renounced as precedents the 'aids, tasks, and prises' before taken. The next section proceeds :

'vi. Morcover we have granted for us and our heirs, as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy Church, as also to carls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that for no business from henceforth will we take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises, but by the common assent of [all] the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.'

By section vii. the maltolte of wools, that is, to wit, a toll of forty shillings for every sack of wool,' is released, and the King grants that we shall not take such thing nor any other' without the common assent and good-will of the commonalty of the realm, saving to us and our heirs the custom of wools, skins, and leather granted before by the commonalty aforesaid.1

non conce

The saving words in this statute would appear to have preserved to the King the ancient custom on wool (as distinguished from the evil toll '), and even the legal right of talliaging the towns and royal demesne, a right which he exercised in 1304. But although not formally taken 'De Tallagio away, talliage without consent of Parliament was clearly dendo.' contrary to the interpretation of this statute given in the 'De Tallagio non Concedendo.' This document is now admitted not to have been an actual statute, but we are at least justified in regarding it as good evidence of a principle which, from the time of the Confirmation of the Charters, has been universally received.' The exclusive

1 Statutes of the Realm, i. 124.

2 See the king's writ in Rot. Parl., i. 266. There was also an 'ancient prise' of wines imported,—a duty of two tons from every vessel. 3 Freeman, Growth of English Constitution, 188.

The Statutum de Tallagio non Concedendo' is quoted as a statute in the preamble of the Petition of Right, and thenceforth acquired the authority of a statute. In 1637 it was decided to be a statute by the judges: but there is now no doubt that originally it was a mere abstract, imperfect and unauthoritative, of the regent's act of confirmation and of the pardon of the two earls.' -See Stubbs, Select Chart. 487; and Hallam, Midd. Ages, iii. 4, n. The material words are :

'Nullum tallagium vel auxilium per nos vel haeredes nostros de cetero in

right of Parliament to impose taxation, though often infringed by the illegal exercise of prerogative, became from this time an axiom of the constitution.

regno nostro imponatur seu levetur, sine voluntate et assensu communi archiepiscoporum, episcoporum et aliorum praelatorum, comitum, baronum, militum, burgensium, et aliorum hominum in regno nostro.'

CHAPTER VIII.

GROWTH OF PARLIAMENT.

(A.D. 1295-1399.)

23 EDWARD L.; EDWARD IL; EDWARD HI; RICHARD II.

ment gra

back an

the affairs of

WE have seen that under Edward I. the Commune The Na Concilium Regni,' which for a time, after the Norman tional Parlia Conquest, had been absorbed into the feudal 'Curia Regis, dually wins again emerged as a really national Parliament, in which all active conthe political elements of the nation were present either in trol over all person or by representation. But although complete in its the nation. representative character, Parliament had yet, as a whole, to make good its powers; and the newly-admitted Commons to vindicate their right to an equal, and ultimately to a preponderating, share in the government of the country. The King was at all times in theory bound to act with the 'counsel and consent' of the great assembly of the nation. But by the overthrow of the old feudal party under Henry II., and the break-up of the new national combination which, until the death of De Montfort, had successfully opposed the misgovernment of Henry III., the King had in reality acquired and exercised, through the medium of his continual or ordinary council, a power little less than despotic. In the growth of Parliament, from the date of its definitive establishment under Edward I., we shall trace the process by which the National Council gradually won back that active control over all the affairs of the nation, which

the ancient Witenagemot always, and even the feudal Great Councils at times, had undoubtedly exercised.' Parliament The exact date of the division of Parliament into two two House Houses is not quite clear, but it was completely effected before the middle of the fourteenth century. It must be borne in mind that the Commons consisted of two elements,

divided into!

The comprehensive functions of the Witan have already been discussed, supra, pp. 32, 34 Dr. Freeman (Norm. Conq. ii. 90) cites an instance of a debate in the Witenagemot under Eadward the Confessor, on a question of war or peace. In 1242, Henry III. being desirous, at the request of his mother Isabella and her husband the Count de la Marche, of resuming the war with France, submitted the question to a Great Council at Westminster, at the same time demanding an aid. A great debate ensued, of which a detailed account is given in Matthew Paris. The magnates unanimously determined that it was the king's duty to observe the truce then subsisting long as it was not

violated by the French king; and with respect to the aid asked for * responderunt eidem domino regi praecise quod nullum ad praesens ei facerent_auxilium. An early instance of control by the national council over public expenditure had occurred a few years previously, in 1237, when the thirtieth granted to the king as the price of one of his numerous confirmations of the Charter, had been paid into the hands of four of the barons to be expended at their discretion for the benefit of the king and kingdom.'--Matt. Paris, 581, 582.

'A l'origine des États modernes,' says M. Guizot, et notamment de l'Angleterre, on était fort loin de penser que le corps des citoyens capables, que la nation politique, eût pour tout droit, celui de consentir aux impôts; qu'elle fût soumise d'ailleurs à une autorité indépendante, et ne dût point intervenir, directement ou indirectement, dans la généralité des affaires de l'Etat. Quelles que fussent ces affaires, elles étaient les siennes; elle s'en occupait toutes les fois que leur importance appelait naturellement son intervention. L'histoire du Wittenagemot saxon, du Magnum-concilium anglo-normand, et de toutes les assemblées nationales des peuples germains, dans la première période de leur existence, en fait foi. Ces assemblées étaient vraiment le grand conseil national traitant et décidant, de concert avec le roi, des affaires de la nation. Quand le système représentatif a fait toutes ses grandes conquêtes et porté ses fruits essentiels, on en est revenu là; on s'est trouvé reporté au point de départ.... Le parlement est redevenu le grand conseil national où sont débattus et réglés tous les intérêts nationaux.'-Hist. du Gouv. Rep. ii. 318.

The first mention in the Rolls of Parliament of a separate session occurs in 1332 (Rot. Parl. ii. 66). From 1339 the division may be regarded as permanent. In 1352 the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey was the Chamber of the Commons. (Rot. Parl. ii. 237; Stubbs, Const. Hist. iii. 429, 430.) The advantages of the 'Bi-cameral system' as a guarantee for orderly and permanent government have been forcibly stated by the American writers, Kent, Story, and Lieber, and by Jeremy Bentham and Bowyer in our own country. A brief summary of them is given in Sir Edward Creasy's Eng. Const. 198. But it should be noted that it was only the accidental circumstance of the withdrawal of the clergy from all interference in secular legislation that prevented us from having, as was generally the case in continental constitutions, three houses of Nobles, Clergy, and Commons.—(Supra, pp. 247, 248.) Stubbs (Const. Hist. ii. 189) points out that there was even at one time a possibility that the lawyers and the merchants might have been grouped in separate sub-estates.

Commons,

berated and

apart from

the knights of the shire and the burgesses. The knights Two elebelonged socially to the same class as the barons, and had ments of the moreover, originally possessed an equal right with them to knights and burgesses. attend in person. On the introduction of county represen- The knights tation the knights of the shire, although elected not merely at first deliby the immediate tenants of the King, but by all the free- voted with holders of the county, naturally continued to sit, deliberate, the barons, and vote with the greater barons. But the representatives the bur of boroughs, belonging to a lower social grade, and enter- gesses. ing Parliament in virtue of a newly-acquired right, formed from the first a distinct assembly, deliberating and voting apart. Whether they sat in a separate chamber, or at the bottom of Westminster Hall, while the lords and knights occupied the upper end, is a matter of little importance. The separation of the burgesses is evident from the grants of subsidies which, for many years after the introduction of the commons, were voted in different proportions by (1). the earls, barons, and knights, (2) the clergy and (3) the citizens and burgesses. There is reason to believe that the knights even while still voting apart, occasionally joined with the burgesses in petitions. In the Sth of Edward II. (1315) 'the Commons of England [in another part of the record they are termed 'le poeple'] complain to our lord the King and his council;' and there are several other petitions in the 19th of the same King, from the body of the Commons in Parliament ('voz liges gentz pur tote la Commune,' 'les gentz de la Commune de vostre Roialme').? At length, in 1347, we find the Commons, without distinction, granting two-fifteenths from the cities, boroughs,

1 In 1296, the barons and knights and the clergy gave each a twelfth, the burgesses an eighth; in 1305, the barons and knights and the clergy gave a thirtieth, the burgesses a twentieth; in 1308, the barons and knights gave a twentieth, the clergy and the burgesses each a fifteenth. In the 6th of Edward III. (1333) the rates were for the barons and knights and the clergy a fifteenth, for the burgesses a tenth; but on this occasion the knights and burgesses deliberated, although they did not vote, in common. In 1345 the knights granted two fifteenths, the burgesses one fifth, while the lords promised to follow the king in person and granted nothing.-Parl. Hist. i. 206; Rot. Parl. ii. 66.

Rot. Parl. i. 289, 430.