414 The Period of Constitution
This was perhaps a bit of political theorising by the
antibaronial party. But it is significant that such a
theory could have been formulated. Supposing, how-
ever, this theory to have become realised most perfectly,
it could still only have meant that the king had to obtain
the consent of Parliament to measures he himself pro-
posed; there was nothing in it to interfere with the
monopoly of initiating measures which he had always
possessed. No assembly can progress at all hopefully
in the direction of any kind of legislative activity that
is to give it an independent position in the state unless
it has the means and the power to introduce measures
of its own. To understand how the English Parliament
gained these another side of its early history must be
examined.
As the knights and burgesses began to sit more regularly,
for part of the session at least, with the great council,
now usually called a parliament, it was as a rule in a ses-
sion of parliament when that body performed its regular
duties as a high court.1 This judicial side of the work
continued and has never wholly passed away. This
work came to Parliament in the form of petitions. These
petitions were received without charge and were of the
most varied sort, most of them from individuals. Many
of them alleged the law's delay or stated some other bur-
den or disadvantage under which the petitioner found
himself; some of them were because the Chancellor could
not issue a new writ which the case seemed to demand or
presented some other phase of novelty or difficulty.
These petitions came first to the "receivers and triers"
who were often appointed in advance of a session of
Parliament. The receivers were clerks whose work was
merely mechanical; the triers were judges plus, ordinarily,
some earls and barons. The triers dealt finally with
many petitions, sending them to the ordinary courts
where they belonged, which was a virtual rejection, send-
ing them to the courts with an order for some special
1 See above, pp. 397, 398.