The events immediately prior to the calling of the Parliament are of interest. Trouble was on with the Welsh, and a Scotch war began before the other was over. The French king had transgressed Edward’s Gascon possessions and his sailors had landed at Dover, putting a convent and some houses to the torch. Edward’s arms seemed doomed to universal failure; nowhere were his prospects bright. By no means the least serious feature of his position was an empty treasury. With the hope of devising the means of changing his fortune, he summoned to Westminster for the 1st August a Parliament composed of the barons and prelates of the realm. The session took place on the 15th August. The bulk of the debate was upon the proposal for papal mediation between England and France, and no attempt was made to raise money. But it was doubtlessly decided to ask for a grant at the meeting of Parliament intended for the following autumn.[156] [“What affects all, by all should be approved”] On the four days from the 30th September to the 3d October, Edward addressed writs to the clergy, the barons, and the sheriffs, the last of whom were to send up the representatives of the counties and the boroughs. In the writs to the clergy, by way of preamble Edward said, “As a most just law, established by the careful providence of sacred princes, exhorts and decrees that what affects all, by all should be approved, so also, very evidently should common danger be met by means provided in common.”[157] This legal maxim, which had previously held a place only in the minds of students of the law, was by this act become a most important element in the governmental practice of England.[158] The writs provided not only for the attendance of the prelates, but also for the sending up of representatives of the lower clergy,--the archdeacons and deans in person, a suitable proctor for the chapters, and two others for the parochial clergy of each diocese. All were to have “full and sufficient power ... to consider, ordain, and provide.” The writs to the barons[159] were similar in tenor to the usual issuance upon such occasions. To the sheriffs it was “strictly commanded” that they “cause to be elected without delay” and sent up to Westminster “two knights from the aforesaid county, two citizens from each city in the same county, and two burgesses from each borough, of those who are especially discreet and capable of acting.” All were to have “full and sufficient power for themselves and for the community of the aforesaid county ... and the communities of the aforesaid cities and boroughs separately, then and there for doing what shall then be ordained according to the common counsel in the premises; so that the aforesaid business shall not remain unfinished in any way for defect of this power.”[160] [The Model Parliament, 27th Nov., 1295]