Earliest council named as a Parliament. Supply conditional on redrefs. bore the ominous name of Parliament. The Court's urgent neceffities had called it together: but, upon the demand for a fubfidy, fresh violations of the Charter were made broadly the ground for refufing to give; and it was only at length conceded, in the shape of a fifteenth of all movables, upon receipt of guarantees for a more strict obfervance of the Charter, and with the condition that the money fo raised fhould be placed in the treasury, and none of it taken out before the King was of age, unless for the defence of the realm, and in the prefence of fix bishops and fix earls. As far as I by parlia am aware, this is the first example of parliamentary control brought face to face with the royal prerogative, and the tranfaction contained in the germ whatever has been worthieft of a free people in our history. Control of money ment. Appeal of to people. Indirectly may be traced to it, among other Henry III. incidents very notable, that proclamation from Henry the Third, fummoning his people to take part with him against the barons and great lords, which was one of the most memorable of the precedents unrolled by Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Edward Coke when the struggle with the Stuarts began. It was then late in the reign; but Henry was only seeking to better the inftruction received in his nonage from appeals exactly fimilar addreffed to the people by the Barons, while their conflict ftill continued with Peter des Roches. The wily Poitevin, galled by the conditions attached to the fubfidy, precipitated the young King into further difputes; in the course of which, offices of truft were gradually taken from the English Similar appeal from Barons. favourites. barons and filled by foreigners brought over Jealousy into England. The men of old family, wedded of French now to the land of their fathers as jealously as the Saxon had been, faw themselves difplaced for the French jefter, tool, or pander; and thefe fo-called Norman chiefs turned for fympathy and help to a people no longer exclufively either Norman or Saxon, but united infeparably on their English foil. tranf Hiftorians have been very reluctant to admit so early an intrufion of the popular element into the government of the Plantagenets; and it is ftill the cuftom to treat of this particular reign as a mere struggle for the predominance Struggle of ariftocracy or monarchy. But beneath the for power furface, the other and more momentous power formed to is vifible enough, as it heaves and ftirs the war of outward agencies and figns of authority; and principles. what might elfe have been a paltry struggle, eafily terminable, for court favour or military predominance, was by this converted into a war of principles, awful and irreconcilable, which ran its courfe with varying fortune through all fubfequent time. The merchants Rife of and tradefmen of the towns are now first recog-and tradefnisable as an independent and important class. men. They have been enriched by that very intercourse with foreigners which was fo hateful to the clafs above them. They are invested with privileges wrung from the poverty of their lords. They are no longer liable to individual fervices, but in place of them are paying common rents. They have guilds and charters Guilds inviolable as the fees of the great proprietors; Charters. and, incident to these, the right, as little now merchants and to be difputed as that of the feudal superior had been, to hold fairs and demand tolls, to choose their own magiftrates and enact their Privileges own laws. On the hearing of fuch men, the and rights provifions of the Great Charter, read aloud middle from time to time in their County Courts, ceded to clafs. King's fummons obeyed, 1233. could not have fallen as a mere empty found. What was fo proclaimed might be but halfenfranchisement; it could indeed be little more, while ferfdom remained in the claffes directly beneath them; but it pointed to where freedom. was, accustomed them to its claims and forms, and helped them onward in the direction where it lay. They joined the Barons against the foreign favourite. The conflict had continued fome time, and for parlia- Henry was twenty-fix years old, when his ment not neceffities again compelled him to call together a parliament; but twice his bidding was refused, and the meffengers who bore the refufal might have added the unwonted tidings, that fongs fung against the favourite, and filled with warnings to the fovereign, might daily be heard in the streets. Amid other figns and portents of focial change had now arifen the Political political ballad. In it fhone forth the first vera effigies of the Poitevin bishop of Winchefter; nimble at the counting of money as he was flow in expounding the gofpel; fitting paramount, not in Winchefter, but in Exchequer; pondering on pounds, and not upon his holy book; poftponing Luke to lucre; and fetting more ftore by a handful of marks than by all the doctrines of their namesake upon the faint. Would the King avoid the fhipwreck ballads. Attack Favourite. tent. of his kingdom? afked the finger. Then let him fhun for ever the ftones and rocks (Roches) in his way. Quickly, too, were these warnings followed up. By no lefs a person than Pembroke's fon, the ftandard of rebellion was let loose in the Welfh diftricts; the clergy, General oppreffed by tax and tallage from Rome, began difconto take part in the general difcontent; and in midst of a feaft at the palace, Edmund of Canterbury (Langton's fucceffor) prefented himfelf with a statement of national grievances and a demand for immediate redrefs. He Grievreminded the King that his father had well-ances renigh forfeited his crown; he told him that Redrefs the English people would never fubmit to be demanded. February, trampled upon by foreigners in England; and 234 for himself he added that he fhould excommunicate all who any longer refufed, in that crifis of danger, to fupport the reform of the government and the welfare of the nation. That was in February, 1234. In April, a Parliaparliament had affembled, Peter and his Poi- ment tevins were on their way home across the fea, and Favouthe minifters who had made themselves hateful rite difwere difmiffed, and the oppofition barons were April, in power. affembled miffed. 1234. This will read like the language of a modern day; but if fuch events have any hiftoric fignificance, they establish what in the modern phrafe can only properly be defcribed as minifterial refponfibility and parliamentary control. MinifteriNor were they the folitary or ifolated events fibility and al refponof their class which marked the feeling of the Parliatime. Again and again, during this prolonged mentary reign, the fame incidents recur, in precifely control. Diftrefs, the fame circle of refiftance and fubmiffion. There is an urgent request for money, which is contemptuously refused; but on a promise to redress grievances, the fubfidy is given. Then, Court coffers being full, Court pledges are violated; until again distress brings round Redrefs, the old piteous petition, and, with new condiand Sup- tions of reftraint and conftitutional fafeguards before undemanded, affiftance is rendered again. In five years from the incident I have named, the money fo granted by Parliament was paid. into the hands of felected Barons, with as strict provifo for account as modern parliaments have claimed over public expenditure; and in Securities two years more, on the payment of certain for public monies to the Exchequer, the City of London ply. faith. tematifed. Bracton, 1250. exacted a ftipulation that the Jufticiary, Chancellor, and Treasurer might thereafter be appointed with the confent of Parliament, and hold their offices only during good behaviour. And, at the very time when public faith was thus beginning to be exacted and recognised, Law fy law was taking the form of a fyftem. It was now that Bracton produced that treatise which went far in itself to establish uniformity of legal practice, and fo create our common law; nor had the reign for which this might have fufficed as the fole diftinction, reached its close, before the fame great lawyer found himself able to reckon as fuperior to the King "not only God and the law by which he is made king, but his Great Court (Curia Regis); "fo that if he were without a bridle, that is, "the law, they ought to put a bridle upon "him." This Court, this Curia Regis, con Curia Regis: |