They do not, however, question, on the whole, but that a new constitution of the legislative assemblies of the realm had been introduced before the 15th year of Edward II., and that "the practice had prevailed so long before as to give it, in the opinion of the parliament then assembled, the force and effect of a custom, which the parliament declared should thereafter be considered as established law." (p. 293.) This appears to me rather an inadequate exposition of the public spirit, of the tendency towards enlarging the basis of the constitution, to which the "practice and custom" owed its origin; but the positive facts are truly stated. NOTE IX. Page 124. Writs are addressed in 11th of Edw. II. "comitibus, majoribus baronibus, et prælatis," whence the Lords' committee infer that the style used in John's charter was still preserved (Report, p. 277). And though in those times there might be much irregularity in issuing writs of summons, the term "majores barones" must have had an application to definite persons. Of the irregularity we may judge by the fact that under Edward I. about eighty were generally summoned; under his son never so many as fifty, sometimes less than forty, as may be seen in Dugdale's Summonitiones ad Parliamentum. The committee endeavour to draw an inference from this against a subsisting right of tenure. But if it is meant that the king had an acknowledged prerogative of omitting any baron at his discretion, the higher English nobility must have lost its notorious privileges, sanctioned by long usage, by the analogy of all feudal governments, and by the charter of John, which, though not renewed in terms, nor intended to be retained in favour of the lesser barons, or tenants _in capite_, could not, relatively to the rights of the superior order, have been designedly relinquished. The committee wish to get rid of tenure as conferring a right to summons; they also strongly doubt whether the summons conferred an hereditary nobility; but they assert that, in the 15th of Edward III., "those who may have been deemed to have been in the reign of John distinguished as _majores barones_ by the honour of a personal writ of summons, or by the extent and influence of their property, from the other tenants in chief of the crown, were now clearly become, with the earls and the newly created dignity of duke, a distinct body of men denominated peers of the land, and having distinct personal rights; while the other tenants in chief, whatsoever their rights may have been in the reign of John, sunk into the general mass." (p. 314.)