4<5o Constitutional History. [chap.
the last parliament of Henry VI shows that all the Cistercian,
Cluniac and Praemonstratensian houses had been relieved from
a duty which the extent of their foreign connexions must have
made somewhat dangerous ; the Master of the Gilbertines is no
longer summoned; only two houses of Augustinian canons,
Waltham and Cirencester, appear in the list. Of the rest,
twenty-three are Benedictine abbeys of royal or reputed royal
foundation; one cathedral priory, that of Coventry, still sends
its prior; and the prior of Clerkenwell completes the list1,
abbot⅛, Many of these were mitred abbots : that is, abbots who had
received from the pope the right of wearing the mitre and other
vestments proper to the episcopal office ; but the mitred and
parliamentary abbeys were not identical ; and some priors who
Summons of were mitred were not summoned to parliament. The abbot of
Tavistock. Tavistock, who in the reign of Henry VI had received per-
mission to apply to the pope for the mitre, was in the fifth year
of Henry VIII made a spiritual lord of parliament by letters
patent. This has been said to have been a unique exercise of
prerogative power; hut the abbot of Tewkesbury was also
summoned in 1512 and the abbot of Burton in 1532 2, and
ι⅛uch a case is scarcely to be distinguished in point of principle
S. Augustine’s, Bristol, is in the Lords’ Report, iv. 528 : and that of the
abbot of Thornton, ib. p. 529 ; both in 1341 ; that of the abbot of Beau-
lieu, the same year, ib. ρ. 533 ; Crowland, Spalding, p. 535 ; Thorney,
p. 579. See also Brynne, Reg. i. pp. 141-144 ; Madox, Baronia Angl.
pp. ɪɪo sq. ; where it is remarked that other onerous services besides
parliamentary attendance were escaped by proving that the lands were held
in frankalmoign.
1 The list of parliamentary abbots and priors summoned in 1483 is this :
Peterborough, Colchester, S. Edmund’s, Abingdon, Waltham, Shrewsbury,
Cirencester, Gloucester, Westminster, S. Alban’s, Bardneyj Selby, S. Bene-
dict of Hulme, Thorney, Evesham, Ramsey, Hyde, Glastonbury, Malmes-
bury, Crowland, Battle, Winchcomb, Reading, S. Augustine’s, S. Mary’s
York, Pr. Coventry, Pr. S. John of Jerusalem; Lords’ Report, App.
pp. 946, 985. Reyner, Apostolatus Benedictinorum, p. 212, makes twenty-
four, adding Tavistock and omitting the Augustinian abbots and the two
priors ; and adds a list of sixteen, who, although they were not summoned
to parliament, were counted among the barons. In 1332 Edward III
summoned twenty-eight heads of houses, to whom i non solebat scribi in
aliis parliaments Lords’ Report, p. 409. See also Prynne, Reg. i. 108
sq., 141 sq., 147.
2 Domestic State Papers, i. pp. 314, 634, 725 ; Rot. Parl. 24 Hen. VIII,
p. ccxxxix.
XX.]
Judges in Parliament.
461
from the creation of a new temporal barony1. The bishops
whose sees were created later in the reign had their seats
virtually secured by the liberal terms of the legislation which
empowered the king to erect the new sees. These prelates had
no baronies and cannot be said to have sat in the right of
temporal lordships.
431. Thejustices, and other councillors summoned to assist Judges and
the parliament, completed, with the clerks and other officers,
the personnel of the Upper Chamber of parliament. Of these
the judges, whatever may have been the intention with which
Edward I added them to the parliament, seem to have taken a
more or less prominent part in the public business of the house,
but not to have succeeded in obtaining recognition as peers, or
the right of voting. They were not regular or essential members
of the house; their summons did not imply an equality or
similarity of functions to those of the peers ; they were sum-
moned in varying numbers, and they had no power to appear
by proxy2. Yet they had very considerable functions as conn- Functionsof
sellers ; in assisting all legislation that proceeded primarily in the house
from the king, and in formulating the statutes which proceeded
from the petitions of the subject ; they were ready to give their
opinions on all legal and constitutional questions that came
before the parliament ; they contributed an important quota to
the bodies of receivers and triers of petitions ; and on some
occasions they may have exercised a right of votings. In our
survey of medieval history they have appeared principally as
giving or refusing opinions on constitutional procedure ; but on
certain important occasions one of the chief justices has acted
as spokesman for the whole parliament. Whatever was the
qualification of Sir William Trussell, who as proctor of the
parliament announced the deposition of Edward II, it was a
1 Monast. AngI. iv. 503 ; Coke, 4th Inst. p. 45 ; Prynne, 4th Inst. p. 28 ;
Register, i. J45.
2 See Prynne, Reg. ɪ. p. 379; Coke, 4th Inst. p. 4; above, vol. ii.
pp. 199, 270.
3 See Erskine May, Treatise on Parliament, p. 234. In the decision on
the claim of the duke of Norfolk in 1425 the advice of the judges is
mentioned co-ordinately with that of the lords and commons ; Rot. Parl.
ɪv. 274.