420 i ne renoa or constitution Making
Parliament was dissolved, the king declared the statute
null and sent a notice to that effect to all the sheriffs.1
That this was regarded as an unwarranted action is shown
by the facts that the next Parliament regularly repealed
the statute and that this is the only known instance in
which the king went to such an extreme. When the king,
by countenancing Parliament's repeal, acknowledged that
he could not annul a statute, he acknowledged that there
was now in England a second source of legislative au-
thority. It was no longer a matter of a specially solemn
kind of ordinance with a large backing, with the king still
in theory the one source of law; but a statute, to make
which another source of law appeared alongside. The old
theory had been broken, and the people, through their
elected representatives, i^^ade^jprnt^aJ^w- More and
more king, Lords, and Commons were coming into co-
ordinate relation, any one of the three by refusing to co-
operate exercising a veto power.2 Ordinances grew less in
number and importance; they were EoEed on more as
temporary or emergenc^^measures. There has been a
j&eldToF™B5emnmTEe intervals between Parliaments or
upon occasions when immediate action was necessary.
They were known later as Orders-in-Council. Even in
I this scope, they did not remain a means of infringing
I statutes; for Parliament finally got such contrdjover^ng
and Councilj^
But there were other less radical means of attacking
statutes. An important and long-continued one was the
1 A. and S., document 63. The language of the annulling order is interest-
ing; it illustrates the notion that law was something which could not be
changed even by a statute. This statute was annulled because it was " ex-
pressly contrary to the laws and customs of our realm of England, and to
our prerogatives and rights royal.'* The king then goes on to represent
that he granted the petition practically under duress and that "the said
parliament otherwise had been, without dispatching anything, in discord
dissolved." Which means, of course, no more than that Parliament
was pursuing its regular policy of postponing money grants to redress of
grievances. The king had consented in order to get money, and then
claimed that his consent was "pretended."
a The last time the veto power was exercised by the sovereign was in
1707, It could not be used after the cabinet system of government came
into existence. Since 1911 the Lords have had pnly^a suspensive veto^