Commons 1386-1421

When, in 1387, Richard II’s judges were given virtually no option but to approve his claim to exercise absolute control of Parliament (regimen Parliamenti), and did in fact do so, they might well have observed that he demanded only formal recognition of established custom. So far as the practical business of Parliament was concerned, kings enjoyed prerogative rights; and although prudence dictated that they should seriously consider whatever Parliament required or advised, they themselves were legally entitled to determine matters of policy.

(i) TRIALS IN PARLIAMENT

In view of the superiority of the shire knights among the Commons, it is hardly surprising that when the Crown took a special interest in the personal qualifications and eligibility of Members, it was mostly in relation to them. The requirement expressed in the writs of summons of 1373, that the citizens and burgesses should be men with considerable experience of seafaring, who were well versed in mercantile business (‘qui in navigio ac in excercitio mercandisarum noticiam habent meliorem’), was quite unusual, in that it only applied to the townsmen.Reps.

The contents of these volumes of the History present, in the main, the findings of an inquiry into the lives and careers of Members of the House of Commons: that is the knights of the shires, citizens and burgesses elected to Parliament by the local communities of counties and towns whose representation was demanded by the Crown. The names of the Members are by no means all known.

Before ever the ‘representative Parliament’ came into being, awareness of social and political realities had always ensured that English kings would have recourse, whenever they deemed it necessary, to a national assembly from which to obtain, by counsel and consent, support for both domestic and external policies.

The King had to do more than simply decide when and where Parliament should meet, and how long it should last. It was always important that parliamentary affairs should be conducted in his best interests, at least as he saw them, and thus for procedure to be controlled by him with the help of his ministers and other councillors.

Long before the emergence of the ‘representative’ Parliament (that is Parliament as an assembly including elected representatives in addition to prelates and secular magnates individually summoned), expansion of the authority and power of the Crown had necessitated, at the centre, both specialization and devolution of governmental and administrative responsibilities.

The period in these volumes of the History, ending within a year of the death of Henry V in 1422, begins in 1386.