Gradually, however, these representatives of the "commons" were consulted upon many of the problems and the meeting of noblemen, bishops and city delegates developed into a regular Parliament, a place "où l'on parlait," which means in English where people talked, before important affairs of state were decided upon.
But the institution of such a general advisory board with certain executive powers was not an English invention, as seems to be the general belief, and government by a "king and his parliament" was by no means restricted to the British Isles. You will find it in every part of Europe. In some countries, like France, the rapid increase of the Royal power after the Middle Ages reduced the influence of the "parliament" to nothing. In the year 1302 representatives of the cities had been admitted to the meeting of the French Parliament, but five centuries had to pass before this "Parliament" was strong enough to assert the rights of the middle class, the so-called Third Estate, and break the power of the king. Then they made up for lost time and during the French Revolution, abolished the king, the clergy and the nobles and made the representatives of the common people the rulers of the land. In Spain the "cortes" (the king's council) had been opened to the commoners as early as the first half of the twelfth century. In the German Empire, a number of important cities had obtained the rank of "imperial cities" whose representatives must be heard in the imperial diet.
[Illustration: THE HOME OF SWISS LIBERTY]
In Sweden, representatives of the people attended the sessions of the Riksdag at the first meeting of the year 1359. In Denmark the Daneholf, the ancient national assembly, was re-established in 1314, and, although the nobles often regained control of the country at the expense of the king and the people, the representatives of the cities were never completely deprived of their power.
In the Scandinavian country, the story of representative government is particularly interesting. In Iceland, the "Althing," the assembly of all free landowners, who managed the affairs of the island, began to hold regular meetings in the ninth century and continued to do so for more than a thousand years.