The first unequivocal instance of representatives appearing for the lower clergy is in the year 1255, when they are expressly named by the author of the Annals of Burton.[323] They preceded, therefore, by a few years the house of commons; but the introduction of each was founded upon the same principle. The king required the clergy's money, but dared not take it without their consent.[324] In the double parliament, if so we may call it, summoned in the eleventh of Edward I. to meet at Northampton and York, and divided according to the two ecclesiastical provinces, the proctors of chapters for each province, but not those of the diocesan clergy, were summoned through a royal writ addressed to the archbishops. Upon account of the absence of any deputies from the lower clergy these assemblies refused to grant a subsidy. The proctors of both descriptions appear to have been summoned by the præmunientes clause in the 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 28th, and 35th years of the same king; but in some other parliaments of his reign the præmunientes clause is omitted.[325] The same irregularity continued under his successor; and the constant usage of inserting this clause in the bishop's writ is dated from the twenty-eighth of Edward III.[326] It is highly probable that Edward I., whose legislative mind was engaged in modelling the constitution on a comprehensive scheme, designed to render the clergy an effective branch of parliament, however their continual resistance may have defeated the accomplishment of this intention.[327] We find an entry upon the roll of his parliament at Carlisle, containing a list of all the proctors deputed to it by the several dioceses of the kingdom. This may be reckoned a clear proof of their parliamentary attendance during his reign under the præmunientes clause; since the province of Canterbury could not have been present in convocation at a city beyond its limits.[328] And indeed, if we were to found our judgment merely on the language used in these writs, it would be hard to resist a very strange paradox, that the clergy were not only one of the three estates of the realm, but as essential a member of the legislature by their representatives as the commons.[329] They are summoned in the earliest year extant (23 E. I.) ad tractandum, ordinandum et faciendum nobiscum, et cum cæteris prælatis, proceribus, ac aliis incolis regni nostri; in that of the next year, ad ordinandum de quantitate et modo subsidii; in that of the twenty-eighth, ad faciendum et consentiendum his, quæ tunc de communi consilio ordinari contigerit. In later times it ran sometimes ad faciendum et consentiendum, sometimes only ad consentiendum; which, from the fifth of Richard II., has been the term invariably adopted.[330] Now, as it is usual to infer from the same words, when introduced into the writs for election of the commons, that they possessed an enacting power, implied in the words ad faciendum, or at least to deduce the necessity of their