e. The opinion of Selden, that a law of exclusion was
enacted towards the beginning of Henry's reign is not liable to so much
objection. But perhaps it is unnecessary to frame an hypothesis of this
nature. Writs of summons seem to have been older than the time of
John;[16] and when this had become the customary and regular preliminary
of a baron's coming to parliament, it was a natural transition to look
upon it as an indispensable condition; in times when the prerogative was
high, the law unsettled, and the service in parliament deemed by many
still more burthensome than honourable. Some omissions in summoning the
king's tenants to former parliaments may perhaps have produced the
above-mentioned provision of the Great Charter, which had a relation to
the imposition of taxes wherein it was deemed essential to obtain a more
universal consent than was required in councils held for state, or even
for advice.[17]

[Sidenote: Whether mere tenants in chief attended parliament under Henry
III.]

It is not easy to determine how long the inferior tenants in chief
continued to sit personally in parliament. In the charters of Henry
III., the clause which we have been considering is omitted: and I think
there is no express proof remaining that the sheriff was ever directed
to summon the king's military tenants within his county, in the manner
which the charter of John required. It appears however that they were in
fact members of parliament on many occasions during Henry's reign, which
shows that they were summoned either by particular writs or through the
sheriff; and the latter is the more plausible conjecture. There is
indeed great obscurity as to the constitution of parliament in this
reign; and the passages which I am about to produce may lead some to
conceive that the freeholders were _represented_ even from its
beginning. I rather incline to a different opinion.

In the Magna Charta of 1 Henry III. it is said: Pro hac donatione et
concessione ... archiepiscopi, episcopi, comites, barones, milites, et
libere tenentes, et omnes de regno nostro, dederunt nobis quintam
decimam partem omnium bonorum suorum mobilium.[18] So in a record of 19
Henry III.: Comites, et barones, et omnes alii de toto regno nostro
Angliae, spontanea voluntate sua, concesserunt nobis efficax
auxilium.[19] The largeness of these words is, however, controlled by a
subsequent passage, which declares the tax to be imposed ad mandatum
omnium comitum et bar