onum et omnium aliorum _qui de nobis tenent in
capite_. And it seems to have been a general practice to assume the
common consent of all ranks to that which had actually been agreed by
the higher. In a similar writ, 21 Henry III., the rants of men are
enumerated specifically; archiepiscopi, episcopi, abbates, priores, et
clerici terras habentes quae ad ecclesias suas non pertinent, comites,
barones, milites, et liberi homines, pro se et suis villanis, nobis
concesserunt in auxilium tricesimam partem omnium mobilium.[20] In the
close roll of the same year, we have a writ directed to the archbishops,
bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, knights, and freeholders (liberi
homines) of Ireland, in which an aid is desired of them, and it is urged
that one had been granted by his fideles Angliae.[21]

But this attendance in parliament of inferior tenants in chief, some of
them too poor to have received knighthood, grew insupportably vexatious
to themselves, and was not well liked by the king. He knew them to be
dependent upon the barons, and dreaded the confluence of a multitude,
who assumed the privilege of coming in arms to the appointed place. So
inconvenient and mischievous a scheme could not long subsist among an
advancing people, and fortunately the true remedy was discovered with
little difficulty.

[Sidenote: Origin and progress of parliamentary representation.]

The principle of representation, in its widest sense, can hardly be
unknown to any government not purely democratical. In almost every
country the sense of the whole is understood to be spoken by a part, and
the decisions of a part are binding upon the whole. Among our ancestors
the lord stood in the place of his vassals, and, still more
unquestionably, the abbot in that of his monks. The system indeed of
ecclesiastical councils, considered as organs of the church, rested upon
the principle of a virtual or an express representation, and had a
tendency to render its application to national assemblies more familiar.

The first instance of actual representation which occurs in our history
is only four years after the Conquest; when William, if we may rely on
Hoveden, caused twelve persons skilled in the customs of England to be
chosen from each county, who were sworn to inform him rightly of their
laws; and these, so ascertained, were ratified by the consent of the
great council. This, Sir Matthew Hale asserts to be "as sufficient and
effectual a parliament a