ent
of the discrowned king to his own deposition, and Edward "clad in a plain
black gown" bowed quietly to his fate. Sir William Trussel at once
addressed him in words which better than any other mark the nature of the
step which the Parliament had taken. "I, William Trussel, proctor of the
earls, barons, and others, having for this full and sufficient power, do
render and give back to you, Edward, once King of England, the homage and
fealty of the persons named in my procuracy; and acquit and discharge them
thereof in the best manner that law and custom will give. And I now make
protestation in their name that they will no longer be in your fealty and
allegiance, nor claim to hold anything of you as king, but will account you
hereafter as a private person, without any manner of royal dignity." A
significant act followed these emphatic words. Sir Thomas Blount, the
steward of the household, broke his staff of office, a ceremony used only
at a king's death, and declared that all persons engaged in the royal
service were discharged. The act of Blount was only an omen of the fate
which awaited the miserable king. In the following September he was
murdered in Berkeley Castle.

CHAPTER II
EDWARD THE THIRD
1327-1347

[Sidenote: Estate of the Commons]

The deposition of Edward the Second proclaimed to the world the power which
the English Parliament had gained. In thirty years from their first
assembly at Westminster the Estates had wrested from the Crown the last
relic of arbitrary taxation, had forced on it new ministers and a new
system of government, had claimed a right of confirming the choice of its
councillors and of punishing their misconduct, and had established the
principle that redress of grievances precedes a grant of supply. Nor had
the time been less important in the internal growth of Parliament. Step by
step the practical sense of the Houses themselves completed the work of
Edward by bringing about change after change in its composition. The very
division into a House of Lords and a House of Commons formed no part of the
original plan of Edward the First; in the earlier Parliaments each of the
four orders of clergy, barons, knights, and burgesses met, deliberated, and
made their grants apart from each other. This isolation however of the
Estates soon showed signs of breaking down. Though the clergy held steadily
aloof from any real union with its fellow-orders, the knights of the shire
were dra