wn by the similarity of their social position into a close
connexion with the lords. They seem in fact to have been soon admitted by
the baronage to an almost equal position with themselves, whether as
legislators or counsellors of the Crown. The burgesses on the other hand
took little part at first in Parliamentary proceedings, save in those which
related to the taxation of their class. But their position was raised by
the strifes of the reign of Edward the Second when their aid was needed by
the baronage in its struggle with the Crown; and their right to share fully
in all legislative action was asserted in the statute of 1322. From this
moment no proceedings can have been considered as formally legislative save
those conducted in full Parliament of all the estates. In subjects of
public policy however the barons were still regarded as the sole advisers
of the Crown, though the knights of the shire were sometimes consulted with
them. But the barons and knighthood were not fated to be drawn into a
single body whose weight would have given an aristocratic impress to the
constitution. Gradually, through causes with which we are imperfectly
acquainted, the knights of the shire drifted from their older connexion
with the baronage into so close and intimate a union with the
representatives of the towns that at the opening of the reign of Edward the
Third the two orders are found grouped formally together, under the name of
"The Commons." It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this
change. Had Parliament remained broken up into its four orders of clergy,
barons, knights, and citizens, its power would have been neutralized at
every great crisis by the jealousies and difficulty of co-operation among
its component parts. A permanent union of the knighthood and the baronage
on the other hand would have converted Parliament into the mere
representative of an aristocratic caste, and would have robbed it of the
strength which it has drawn from its connexion with the great body of the
commercial classes. The new attitude of the knighthood, their social
connexion as landed gentry with the baronage, their political union with
the burgesses, really welded the three orders into one, and gave that unity
of feeling and action to our Parliament on which its power has ever since
mainly depended.

[Sidenote: Scotch War]

The weight of the two Houses was seen in their settlement of the new
government by the nomination of a Counci