Constitutional History.
564
[chap.
Revival of
the military
bpirιt of
knighthood.
Growth of
the cla⅛s of
squires.
following the profession of arms. Hence the difficulty of en-
forcing the election of belted knights as representatives of the
shires1. It is not easy to account for this prevalent dislike to
undertake the degree of chivalry, unless it arose from a desire
to avoid the burden of some public duties that belonged to the
knights. Exemption from the work of juries and assizes was
coveted under Henry III3 ; the reluctance to take up knight-
hood was increased by the somewhat exorbitant demands for
military service which were made by Edward I and Edward II
for the Scottish wars : all who possessed the knightly estate
were summoned for such service, and, even if they served for
wages, their wages we may suspect were not very regularly
paid. The fines and licences were in use before the Scottish
wars began, but the diminution in the knightly rank, which
embarrassed county business even in the reign of Henry III,
had increased very largely under Edward III. After the
middle of the fourteenth century, arid the development of
courtly chivalry, the rank of knight recovered much of its
earlier character and became again a military rank. But
the class of squires had then for all practical purposes attained
equality with that of knights, and all the functions which had
once belonged exclusively to the knights were discharged by the
squires. A large and constantly increasing proportion of
knights of the shire were ‘ armigeri,’ and the Speaker as often
as not was of the same order. There were, notwithstanding
this, many families in which the head was always a knight, and
in which the title signified rank as well as the profession of
arms. Such, for instance, were the families sprung from the old
minor barons, who had under Edward I been summoned by
special writ to military service but not to parliament, and
in which the assumption of the knightly title was really the
1 See above, p. 412.
2 This was the ground of the complaint made by the barons against
Henry III in the parliament of 1258 : ‘Quod doɪninus rex large faeit mili-
tibus de regno suo acquietantiam ne in assisis ponantur, juramentis vel
recognitionibus Ann. Burton, p. 443 ; Select Charters, p. 386. Of course
it was easier and cheaper to avoid taking knighthood than to purchase
such an immunity.
XXi.] Tiepresentatives in Parliament. 565
continued claim to rank with the magnates of the county :
the great legal families also maintained the same usage 1.
So wide a class contained, of course, families that had Ciassesof
reached their permanent position by different roads. Some squires,
were the representatives of old land-owning families, probably
of pure English origin, which had never been dispossessed,
which owned but one manor, and restricted themselves to local
work. Others had risen, by the protection of the barons or by
fortunate marriages, from this class, or from the service of the
great lords or of the king himself, and, without being very
wealthy, possessed estates in more than one county, and went
occasionally to court. A third class would consist of those who
have just been mentioned as being of semi-baronial rank. The
two latter classes in all cases, and the first in later times, would
have heraldic honours. From the second came generally the
men who undertook the offices of sheriff and justice. All three
occasionally contributed to the parliament knights of the shire :
the humbler lords of manors being forced to serve when the
office was more burdensome than honourable, the second class
being put forward when political quarrels were increasing the
importance of the office, and the highest class undertaking the
work only when political considerations became supreme.
An examination of the lists of sheriffs and knights leads to illustrations
, from the
this general conclusion, although there are of course exceptions, lists of
The earlier parliaments of Edward I are largely composed of the shire,
the highest class of knights, but that soon ceases to be the rule ;
and from the beginning of the fourteenth century the parlia-
ments are filled with men of pure English names, small local
proprietors, whose pedigrees have more charm for the antiquary
than for the historian2. Towards the middle of the fourteenth
1 The absence of the knightly title is marked especially in the case of
Thomas Chaucer, who although closely connected with the baronage, and
even with the royal house, and a very rich man, continued to be an
esquire.
3 I must give a general reference for these particulars to Prynne⅛ Writs,
!leg. ii, iii, and iv, Palgrave’s Parliamentary Writs, and the Return made
to the House of Commons, since the first edition of this work was pub-
lished, of the names of members returned to paɪIiament from the earliest
times; ordered to be printed March ɪ, 187S. Copies of the Indentures of