and Commons King, Lords established under Edward I: arbitrary taxation to the "Confirmatio Ever since the year 1295 (23rd Edward I.) Parliaments Government by after the model of Simon de Montfort's famous assembly have been regularly summoned in continuous, or all but continuous, succession. The essential basis of the English constitution, government by King, Lords and Commons, may thus be said to have been definitely fixed in the reign of the great Edward. To the same period And the right of we must also assign the full and complete acknowledgement of the most important because the practical surrendered mainspring of every other-power of Parliament. It Events lealing was long before the king would surrender the right of taking talliages without a parliamentary grant. In order Chartarum to carry on his extensive wars he was in constant need of large sums of money, which he raised by arbitrary exactions from all classes of his subjects, lay and clerical. In vain did the clergy endeavour to shelter themselves under the bull of Boniface VIII., Clericis laicos' (24th Ball 'Clericis of February, 1296), which absolutely forbade the payment to laymen of any tax whatever on the revenues of the church. The practical outlawry of the whole clerical body, and the confiscation of the estates of the see of Canterbury, compelled the clergy to abandon their untenable position. Laicos.' Wool Whilst the clergy were exasperated by these violent Maltolte on proceedings, the merchants were equally aggrieved by the heavy impositions placed on the export of their wool, and by the actual seizure of the greater part of it, 'It was by Edward I. that the bases were settled upon which the English constitution rests. With marvellous sagacity he comprehended the purport of every true thought which was floating on the surface of the age in which he lived. Perhaps no man, excepting Cromwell, possessed of equal capacity for government, ever showed less inclination to exercise arbitrary rule. He knew how to mould his subjects to his own wise will, not by crushing them into unwilling obedience, but by inspiring them with noble thoughts. When he first reached man's estate he found his countrymen ready to rush headlong into civil war. When he died, he left England free as ever, but welded together into a compact and harmonious body. There was work enough left for future generations to do, but their work would consist merely in filling in the details of the outline which had been drawn once for all by a steady hand.'-Gardiner, Hist. Eng. i. 16. 2 Ann. Trivet. p. 353, A.D. 1297. for which payment was nominally given by tallies upon the Exchequer. Large quantities of provisions were, in the same manner, exacted from the men of each county for the king's expedition to Flanders, and, in the words of the old chronicler, multae fiebant oppressiones in populo terrae.'1 The baronage also were irritated by the king's open disregard of many of the provisions of the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest, both of Foreign service. which he persistently refused to confirm. They had, Infractions of The Earls of Hereford and Norfolk. moreover, a personal grievance in the king's demand of foreign service, which they alleged that neither they nor their ancestors had ever been liable to perform. Hallam's eulogium on Bohun Earl of Hereford, the constable, and Bigod Earl of Norfolk, the marshal of England, the two leaders of the political party who forced from the king the Confirmatio Chartarum, requires some qualification. They would appear to have been actuated quite as much by personal claims as by motives of true patriotism. But whatever were their motives, it is mainly to their combined courage and prudence, and to the patriotic exertions of Archbishop Winchelsey, that we owe the addition of another pillar to our constitution not less important than the Great Charter itself.'s What may be termed a Grand Remonpresented to the strance was presented to the king in the name of the king. ' archbishops, bishops, abbots and priors, earls and barons, and the whole commonalty of the land,' setting forth the evils of which they complained and demanding redress. They complained in forcible language of the talliages, aids, and prises exacted, as they asserted, with such rigour that the people had scarcely wherewithal to support themselves ('et multi sunt qui nullam sustentionem habent, nec terras suas colere possunt ;') of the non-observance of Magna Charta and the Charter of the Forest; and of the evil toll' on wool recently A Grand Re monstrance 1 W. de Hemingburgh, ii. 119, A.D. 1297. imposed. To this remonstrance the king declined to return any specific answer without the advice of his council, part of which had already sailed for Flanders. A few days afterwards he himself proceeded to Ghent, leaving his son, Edward Prince of Wales, as regent. When the king had departed, the earls seized the opportunity to press their demands upon the young prince and his council, who found it necessary to yield. The 'Confirmatio Chartarum,' which, although a statute, is The statute drawn up in the form of a charter, was passed on the 10th of October, 1297, in a Parliament at which repre- passed 10th sentatives of the commons as well as the lay and clerical baronage attended, the two earls being supported by a large military following. It was immediately sent over to King Edward at Ghent, and there confirmed by him on the 5th of November following.3 By the 5th section of this statute the king expressly renounced as precedents the 'aids, tasks, and prises' before taken. The next section proceeds 'VI. Moreover we have granted for us and our heirs, as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy Church, as also to earls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that for no business from henceforth will we take such manner of aids, tasks, nor 'Confirmatio Chartarum,' Oct. 1297. 1 See the document in W. Rishanger, Chron. 175, A.D. 1297. With reference to the tax on wool the remonstrants add, Lana enim Angliae ascendit fere ad valorem medietatis totius terrae, et vectigal quod inde solvitur ascendit ad quintam partem valoris totius terrae.' 225 Edw. I. st. 1, c. 6. 3 In 1299, the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk, doubting the King's sincerity or the binding force of his confirmation at Ghent of his son's acts, demanded a second formal confirmation. This the King reluctantly granted on the 8th of March, but with a comprehensive proviso saving the rights of the crown ('Salvis tamen juramento nostro, jure coronae nostrae, et rationibus nostris ac etiam aliorum.') The openly expressed discontent of the people at this unlooked-for reservation induced Edward to repeat the process shortly afterwards without the obnoxious salvo. The charters were twice again confirmed by Edward, in the Articuli Super Cartas,' on March the 6th, 1300, and finally on the 14th of February, 1301, in return for a subsidy of a fifteenth." Notwithstanding this, Edward secretly sought and obtained, in 1306, from Pope Clement V. an absolution from the observance of the Confirmation of the Charters; but, to his honour be it said, the absolution was never acted upon. 'De Tallagio non conce dendo.' prises, but by the common assent of [all] the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.' By section VII. the maltolte of wools, that is, to wit, a toll of forty shillings for every sack of wool,' is released, and the king grants that we shall not take such thing nor any other' without the common assent and goodwill of the commonalty of the realm, 'saving to us and our heirs the custom of wools, skins, and leather granted before by the commonalty aforesaid.'1 The saving words in this statute would appear to have preserved to the king the ancient custom on wool (as distinguished from the 'evil toll'), and even the legal right of talliaging the towns and royal demesne, a right which he exercised in 1304. But although not formally taken away, talliage without consent of Parliament was clearly contrary to the interpretation of this statute given in the 'De Tallagio non Concedendo.' This document is now admitted not to have been an actual statute, but we are at least justified in regarding it as good evidence of a principle which, from the time of the Confirmation of the Charters, has been universally received.'3 The exclusive right of Parliament to impose taxation, though often infringed by the illegal exercise of prerogative, became from this time an axiom of the constitution. 1 Statutes of the Realm, i. 124. 2 See the king's writ in Rolls of Parliament, i. 266. There was also an 'ancient prise' of wines imported,—a duty of two tons from every vessel. 3 Freeman, Growth of English Constitution, 188. The Statutum de Tallagio non Concedendo' is quoted as a statute in the preamble of the Petition of Right, and thenceforth acquired the authority of a statute. In 1637 it was decided to be a statute by the judges: but there is now no doubt that originally it was a mere abstract, imperfect and unauthoritative, of the regent's act of confirmation and of the pardon of the two earls.'-See Stubbs, Select Chart. 487; and Hallam, Midd. Ages, iii. 4, n. The material words are: 'Nullum tallagium vel auxilium per nos vel haeredes nostros de cetero in regno nostro imponatur seu levetur, sine voluntate et assensu communi archiepiscoporum, episcoporum et aliorum praelatorum, comitum, baronum militum, burgensium et aliorum hominum in regno nostro.' CHAPTER VIII. GROWTH OF PARLIAMENT. A.D. 1295-1399. (23 Edward I.; Edward II.; Edward III.; Richard II.) Parliament gradually wins back an active control over all the affairs of the nation. WE have seen that under Edward I. the Commune The National Concilium Regni,' which for a time, after the Norman Conquest, had been absorbed into the feudal 'Curia Regis,' again emerged as a really national Parliament, in which all the political elements of the nation were present either in person or by representation. But although complete in its representative character, Parliament had yet, as a whole, to make good its powers; and the newly-admitted Commons to vindicate their right to an equal, and ultimately to a preponderating, share in the government of the country. The king was at all times in theory bound to act with the 'counsel and consent' of the great assembly of the nation. But by the overthrow of the old feudal party under Henry II., and the break-up of the new national combination which, until the death of De Montfort, had successfully opposed the misgovernment of Henry III., the king had in reality acquired and exercised, through the medium of his 'concilium ordinarium,' a power little less than despotic. In the growth of Parliament, from the date of its definitive establishment under Edward I., we shall trace the process by which the National Council gradually won back that active control over all the affairs of the nation, which the ancient Witenagemôt |