Parliament 441

were there to do the king's bidding. What little private
discussion they had on money or other matters which he
laid before them would not be likely to take a form of any
importance to him. They said what they chose, and no
one cared. But in the last quarter of the fourteenth
century and early pj,rt.joljbhewfi|te^th conditions were
different. It was a time when thej^ouito^

factions — the long pause in the Hundred

Years War brought turbulent elements back to English
shores; many people were tiring of the heavy taxation,
now that there seemed looker y~good re^ionlorll7in~i 377
that eccentric youth Richard II. came to the throne; and
on almost any basis of reckoning Parliament was in the
neighbourhood of a hundred years old, the Commons now
something more than a gathering of discrete juries to
answer the king's questions. Under these circumstances
there could hardly fail to be things said and done in
Parliament that would rouse the king's ire and bring on
bickerings and discussions which might easily harden into
notions of privilege. There was a feeling after something,
an evidence of a slowly rising clash of interests that dif-
ferent types of occasion brought to the surface. The first
hazy tentatives in the direction of a free speech issue took
shape along the following lines: First, whether or not the
Commons should keep to the royal agenda, the program
laid before them in the king's name at the beginning of
the session. Richard II. asked his judges whether Parlia-
ment had the right to postpone his points (largely relating
to supply) and talk about others. Second, the Commons
wanted the king to accept information of their doings and
sayings only through responsible and approved channels.
Leakages and tattlings would be sure to distort and would
put them all in fear. Third, the direct issue, could men
be punished for their words in the Commons, words that
fell short of anything treasonable?1
1 For a detailed account of the beginnings of the privilege of freedom of
speech in Parliament, see Professor Notestein's paper in W. and N., pp.
161-176.