al principle."[16]

REPRESENTATIVE THEORY FIRST FOUND IN ECCLESIASTICAL ASSEMBLIES

More than a century earlier the first recorded appearances of town
representatives are found in the Spanish Cortes of Aragon and Castile.[17]
St. Dominic makes a representative form of government the rule in his Order
of Preaching Friars, each priory sending two representatives to its
provincial chapter, and each province sending two representatives to the
general chapter of the Order.

In England, Simon of Montfort, the son of Simon, the great warrior of the
Albigensian wars and the warm friend of Dominic, was in close association
with the friars. Hence there was nothing so very remarkable in Earl Simon
issuing writs for the Full Parliament of 1265 for the return of two
burgesses from each city and borough. He had seen representative government
at work among the friars in their chapters. Why should the plan be not
equally useful in the government of the country?[18] There is no evidence
that the summons to the burgesses was regarded as a revolutionary
proposal--so lightly comes political change in England.

The name of Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, must always be associated
with the beginning of representative government in England. Let us recall
how it was the great Earl came to be in power in 1265.

THE MISRULE OF HENRY III.

Henry III. was always in want of money, and his crew of royal parasites
from Poitou drained the exchequer. Over and over again the barons called on
the King to get rid of his favourites, and to end the misrule that
afflicted the country; and the King from time to time gave promises of
amendment. But the promises were always broken. As long as Henry could get
money he was averse from all constitutional reform. In 1258 the barons were
determined that a change must be made. "If the King can't do without us in
war, he must listen to us in peace," they declared. "And what sort of peace
is this when the King is led astray by bad counsellors, and the land is
filled with foreign tyrants who grind down native-born Englishmen?"

William of Rishanger, a contemporary writer, expressed the popular feeling
in well-known verses:

"The King that tries without advice to seek his country's weal
Must often fail; he cannot know the wants and woes they feel.
The Parliament must tell the King how he may serve them best,
And he must see their wants fulfilled and injuries redressed.
A King should seek his peopl