. Not merely was there a wide disparity in their respective wealth and social influence, but claims had arisen to a legal distinction which were expressly recognized early in the reign of Edward the Third. The one body, too, formed the King's Great Council of State ;* and its members were consulted on every important occasion whether of general legislation or of administrative policy. The deliberative functions of the others, as I have said, were limited at most to their own direct interests. There was also the broad difference in their attendance. The one body was convened by special writ addressed by the King to each member personally. The other body sat by way of representation. A clear

* See 1 Lords' Report, 320.

distinction was thus drawn between the two orders, notwithstanding their points of agreement. The great Lords therefore had no inducement to abandon their character as members of the Great Council, and to merge into members of the Council of Military Tenants. If any proposal came from the King, it had been in the first instance considered and adopted by them. If a petition were presented by the Knights, its prayer could not be granted without the advice of the Council of Lords. It is probable that the analogy of these proceedings was followed in the case of grants. As the two bodies were accustomed to deliberate separately in other matters, so they sat apart when they met to vote an aid. And whether that it was thought that the poorer should speak first on such a subject, or that the usage of not acting in other matters without a petition from the inferior body had been established, the practice became confirmed that the Lords should merely assent to or reject the financial proposals of the representative body, and that they should not originate any money bill. Accordingly we find the grants continually expressed to be made by the assent of the Prelates and Lords; and in the reign of Henry the Fourth* the present practice received a distinct Parliamentary recognition. While the Lords thus abandoned their position as members of the Assembly of Military Tenants, and merged their inferior rights in the higher privileges which attached to the Great Council of the Crown, the representative portion of the Military Tenants formed exclusively the body whose assistance and advice, in addition to that of his council, the King required in all his dealings, whether pecuniary or legislative, with his tenants in capite.

*

9 Henry IV. The Indemnity of the Lords and Commons, Rot. Parl.,

iii. 611.

The Knights of the shires were not the only representative body that attended on the King in Parliament. There were also the representatives of the citizens and of the burgesses. Between these two bodies, notwithstanding the difference of their rank, there were points in common. They appeared in the same representative character. They had in relation to their respective departments the same functions; and they stood in the same relation to the King and his Lords. Sometimes, too, the interests of the county and of the towns that it contained would coincide; and sometimes questions, such as the tax upon wool, would arise in which both counties and towns had a common and direct interest.* Between bodies which were thus brought together at the same place and the same time, whose origin and whose functions were similar, whose differences of rank, though conspicuous at home, were eclipsed at Westminster by the overpowering shadow of Royalty and its grandees, whose interests were often the same, and whose very position suggested cooperation, there was a strong tendency to coalesce. No formal act of union between them is recorded. They seem to have deliberated together and to have presented joint petitions for redress of grievances, while still they retained in matters of supply and in questions specially affecting their own class their right of independent action. The first recorded instance, so far as I am aware, of their joint deliberation, although not of their joint petitions, occurs in the sixth year of Edward the Third.t The frequent exercise of these functions during that reign led to more settled practice and more definite customs. At length, towards the end of Edward's long reign, two events occurred of no small significance. One was the

+

* See I Lords' Report, 321.

+ Ib., 306.

51 Edw. III.