the
lords, in the king's name, appointed nine persons of different
ranks--three bishops, two earls, two bannerets, and two bachelors--to
be a permanent council about the king, so that no business of importance
should be transacted without their unanimous consent. The king was even
compelled to consent that, during his minority, the chancellor,
treasurer, judges, and other chief officers, should be made in
parliament; by which provision, combined with that of the parliamentary
council, the whole executive government was transferred to the two
houses. A petition that none might be employed in the king's service,
nor belong to his council, who had been formerly accused upon good
grounds, struck at lord Latimer, who had retained some degree of power
in the new establishment. Another, suggesting that Gascony, Ireland,
Artois, and the Scottish marches were in danger of being lost for want
of good officers, though it was so generally worded as to leave the
means of remedy to the king's pleasure, yet shows a growing energy and
self-confidence in that assembly which not many years before had thought
the question of peace or war too high for their deliberation. Their
subsidy was sufficiently liberal; but they took care to pray the king
that fit persons might be assigned for its receipt and disbursement,
lest it should any way be diverted from the purposes of the war.
Accordingly Walworth and Philpot, two eminent citizens of London, were
appointed to this office, and sworn in parliament to its execution.[142]

But whether through the wastefulness of government, or rather because
Edward's legacy, the French war, like a ruinous and interminable
lawsuit, exhausted all public contributions, there was an equally
craving demand for subsidy at the next meeting of parliament. The
commons now made a more serious stand. The speaker, Sir James Pickering,
after the protestation against giving offence which has since become
more matter of form than, perhaps, it was then considered, reminded the
lords of the council of a promise made to the last parliament, that, if
they would help the king for once with a large subsidy, so as to enable
him to undertake an expedition against the enemy, he trusted not to call
on them again, but to support the war from his own revenues; in faith
of which promise there had been granted the largest sum that any king of
England had ever been suffered to levy within so short a time, to the
utmost loss and inconvenie