These never could make a crowd, as they must have had a regular place assigned them if they had made a regular part of the legislative body.

There were only one hundred and thirty boroughs who received writs of summons from Edward I.It is expressly said in Gesta Reg.Steph.p.932, that it was usual for the populace, "vulgus," to crowd into the great councils; where they were plainly mere spectators, and could only gratify their curiosity.] If in the long period of two hundred years, which elapsed between the conquest and the latter end of Henry III., and which abounded in factions, revolutions, and convulsions of all kinds, the house of commons never performed one single legislative act so considerable as to be once mentioned by any of the numerous historians of that age, they must have been totally insignificant: and in that case, what reason can be assigned for their ever being assembled?
Can it be supposed that men of so little weight or importance possessed a negative voice against the king and the barons?
Every page of the subsequent histories discovers their existence; though these histories are not written with greater accuracy than the preceding ones, and indeed scarcely equal them in that particular.

The Magna Charta of King John provides that no scutage or aid should be imposed, either on the land or towns, but by consent of the great council; and for more security it enumerates the persons entitled to a seat in that assembly, the prelates and immediate tenants of the crown, without any mention of the commons; an authority so full, certain, and explicit, that nothing but the zeal of party could ever have procured credit to any contrary hypothesis.
It was probably the example of the French barons, which first imboldened the English to require greater independence from their sovereign: it is also probable that the boroughs and corporations of England were established in imitation of those of France.

It may, therefore, be proposed as no unlikely conjecture, that both the chief privileges of the peers in England and the liberty of the commons were originally the growth of that foreign country.
In ancient times, men were little solicitous to obtain a place in the legislative assemblies; and rather regarded their attendance as a burden, which was not compensated by any return of profit or honor, proportionate to the trouble and expense.

The only reason for instituting those public councils was, on the part of the subject, that they desired some security from the attempts of arbitrary power; and on the part of the sovereign, that he despaired of governing men of such independent spirits without their own consent and concurrence.