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After the conquest a somewhat
similar assembly of the king's chief feudal vassals--lay and
ecclesiastical--had been called the Great Council, and its right to
resist unjust taxation had been recognized by _Magna Carta_.
Henceforth it had steadily acquired power. The "Provisions of Oxford"
(1258) had provided, in addition, for "twelve honest men" to represent
the "commonalty" and to "treat of the wants of the king; and the
commonalty shall hold as established that which these men shall do."
[Sidenote: House of Lords and House of Commons]
For the beginnings of the House of Commons we may go back to the
thirteenth century. In 1254 the king summoned to Parliament not only
the bishops, abbots, earls, and barons, but also two knights from every
shire. Then, in an irregular Parliament, convened in 1265 by Simon de
Montfort, a great baronial leader against the king, two burgesses from
each of twenty-one towns for the first time sat with the others and
helped to decide how their liberties were to be protected.


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