of the cargo which
they brought along with them: the bull was torn and thrown into the
sea; which furnished the artful prelates with a plausible excuse for not
obeying the orders of the legate. Leicester appealed from Guido to the
pope in person; but before the ambassadors appointed to defend his cause
could reach Rome, the pope was dead; and they found the legate himself,
from whom they had appealed, seated on the papal throne, by the name of
Urban IV. That daring leader was nowise dismayed with this incident; and
as he found that a great part of his popularity in England was founded
on his opposition to the court of Rome, which was now become odious, he
persisted with the more obstinacy in the prosecution of his measures.

{1265.} That he might both increase and turn to advantage his
popularity, Leicester summoned a new parliament in London, where he
knew his power was uncontrollable; and he fixed this assembly on a
more democratical basis than any which had ever been summoned since the
foundation of the monarchy. Besides the barons of his own party, and
several ecclesiastics, who were not immediate tenants of the crown, he
ordered returns to be made of two knights from each shire, and, what is
more remarkable, of deputies from the boroughs, an order of men which,
in former ages, had always been regarded as too mean to enjoy a place in
the national councils.[**] This period is commonly esteemed the epoch of
the house of commons in England; and it is certainly the first time that
historians speak of any representatives sent to parliament by the
boroughs and even in the most particular narratives delivered of
parliamentary transactions, as in the trial of Thomas a Becket, where
the events of each day, and almost of each hour, are carefully recorded
by contemporary authors,[***] there is not, throughout the whole, the
least appearance of a house of commons.

* Rymer, vol. i. p. 798. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 373.

** Rymer, vol. i. p. 802.

*** Fitz-Stephen, Hist. Quadrip. Hoveden, etc.

In all the general accounts given in preceding times of those
assemblies, the prelates and barons only are mentioned as the
constituent members. But though that house derived its existence from so
precarious and even so invidious an origin as Leicester's usurpation, it
soon proved, when summoned by the legal princes, one of the most
useful, and, in process of time, one of the most powerful members of
the national const