Bills in the
house of
commons.
Private
petitions.
Bills sent
up Ъу the
commons
to the lords.
Common
petitions of
the house of
commons.
478 Constitutional Histori/. [chap.
The practice of the house of commons was analogous ; there
also a proposition for the change of the law, or for the remedy
of a grievance, might originate in either a private petition of
an individual aggrieved, or a proposition by a particular
member, or a general petition of the house. The custom of
presenting private petitions to the house of commons, desiring
them to use their influence with the king, came in first under
Henry IV ɪ. These petitions would require to be sorted, as
did those addressed to the king and lords ; but the house did
not yet, so far as can be seen, appoint a committee of petitions ;
the matter was arranged between the clerk and the whole
house. Such private petitions as seem to merit the considera-
tion of the commons were after examination sent up to the
lords with the note prefixed t Soit baillé aux seigneurs 2,' and
there passed through the further stages before receiving the
king’s assent ; i soit fait comme il est desire.’ All these are of
the nature of what are now called private bills ; a proceeding
half legislative and half judicial ; the result may be termed an
act of parliament, but it was not a statute, and instead of
appearing among the laws of the realm was established and
notified by letters patent under the great seal.
440. The common petitions of the house were a much more
weighty matter. They were the national response to the king’s
promise to redress grievance. They were the result of delibera-
tion and debate among the commons themselves, whether they
originated in the independent proposition of an individual
member, adopted by the house as a subject of petition, or in
the complaints of his constituents, or in the organised policy of
Iibertatibus ecclesiasticis, &c., missae sunt in domum eomɪɪɪuɪɪeɪɪɪ ; nuncii
clericus parliament! et attornatus regis vol. ɪ. pp. 4-6. Bills relating
to the crown were sent down by two judges ; other messages by masters
in chancery ; the commons sent up their bills by one member, either the
chairman of committee of ways and means or the member in charge of the
bill, accompanied by seven others. Thiswas altered in 1817 and 1855;
see E. May, Treatise on Parliament, pp. 435-437.
1 Bot. Parl. iii. 564. Every possible variation is found in the heading of
the petitions ; some are to the king, others to the king and council, to the
king, lords, and commons, to the lords and commons, and to the commons
alone. The latter request the commons to mediate with the king and council.
2 See instances in Rot. Parl. iv. pp. 159, 160 sq., and generally from the
reign of Henry V onwards.
XX.]
Common Petitions.
479
a party, or in the unanimous wish of the whole house. Un-
questionably they went through stages of which the rolls
contain no indication before they were presented as the , common
petitions 1.' The history of this branch of parliamentary work
has already been illustrated as fully as our materials allow ; the
articles of the barons at Runnymede and at Oxford, the peti-
tions of the whole community at Lincoln in 1301, at West-
minster in 1309 and 1310, mark the first great stages of
political growth in the nation. They are initiations of legisla-
tive reform, as much as the great statutes of Edward I. The
common petitions of the fifteenth century, the petty gravamina,
the minute details of amendments of law, are the later develop-
ments of the principles boldly enunciated in those documents :
and the statutes based on the common petitions bear on the
face evidence of their unbroken descent. It is not improbable ParaUei
, , , ... ... ∙l-ιiιτ 1 . 1 τ drawn fl om
that this process was identical with that by which in the dis- the proceed-
eussions of the ecclesiastical convocations the gravamina of vocation, ɪɪ
individuals, the reformanda or proposed remedies, and the
articuli cleri or completed representations sent up to the house
of bishops, are and have been from the very first framed and
treated2. The gravamina of individual members of convocation
answer to the initiatory act of the individual member in the
commons, and the ‘ articuli cleri ’ to the ‘ communes petitiones ; ’
both expressions may be traced back to the earliest days of
representative assemblies. In the reign of Henry III we find
gravamina and articuli among the clergy ; in the reigns of
John, Henry III, and Edward I we have articuli and occa-
sionally gravamina among the laity. From the reign of Ed-
ward III the king promises in the opening speech to redress
the grievances of his subjects; and from the year 1343 the
petitions of the commons are presented in a roll of articles,
1 In 1423 the merchants of the Staple sent in a petition to the lords ;
< la quelle petition depuis fui⅛t mande par mesmes les Seigneurs as ditz
communes pour ent avoir lour avys, les queux communes mesme la petition
Tcbaillerent come une de lour communes petitions;* Rot. Parl. iv. 250.
It is very raιely that we find such an amount of detail.
2 See the standing orders of the lower house of convocation, drawn up
it is believed in or about 1722 by bishop Gibson; and Gibson’s Synodus
Anglicana, cc. xii, xiii.