One great objection to this argument of Coke, for the legislative authority of the ancient parliaments, is that a very large--probably much the larger--number of legislative acts were done _without_ the advice, consent, request, or even presence, of a parliament. Not only were many formal statutes passed without any mention of the consent or advice of parliament, but a simple order of the king in council, or a simple proclamation, writ, or letter under seal, issued by his command, had the same force as what Coke calls "an act of parliament." And this practice continued, to a considerable extent at least, down to Coke's own time. The kings were always in the habit of consulting their parliaments, more or less, in regard to matters of legislation,--not because their consent was constitutionally necessary, but in order to make influence in favor of their laws, and thus induce the people to observe them, and the juries to enforce them. The general duties of the ancient parliaments were not legislative, but judicial, as will be shown more fully hereafter. The _people_ were not represented in the parliaments at the time of Magna Carta, but only the archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, and knights; so that little or nothing would have been gained for liberty by Coke's idea that parliament had a legislative power. He would only have substituted an aristocracy for a king. Even after the Commons were represented in parliament, they for some centuries appeared only as _petitioners_, except in the matter of taxation, when their _consent_ was asked. And almost the only source of their influence on legislation was this: that they would sometimes refuse their consent to the taxation, unless the king would pass such laws as they petitioned for; or, as would seem to have been much more frequently the case, unless he would abolish such laws and practices as they remonstrated against.