5. JENKS: EDWARD I 159 i .^ gess could be stopped if he did not do his duty ; for they were paid by his constituency, not by the royal treasury. Above all, the knights and burgesses soon found that they had a powerful weapon in their hands. They could refuse to grant taxes until the petitions which they had presented had been carefully considered and properly answered by the Crown." Thus the great constitutional principle, that redress of griev- ances precedes supply, came slowly to light in Edward's reign. Thus, also, we see the meaning of the careful apportionment in the Michaelmas Parliament of 1280, and so often after- wards, of the numerous petitions presented at the assembling of Parliament, among special officials or specially appointed committees, and the appearance of the Receiver of Petitions as a regular Parliamentary official. In fact, the merest glance through the records of Edward's Parliaments is sufficient to convince the student, that the main business of the session was the discussion and remedy of individual griev- ances, while specially difficult or specially " prerogative " lawsuits form the other great item of work. These latter, after a few years, constituted the sole contents of the coram rege Rolls of the King's Bench; while the private petitions which play so large a part in the records of Edward's Parlia- ment disappeared from the rolls,- and became the " private bills " of a later day. Thus the " public bills," which are so scanty on the rolls of Edward's time, — the bills or petitions promoted by the King's ministers, or by the magnates, or by the " community " or " communities " of the realm, — at last became the staple material of the Parliament Rolls, being engrossed in their final shape on the Statute Roll of the King- dom. For that was the final work accomplished by Parlia- ment. It fused the thousand diverse interests of shires and/ boroughs, clergy and laity, magnates and humble folk, int one national whole; and made possible the existence o national legislation. And so we come, finally, to Edward's position as a legisla- tor, and to the title which he has acquired, of " the English Justinian." Like most other popular titles, it covers a certain amount of truth. Justinian, reigning over an empire whose civilisation had been growing for a thousand years.
