[Sidenote: Beginnings of House of Commons, 1265. First true Parliament,
1295. Edward I., 1272-1307]

It was at the town of Oxford that the great council of barons and
bishops held its meetings. This council, which had long been called
"Parliament" (from _parler_), in the year 1265 became for the
first time a representative body, when Simon de Montfort summoned not
alone the lords and bishops--but two citizens from every city, and two
burghers from every borough. A Rubicon was passed when the merchant,
and the shopkeeper, sat for the first time with the noble and the
bishops in the great council. It was thirty years before the change was
fully effected, it being in the year 1295 (just 600 years ago now) that
the first true Parliament met. But the "House of Lords" and the germ of
the "House of Commons," existed in this assembly at Oxford in 1265, and
a government "of the people, for the people, by the people," had
commenced.

Edward I., the son and successor of Henry III., not only graciously
confirmed the Great Charter, but added to its privileges. His expulsion
of the Jews, is the one dark blot on his reign.

[Sidenote: North Wales Conquered, 1213. Conquest of Scotland, 1296.]

He conquered North Wales, the stronghold where those Keltic Britons,
the Welsh, had always maintained a separate existence; and as a
recompense for their wounded feelings bestowed upon the heir to the
throne, the title "_Prince of Wales_."

Westminster Abbey was completed at this time and began to be the