in 1353 granted a subsidy on
wool. The Parliament which met in the following year might have challenged
its proceedings as null and void, but the Commons more wisely contented
themselves with a demand that the ordinances passed in the preceding
assembly should receive the sanction of the Three Estates. A precedent for
evil was thus turned into a precedent for good, and though irregular
gatherings of a like sort were for a while occasionally held they were soon
seen to be fruitless and discontinued. But the Commons long shrank from
meddling with purely administrative matters. When Edward in his anxiety to
shift from himself the responsibility of the war referred to them in 1354
for advice on one of the numerous propositions of peace, they referred him
to the lords of his Council. "Most dreaded lord," they replied, "as to this
war and the equipment needful for it we are so ignorant and simple that we
know not how nor have the power to devise. Wherefore we pray your Grace to
excuse us in this matter, and that it please you with the advice of the
great and wise persons of your Council to ordain what seems best for you
for the honour and profit of yourself and of your kingdom. And whatsoever
shall be thus ordained by assent and agreement on the part of you and your
Lords we readily assent to and will hold it firmly established."

[Sidenote: Baronage attacks the Church]

But humble as was their tone the growing power of the Commons showed itself
in significant changes. In 1363 the Chancellor opened Parliament with a
speech in English, no doubt as a tongue intelligible to the members of the
Lower House. From a petition in 1376 that knights of the shire may be
chosen by common election of the better folk of the shire and not merely
nominated by the sheriff without due election, as well as from an earlier
demand that the sheriffs themselves should be disqualified from serving in
Parliament during their term of office, we see that the Crown had already
begun not only to feel the pressure of the Commons but to meet it by
foisting royal nominees on the constituencies. Such an attempt at packing
the House would hardly have been resorted to had it not already proved too
strong for direct control. A further proof of its influence was seen in a
prayer of the Parliament that lawyers practising in the King's Courts might
no longer be eligible as knights of the shire. The petition marks the rise
of a consciousness that the House was now