against the dangers which are in these days threatening the same
kingdom: and on that account have commanded them to be with
us on the Lord’s Day next after the feast of St Martin in the approaching
wint.er, at Westminster, to consider, ordain and do as
may be necessary for the avoidance of these dangers: we strictly
require you to cause two knights from the aforesaid county, two
citizens from each city in the same county and two burgesses from
each borough, of those who are especially discreet and capable of
labouring, to be elected without delay, and to cause them to come
to us at the aforesaid time and place. Moreover, the said knights
are to have full and sufficient power for themselves and for the community
of the aforesaid county, and the said citizens and burgesses
for themselves and the communities of the aforesaid cities and
boroughs separately, then and there, for doing what shall then be
ordained according to the Common Council in the premises, so that
the aforesaid business shall not remain unfinished in any way for
defect of this power. And you shall have there the names of the
knights, citizens and burgesses, and this writ.”
The words “Elegi facias,” instead of “ venire facias ” (which were retained in 1275; see Parliament), still appear to make the parliament of 1295 the model, rather than that of 1275, though in other respects the latter appears now to have established the summoning of county and borough representatives.
In this summoning by the king of the two knights and two burgesses with full and sufficient power for themselves and for the community, we find therefore the origin of political representation of the commons, as opposed to the actual presence and personal attendance of the peers. The older English national assemblies had consisted Growth of representation in England. of the privileged class fully summoned as individuals. The change involved has been well explained by E. A. Freeman (Ency. Brit., 9th ed., viii. 297), when he says: “The national assemblies changed their character . . . by no cause so much as by the growth of the practice of summons. . . . In the great assembly at Salisbury (1086), where all the landowners of England became the men of the king (William the Conqueror), we see the first germs of Lords and Commons. The Witan are distinguished from the ‘land-sitting men.’ By the Witan, so called long after the Conquest, we are doubtless to understand those great men of the realm who were usually summoned to every assembly. The vast multitude who came to do their homage to the king were summoned only for that particular occasion. The personal right of summons is the essence of the peerage. . . . The earls and bishops of England, by never losing their right to the personal summons, have kept that right to personal attendance in the national assembly which was once common to all freemen, but which other freemen have lost. The House of Lords represents[1] by unbroken, succession the Witan of the assembly of Salisbury; that is, it represents by unbroken succession the old assemblies of the Teutonic democracy. . . . The 'land-sitting men, ' on the other hand, not summoned personally or regularly, but summoned in a mass when their attendance was specially needed, gradually lost the right of personal attendance, till in the end they gained the more practical right of appearing by their representatives.” From the same authority the account of the intermediate stages in the adoption of the representative principle may be further quoted:—
“By the time of Henry II. the force of circumstances, especially the working of the practice of summons, had gradually changed the ancient assembly of the whole nation into a mere gathering of the great men of the realm .... It is in the reign of Richard I. that we begin to see the first faint glimmerings of parliamentary representation The object of his wise ministers, of Archbishop Hubert among the first, was to gain the greatest amount of money for their master with the least amount of oppression towards the nation. Under Hubert's administration, chosen bodies of knights or other lawful men, acting in characters which became more and more distinctly representative, were summoned for every kind of purpose. How far they were nominated, how far freely elected, is not always clear. It seems most likely that in one stage they were nominated by the sheriff in the county court, while at a later stage they were chosen by the county court itself. In other words, the principle of representation was first established. and then the next stage naturally was that the representatives should be freely chosen. Summoned bodies of knights appear in characters which are the forerunners of grand jurors and of justices of the peace. They appear also in a character which makes them distinctly forerunners of the knights of the shire which were soon to come. A chosen body of knights have to assess the imposts 'on each shire. From assessing the taxes the next stage was to vote or to refuse them. In IZI3 the sheriffs are called on to summon four discreet men from each shire, to come and speak with the king about the affairs of the realm. When we have reached this stage, we have come very near to a parliament, name and thing. The reign of John, in short, is marked by common consent as the time from which Englishmen date the birth of their national freedom in its later form, . . . The (Great) Charter (1215) is the first solemn act of the united English nation after Norman conquerors and Norman settlers had become naturalized Englishmen. . . . Representation was already fast growing up; but it had hardly yet reached such a stage that it could be ordained in legal form. But rules are laid down out of which, even if it had not begun already, representation in the strictest sense could not fail shortly to arise. The distinction which had been growing up ever since the Conquest, and indeed before, between the Witan and the land-sitting men, now receives a legal sanction. The practice of summons makes the distinction. Certain great men, prelates, earls and greater barons, are to receive the personal summons. The rest of the king's tenants-in-chief are to be summoned only in a body. Here we have almost come to a separation of Lords and Commons. But in modern ideas those names imply two distinct houses; and it was not yet settled, it had not yet come into men's minds to consider, whether the national council should consist of one house or a dozen. But it is decreed in so many words that the acts of those who came would bind those who stayed away. On such a provision, representation, and not only representation but election of the representatives, follows almost as a matter of course. The mass stay away: a few appear, specially commissioned to act in the name of the rest. The Charter mentions only the king's tenants-in-chief; so far had things been marred or feudalized by the influence of the Conquest. But as the election could only be made in the ancient county court, every freeholder at least, if not every freeman, won back his ancient right. If he could not come himself to say Yea or Nay, he at least had a voice in choosing those who could do so with greater effect.” (Ibid. pp. 307, 308.)
“The constitution of the (national) assembly, as defined in the Great Charter, did not absolutely imply representation; but it showed that the full establishment of representation could not be long delayed. The work of the period 1217–1340 was to call up, alongside of the gathering of prelates, earls and other great men specially summoned, into which the ancient Witanagemot had s runk up, another assembly directly representing all other classes of the nation which enjoyed political rights. This assembly, chosen by various local bodies, communitates or universitates, having a quasi corporate being, came gradually to bear the name of the commons. The knights of the shire, the barons, citizens and burgesses of the towns, were severally, chosen by the communa or communitas of that part of the people which they represented.”[2]
“The notion of local representation, by which shires and boroughs chose representatives of their own communities, had to some extent to strive with another doctrine, that of the representation of estates or classes of men. The 13th century was the age when the national assemblies, not only of England but of most other European countries, were putting on their definite shape. And in most of them the system of estates prevailed. These in most countries were three,—clergy, nobles and commons. By these last were commonly meant only the communities of the chartered towns, while the noblesse of foreign countries answered to the lesser barons and knights, who in England were reckoned among the commons. The English system. thus went far to take in the whole free population, while the estates of other countries, the commons no less than the clergy and nobles, must be looked on as privileged bodies. In England we had in truth no estates: we had no nobility in the foreign sense. . . . Yet the continental theory of estates so far worked in the development of our parliamentary system that the Three Estates of England became a familiar phrase. It was meant to denote the lords, the commons and the clergy in their parliamentary character. For it is plain that it was the intention of Edward I. to organize the clergy as a parliamentary estate, alongside of the lords and commons. This scheme failed, mainly through the unwillingness of the clergy themselves to attend in a secular assembly. This left, so far as there were any estates at all, two estates only,—lords and commons. This led to the common
- ↑ The inevitable use of the word “represent” in its wider sense (“corresponds to”), is worth noting in this passage from Freeman, side by side with the more technical one in ' representative " (“chosen delegate”).
- ↑ Professor Masterman, lecturing (1908) on the House of Commons, has pointed out how fortunate it was that this beginning of the organization of the communes into a central body did not come earlier than it did. Had there been one assembly representing the local communitates at any earlier time it would have been far too sectional in character and far too little conscious of any common interest. The organization did not begin till England had become a self -conscious body, realizing its common interests and the common destiny that belonged to it as a nation.
