was employed by Eleanora in prompting her husband to measures for the public good, and England long enjoyed through the wise administration of her beneficent sov-ereign a respite from those evils under which the nation had groaned since the Norman conquest. By a royal patent Edward erected boroughs within the demesne lands and conferred upon them liberty of trade, and profiting by the example of Leicester, permitted them to send représenta: tives to parliament, which was the true epoch of the House of Commons—the first dawn of popular government in Eng-land. The lower or more industrious orders of the state were thus encouraged and protected, and an interest in the commonwealth diffused through all the ranks of society. ,. « .. CHAPTER IX. CONQUEST OF WALES. THE death of Joanna, mother of Eleanora, leaving the do-mains of Ponthieu and