s, though several hundred passages might be produced, can,
without the utmost violence, be tortured to a meaning, which will
admit the Commons to be constituent members of that body [c]. If in
the long period of two hundred years, which elapsed between the
Conquest and the latter end of Henry III., and which abounded in
factions, revolutions, and convulsions of all kinds, the House of
Commons never performed one single legislative act, so considerable as
to be once mentioned by any of the numerous historians of that age,
they must have been totally insignificant: and, in that case, what
reason can be assigned for their ever being assembled? Can it be
supposed that men of so little weight or importance possessed a
negative voice against the king and the barons? Every page of the
subsequent histories discovers their existence; though these histories
are not written with greater accuracy than the preceding ones, and
indeed scarcely equal them in that particular. The MAGNA CHARTA of
King John provides, that no scutage or aid should be imposed, either
on the land or towns, but by consent of the great council; and for
more security, it enumerates the persons entitled to a seat in that
assembly, the prelates and immediate tenants of the crown, without any
mention of the Commons: an authority so full, certain, and explicit,
that nothing but the zeal of party could ever have procured credit to
any contrary hypothesis.
[FN [b] Norman. Du Chesnii, p. 1066. Du Cange, Gloss, in verb.
COMMUNE. [c] Sometimes the historians mention the people, POPULUS, as
part of the Parliament; but they always mean the laity, in opposition
to the clergy. Sometimes the word COMMUNITAS is found; but it always
means COMMUNITAS BARONAGII. These points are clearly proved by Dr.
Brady. There is also mention sometimes made of a crowd or multitude
that thronged into the great council on particular interesting
occasions; but as deputies from boroughs are never once spoken of, the
proof that they had not then any existence becomes the more certain
and undeniable. These never could make a crowd, as they must have had
a regular place assigned them, if they had made a regular part of the
legislative body. There were only one hundred and thirty boroughs who
received writs of summons from Edward I. It is expressly said in
Gesta. Reg. Steph. p. 932, that it was usual for the populace, VULGUS,
to crowd into the great councils; where they were plainly mere