Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/326

Rh 308 ENGLAND [HISTORY. to the same house as the bishops and earls, while the knights should appear only by their representatives along with the smaller freeholders and the burgesses of the towns. It is in the reign of Richard I. that we begin to see the first faint glimmerings of parliamentary representation. The one object of the absentee king was to screw all the money that he could out of the kingdom for which he cared not. 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 oppres sion towards the nation. Under Hubert s administration, chosen bodies of knights or other lawful men, acting in characters which become more and more distinctly repre sentative, 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 1213 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 Great The reign of John, in short, is marked by common con- Charter, sent as the time from which Englishmen date the birth of their national freedom in its later form. From his day men no longer asked for the observance of the laws of Eadward. They asked for the observance of John s own charter, which was deemed to be nothing else than the laws of Eadward in a new shape. By that charter all the great principles of constitutional government were affirmed. They were so fully affirmed as to be in advance of the age ; only a few years later men shrank from affirming them again with so clear a voice. Stephen Langton doubt less saw further than other men of his day ; but, if in one or two points he claimed more than his generation was ready for, the great mass of his legislation took root at once, and so prepared men for the final acceptance of all a generation or two later. The Charter is the first solemn act of the united English nation after Norman conquerors and Nor man, settlers had become naturalized Englishmen. Of dis tinction of race or law there is not a word. The one dis tinction drawn is that between freeman and villain, and even the villain has rights which the Charter protects. It ordains nothing new, except the temporary provisions for its own enforcement, provisions which give a legal sanction to the natural right of resisting a king who rebels against the law. Novel abuses are to be redressed; new means of redressing them are supplied ; but the old law of England, the law of Eadward, the law of Henry, stands firm. But it is with the strictly constitutional provisions of theCharter that we are here most concerned. 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 nob 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 Landsittinfj 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 and 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 cry Yea or Nay, he at least had a voice in choosing those who could do so with greater effect. The point in which the legislation of the Charter seems The to have been in advance of the age was with regard to the P ow power of the purse. The old threefold burthen, the trinoda tlie necessitous, seems, in the new feudalized state of things, to have given way to the three cases in which the lord might law fully call on his man for an aid. These were his own ransom from captivity, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of his eldest daughter. This right is allowed to the king ; but he could call for money in no other case, unless it was voted to him by the national council. This was the old law, and in quite recent times both Thomas of London and St Hugh, the Burgundian bishop of Lincoln, had, in full assembly, withstood exactions on the part of Henry and Richard. But, though both ancient law and modern precedent were for the clause, men were not ready for the direct assertion of its principle. The clause was left out at the later confirmations of the Charter, and the right was not again fully established till the end of the century. The provisions which were temporary were not the least important. Twenty-five barons were appointed to carry them out, and, to show the advance of municipal rights, among them was the mayor of London. If the king Res broke his oath, they were to call the whole commons of the ano kingdom to their help, and to constrain the rebel king by aliz force. When John again rebelled, his barons and people drew the sword against him, and they were but carrying out the letter of the law. The main principles of constitutional government had Em thus been established ; the old freedom had been won back P os in a new shape. England was England again. But the , European position of England had altogether changed. The final outcome of Norman and Angevin rule in England had been to make England an European and a continental power, holding two Gaulish dependencies, the duchy of Aquitaine and the insular Normandy. But the vast exten sion of the Angevin dominions before they were thus cut short had brought England into connexion with most parts of Europe. The daughters of Henry II., like the daughters of Eadward the Unconquered, were married to princes in distant lands, in Castile, Sicily, and Saxony. This last marriage, that of Matilda with Henry the Lion, gave the old connexion between England and Germany a special Con direction. During the dispute with the archbishop, Henry |^ n was more than once tempted to forsake the obedience of ffl *, Alexander III., and to accept the pontiffs who were succes sively set up by the emperor Frederick. But the Saxon marriage caused kings whose internal policy was distinctly Ghibeline to appear in foreign lands as the allies of the Guelf. Otto IV., the son of Henry the Lion and Matilda, was constantly at the court of his uncles, and he received