Simon de Montfort on the 24th December following issued writs in the king’s name bidding the sheriffs to send up two knights from the shires, and each of some twenty-one especially designated cities and boroughs to send up two citizens and burgesses to London.[120] The Parliament was called for the 20th January, 1265. Beside the representatives of the cities and boroughs, there was a very full gathering of the clergy. The baronage, who as a body looked upon Earl Simon’s cause with small favor, were called upon to send only twenty-three of their number, five earls and eighteen barons. [The first instance of burgher representation in Parliament] [The House of Commons is foreshadowed] It is upon this Parliament that the fame of Simon de Montfort as the Creator of the House of Commons is established. Unless we admit as an instance of borough representation the summons of the reeve and four men from the demesne townships to the St. Albans Council in 1213, we have here the first participation of the burgher class, the Third Estate of the Realm, in the Parliament of the nation. It was to compose, along with the recently admitted representatives of the shires, the House of Commons, and in its hands the destiny of the power to tax was to lie. That Simon de Montfort summoned the citizens and burgesses to the Parliament of 1265 is attributable chiefly to the fact that they were amongst the most ardent of his supporters.[121] It is extremely doubtful that he acted in accordance with any great scheme of constitutional reform. He called the burghers because he found their support useful, and therein lay the greatest hope for the future; the time was not far distant when a greater than Simon de Montfort should discover that a Parliament in which cities and boroughs and counties were alike represented was the most convenient means of supplying the royal treasury. As for Simon de Montfort’s Parliament, its importance to taxation lies wholly in its significance in the elaboration of the representative principle; there is no record that it did aught with respect to taxation. Its business was mostly confined to concluding arrangements begun in the Mise of Lewes for the government of the kingdom. [Last years of Henry III]