England's First Elected Parliament Meets
On this day · 20 January 1265
In 1265 a rebel earl summoned townsmen and knights to Westminster, planting the seed of the House of Commons.
On 20 January 1265, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, opened a parliament in London that broke with everything before it. Having defeated King Henry III at the Battle of Lewes the previous spring, the rebel earl now governed in the king’s name and needed broad backing for his shaky regime.
What made this assembly historic was who he called. Alongside the bishops, abbots, earls and barons, his writs summoned two knights from every county and, for the first time, two burgesses from each major town such as York, Lincoln and the Cinque Ports. These representatives were chosen by their own communities rather than appointed by the crown.
The events of January 1265 turned parliament, in the words of historian F. W. Maitland, “from an occasion into an institution.”
De Montfort was killed at the Battle of Evesham months later, yet the precedent endured. By including elected commoners, his parliament is often regarded as the ancestor of the House of Commons and a foundation stone of representative democracy in England.
Sources & references
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