Over the course of the next century, the membership of Parliament was divided into the two houses it features today, with the noblemen and bishops encompassing the House of Lords and the knights of the shire and
House of Burgesses, representative assembly in colonial Virginia, an outgrowth of the first elective governing body in a British overseas possession, the Virginia General Assembly. The General Assembly was established at Jamestown on July 30, 1619, and i
when landholders and other property owners in the counties and towns began sending representatives to Parliament to present grievances and petitions to the king and to accept commitments to the payment of taxes. In the 14th century the knights and burgesses chosen as representatives (i.e., the ...