de denizens, and mediators were appointed to reconcile
the dukes of Gloucester and Burgundy, by authority of the three estates
assembled in parliament.[225] Leave was given to the dukes of Bedford
and Gloucester, and others in the king's behalf, to treat of peace with
France, by both houses of parliament, in pursuance of an article in the
treaty of Troyes, that no treaty should be set on foot with the dauphin
without consent of the three estates of both realms.[226] This article
was afterwards repealed.[227]

Some complaints are made by the commons, even during the first years of
Henry's minority, that the king's subjects underwent arbitrary
imprisonment, and were vexed by summonses before the council and by the
newly-invented writ of subpoena out of chancery.[228] But these are
not so common as formerly; and so far as the rolls lead us to any
inference, there was less injustice committed by the government under
Henry VI. and his father than at any former period. Wastefulness indeed
might justly be imputed to the regency, who had scandalously lavished
the king's revenue.[229] This ultimately led to an act for resuming all
grants since his accession, founded upon a public declaration of the
great officers of the crown that his debts amounted to 372,000_l._, and
the annual expense of the household to 24,000_l._, while the ordinary
revenue was not more than 5000_l._[230]

[Sidenote: Impeachments of ministers.]

6. But before this time the sky had begun to darken, and discontent with
the actual administration pervaded every rank. The causes of this are
familiar--the unpopularity of the king's marriage with Margaret of
Anjou, and her impolitic violence in the conduct of affairs,
particularly the imputed murder of the people's favourite, the duke of
Gloucester. This provoked an attack upon her own creature, the duke of
Suffolk. Impeachment had lain still, like a sword in the scabbard, since
the accession of Henry IV., when the commons, though not preferring
formal articles of accusation, had petitioned the king that Justice
Rickhill, who had been employed to take the former duke of Gloucester's
confession at Calais, and the lords appellants of Richard II.'s last
parliament, should be put on their defence before the lords.[231] In
Suffolk's case the commons seem to have proceeded by bill of attainder,
or at least to have designed the judgment against that minister to be
the act of the whole legislature; for they delivered a