It states that the king called to the consecration of the church, "the whole of the optimates of Mercia; the bishops, princes, earls, procuratores, and my relations, the kings of Kent and Essex, with all who were present, witnesses, in our synodical councils." The king adds, "With all the optimates of Mercia IN THREE SYNODS, with unanimous advice, I gladly gave my gifts to all the archontes of Mercia, and of the other provinces, in gold, in silver, and in all my utensils, and in chosen steeds; that is, to each according to the dignity of his degree; and on all who had not lands I bestowed a pound in the purest silver, and in the purest gold: and to every presbyter one marc; and to every servant of God one shilling; and these gifts are not to be numbered, as it became our royal dignity.j This important charter not only proves that some of the members of the witena-gemot had no lands, but it seems to intimate that they met in three chambers. The expression "in three synods," coupled with " the unanimous advice," leads the mind to ask whether it does not refer to the three orders of clergy, nobles, and commons meeting in separate synods, rather than to three successive meetings of the same synod. The practice from the time that the meetings of parliament become distinctly visible to us has been such separate meetings, with the custom of all uniting together when the king was present. The natural force of the words "three synods" is to express three distinct councils, not three sittings of the same council. There is a charter, dated 970, in Ingulf, which, besides the clergy, duces, and ministers, has fourteen signatures without any designation.k In one a person signs himself as both sacerdos and minister, as if the minister was a qualification distinct from, and additional to, that of priest. In 833, the king says he makes his charter before the bishops, and greater proceres of all England, as if the proceres had been in two divisions-the majores and the minores.' The same distinction is expressly mentioned in 851. The optimates of the universal concilii, of the whole council, are noticed; and Ingulf says, " in this council, many, tam majores quam minores, became afflicted with an epidemical disease.”m i Dugd. Mon. 189. It is signed by only the king, the two other kings, archbishop, twelve bishops, and eleven duces, which shows that only a part of the witena-gemot signed this charter. Some of the Saxon charters have been supposed to be forged just after the Conquest. The observation has been made much too indiscriminately. But though the monks may have sometimes pretended to more grants of land, and of exemptions than they were entitled to, their own interest would lead them to be correct in their forms and phrases of the documents they adduced. In the above citations I have endeavoured to avoid all that seemed doubtful, but we cannot believe that the monks would expose themselves to immediate detection by introducing into the witena-gemot those classes who were never there. Therefore even surreptitious charters would throw light on this subject. Procuratores, or attorneys, imply repre sentation. k * Ingulf, Hist. p. 117. 1 Ibid. p. 10. m Ibid. p. 16. In the same sense Eadmer mentions "totam regni nobilitatem, populumque minorem" p 58. This distinction of the greater from the less barons, or proceres, in the Anglo-Saxon times, shows that there were two classes of them in the national council before the Conquest. That the majores, or greater barons, answered to our present House of Peers, and were, like them, called individually to parliament by the king's writ of summons, and that the others were to be sent like our Commons, we may safely infer from the provisions of Magna Charta: "We will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, majores barones, separately, by our letters; and besides, we will cause to be summoned, in general, by our sheriffs and bailiffs, all those who hold of us in capite at a certain day, at the end of forty days at least, at a certain place," &c." The provisions of Magna Charta were not claimed as innovations, but as the ancient rights and privileges of the nation. The same distinction of the inferior barons from the superior chamber of them, is expressively mentioned in the life of Becket, by his contemporary secretary. He After stating that the king appointed a general council, or parliament, to meet at Northampton, he says, " On the second day the bishops, earls, and all the barons were sitting." In the discussion the bishops said, "We sit here not as bishops, but as barons: you are barons and we are barons, your peers." afterwards adds, "The king exacted from the earls and barons their judgment of the archbishop." Then follows this important passage: "Some sheriffs and barons of the second dignity are called in, ancient in days, that they may be added to them, and be present at the judgment." These last quotations prove that there were barons of the second dignity distinct from the greater, not only in John but in Henry the Second's times; and by comparing them with the expressions of Ingulf, it is obvious that the same distinction prevailed in the Saxon times. The passage from Stephanides also implies that, until called in, the minor barons were not sitting with the peers. The expressions of the writers immediately after the Conquest, in describing the national council, show that it consisted of other classes besides the nobles and clergy, because it is not likely that the three first Norman sovereigns would have introduced, as there is no evidence that they did introduce, a more popular represen tation. Thus of Henry the First it is said, by Peter of Blois, "Having appointed a most distinguished council at London, as well of the bishops and abbots of all the clergy of England, as of the earls, barons, optimates and proceres of all his kingdom." The optimates and proceres express members different from the earls, and barons, and additional to them. n Statutes of the realm, p. 10. q Ibid. P. 46. VOL. II. • W. Stephan. p. 35. P lbid. p. 37. 26 So the Saxon Chronicle mentions of the same king, Henry the First, that he "sent his writs over all England, and commanded his bishops and his abbots, and all his thegns, that they should come to his ge-witena-mot at Candlemas-day at Gloucester: and they did so and the king bade them choose an archbishop. The bishops chose one, but it is added, that the monks, the eorles, and the thegnas, opposed him." So it is mentioned four years afterwards, that Henry held all his "hired," meaning his council, at Windsor, at Christmas; and that all the head men, lay and clergy that were in England, were there; and it adds, that the archbishop, bishops, and abbots, and the earls, and all the thegns, that were there, swore fidelity to his daughter. These passages concur with the preceding to show that the witena-gemot here contained other members, called thegns, in addition to the earls and clergy. Recollecting preceding facts, and the immemorial custom of the united assent of King, Lords, and Commons being given to all our statute-laws, without any record of the commencement of their concurrence, the following passages of the unanimous consent of the whole council in the Anglo-Saxon times, and of their being the council of the whole nation, seem very much to imply a unanimity of more bodies or classes than one single assembly of assenting nobles: "With the unanimous consent of the whole of the present council.” "With the common gratuitous council and consent of all the magnates of the kingdom." "When (948) the universal magnates of the kingdom, summoned by the royal edict, as well the archbishop, bishops, and abbots, as the other proceres and optimates of the whole kingdom, had met together at London, to treat of the public affairs of the whole kingdom."w "947. Who at London in a common council before the archbishop, bishops, and the magnates of the whole land." So Egbert says: "With the license and consent of the whole of our nation, and with the unanimity of all the optimates."y So a charter of Ethelred mentions, emphatically, "with the unanimous legal council, and most equal judgment, of the bishops, duces, and all the optimates of this kingdom." And a charter of Burhred, in 864, is made "with the consent and license of all our senate of bishops, princes, and of all our optimates together." Another document says, "with the testimony of the bishops and princes, and of some senators subject to them." All these ex Sax. Chron. 224, 225. That thanes or thegns made part of the witena-gemo tis expressly declared by Edgar; for he says, "I and my thegnas will," &c. Wilk. p. 80. Sax. Chron. p. 230. ▾ Ibid. p. 32. u Ingulf, p. 15. * Ibid. p. 39. z MSS. Claud. and Hem. Chart. 63, 65. ▾ Ibid. p. 13. pressions seem not to suit an assembly that consisted merely of nobles and clergy. Hence, when we read that William the Conqueror adds, " By the common council of all our kingdom," and that his son Henry the First uses the words "By the common council of the barons,"b we appear not to err when we infer that the words common council express a united council of more classes and bodies than one. It is thus the terms have been immemorially used in the city of London. Its lord mayor, aldermen, and the elected deputies of its wards, form, when all assemble, its common council; yet the aldermen have a separate court, with separate powers and privileges, and at times, like the mayor, act distinctly and apart. There is every reason to suppose that this civic constitution of the metropolis originated in the Anglo-Saxon times. But this meaning of the terms "common council" is not left merely to our conjecture, it is the actual meaning given to the words by the most ancient writ of electing citizens and burgesses to parliament that has survived to us. It occurs among the Rolls of the 23d Edward the First. "We command and firmly enjoin you, that of the aforesaid county you cause to be elected, without delay, two knights, and from every city of the same county two citizens, and from every burgh two burgesses, of the more discreet and able to labour, and cause them to come to us at the aforesaid day and place; so that the said knights may have then there full and sufficient power for themselves, and for the community of the aforesaid county; and the said citizens and burgesses for themselves, and for the community of the aforesaid cities and burghs, distinct from them, to do there what shall be ordained from the common council (de communi consilio) in the premises."c Here the words common council are applied to express the deliberate determinations of the whole body of the parliament in its three estates of king, lords, and commons. If only the nobles and clergy, as nobles or barons, had formed the witena-gemot, there seems to be no reason why so many and such various phrases should have been used in the Anglo-Saxon documents to express its members. If they had been of one class only, one uniform and simple denomination would have been more natural: but if the witena-gemot was a complex body, and, besides the nobles, comprised knights of the shires, citizens and burgesses, as all our parliaments since the Conquest seem to have done, then we perceive the cause of their appellations being multiplied. The force of all the preceding circumstances, considered without reference to any theory, and taken together, seems to me to suit better the constitution of our present parliament than any a Wilk. Concil. p. 228. b Ibid. p. 233. So John says in the articles preceding Magna Charta, that no scutage or aid shall be imposed on the kingdom except by the "commune consilium." Claus. 23 Ed. I. M. 4, apud Brady, p. 54. senate composed merely of nobility and clergy. Although we have no direct evidence from records that the cities and burghs were represented in the witena-gemot, yet there seems to be sufficient probabilities of evidence that the fact was so. The claim of the borough of Barnstaple, in Devonshire, must have considerable weight on our judgments when we reflect on this subject. In a petition to parliament, presented in the reign of Edward the Third, this borough claimed to have been chartered by Athelstan, with several privileges, and to have sent, from time immemorial, burgesses to parliament. Its claims were investigated by jurors legally appointed, and though from the loss of the charter the other immunities were not confirmed, its right of sending burgesses was admitted to continue. In Edward the Second's reign the borough of St. Alban's stated, in a petition to parliament, that they, as the other burgesses of the kingdom, ought to come, by two common burgesses, to the parliament of the kingdom when that should happen to be summoned, as they have been accustomed to come in all past times; but that the sheriff, to favour the abbot, had refused to return them. The answer to this petition was not a denial of the right, but a reference to the Chancery, to see if they had been accustomed to come. The right here claimed is not rested on any particular charter, but on the ancient usage of the country. In the 51st Edward the Third, the Commons stated that, "of the common right of the kingdom, two persons are and will be chosen to be in parliament for the community of the said counties, except the prelates, dukes, earls, and barons, and such as hold by barony; and besides cities and burghs, who ought to choose of themselves such as should answer for them. Here also the privilege of parliamentary representation is not rested on any dated law or royal charter, but on the common right of the kingdom. There is a passage in the laws of Ethelstan that seems to me to relate to the witena-gemot, and to the representatives of burghs. If it has this reference, it shows the punishment that was provided for those who, when chosen for the burghs, neglected to attend the gemot: "If any one shall forsake the gemot three times he shall pay a fine to the king for his contumacy, and shall be summoned seven nights before the gemot meets. If he will not then act rightly, (that is, attend,) nor pay for this contumacy, then all the yldestan men that belong to that burgh shall ride and take away all that he possesses, and set him to bail."g The expense, trouble, suspension of business, and occasional danger, which the burgesses, especially the more distant, would d Lord Lyttleton remarked this important document in his History of Henry II. vol. iii. p. 413. Wilk, Leg. Sax. p. 60. Plac. Parliam. vol. i. p. 327. f Ibid. vol. ii. p. 368. |