The First English Parliament

The word Parliament (French, Parlement) signifies a state assembly that meets for conference. The date of the First Parliament, January 20th, 1265, is a great epoch in English History. The Saxons had held their Wittenagemots, or "Councils of Wise-men," similar to the "Al-things" of the Norsemen, but during the reign of Henry III. (1216-1272), Simon de Monfort, Earl of Leicester, summoned a Council of State, two knights for each county and two citizens from each borough, that they might hold in check the arbitrary King. Simon and his followers were overthrown and put to death, but the "Commons," once admitted into the Councils, never again allowed themselves to be left out. With the next reign, Edward I. (1272-1307), the history of modern England begins, and during the reigns of the "three Edwards" (1272-1377) the Island of Great Britain was consolidated under one Monarch, and the history of the English Parliament is from this time the history of the English nation.

It is a remarkable fact that, until the middle of this century, England had no suitable building for its Legislature. The House of Commons for three hundred years, after Simon de Monfort first called it into existence, met in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, and for three hundred years more in the King's chapel, St. Stephen. The House of Lords had an unsuitable room in the old Palace of Westminster, and it was not until the destruction of this old historic palace by fire in 1834 that the present ample and luxurious Legislative Halls, or Parliament Buildings, were erected (1840), costing pound 3,000,000.