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[ NOTE B, p.86. Rymer, vol. ii. p.543. It is remarkable that the English chancellor spoke to the Scotch parliament in the French tongue. This was also the language commonly made use of by all parties on that occasion. I bid, passim. Some of the most considerable among the Scotch, as well as almost all the English barons, were of French origin: they valued themselves upon it; and pretended to despise the language and manners of the island. It is difficult to account for the settlement of so many French families in Scotland; the Bruces, Baliols, St. Glairs, Montgomeries, Somervilles, Gordons, Frasers, Cummins; Colvilles, Umfrevilles, Mowbrays, Hays, Maules, who were not supported there, as in England, by the power of the sword. But the superiority of the smallest civility and knowledge over total ignorance and barbarism, is prodigious.]

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[ NOTE C, p.91. See Rymer, vol. ii. p.533, where Edward writes to the king’s bench to receive appeals from Scotland. He knew the practice to be new and unusual; yet he establishes it as an infallible consequence cf his superiority. We learn also from the same collection, (p. 603,) that immediately upon receiving the homage, he changed the style of his address to the Scotch king, whom he now calk “dilecto et fideli,” instead of “fratri dilecto et fideli,” the appellation which he had always before used to him. See p. 109, 124, 168, 280, 1064. This is a certain proof that he himself was not deceived, as was scarcely indeed possible, but that he was conscious of his usurpation. Yet he solemnly swore afterwards to the justice of his pretensions, when he defended them before Pope Boniface.]

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[ NOTE D, p. 104. Throughout the reign of Edward I., the assent of the commons is not once expressed in any of the enacting clauses; nor in the reigns ensuing, till the 9 Edward III., nor in any of the enacting clauses of 16 Richard II. Nay, even so low as Henry VI., from the beginning till the eighth of his reign, the assent of the commons is not once expressed in any enacting clause. See preface to Ruffhead’s edit, of the Statutes, p. 7. If it should be asserted, that the commons had really given their assent to these statutes, though they are not expressly mentioned, this very omission, proceeding, if you will, from carelessness, is a proof how little they were respected. The commons were so little accustomed to transact public business, that they had no speaker till after the parliament 6 Edward III. See Prynne’s preface to Cotton’s Abridg.: not till the first of Richard II. in the opinion of most antiquaries. The commons were very unwilling to meddle in any state affairs, and commonly either referred themselves to the lords, or desired a select committee of that house to assist them, as appears from Cotton. 5 Edw. III. n. 5; 15 Edw. III. a. 17; 21 Edw. III. n. 5; 47 Edw. III. n. 5; 50 Edw. III. n. 10; 51 Edw. III. n. 18; 1 Rich. II. n. 12; 2 Rich. II. n. 12; 5 Rich. II. n 14; 2 parl. 6 Rich. II. n. 14; parl. 2, 6 Rich. II. n. 8, etc.]

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[ NOTE E, p. 105. It was very agreeable to the maxims of all the feudal governments, that every order of the state should give their consent to the acts which more immediately concerned them; and as the notion of a political system was not then so well understood, the other orders of the state were often not consulted on these occasions. In this reign, even the merchants, though no public body, granted the king impositions on merchandise, because the first payments came out of their pockets. They did the same in the reign of Edward III.; but the commons had then observed that the people paid these duties, though the merchants advanced them; and they therefore remonstrated against this practice. Cotton’s Abridg. p. 39. The taxes imposed by the knights on the counties were always lighter than those which the burgesses laid on the boroughs; a presumption, that in voting those taxes the knights and burgesses did not form the same house. See Chancellor West’s Inquiry into the Manner of creating Peers, p. 8. But there are so many proofs, that those two orders of representative were long separate, that it is needless to insist on them. Mr. Carte, who had carefully consulted the rolls of parliament, affirms, that they never appear to have been united till the sixteenth of Edward III. See Hist. vol. ii. p,451. But it is certain that this union was not even then final: in 1372, the burgesses acted by themselves, and voted a tax after the knights were dismissed. See Tyrrel, Hist, vol. iii. p. 754, from Rot. Claus. 46 Edward III. n. 9. In 1376, they were the knights alone who passed a vote for the removal of Alice Pierce from the king’s person, if we may credit Walsingham, p. 189. There is an instance of a like kind in the reign of Richard II. Cotton, p.193. The different taxes voted by those two branches of the lower house, naturally kept them separate; but as their petitions had mostly the same object, namely, the redress of grievances, and the support of law and justice both against the crown and the barons, this cause as naturally united them, and was the reason why they at last joined in one house for the despatch of business. The barons had few petitions. Their privileges were of more ancient date. Grievances seldom affected them: they were themselves the chief oppressors. In 1333, the knights by themselves concurred with the bishops and barons in advising the king to stay his journey into Ireland. Here was a petition which regarded a matter of state, and was supposed to be above the capacity of the burgesses. The knights, therefore, acted apart in this petition. See Cotton, Abridg. p. 13. Chief baron Gilbert thinks, that the reason why taxes always began with the commons or burgesses was, that they were limited by the instructions of their boroughs. See Hist, of the Exchequer, p. 37.]

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[ NOTE F, p. 105. The chief argument from ancient authority, for the opinion that the representatives of boroughs preceded the forty-ninth of Henry in., is the famous petition of the borough of St. Albans, first taken notice of by Selden, and then by Petyt, Brady, Tyrrel, and others. In this petition, presented to the parliament in the reign of Edward II., take town of St. Albans asserts, that though they held “in capite” of the crown, and owed only, for all other service, their attendance in parliament, yet the sheriff had omitted them in his writs; whereas, both in the reign of the king’s father, and all his predecessors, they had always sent members. Now, say the defenders of this opinion, if the commencement of the house of commons were in Henry III.’ reign, this expression could not have been used. But Hadox, in his History of the Exchequer, (p. 522, 523, 524,) has endeavored, and with great reason, to destroy the authority of this petition for the purpose alleged. He asserts, first, that there was no such tenure in England is that of holding by attendance in parliament, instead of all other service. Secondly, that the borough of St. Albans never held of take crown at all, but was always demesne land of the abbot. It is no wonder, therefore, that a petition which advances two falsehoods, should contain one historical mistake, which indeed amounts only to an inaccurate and exaggerated expression; no strange matter in ignorant burgesses of that age. Accordingly, St. Albans continued still to belong to the abbot. It never held of the crown, call after the dissolution of the monasteries. But the assurance of these petition *ers is remarkable. They wanted to shake off the authority of their abbot, and to hold of the king; but were unwilling to pay any services even to the crown; upon which they framed this idle petition, which later writers have made the foundation of so many inferences and conclusions. From the tenor of the petition it appears, that there was a close connection between holding of the crown and being represented in parliament. The latter had scarcely ever place without the former; yet we learn from Tyrell’s Append. vol. iv. that there were some instances to the contrary. It is not improbable that Edward followed the roll of the earl of Leicester, who had summoned, without distinction, all the considerable boroughs of the kingdom; among which there might be some few that did not hold of the crown. Edward also found it necessary to impose taxes on all the boroughs in the kingdom, without distinction. This was a good expedient for augmenting his revenue. We are not to imagine, because the house of commons have since become of great importance, that the first summoning of them would form any remarkable and striking epoch, and be generally known to the people even seventy or eighty years after. So ignorant were the generality of men in that age, that country burgesses would readily imagine an innovation, seemingly so little material, to have existed from time immemorial, because it was beyond their own memory, and perhaps that of their fathers. Even the parliament in the reign of Henry V. say, that Ireland had, from the beginning of time, been subject to the crown of England. (See Brady.) And surely if any thing interests the people above all others, it is war and conquests, with their dates and circumstances]