Ancient_and_modern_York_a_guide

22 ANCIENT AND
determine. We have no record that contains a list of the
city members earlier than the reign of Edward I. Some
are of opinion, that prior to the time of Henry III., the
cities and towns were esteemed too mean to enjoy the
privilege of sending deputies to the national councils ;
but, on the other hand, the municipal system was of
Roman origin ; the customs, rules, franchises, and pre
cedents of that system, containing, as M. Guizot observes,
the germ of liberty, prevailed in York and the other
towns, when the Saxons came ; who were also attached
to popular deliberative assemblies. The feudal system
was inimical, it is true, to municipal democracy ; yet it
could not in England extinguish the tradition of Roman
and Saxon freedom. The Conqueror himself gave a
charter to the citizens of London; his son, Henry I.,
granted a charter to the citizens of York, securing their
rights, customs, and privileges ; and the clauses in
Magna Charta, regulating the assessment of aids, indicate
that the boroughs were then not of inconsiderable im
portance,—if they do not warrant the inference, that
London, York, and other places then sent deputies to the
parliaments of King John.
These considerations appear to us conclusive against the
opinion, that the first English parliament assembled in
York, in the reign of Henry II. ; for such an opinion is
alike inconsistent with the supposition of the great an
tiquity of the English parliaments, held by one class of
historians ; and with the ideas of those, who, on the other
hand, contend that the first regular parliament in England,
was summoned by King Henry III. It is difficult to
believe that, before these epochs, communities living in
cities and towns—(required to bear the burdens of the
state)—did not assert the right of expressing their voice
in the public councils ; a right which they appear to have
possessed from their establishment as municipal towns, till
the Norman conquest, when their privileges were violently
suspended.