The days were long past in which either the king, the barons, or the nation at large were content to see the kingdom managed by a council of barons and bishops, gathered round a sovereign who was of necessity either strong enough to coerce them or too weak to resist them. From the very beginning of the century the right of the tax-payer to give or refuse had been becoming more clearly recognized; and the methods which under Henry I. and Henry II. had been used for facilitating the collection of money provided a machinery which could be used for still more important purposes. In the twelfth century, when the king wanted money, and had declared in his council what he expected, he sent down his justices or barons of the Exchequer to arrange with the towns and counties the sums which were to be contributed. Whilst land only was taxed all questions of liability could be answered by reference to Domesday Book; but when personal property was taxed it was necessary to discover how much each man possessed before he could be made to pay. This could be ascertained only by consulting his neighbors; and, in order to do this, a system of assessment was devised by which the property of each tax-payer was valued by a jury of his neighbors. The custom of electing these assessors, and, further, of electing collectors for the counties, treasurers, and similar officers, familiarized the people with the idea of using representation for such business. For legal transactions they already used representation in the county courts. The grand jury which presented the list of accused persons to the king’s judges on circuit was, for instance, an elected and representative body, chosen in the county court. The convenience of dealing thus with the government by representative accredited agents approved itself to both king and nation long before there was any idea of calling the representatives to parliament. On one occasion, in the reign of John, each shire had been ordered to send four discreet knights to speak with the king at Oxford; and that Council of St. Albans, in which mention was first made of the charter of Henry I., contained representatives from every township in the royal demesne. In 1254, when Henry III. was in France, the queen regent summoned representative knights to the parliament to make a grant. In the parliaments which were held in 1259 and afterwards, representative knights brought up the lists of grievances under which their constituents were groaning; and in 1264 Simon de Montfort had called up from both shires and boroughs representatives to aid him in the new work of government. That part of Earl Simon’s work had not been lasting. The task was left for Edward I., to be advanced by gradual, safe steps but to be thoroughly completed, as a part of a definite and orderly arrangement, according to which the English Parliament was to be the perfect representation of the Three Estates of the Realm,