b, began at length to acknowledge the controlling hand of law.

These are the chief instances of a struggle between the crown and
commons as to arbitrary taxation; but there are two remarkable
proceedings in the 45th and 46th of Edward, which, though they would not
have been endured in later times, are rather anomalies arising out of
the unsettled state of the constitution and the recency of parliamentary
rights than mere encroachments of the prerogative. In the former year
parliament had granted a subsidy of fifty thousand pounds, to be
collected by an assessment of twenty-two shillings and threepence upon
every parish, on a presumption that the parishes in England amounted to
forty-five thousand, whereas they were hardly a fifth of that number.
This amazing mistake was not discovered till the parliament had been
dissolved. Upon its detection the king summoned a great council,
consisting of one knight, citizen, and burgess, named by himself out of
two that had been returned to the last parliament.[110] To this assembly
the chancellor set forth the deficiency of the last subsidy, and proved
by the certificates of all the bishops in England how strangely the
parliament had miscalculated the number of parishes; whereupon they
increased the parochial assessment, by their own authority, to one
hundred and sixteen shillings.[111] It is obvious that the main
intention of parliament was carried into effect by this irregularity,
which seems to have been the subject of no complaint. In the next
parliament a still more objectionable measure was resorted to; after the
petitions of the commons had been answered, and the knights dismissed,
the citizens and burgesses were convened before the prince of Wales and
the lords in a room near the white chamber, and solicited to renew their
subsidy of forty shillings upon the tun of wine, and sixpence in the
pound upon other imports, for safe convoy of shipping, during one year
more, to which they assented, "and so departed."[112]

[Sidenote: The concurrence of both houses in legislation necessary.]

The second constitutional principle established in the reign of Edward
III. was that the king and two houses of parliament, in conjunction,
possessed exclusively the right of legislation. Laws were now declared
to be made by the king at the request of the commons, and by the assent
of the lords and prelates. Such at least was the general form, though
for many subsequent ages there was no invari