It is remarkable, that all the English historians, when they mention the great council of the nation, call it an assembly of the baronage, nobility, or great men ; and none of their expressions can, without the utmost violence, be tortured to a meaning, which will admit the commons to be constituent members of that body. If, in the long period of two hundred years, which elapsed between the conquest and the latter end of the reign of Henry III., and which abounded in fac tions, revolutions, and convulsiOns of all kinds, the House of Commons never performed one single legis lative act, so considerable as to be once mentioned by any of the numerous historians of that age, they must have been totally insignificant ; and what reason, then, can be assigned for their ever being assembled ? Every page of the subsequent histories discovers their existence ; yet these histories are not written with greater accuracy than the preceding ones, and indeed scarcely equal them in that particular. The Magna Charta of King John, enumerates the persons enti tled to a seat in the great council, viz. the prelates and immediate tenants of the crown, without any mention of the commons : an authority, as Mr Hume observes, so full, certain, and explicit, that nothing but the zeal of party could ever have procured ctedit to any contrary hypothesis.
The statutes and records, upon which the argu ments on the other side of the question are founded, are chiefly of dates posterior to the period, when the commons are admitted, upon, all hands, to have form ed a part of the parliaments ; and besides, they ad vance merely general principles and maxims of go. vernment, without any reference to, facts. With regard to the claims of St Albans and Barn staple, Mr Madox has shewn, that no such tenure was known in England, as that of holding by attendance in parliament, instead of all other service ; and that, moreover, the borough of St Albans never held of the crown at all, but was always demesne land of the abbot. It is no wonder, therefore, says Mr Hume, that a petition, which advances two falsehoods, should contain one historical mistake, which, indeed, amounts only to an inaccurate and exaggerated expression ; no strange matter in ignorant burgesses of that age, who wanted to shake off the authority of their abbot, and to hold of the king, without rendering any services even to the crown.
The first notice which is given by historians of any representatives being sent- to parliament by the bo roughs, occurs during the reign of Henry III. in the year 1265 ;—at the period when the Earl of Leices ter had usurped the royal authority, and summoned a new parliament to London, where' he knew his power was uncontrollable. This assembly he fixed upon a more democratical basis, than any which had been called together, since the foundation of the narchy. 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 remark able, of deputies from the boroughs ; being the first time that this order of men appear to have been sum moned to parliament. This period, accordingly, is corn. monly considered as the epoch of the House of Com mons in England. The precedent, however,appears to have been regarded as the act ofa violent usurpation, and to have been discontinued in subsequent parliaments, until the 23d year of Edward I., who, in consequence of his pecuniary embarrassments, occasioned by his foreign and domestic military expeditions, again had recourse to the measure of summoning the represen tatives of the boroughs to parliament ; and this pe riod seems to be the real and true epoch of the House of Commons, and the dawn of popular government.
At first, these representatives•of boroughs did not, properly speaking, compose any essential part of the parliament : they sat apart both from the barons and knights, who appear to have regarded them as sonages of a very inferior rank. Having given their consent to the taxes required of them, their business was considered as finished, and they separated, even although the parliament still continued to to canvass the national business. By this union, how ever, they gradually acquired more weight ; and it be came customary for them, in return for the supplies' which they granted, to prefer petitions to the king for redress of any grievances of which they found reason to complain. The commons, however, do not yet appear to have assumed the character of legisla tors. Throughout the reign of Edward I., their as sent is not once expressed in any of the enacting clau ses, nor in the ensuing reigns, until the 9th of Edw. III. nor in any of the enacting clauses of 16th Richard II. Nay, even so late as Henry VI., from the beginning till the 8th of his reign, the assent of the commons is not once expressed in any enacting clause. (See Ruffhead's edit. of the Statutes, pre face, p. 7.t So little were they accustomed to transact public business, that they had no speaker till after the parliament 6th Edward III., and, in the opinion of most antiquaries, not till the first of Richard II. The burgesses did not even form the same house with the knights of shires.. But as their wealth and consideration gradually increased, so did also their public importance ; and, in the reign of Henry V., the commons required, that no laws should be framed merely upon their petitions, unless the sta tutes were worded by themselves, and had passed their hbuse in the form of a bill. They were, at length, united in the same house with the knights of shires. This union, according to Mr Carte, who had careful ly consulted the rolls of parliament, does not appear to have taken place until the 16th of Edward III. ,(See Carte's His!, vol. ii. p. 451.) Even this union, hOwever, was not uninterrupted ; for instances after wards occur of the knights and burgesses acting se rately.
Thus did the commons, or third estate of the kingdom, 'gradually 'acquire their' present form and importance. It were unnecessary for us, at present, to trace any farther the progress of an institution, which, besides the inestimable benefit of securing the liberties of the subject, has contributed so much to the efficacy and stability of the British constitutional government, as we shall have occasion to revert to this subject in thd articles PARLIAMENT and WITTEN AGEMCiTE.
Boroughs are distinguislidd into those by charter or statute, and those by preicription or custom. The number of boroughs•n England and Wales, inclu ding cities and Cinque ports, which send members to parliament, is 215 ; Some of which send one, others tivo representatives.
Burgesses were first admitted into the Scottish par liaments by Bruce, in the year 1326 ; and in the preamble 'to the laws of RObert III. they are, ranked ainorig the constituent membeis of that assem bly. -By the articles of the union, the Scottish bo rotiglis 'send fifteen representatives to the British par liainent.
See Jacob's Law Dict. Heinrich's Geschichte der I Deutschen. Hume's Hist. Lyttelton's Hist. Ma- • dox Firma Burgi, and History of the Exchequer. Brady's Historical Treatise of Cities and Boroughs. Petyt's Right of the Commons. Brady's Answer to Petyt. Tyrrel's Appendix to his Hist. of England. Robertson's Hist. of Scotland. (z)