The members of the house of commons, from this occasional disuse of ancient boroughs as well as from the creation of new ones, underwent some fluctuation during the period subject to our review. Two hundred citizens and burgesses sat in the parliament held by Edward I. in his twenty-third year, the earliest epoch of acknowledged representation. But in the reigns of Edward III. and his three successors about ninety places, on an average, returned members, so that we may reckon this part of the commons at one hundred and eighty.[276] These, if regular in their duties, might appear an over-balance for the seventy-four knights who sat with them. But the dignity of ancient lineage, territorial wealth, and military character, in times when the feudal spirit was hardly extinct and that of chivalry at its height, made these burghers vail their heads to the landed aristocracy. It is pretty manifest that the knights, though doubtless with some support from the representatives of towns, sustained the chief brunt of battle against the crown. The rule and intention of our old constitution was, that each county, city, or borough, should elect deputies out of its own body, resident among themselves, and consequently acquainted with their necessities and grievances.[277] It would be very interesting to discover at what time, and by what degrees, the practice of election swerved from this strictness. But I have not been able to trace many steps of the transition. The number of practising lawyers who sat in parliament, of which there are several complaints, seems to afford an inference that it had begun in the reign of Edward III. Besides several petitions of the commons that none but knights or reputable squires should be returned for shires, an ordinance was made in the forty-sixth of his reign that no lawyer practising in the king's court, nor sheriff during his shrievalty, be returned knight for a county; because these lawyers put forward many petitions in the name of the commons which only concerned their clients.[278] This probably was truly alleged, as we may guess from the vast number of proposals for changing the course of legal process which fill the rolls during this reign. It is not to be doubted, however, that many practising lawyers were men of landed estate in their respective counties.