364 The Period of Constitution Making
grounds it will be necessary occasionally to use the word
parliament in a kind of anticipatory sense.
There was a turning point in the central use of locally
elected representatives during the civil wars late in
Henry IIL's reign, and Simon de Montfort was playing
a leading part. In 1261 he summoned three knights
from each county to treat with the magnates " concerning
the common interests of the kingdom/' and the king
issued writs with the intention of drawing these same
knights to a colloquy (colloquium) on the royal side. In
June, 1264, Simon in the king's name again summoned
knights to meet with "the prelates, magnates, and others
of our faithful/' this time four from each of twenty-nine
counties, "chosen with the county's assent ... to
treat with us of the aforesaid matters" (described earlier
in the writ as'l our affairs and the affairs of our kingdom ").
In these cases the representative knights of the shire were
surely meeting at the same time as the great council and
the language implies their share in public considerations
of the most important sort. In December of 1264
Simon's famous parliament was summoned—famous
because, in addition to the great council and two knights
from each shire, there were to be sent to London two
citizens from each city and two burgesses from each
borough.1 Here appeared the other representative ele-
ment, which, along with the knights of the shire, was
eventually to constitute the House of Commons. It is
necessary to say something of the conditions and cir-
cumstances which lay behind borough representation.
4. Condition of the Boroughs in the Thirteenth
Century, and the Origin of their Representation in a
Central Assembly.—We have seen the boroughs of the
twelfth century striving for liberties and immunities,
their general object apparently an institutional isolation
too many contrasts. We must, it is to be feared, use many words and
qualify our every statement until we have almost contradicted it."—
Maitland, Township and Borough, p. 22.
1A slight but interesting exception was that the Cinque Ports were, to
be represented by four each. See W. and N., p. 104.