eward
and chamberlain of the household, the keeper of the privy seal, the
controller and treasurer of the wardrobe, and those who were intrusted
with the education of the young prince, to swear to the regular
observance of it. They also remarked, that the peers of the realm
had formerly been arrested and imprisoned, and dispossessed of their
temporalities and lands, and even some of them put to death, without
judgment or trial; and they therefore enacted that such violences should
henceforth cease, and no peer be punished but by the award of his peers
"in parliament." They required, that, whenever any of the great offices
above mentioned became vacant, the king should fill it by the advice of
his council, and the consent of such barons as should at that time be
found to reside in the neighborhood of the court. And they enacted,
that, on the third day of every session, the king should resume into his
own hand all these offices, except those of justices of the two benches
and the barons of exchequer; that the ministers should for the time be
reduced to private persons; that they should in that condition answer
before parliament to any accusation brought against them; and that if
they were found anywise guilty, they should finally be dispossessed of
their offices, and more able persons be substituted in their place.[*]
By these last regulations, the barons approached as near as they durst
to those restrictions which had formerly been imposed on Henry III. and
Edward II., and which, from the dangerous consequences attending them,
had become so generally odious, that they did not expect to have either
the concurrence of the people in demanding the*n, or the assent of the
present king in granting them.

* 15 Edward III.

In return for these important concessions, the parliament offered the
king a grant of twenty thousand sacks of wool; and his wants were so
urgent from the clamors of his creditors and the demands of his foreign
allies, that he was obliged to accept of the supply on these hard
conditions. He ratified this statute in full parliament: but he secretly
entered a protest of such a nature as was sufficient, one should imagine
to destroy all future trust and confidence with his people; he declared
that, as soon as his convenience permitted, he would, from his own
authority, revoke what had been extorted from him.[*] Accordingly he
was no sooner possessed of the parliamentary supply, than he issued an
edict, which c