Henry II.’s foolish favoritism to foreigners caused a revolt, under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who defeated the king at Lewes. Earl Simon thereupon called together the Parliament, summoning, besides the barons, two knights from each county and two citizens from each city or borough to represent free-holders (1265). From this beginning, the English Parliament soon took on the form it has since retained of two assemblies--the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Thus, the thirteenth century became ever memorable in the history of the English-speaking people of the world, for the granting of the Magna-Charta and the forming of the House of Commons--that House of Commons, which, as its name indicates, was and is made up of the representatives of the “Common People,” and which has ever been the bulwark of the liberty of the “Common People” of England, resisting every attack of autocratic monarchs upon the rights of the people. In the reign of Edward III. (1327-1377) the Normans and Saxons were fused completely, and created the English nationality; chivalry reached its highest exaltation; but the court and the upper classes were morally rotten. The laboring classes rose during this reign, and compelled their employers to pay them just wages, and rent to fragments the despotic edicts that effected them; just as the “Common People” will ever do, whether the attempt is made to beguile them by the cry of Protection, Free Trade, Force Bill, or other distracting exclamations. Richard II. (1377-1399) was a tyrant, with neither the capacity nor courage of his father and grandfather. He lost all the respect and admiration with which the people of England had ever regarded his father and grandfather. One of Richard II.’s tax-gatherers insulted the daughter of one Watt Tyler, at Dartforth on Kent, in exactly the same manner as “Chappie” feels at liberty to do, by his glances, the daughters of the laboring men to-day. Watt Tyler, the wrathful father, killed the man with one blow, and a formidable revolt sprang at once into being. The shouts of about 100,000 “Common People,” gathered on Black Heath, June 12, 1381, reverberated through the valley of Richard II. The vast horde poured into London, seized the Tower of London, put to death the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, and spared the cowering and cowardly King Richard II., only on his promise to abolish slavery and grant their demands.