magnates not only to come in person but to represent the people in the
Lower House, the social quality of which developed with the growth of
its power. Only in very recent times has the House of Commons again
included such representatives as these whose names are taken from the
official returns for the parliaments of Edward I: John the Baker,
William the Tailor, Thomas the Summoner, Andrew the Piper, Walter the
Spicer, Roger the Draper, Richard the Dyer, Henry the Butcher, Durant
the Cordwainer, John the Taverner, William the Red of Bideford, Citizen
Richard (Ricardus Civis), and William the priest's son.

The appearance of emancipated villeins side by side with earls and
prelates in the great council of the realm is the most significant fact
of thirteenth-century English history. The people of England were
beginning to have a history which was not merely that of an alien
government; and their emergence is traceable not only in language,
literature, and local and national politics, but also in the art of
war. Edward I discovered in his Welsh wars that the long-bow was more
efficient than the weapons of the knight; and his grandson won English
victories at Crecy and Poitiers with a weapon which was within the
reach of the simple yeoman. The discovery of gunpowder and development
of artillery soon proved as fatal to the feudal castle as the long-bow
had to the mailed knight; and when the feudal classes had lost their
predominance in the art of war, and with it their monopoly of the power
of protection, both the reasons for their existence and their capacity
to maintain it were undermined. They took to trade, or, at least, to
money-making out of land, like ordinary citizens, and thus entered into
a competition in which they had not the same assurance of success.

Edward I's greatness consists mainly in his practical appreciation of
these tendencies. He was less original, but more fortunate in his