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The Charter and its Guardian, Parliamen
Edward I and the Law; Part 1

Edward I and the Law; Part 1

Almost at once he repeated Simon's plan. To his Parliament of 1275 he summoned burghers and citizens from the towns, as well as knights of the shire; but this practice did not at once become the rule. Later again the knights alone were summoned, and sometimes no representatives at all of the "Commons" were sent for, Parliament then returning to its original shape the "Great Council" of magnates. At times again the king got grants direct from representatives of the merchants, without calling the others. Still, the principle that the assent of all was needed both to statutes and to grants of money was gradually becoming more settled.

But in the middle of these Parliamentary experiments Edward suddenly found himself involved in serious difficulties abroad. A later chapter gives the story of his dealings with the Scots and the Welsh. All that need be said here is that in the year 1295 Scotland was rebelling; France, irritated by a fierce fight between English and Norman shipmen, in which the Normans were worsted, had joined alliance with the Scots and was invading Gascony; three revolts had broken out in Wales. Edward needed money to deal with three separate wars at once; that alone would have compelled him to summon a Parliament But he seems to have felt that in a time of such danger to the nation he must take the nation into his confidence in a peculiarly thorough fashion. So he gathered his famous Parliament of 1295, summoning to it the earls and greater barons, the archbishops, bishops, and mitred abbots, two knights from each shire, two citizens and burgesses from each city and borough. As this Parliament was summoned by a king it has deserved its name of the "Model Parliament", for it has served as a model for all subsequent Parliaments. Indeed, in one sense, no other Parliament has ever so completely represented all classes, for Edward also caused the priors of the cathedrals, the archdeacons, and representatives of the clergy of each cathedral and each diocese to be summoned also. Thus the "three estates" of the realm, clergy, nobility, and commons, all figured in it fully represented. It was only because the churchmen preferred to remain a class apart, and to make their own grants of money in their own assembly ("convocation"), that their representatives have since had no place in the Lower House.

The "Model Parliament" did not disappoint Edward's hopes. Clergy, barons, and commons alike voted him money. Yet just as with Simon's assembly, the Model Parliament of 1295 was important rather for what it was than for what it did. By its existence it established a precedent. "Parliament" could no longer be a class body, representative merely of the great barons and bishops, or of the landowners; henceforth it was national Only thirty years had passed, and the device of a rebel baron had been accepted as the deliberate policy of a king.

Edward I and the Law; Part 1

Chronology