Parliament 433
The courts attempted during the fifteenth century to
supplement fourteenth-century legislation on the dispens-
ing power. * Subtle distinctions were drawn between the
cases in which the king could and could not exercise
the pardoning power. It was found difficult to apply
these in the practice of the courts, and perhaps their only
result was the evolution of the principle that the pardoning
power could not be so used by the king in behalf of an
offender as to deprive a third party of a claim growing
out of the offence. As to the suspending power, attempts
were made to limit it, but little progress was made. Both
of these powers were abused by later sovereigns, especially
the Stuarts. By the Bill of Rights, the suspending power
was abolished, while the dispensing power was placed
under effective parliamentary control.2
The advances which Parliament made in the Lancas-
trian period in its control over taxation and legislation
were small in comparison with the easy and sweeping suc-
cesses which it seemed to gain over the administration.
The hard-fought beginnings in this line which belong to
the fourteenth century, when masterful kings resisted
and, in some lines, Parliament drew back from the as-
sumption of too great responsibility, gave place to such
sudden and thorough-going control over king and minis-
ters that one begins to question its genuineness. Especially
does one wonder at the sudden boldness and initiative
of the Commons, and the suggestion has been made that
the Commons, as the petition-making body, was some-
times the channel through which petitions passed that had
had their inspiration with the Lords. Such things might
easily be done when the purposes of the two did not diverge
too far, and in some of these Commons' demands upon
Lancastrian kings there may be an echo, or more than
an echo, of the old baronial jealousy of the royal
1 See above, p. 421.
a A. and $., pp. 464, 469. For further information on the dispensing and
suspending powers, especially in modern times, see Anson, Law and Cus-
tom of the Constitution, i, 297-305; ii, 228-230.