their
constituents: "Ils n'oseront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et
avysez les communes de lour pais." 1339, "Rot. Parl.", vol. ii. p. 104;
see below, p. 418.

[413] "Return of the names of every member returned to serve in each
Parliament," London, 1878, fol. (a Blue Book).--There is no doubt in
several cases that by such descriptions was meant the _actual_
profession of the member. Ex.: "Johannes Kent, mercer," p. 217.

[414] "Rot. Parl.," vol. ii. p. 262.

[415] Petition of the "poverail" of Greenwich and Lewisham on whom alms
are no longer bestowed (one _maille_ a week to every beggar that came)
to the "grant damage des poores entour, et des almes les fondours que
sont en Purgatorie." 4 Ed. III. "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 49.

[416] 4 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 33.

[417] Good Parliament of 1376.

[418] The Commons had been bold enough to complain of the expenses of
the king and of the too great number of prelates and ladies he
supported: "de la multitude d'Evesques qui ont seigneuries et sont
avancez par le Roy et leur meignee; et aussi de pluseurs dames et leur
meignee qui demuront en l'ostel du Roy et sont a ses costages." Richard
replies in an angry manner that he "voet avoir sa regalie et la libertee
roiale de sa corone," as heir to the throne of England "del doun de
Dieu." 1397, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 339. The Commons say
nothing more, but they mark the words, to remember them in due time.

[419] "Dixit expresse, velut austero et protervo, quod leges sue erant
in ore suo et aliquotiens in pectore suo. Et quod ipse solus posset
mutare et condere leges regni sui." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii.
p. 419.

[420] Cheruel, "Dictionnaire des Institutions de la France," at the word
_Parlement_. As early as the thirteenth century, Bracton, in England,
declared that "laws bound the legislator," and that the king ought to
obey them; his theory, however, is less bold than the one according to
which the Commons act in the fourteenth century: "Dicitur enim rex,"
Bracton observes, "a bene regendo et non a regnando, quia rex est dum
bene regit, tyrannus dum populum sibi creditum violenter opprimit
dominatione. Temperet igitur potentiam suam per legem quae frenum est
potentiae, quod secundum leges vivat, quod hoc sanxit lex humana quod
leges suum ligent latorem." "De Legibus," 3rd part chap. ix.

[421] "Chroniques," ed. S. Luce, i. p. 337.

[422] "Memoires,