Notwithstanding the influence of London in these seasons of disturbance, we do not perceive that it was distinguished from the most insignificant town by greater participation in national councils. Rich, powerful, honourable, and high-spirited as its citizens had become, it was very long before they found a regular place in parliament. The prerogative of imposing tallages at pleasure, unsparingly exercised by Henry III. even over London,[60] left the crown no inducement to summon the inhabitants of cities and boroughs. As these indeed were daily growing more considerable, they were certain, in a monarchy so limited as that of England became in the thirteenth century, of attaining, sooner or later, this eminent privilege. Although therefore the object of Simon de Montfort in calling them to his parliament after the battle of Lewes was merely to strengthen his own faction, which prevailed among the commonalty, yet, their permanent admission into the legislature may be ascribed to a more general cause. For otherwise it is not easy to see why the innovation of an usurper should have been drawn into precedent, though it might perhaps accelerate what the course of affairs was gradually preparing.
[Sidenote: First summoning of towns to parliament, in 49 H. III.]
It is well known that the earliest writs of summons to cities and boroughs, of which we can prove the existence, are those of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, bearing date 12th of December, 1264, in the forty-ninth year of Henry III.[61] After a long controversy almost all judicious inquirers seem to have acquiesced in admitting this origin of popular representation.[62] The argument may be very concisely stated. We find from innumerable records that the king imposed tallages upon his demesne towns at discretion.[63] No public instrument previous to the forty-ninth of Henry III. names the citizens and burgesses as constituent parts of parliament; though prelates, barons, knights, and sometimes freeholders, are enumerated;[64] while, since the undoubted admission of the commons, they are almost invariably mentioned. No historian speaks of representatives appearing for the people, or uses the word citizen or burgess in describing those present in parliament. Such convincing, though negative, evidence is not to be invalidated by some general and ambiguous phrases, whether in writs and records or in historians.[65] Those monkish annalists are poor authorities upon any point where their language is to be delicately measured. But it is hardly possible that, writing circumstantially, as Roger de Hoveden and Matthew Paris sometimes did, concerning proceedings in parliament, they could have failed to mention the commons in unequivocal expressions, if any representatives from that order had actually formed a part of the assembly.