s cause it was ordained in the fifth of Edward
II. that the king should hold a parliament once, or if necessary, twice
every year; "that the pleas which have been thus delayed, and those
where the justices have differed, may be brought to a close."[90] And a
short act of 4 Edward III., which was not very strictly regarded,
provides that a parliament shall be held "every year, or oftener, if
need be."[91] By what persons, and under what limitations, this
jurisdiction in parliament was exercised will come under our future
consideration.

[Sidenote: Edward II. Petitions of parliament during his reign.]

The efficacy of a king's personal character in so imperfect a state of
government was never more strongly exemplified than in the two first
Edwards. The father, a little before his death, had humbled his boldest
opponents among the nobility; and as for the commons, so far from
claiming a right of remonstrating, we have seen cause to doubt whether
they were accounted effectual members of the legislature for any
purposes but taxation. But in the very second year of the son's reign
they granted the twenty-fifth penny of their goods, "upon this
condition, that the king should take advice and grant redress upon
certain articles wherein they are aggrieved." These were answered at the
ensuing parliament, and are entered with the king's respective promises
of redress upon the roll. It will be worth while to extract part of this
record, that we may see what were the complaints of the commons of
England, and their notions of right, in 1309. I have chosen on this as
on other occasions to translate very literally, at the expense of some
stiffness, and perhaps obscurity, in language.

"The good people of the kingdom who are come hither to parliament pray
our lord the king that he will, if it please him, have regard to his
poor subjects, who are much aggrieved by reason that they are not
governed as they should be, especially as to the articles of the Great
Charter; and for this, if it please him, they pray remedy. Besides
which, they pray their lord the king to hear what has long aggrieved his
people, and still does so from day to day, on the part of those who call
themselves his officers, and to amend it, if he pleases." The articles,
eleven in number, are to the following purport:--1. That the king's
purveyors seize great quantities of victuals without payment; 2. That
new customs are set on wine, cloth, and other imports; 3. That t