book i.
This remark is, in some measure, though imperfectly, justified by the conduct of Edward III.

He took no steps of moment without consulting his parliament, and obtaining their approbation, which he afterwards pleaded as a reason for their supporting his measures.[*] The parliament, therefore, rose into greater consideration during his reign, and acquired more regular authority, than in any former time; and even the house of commons, which, during turbulent and factious periods, was naturally depressed by the greater power of the crown and barons, began to appear of some weight in the constitution.

In the latter years of Edward, the king's ministers were impeached in parliament, particularly Lord Latimer, who fell a sacrifice to the Authority of the commons;[**] and they even obliged the king to banish his mistress by their remonstrances.

Some attention was also paid to the election of their members; and lawyers in particular, who were at that time men of a character somewhat inferior, were totally excluded the house during several parliaments.[***] One of the most popular laws enacted by any prince, was the statute which passed in the twenty-fifth of this reign,[****] and which limited the cases of high treason, before vague and uncertain, to three principal heads--conspiring the death of the king, levying war against him, and adhering to his enemies and the judges were prohibited, if any other cases should occur, from inflicting the penalty of treason without an application to parliament.

The bounds of treason were indeed so much limited by this statute, which still remains in force without any alteration, that the lawyers were obliged to enlarge them, and to explain a conspiracy for levying war against the king, to be equivalent to a conspiracy against his life; and this interpretation, seemingly forced, has, from the necessity of the case, been tacitly acquiesced in.
* Cotton's Abridg.p.108, 120.
** Cotton's Abridg.p.