ious in itself, and might prove disagreeable to
his majesty.

* Walsing. p. 150.

** Rymer, vol. vii. p. 161.

The commons, as they acquired more courage, ventured to proceed a step
farther in their applications. They presented a petition, in which
they prayed the king to check the prevailing custom among the barons of
forming illegal confederacies, and supporting each other, as well as men
of inferior rank, in the violations of law and justice. They received
from the throne a general and an obliging answer to this petition: but
another part of their application, that all the great officers should,
during the king's minority, be appointed by parliament, which seemed
to require the concurrence of the commons, as well as that of the upper
house, in the nomination, was not complied with: the lords alone assumed
the power of appointing these officers. The commons tacitly acquiesced
in the choice; and thought that, for, the present, they themselves had
proceeded a sufficient length, if they but advanced their pretensions,
though rejected, of interposing in these more important matters of
state.

On this footing then the government stood. The administration was
conducted entirely in the king's name: no regency was expressly
appointed: the nine counsellors and the great officers named by the
peers, did their duty each in his respective department; and the whole
system was for some years kept together, by the secret authority of the
king's uncles, especially of the duke of Lancaster, who was in reality
the regent.

The parliament was dissolved, after the commons had represented the
necessity of their being reassembled once every year, as appointed
by law; and after having elected two citizens as their treasurers, to
receive and disburse the produce of two fifteenths and tenths, which
they had voted to the crown. In the other parliaments called during the
minority, the commons still discover a strong spirit of freedom, and a
sense of their own authority, which, without breeding any disturbance,
tended to secure their independence and that of the people.[*] [11]

* See note K, at the end of the volume.

Edward had left his grandson involved in many dangerous wars. The
pretensions of the duke of Lancaster to the crown of Castile, made that
kingdom still persevere in hostilities against England. Scotland, whose
throne was now filled by Robert Stuart, nephew to David Bruce, and the
first prince of that family