writers. Thus the commons sat at Acton Burnell in
the eleventh of Edward I., while the upper house was at Shrewsbury. In
the eighth of Edward II. "the commons of England complain to the king
and his council, &c."[84] These must surely have been the commons
assembled in parliament, for who else could thus have entitled
themselves? In the nineteenth of the same king we find several
petitions, evidently proceeding from the body of the commons in
parliament, and complaining of public grievances.[85] The roll of 1 E.
III., though mutilated, is conclusive to show that separate petitions
were then presented by the commons, according to the regular usage of
subsequent times.[86] And indeed the preamble of 1 E. III., stat. 2, is
apparently capable of no other inference.

As the knights of shires correspond to the lower nobility of other
feudal countries, we have less cause to be surprised that they belonged
originally to the same branch of parliament as the barons, than at their
subsequent intermixture with men so inferior in station as the citizens
and burgesses. It is by no means easy to define the point of time when
this distribution was settled; but I think it may be inferred from the
rolls of parliament that the houses were divided as they are at present
in the eighth, ninth, and nineteenth years of Edward II.[87] This
appears, however, beyond doubt in the first of Edward III.[88] Yet in
the sixth of the same prince, though the knights and burgesses are
expressly mentioned to have consulted together, the former taxed
themselves in a smaller rate of subsidy than the latter.[89]

The proper business of the House of Commons was to petition for redress
of grievances, as much as to provide for the necessities of the crown.
In the prudent fiction of English law no wrong is supposed to proceed
from the source of right. The throne is fixed upon a pinnacle, which
perpetual beams of truth and justice irradiate, though corruption and
partiality may occupy the middle region and cast their chill shade upon
all below. In his high court of parliament a king of England was to
learn where injustice had been unpunished and where right had been
delayed. The common courts of law, if they were sufficiently honest,
were not sufficiently strong, to redress the subject's injuries where
the officers of the crown or the nobles interfered. To parliament he
looked as the great remedial court for relief of private as well as
public grievances. For thi