[60] Frequent proofs of this may be found in Madox, Hist. of Exchequer, c. 17, as well as in Matt. Paris, who laments it with indignation. Cives Londinenses, contra consuetudinem et libertatem civitatis, quasi servi ultimæ conditionis, non sub nomine aut titulo liberi adjutorii, sed tallagii, quod multum eos angebat, regi, licet inviti et renitentes, numerare sunt coacti. p. 492. Heu ubi est Londinensis, toties empta, toties concessa, toties scripta, toties jurata libertas! &c. p. 627. The king sometimes suspended their market, that is, I suppose, their right of toll, till his demands were paid. [61] These writs are not extant, having perhaps never been returned; and consequently we cannot tell to what particular places they were addressed. It appears however that the assembly was intended to be numerous; for the entry runs: scribitur civibus Ebor, civibus Lincoln, et cæteris burgis Angliæ. It is singular that no mention is made of London, which must have had some special summons. Rymer, t. i. p. 803. Dugdale, Summonitiones ad Parliamentum, p. 1. [62] It would ill repay any reader's diligence to wade through the vapid and diluted pages of Tyrrell; but whoever would know what can be best pleaded for a higher antiquity of our present parliamentary constitution may have recourse to Hody on Convocations, and Lord Lyttelton's History of Henry II. vol. ii. p. 276, and vol. iv. p. 79-106. I do not conceive it possible to argue the question more ingeniously than has been done by the noble writer last quoted. Whitelocke, in his commentary on the parliamentary writ, has treated it very much at length, but with no critical discrimination. [Note VII.] [63] Madox, Hist. of Exchequer, c. 17. [64] The only apparent exception to this is in the letter addressed to the pope by the parliament of 1246; the salutation of which runs thus: Barones, proceres, et magnates, _ac nobiles portuum maris habitatores_, necnon et clerus et populus universus, salutem. Matt. Paris, p. 696. It is plain, I think, from these words, that some of the chief inhabitants of the Cinque Ports, at that time very flourishing towns, were present in this parliament. But whether they sat as representatives, or by a peculiar writ of summons, is not so evident; and the latter may be the more probable hypothesis of the two. [65] Thus Matthew Paris tells us that in 1237 the whole kingdom, regni totius universitas, repaired to a parliament of Henry III. p. 367. [66] Brady's Introduction to Hist. of England, p. 38. [67] Convocatis universis Angliæ prelatis et magnatibus, necnon cunctatum regni sui civitatum et burgorum potentioribus. Wykes, in Gale, XV Scriptores, t. ii. p. 88. I am indebted to Hody on Convocations for this reference, which seems to have escaped most of our constitutional writers.