4i8 The Period of Constitution Making

seems to have been early the intention and understanding
on the part of the Commons that when a common petition
had been assented to by the Lords and granted by the
king the resulting regulation should have the force and
permanence of a "statute," as that term was coming to
be used under the three Edwards.1 This was specifically
demanded in 1327. * ' The commonjjgtiti^
root of the house of commonsj;^

TKeTHng, however, possessed several methods of render-
ing these granted petitions ineffective, and he used them
with skill and persistence, some of them lasting long after
the infant stage in parliamentary legislation. Thejdng

ordi-

" It was the

expression

of the king's early plenary power to declare law or ad-
minister it; it was the letter patent, or the ordinance — to
time and on conditions (1344), and document 68 is an excellent example of
a grant on conditions (1348). A much later instance is in document 114
(1413). See also Gneist, History of the English Constitution, p. 367, note.
In the reign of Richard II., the postponement of money grants to the end
of the session was one of the matters dealt with in the famous replies of
his judges to the list of questions put to them by the king. The time of
his tyranny proved but a temporary setback to the attempts of the Com-
mons in this line.
1 See above, p. 239 and notes 2 and 3. Could statutes be made on petition
of the clergy as well as of the Commons? It seems at first to have been the
understanding that they could. There were two great divisions of human
affairs, spiritual and temporal; king and Lords could enact in the former
on request of the clergy and in the latter on request of the Commons.
But in: " ~ - - -.- -
on f
settfl , , _______________ __ __________ „„,.._.____„„, _____
Parliament. Yet the continuance of clerical summons (see above, p. 379)
made it impossible for the clergy to claim that laws were being declared
about them in an assembly from which they were excluded. The peti-
tioning part of Parliament was the Commons. All through the fourteenth
century and occasionally in the fifteenth, the language of the granted peti-
tion made this clear: ^ by advice ...... and assent of thfeXoHq.RtJJhe special
request of the Commons. " ........ Later" an" the tilieentn century it was more
commonly ** by the advice and assent of Lords and Commons. " The Lords
were not thought of as petitioners; ordinarily, as far as they were con-
cerned, the long could initiate — much of the old royal court clung to them.
Yet on occasion they introduced measures.
*poUard? Evolution oj Parliament, p. 120.