Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/352

322 became agitated, pregnant with loftier views of responsibility, and where the general mark of humanity was accelerated by wiser provisions for the regulation of commerce and the administration of justice.

Without perplexing ourselves by a long enquiry into the nature of our early legislative assemblies, I will merely state as a reason for passing over by a rapid enumeration the earlier ones convened at Northampton, that it is not until the latter end of the reign of Henry III. that we are able to discover the rudiments of that popular mode of representation existing at present. During the antecedent period, the spiritual and temporal peers were the only persons admitted to the royal councils, and their privileges seem to have been very indefinitely laid down. On some occasions the former outnumbered the latter, on others there was a preponderance on the side of the barons, and as in the instance of the parliament at Shrewsbury during the reign of Edward I., sometimes the bishops were not even summoned. Nor are these deviations from the general system the only ones on record, as we find parallel instances in the Cortes of Castile, to which in 1370 and 1373 neither the nobles nor the clergy were called. Although the title of 'parliament' has been freely given to several of these early conventions, we must not connect them with our modern application of the term, nor suppose that the principle of receiving representatives from the community was fully recognised. Parliaments were not in fact identified with the more ancient forms of the British government. This will enable us at once to pass over, without discussion, the conferences held here between Robert duke of Normandy and his brother Henry I.; the settlement of the succession by the latter prince upon his daughter Maud; the council held both by Stephen and Richard I.; the convention to try the traitorous a Becket, and the ratification of the Constitutions of Clarendon. Each of these, historically interesting, deserves more attention than the present occasion will suffice to afford, but none taken by itself involves any point of sufficient constitutional importance for us to pursue further its examination.