Note 38 — HOUSE OF COMMONS.

In the Parliament of the 18th of Edward the first there were no Citizens or Burgesses. There is a bundle of writs yet extant, by which this Parliament was summoned. They are directed to the sheriffs of several or most of the counties of England, by which two or three Knights were directed to be chosen for each county, and accordingly the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge and Huntingdon, and Cumberland returned each of them three Knights, and the other counties two each. This Parliament gave the King a fifteenth of all their moveables as appears by the account of the same which is entered upon the Great Roll of the 23d of that king, in which account we have the style of this Parliament, namely, “The account of the fifteenth, granted to the king in his 18th year, by the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and all others of the kingdom, assessed, collected, and levied,” &c.

We may here observe that the two or three Knights, chosen by the several counties, did represent those counties, and according to the form of the writ, consulted upon and consented to this grant of a fifteenth.

So also in the 22d Edward the First there were neither Citizens nor Burgesses summoned to the Parliament of that year. On the 8th of October the king issued writs directed to every sheriff in England to cause two discreet Knights to be chosen for each county, with full powers, “so that for defect of such powers, the business might not remain undone.” And on the following day the king issued other writs to the sheriffs to cause to be elected two knights more, to be added to the former two, making four for each county, and these four Knights for each county, and the Earls, Barons, and Great Men, on the day of their meeting gave the king a tenth part of all their goods.