424 Tiie Feriod of Constitution Making

collectors of recent subsidies1; and in 1353 a subsidy was
granted with the stipulation that it was to be used only
for the war. This interest in public business, in the char-
acter and work of public officials, accounts largely for the
extreme statute of 1341 2; the auditing commissions were
renewed, the appointments of important public, officials
and judges were to be sanctioned by Parliament, and in
that body these men were to swear to the observance "of
the Great Charter, and the Charter of the Forest, and all
other statutes, without breaking any point."5 This act
went too far, and in the following Parliament the king
secured its repeal. When, in modern times, control of
the ministry was finally secured, it was by a different
method, but the statute of 1341 is undoubtedly prophetic.
However, there was one permanent achievement in this
line dating from the fourteenth century: parliamentary
the first instance of which was

TmTSstorical and legal basis of impeachment lay in
Parliament regarded as a high court and in the Commons
as the grand inquest or jury of the nation. It was the
trial before the Lords of persons, generally officials, im-
peached or indicted (the two words originally meant the
same) by the Commons for a public offence; theJLprds
judggiit^the^Com prosecuted. This bringing to
trial the king's mos^^ in a manner
likely to secure justice as it could not be secured in the
royally dominated or locally intimidated courts, and for
offences which, though serious, might not be technically
admissible there, was the one clear-cut technical method
of controlling the crown which the middle ages bequeathed
to modern times.
f * A. and S., document 6r. For later examples of parliamentary supervi-
sion of accounts, see ibid. , documents 83-86. For other instances of parlia-
mentary interference of this general sort, see Maitland, C. H. E.> p. 184.
a See above, p. 419. * A. and S., p. 108.
* Ibid., document 82. See also the interesting impeachment of Suf-
folk in 1386. Ibid., document 93. Treason was first defined by statute
in 1352. (Ibid., document 72.) This may have suggested indicting
men for treasonable offences in Parliament. On the origin of impeachment,
see Medley, English Constitutional History ', pp. 175, 176.