Parliament 417

The "powers of pressure upon the crown" were at
hand. Bargaining with the king for concessions of one
kind or another in return for money had been an expedient
thoroughly tried out by the barons in the course of the
thirteenth century. An important early instance was
the third reissue of Magna Carta. In the last article
the clearest possible statement of the bargain was put in
the mouth of the king.

In return for this concession and the grant of these liber-
ties and of the other liberties contained in our charter of lib-
erties of the forest, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors,
earls, barons, knights, free tenants, and all of our realm have
given to us a fifteenth part of all their movables.1

The circumstances of Henry IIL's reign and his personal
character fostered this bargaining spirit and many illus-
trations of it could be given. It was notjQjSlLjevep in the

•"•* an<^ came out prominently
As it became an

fourteenth century that
tfieTong cot53 not^:^^ and

as PaHm^ grew consciouFbf itself

from frequent meetings, there came to be a more routine
use of the old thirteenth-century bargain.

found itself possessed of a valuable commodity in exchange
for which it might expect something of equal value from
the king; it had ^^^yjSS^^f^^^ tA^caotjQCgey and
the kin|iJ3^^ Upon this
cornerstone most of thepowgrs^ of P^^i^^ntja^ve been
l^uJlt. The grant ,ofn^
redressj^
ment as early asj^9» an(i it soon became customary to
postpone money grants until the end of the session.2 It
1 Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 350.
a Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History, pp. 248-250.
The Commons allowed a tax "upon this condition that the king should
take advice and grant redress upon certain Articles, in which their griev-
ances were set forth." The list of grievances is an interesting one. In
A* and S., document 66, is a grant of tenths and fifteenths for