The principle of representation, in its widest sense, can hardly be unknown to any government not purely democratical. In almost every country the sense of the whole is understood to be spoken by a part, and the decisions of a part are binding upon the whole. Among our ancestors the lord stood in the place of his vassals, and, still more unquestionably, the abbot in that of his monks. The system indeed of ecclesiastical councils, considered as organs of the church, rested upon the principle of a virtual or an express representation, and had a tendency to render its application to national assemblies more familiar. The first instance of actual representation which occurs in our history is only four years after the Conquest; when William, if we may rely on Hoveden, caused twelve persons skilled in the customs of England to be chosen from each county, who were sworn to inform him rightly of their laws; and these, so ascertained, were ratified by the consent of the great council. This, Sir Matthew Hale asserts to be "as sufficient and effectual a parliament as ever was held in England."[22] But there is no appearance that these twelve deputies of each county were invested with any higher authority than that of declaring their ancient usages. No stress can be laid at least on this insulated and anomalous assembly, the existence of which is only learned from an historian of a century later.[23] We find nothing that can arrest our attention, in searching out the origin of county representation, till we come to a writ in the fifteenth year of John, directed to all the sheriffs in the following terms: Rex Vicecomiti N., salutem. Præcipimus tibi quod omnes milites ballivæ tuæ qui summoniti fuerunt esse apud Oxoniam ad Nos a die Omnium Sanctorum in quindecim dies venire facias cum armis suis: corpora vero baronum sine armis singulariter, et _quatuor discretos milites_ de comitatu tuo, illuc venire facias ad eundem terminum, ad loquendum nobiscum de negotiis regni nostri. For the explanation of this obscure writ I must refer to what Prynne has said;[24] but it remains problematical whether these four knights (the only clause which concerns our purpose) were to be elected by the county or returned in the nature of a jury, at the discretion of the sheriff. Since there is no sufficient proof whereon to decide, we can only say with hesitation, that there _may_ have been an instance of county representation in the fifteenth year of John. We may next advert to a practice, of which there is very clear proof in the reign of Henry III. Subsidies granted in parliament were assessed, not as in former times by the justices upon their circuits, but by knights freely chosen in the county court. This appears by two writs, one of the fourth and one of the ninth year of Henry III.[25] At a subsequent period, by a provision of the Oxford parliament in 1258, every county elected four knights to inquire into grievances, and deliver their inquisition into parliament.[26]