face to the authentic edition of Statutes of
the Realm, published by the Record Commission, that I shall transcribe
the passage, which I copy from Mr. Cooper's useful account of the Public
Records (vol. i. p. 189):--

The earliest instance recorded of the use of the English language in any
parliamentary proceeding is in 36 Edw. III. The style of the roll of
that year is in French as usual, but it is expressly stated that the
causes of summoning the parliament were declared _en Englois_; and the
like circumstance is noted in 37 and 38 Edw. III.[938] In the 5th year
of Richard II., the chancellor is stated to have made _un bone
collacion en Engleys_ (introductory, as was then sometimes the usage, to
the commencement of business), though he made use of the common French
form for opening the parliament. A petition from the 'Folk of the
Mercerye of London,' in the 10th year of the same reign, is in English;
and it appears also that in the 17th year the Earl of Arundel asked
pardon of the Duke of Lancaster by the award of the King and Lords, in
their presence in parliament, in a form of English words. The cession
and renunciation of the crown by Richard II. is stated to have been read
before the estates of the realm and the people in Westminster Hall,
first in Latin and afterwards in English, but it is entered on the
parliament roll only in Latin. And the challenge of the crown by Henry
IV., with his thanks after the allowance of his title, in the same
assembly, are recorded in English, which is termed his maternal tongue.
So also is the speech of Lord William Thyrning, the Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas, to the late King Richard, announcing to him the sentence
of his deposition, and the yielding up, on the part of the people, of
their fealty and allegiance. In the 6th year of the reign of Henry IV.
an English answer is given to a petition of the Commons, touching a
proposed resumption of certain grants of the crown to the intent the
king might live of his own. The English language afterwards appears
occasionally, through the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. In the first
and second and subsequent years of Henry VI., the petitions or bills,
and in many cases the answers also, on which the statutes were
afterwards framed, are found frequently in English; but the statutes are
entered on the roll in French or Latin. From the 23rd year of Henry VI.
these petitions or bills are almost universally in English, as is also
sometimes