It was not until the forty-ninth of Henry III. (1265), when two knights were first summoned by the sheriffs from the counties, and two burgesses from the cities or towns, that the outline of our actual representative system can be distinctly traced. Before this indeed the spirit of lawless force was predominant; the absolute power of the crown prevented any thing like national development, and the varied elements of political life and freedom had not burst forth into existence. The kingdom was now undergoing all those intestine miseries which sooner or later enforce upon bad governors the necessity of renovation and cure. It was in a sadly distracted state when in the midst of the general distress and confiscation that prevailed, Henry suddenly convoked a great assembly to meet him at Northampton (1268.) But it was not to discuss the wretched condition of his subjects, to adopt remedies for alleviating their wants, or to conciliate the disaffection of his barons, that he issued his writs for the convention. It was not a meeting to be confounded with our ideas of a parliament, but a mere gathering of the upper classes, which should afford the papal legate an opportunity of preaching a crusade; and judging from the result, his exertions were far from being un- successful, since the monarch himself, with a large number of the nobility, took up the cross and proposed to accompany his sons to the Holy Land.
We are now arrived at a period when the popular voice was the first time plainly heard in the councils of the state, and amongst the earliest of those towns enjoying the privilege of sending their representatives to parliament, were Northampton and Bedford, a right acquired in all probability from their being attached to the royal demesnes. Although various modifications and successive changes were henceforward perpetually arising, the burgesses appear from the 23rd of Edward I. to the present day, to have been legally considered both as constituent as well as necessary parts of the legislative body. Edward I. died on the 7th of August 1307, at Burgh on Sand, in his last expedition against the Scots, and on the 26th of the same month, his feeble successor summoned a parliament to meet him 'for a special purpose' at Northampton. One of the ostensible reasons for the present convention was to make
1266, 1268, 1283, 1329, 1336, 1338. At Clipstone in 1290. At Geddington in 1188, to consult about a crusade. At the abbey of Pipewell, now entirely destroyed, in 1189.
