186: and the same thing took place at the accession of Richard the Second. Rot. Parl. 1 Ric. II. n. 95. 2 Ric. II. n. 2. Triennial parliaments were, I believe, first agreed to by Charles the First. Footnote 484: The establishment of the Scabini or Schöffen in the Frankish empire was intended to relieve the freemen from the inconvenience of attending gemóts, which the counts converted into an engine of extortion and oppression. ----- On the other hand, to whom could the king look with greater security, than to the men whose sympathies were all those of the ruling caste; many of whom were his own kinsmen by blood or marriage, more of whom were his own officers; men, too, accustomed to business, and practically acquainted with the wants of their several localities? Or how, when the customs and condition of widely different social aggregations were to be considered and reconciled, could he do better than advise with those who were most able to point out and meet the difficulties of the task? Thus, it appears to me, by a natural process did the folkmót or meeting of the nation become converted into a witena gemót or meeting of councillors. Nor let it be imagined by this that I mean the king’s councillors only: by no means; they were the witan or councillors of the nation, members of the great council or inquest, who sought what was for the general good, certainly not men who accidentally formed part of what we in later days call the king’s council, and who might have been more or less the creatures of his will: they were leódwitan, þeódwitan, general, popular, universal councillors: only when they chanced to be met for the purpose of advising him could they bear the title of the cyninges þeahteras or cyninges witan. Then no doubt the Leódwitan became ðæs cyninges witan (_the_ king’s, not king’s, councillors) because without their assistance he could not have enacted, nor without their assistance executed, his laws. Let it be borne in mind throughout that the king was only the head of an aristocracy which acted with him, and by whose support he reigned; that this aristocracy again was only a higher order of the freemen, to whose class it belonged, and with many of whose interests it was identified; that the clergy, learned, active and powerful, were there to mediate between the rulers and the ruled; and I think we shall conclude that the system which I have faintly sketched was not incapable of securing to a great degree the well-being of a state in such an early stage of development as the Saxon Commonwealth. At what exact period the change I have attempted to describe was effected, is neither very easy to determine nor very material. It was probably very gradual, and very partial; indeed it may never have been formally recognised, for here and there we find evident traces of the people’s being present at, and ratifying the decisions of the witan. Much more important is it to