Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/715

 APPENDIX H 693 But for the happy accident that the Committee for Privileges has not seen its way to recognise the meeting at Shrewsbury in 1283 as a Parliament valid for peerage purposes, the application of the principle underlying the law as to barony by writ would compel us to accept the astounding proposi- tion that Edward I intended to create 99 Barons (in the modern sense of the word) in one day. Such a proposition naturally prompts the enquiry: Did Edward I and his predecessors and successors show a passion for creating peers? And history answers emphatically "No." For if we disregard the effect of a mere summons to Parliament, and make a list of all earls, dukes, marquesses, viscounts, and barons created by patent, charter, investiture, or in Parliament, from the beginning of Stephen's reign (1135) to the end of that of Edward IV (1483) — practically 350 years — we find that about 1 40 persons were given titles, and no less than 40 of these were members of the royal houses, and of the others many married royalty. Of others than royalty we may say that the number of persons "ennobled" did not average one in three years! Edward I, to be precise, created six earls, and four of these were royal personages. In the face of these facts we should require very strong evidence indeed to convince us that in the 13th and 14th centuries peerage baronies were created by writs of summons to the meetings of the King and the magnates. Moreover, if we are to suppose that any such effect proceeded from such a cause, we must admit that the King was pursuing at one and the same time two policies which were absolutely opposed in principle. We must be prepared to believe that on the one hand, by confining the descent of earldoms to male issue — as shown elsewhere (') — he was trying to overcome the troubles and perplexities caused by tenure in fee, while on the other he was creating with the most lavish profusion another degree of peerage with the same very wide terms ot inheritance: that he was putting an end to his difficulties in one direction and deliberately multiplying them in perpetuity in another. And the supposition that Edward I was surrounding himself with a powerful class of hereditary legislators grotesquely travesties history, which shows him at grips with the very men he is said to have loaded with honours As Professor Tout observes: That Edward established constitutional government in England was the result of historical accident much more than deliberate design. Certain it is that Edward I had no more than Philip the Fair any conscious intention of taking the people into partner- ship with him or of promoting any sort of constitutional freedom. All that the old King sought was to get the help of the lower estates, the country gentry and the merchants of the towns, in his inevitable struggle against the privileged baronage and episcopate, which loudly demanded that they alone should help the King in the rule of the land, but made it the condition of their help that the King should frame his policy in accordance with their ideals.C") {«) See ante, pp. 677-79. (•>) The Place of the Reign of Edward II in Engiiih History, by T. F. Tout, 32-