change was being brought about that the disasters of the
war spurred the Parliament to greater activity. The enormous grants of 1340
were bought by the king's assent to statutes which provided remedies for
grievances of which the Commons complained. The most important of these put
an end to the attempts which Edward had made like his grandfather to deal
with the merchant class apart from the Houses. No charge or aid was
henceforth to be made save by the common assent of the Estates assembled in
Parliament. The progress of the next year was yet more important. The
strife of the king with his ministers, the foremost of whom was Archbishop
Stratford, ended in the Primate's refusal to make answer to the royal
charges save in full Parliament, and in the assent of the king to a
resolution of the Lords that none of their number, whether ministers of the
Crown or no, should be brought to trial elsewhere than before his peers.
The Commons demanded and obtained the appointment of commissioners elected
in Parliament to audit the grants already made. Finally it was enacted that
at each Parliament the ministers should hold themselves accountable for all
grievances; that on any vacancy the king should take counsel with his lords
as to the choice of the new minister; and that, when chosen, each minister
should be sworn in Parliament.

[Sidenote: Close of the truce]

At the moment which we have reached therefore the position of the
Parliament had become far more important than at Edward's accession. Its
form was settled. The third estate had gained a fuller parliamentary power.
The principle of ministerial responsibility to the Houses had been
established by formal statute. But the jealousy of Edward was at last
completely roused, and from this moment he looked on the new power as a
rival to his own. The Parliament of 1341 had no sooner broken up than he
revoked by Letters Patent the statutes it had passed as done in prejudice
of his prerogative and only assented to for the time to prevent worse
confusion. The regular assembly of the estates was suddenly interrupted,
and two years passed without a Parliament. It was only the continual
presence of war which from this time drove Edward to summon the Houses at
all. Though the truce still held good between England and France a quarrel
of succession to the Duchy of Britanny which broke out in 1341 and called
Philip to the support of one claimant, his cousin Charles of Blois, and
Edward to