o replace them, and that none but laymen
henceforth be chancellor, treasurer, barons of the exchequer, clerk of
privy seal, or other great officers of the realm ".[1] Edward fell in
with this request. Wykeham quitted the chancery, and Brantingham the
treasury. Of their lay successors the new chancellor, Sir Robert Thorpe,
chief-justice of the court of common pleas, was a close friend of the
Earl of Pembroke, while the new treasurer, Sir Richard le Scrope of
Bolton, a Yorkshire warrior, represented the interests of John of Gaunt,
whose long absences abroad did not prevent his ultimately becoming a
strong supporter of the lay policy. A subsidy of L50,000 and a statute
that no new tax should be laid on wool without parliamentary assent
concluded the work of this parliament.

[1] _Rot. Pad._, ii., 304.

The lay ministers did not prove as efficient as their clerical
predecessors. Want of acquaintance with administrative routine led them
to assess the parliamentary grant so badly that an irregular
reassembling of part of the estates was necessary, when it was found
that the ministers had ludicrously over-estimated the number of
parishes in England among which the grant of L50,000 had been equally
divided. Meanwhile the French war was proceeding worse than before.
Thorpe died in 1372, and another lay chief-justice, Sir John Knyvett,
succeeded him in the chancery. Pembroke, as we have seen, was taken
prisoner to Santander within a few weeks of Thorpe's death. Fresh
taxation was made necessary by every fresh defeat, and the clergy, who
looked upon the misfortunes of the anti-clerical earl as God's
punishment for his enmity to Holy Church, had their revenge against
their lawyer supplanters, for the parliament of 1372 petitioned that
lawyers, who used their position in parliament to advance their
clients' affairs, should not be eligible for election as knights of the
shire. Next year, the discontent of the estates came to a head after
the failure of John of Gaunt's march from Calais to Bordeaux. The
commons, by that time definitely organised as an independent house,
answered the demand for fresh supplies by requesting the lords to
appoint a committee of their number to confer with them on the state of
the realm. The composition of the committee was not one that favoured
the existing administration, and, guided by men like William of
Wykeham, it made only a limited and conditional grant, which was
strictly appropriated to the