eby they should be bound without their assent."[14]
The promise tended in practice to be evaded, and late in the reign of
Henry VI. there was brought about an alteration of procedure in
accordance with which measures were henceforth to be introduced in
either house, in the form of drafted bills. The legislative process
was now essentially reversed. The right of initiative was secured to
the Commons, concurrently with the Lords; the crown was restricted to
a right of veto or assent. The change in procedure was reflected (p. 016)
in a change of formula. Statutes began to be made "by the King's most
excellent majesty by and with the advice and consent of the Lords
spiritual and temporal, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled,
and by the authority of the same." And these words comprise the
formula with which every act of Parliament to-day begins. Technically,
the laws were, and are still, made by the crown; practically
Parliament, once merely a petitioning and advising body, had become a
full-fledged legislative assemblage.

[Footnote 13: Adams and Stephens, Select Documents,
97.]

[Footnote 14: Ibid., 182.]

Throughout the later fourteenth and earlier fifteenth centuries the
growth of Parliament in self-assertiveness was remarkable. Twice
during the fourteenth century, in 1327 and in 1399, it exercised the
fundamental prerogative of deposing the sovereign and of bestowing the
crown upon a successor.[15] And before the close of the Lancastrian
era it had assumed advanced ground in demanding the right of
appropriating (as well as of voting) subsidies, the accounting by the
public authorities for moneys expended, the removal of objectionable
ministers, and the annual assembling of the two houses. During the
civil wars of the second half of the fifteenth century parliamentary
aggressiveness and influence materially declined, and at the opening
of the Tudor period, in 1485, the body was in by no means the
favorable position it had occupied fifty years earlier. As will
appear, its eclipse continued largely through the epoch of the Tudors.
Yet its broader aspects had been permanently fixed and its
perpetuation in the constitutional system positively assured.[16]

[Footnote 15: Strictly, upon the first of these
occasions the sovereign, Edward II., was driven by
threat of deposition to abdicate.]