Their first step bore a specious appearance, and seemed well calculated for the end which they professed to be the object of all these innovations; they ordered that four knights should be chosen by each county; that they should make inquiry into the grievances of which their neighborhood had reason to complain, and should attend the ensuing parliament, in order to give information to that assembly of the state of their particular counties;[*] a nearer approach to our present constitution than had been made by the barons in the reign of King John, when the knights were only appointed to meet in their several counties, and there to draw up a detail of their grievances. Meanwhile the twenty-four barons proceeded to enact some regulations, as a redress of such grievances as were supposed to be sufficiently notorious. They ordered, that three sessions of parliament should be regularly held every year, in the months of February, June, and October; “that a new sheriff should be annually elected by the votes of the freeholders in each county;[**] that the sheriffs should have no power of fining the barons who did not attend their courts, or the circuits of the justiciaries; that no heirs should be committed to the wardship of foreigners, and no castles intrusted to their custody; and that no new warrens or forests should be created, nor the revenues of any counties or hundreds be let to farm.” Such were the regulations which the twenty-four barons established at Oxford, for the redress of public grievances. * M. Paris, p. 657. Addit. p. 140. Ann. Burt, p, 412. ** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 336.