and fourteenth centuries, when barons extorted charters from kings in
their necessities, and when the common people of Saxon origin secured
valuable rights and liberties, which they afterwards lost under the
Tudor and Stuart princes. I need not go into a detail of these. It is
certain that in the reign of Edward I. (1274-1307), himself a most
accomplished and liberal civil ruler, the English House of Commons had
become very powerful, and had secured in Parliament the right of
originating money bills, and the control of every form of taxation,--on
the principle that the people could not be taxed without their own
consent. To this principle kings gave their assent, reluctantly indeed,
and made use of all their statecraft to avoid compliance with it, in
spite of their charters and their royal oaths. But it was a political
idea which held possession of the minds of the people from the reign of
Edward I. to that of Henry IV. During this period all citizens had the
right of suffrage in their boroughs and towns, in the election of
certain magistrates. They were indeed mostly controlled by the lord of
the manor and by the parish priest, but liberty was not utterly
extinguished in England, even by Norman kings and nobles; it existed to
a greater degree than in any continental State out of Italy. It cannot
be doubted that there was a constitutional government in England as
early as in the time of Edward I., and that the power of kings was even
then checked by parliamentary laws.

In Freeman's "Norman Conquest," it appears that the old English town, or
borough, is purely of Teutonic origin. In this, local self-government is
distinctly recognized, although it subsequently was controlled by the
parish priest and the lord of the manor under the influence of the
papacy and feudalism; in other words, the ancient jurisdiction of the
tun-mõt--or town-meeting--survived in the parish vestry and the manorial
court. The guild system, according to Kendall, had its origin in England