rd's soldiers had been driven from the open
country and confined to the fortresses of the Lowlands. Even these were at
last reft away. Perth was taken by siege, and the king was too late to
prevent the surrender of Stirling. Edinburgh was captured by a stratagem.
Only Roxburgh and Berwick were saved by a truce which Edward was driven to
conclude with the Scots.

[Sidenote: Progress of Parliament]

But with the difficulties of the Crown the weight of the two Houses made
itself more and more sensibly felt. The almost incessant warfare which had
gone on since the accession of Edward the Third consolidated and developed
the power which they had gained from the dissensions of his father's reign.
The need of continual grants brought about an assembly of Parliament year
by year, and the subsidies that were accorded to the king showed the
potency of the financial engine which the Crown could now bring into play.
In a single year the Parliament granted twenty thousand sacks, or half the
wool of the realm. Two years later the Commons voted an aid of thirty
thousand sacks. In 1339 the barons granted the tenth sheep and fleece and
lamb. The clergy granted two tenths in one year, and a tenth for three
years in the next. But with each supply some step was made to greater
political influence. In his earlier years Edward showed no jealousy of the
Parliament. His policy was to make the struggle with France a national one
by winning for it the sympathy of the people at large; and with this view
he not only published in the County Courts the efforts he had made for
peace, but appealed again and again for the sanction and advice of
Parliament in his enterprise. In 1331 he asked the Estates whether they
would prefer negotiation or war: in 1338 he declared that his expedition to
Flanders was made by the assent of the Lords and at the prayer of the
Commons. The part of the last in public affairs grew greater in spite of
their own efforts to remain obscure. From the opening of the reign a crowd
of enactments for the regulation of trade, whether wise or unwise, shows
the influence of the burgesses. But the final division of Parliament into
two Houses, a change which was completed by 1341, necessarily increased the
weight of the Commons. The humble trader who shrank from counselling the
Crown in great matters of policy gathered courage as he found himself
sitting side by side with the knights of the shire. It was at the moment
when this great