Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/355

Rh time to press with unequal force upon the rising energies of the people, and in illustration of this, we find in the trans- actions now under review, that whilst the clergy and the burgesses contributed in this parliament a fifteenth from the towns, the knights granted from the counties a twentieth of their moveables, to prosecute the war against the Scots.

Other important matters were for the first time settled by this parliament; such as the terms of the coronation oath, and the oath tendered to the representatives upon taking their seats. By the general tenor of the latter, more especially in its fourth and sixth clauses, every precaution seems to have been taken to support and strengthen the royal prerogative, whilst the provisions of the former not only recognised the limitation of the royal power by existing laws, but that the power of altering those laws and enacting others, could only be exercised with the consent of the 'communaute,' or the lords and commons assembled in parliament. On the present occasion, then, we witness the conflicting elements of the English government balanced against each other with the nicest appreciation of their relative value, those mighty parts formerly brought together in such discordant and hostile collision, now firmly cemented in peaceful union, and the entire fabric laid on so wide a basis, that not only may it be said, the constitution was for the first time securely established, but that however much corruption in the elective franchise, municipal abuses, or natural decay, may have deformed its fair proportions in the lapse of succeeding ages, a reformation and cure has always been found for them by recurring to the pure spirit of these early principles.

The parliament again assembled at Northampton in the second year of the succeeding reign (1328), meeting immediately after the one summoned to York, in consequence of several of the representatives being absent on that occasion. No constitutional questions came under review; these, indeed, had been pretty generally fixed in the preceding reigns as they now stand, but much business of a momentous character occupied attention. In the first place, the writs of summons prohibited tournaments, and the appearance of that tumultuous retinue of armed men which had usually attended upon these occasions. The representatives were thus enabled to carry on their deliberations without distraction, personal fear, or restraint. Here both the origin and authority is