Clergy. [Sidenote: Great statutes of the reign.] The great statutes which were passed in these various Parliaments must now be mentioned. Those which were of most general national interest were the First Statute of Westminster, which, as has been before said, revived and re-established the old constitutions of the country, and limited the employment of feudal aids; and the Statute of Winchester, passed in 1285, which was a re-enactment and completion of the Assize of Arms established by Henry II., and aimed at once at the defence and police of the country. It laid upon the counties, under heavy penalties, the duty of indicting felons and robbers, ordered the police arrangements of walled towns, the enlargement and clearing of the edges of public roads, and further defined the arms which each class of the population was bound to procure for the preservation of the land. Constables and justices were to be appointed to see to the proper observance of this statute, from whom subsequently grew the justices of the peace. Some such statute was indeed very necessary, and even its stringent provisions were not sufficient to establish order. In 1305, England was full of riotous outlaws, who were willing to hire themselves out for purposes of private outrage when they were not plying their own trade of robbery; these were known by the name of “trail-bâtons.” To suppress them it was found necessary to issue commissions to travelling justices, empowering them to act summarily towards such breakers of the peace. Their strictness is mentioned in the political songs of the day. It was impossible, it was said, any longer to beat your children, you were at once punished as a trail-bâton.[54] Even the stringency of these measures of suppression mark Edward’s love of order. Lastly, must be mentioned the great Acts for the confirmation of the charters, which are sometimes regarded as the statute “De tallagio non concedendo.” From this time forward arbitrary tallages, though occasionally used, began to be regarded as illegal.