tives. It is true that the Lords sometimes made a grant to the Crown on behalf of their tenants as well as on their own behalf; and that the claim of the former to be exempt from contribution was at length formally acknowledged by statute; but as the tenants had no voice in the nomination of a peer, and there is no case on record of a peer ever formally appealing. for advice or authority to his tenants, and as their claim to a representative character was never asserted except under the circumstances referred to, we have a right to assume that it was only put forward for the purpose of evading the just demands of the Commons.

The first Parliament, constituted as it now is, dates from the famous Assembly which met at Westminster on the 30th September, 1295. We had Assemblies before this at which representatives were present, but no properly constituted Parliaments, meeting at stated periods for the transaction of the ordinary business of state. On several previous occasions, extending over a period of eighty years, representatives from the townships of the royal demesnes, or from the shires, or from the shires cities and boroughs, had been summoned to meet the king and his barons at the Great

1 See proceedings in Parliament of 28 Edward III., 2 Richard II., and elsewhere in Lords' Reports, vol. i. pp. 325-6, 336-7. Parry's Parliaments, pp. 124 and 142.

Council of the nation. For instance, a reeve and four legal men from each township of the royal demesne were summoned to meet the king, archbishops, bishops, and magnates at St. Alban's, on the 4th August, 1213. On the 15th of the same month and year, four knights from each county were summoned to a Parliament at Oxford. Two representative knights from each county were summoned to the Parliament of 38 Henry III. Three knights from each shire were summoned by the barons, then at war with the king, to a Council or Parliament held at St. Alban's, on the 21st of September, 1261; and the king ordered the same knights to be in attendance on him at another Parliament, to be held on the same day at Windsor. Four representative knights from twenty-nine counties were ordered to attend a Parliament at London, on the 24th of June, 1264. Next we had the Parliament of Simon of Montfort, held at London on the 20th of January, 1265, to which representatives from the cities and boroughs, as well as from the shires, were summoned simultaneously for the first time. Two knights for each county, two citizens from each city, and two þurgesses from each borough, were summoned on this occasion. At another Parliament held at Westminster in 18 Edward I., the sheriffs were commanded to return "two or three" knights from each county, and it appears that five counties returned three, and all the

rest two knights each. This is the first Parlia of which we have any record of the names o representatives present.

These were the first Parliaments to which sentatives were admitted, but they were altogeth an exceptional character, having been called tog for special purposes and at irregular intervals. till this time the ordinary Parliaments or Counc State, consisting of prelates, magnates, and ju transacted all the legislative, judicial and admin tive business of the kingdom. The Lords were only original members of these councils long b any knights, citizens or burgesses were admitte participate in their deliberations.

The first representative Assembly in which legislative, judicial and administrative functions of modern Parliaments were combined was, as alre stated, that which met at Westminster on the 301 September, 1295. This Parliament voted the sup to the Crown, took part in the work of legislation controlled the administration. In addition to Lords there were summoned to this Assembly knights from each county, two citizens from city, and two burgesses from each borough wi the kingdom. The writs for this Parliament h been preserved, and they show that ample legi tive and administrative powers were conferred u

it. The powers now for the first time conferred on the representative body in common with the peers, were at a subsequent period confirmed by the valedictory Statute of York, which enacted that henceforth all ordinances were to be void except such as were made by the king "by the assent of the prelates, earls barons, and the commonalty of the realm." The general body of the people were at length admitted to a share in the government, and Parliament, thus broadened in its basis and fairly representative of all classes of the community, became the great controlling power in the State.

For some time subsequent to this, however, the Commons played a very subordinate part in the proceedings of Parliament. Their presence was tolerated rather than welcomed by the hereditary legislators. The judicial functions, then as now, belonged exclusively to the Lords; but even in matters of legislation the powers of the Commons were not regarded in the first instance as co-extensive with those which belonged to the hereditary chamber. They were expected to assent to what the Lords proposed rather than to initiate legislation themselves. We learn from the record of their own

'The writs to the Lords set forth that they were summoned : ad trac. tandum, ordinandum et faciendum nobiscum et cum cæteris Prælatus et Proceribus et alius incolis regni nostri; and to the sheriffs: ad faciendum quod tunc de commune consilio ordinabitur.

proceedings that the Commons were, for a long the victims of something like very sharp practi the part of the king and the other branch o Legislature. In Parliament of 22 Edward III., complain of many charges having been put them without their consent; that answers gra to their petitions were often altered without knowledge or consent; that the king and Lords it upon themselves to alter the answers giver their petitions after the Commons had retired f Parliament. We also learn from the proceed in 2 Henry IV. that these practices were contin notwithstanding the protests of the Commons, that in order to prevent their recurrence the C mons pray" that the business done, or to be d in Parliament, may be enacted and engrossed bef the justices take their departure, while they h them on their memory." They also complain t in many Parliaments their petitions have not be answered before they made their grants, that is say, that evasive replies had been made to them, a they pray that they "may know their answers firs No wonder that after this they held over the suppli and made the Appropriation Bill the last measu of the session.

The Assembly of 1295 also marks the commend ment of Annual Parliaments. From this time for