Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/191

1922 THE GREAT STATUTE OF PEAEMUNIBE 183 It seems impossible to ascertain what use the king made of the discretionary power bestowed on him at these two parliaments. 1 But it appears that he might practically have suspended the statute from November 1391 to January 1393, while after that date he was free to abrogate it altogether and to bargain with the pope for a concordat which parliament could not have criticized until it had been concluded. It is hard to believe that the commons, after making such a concession, should have sought to rob it of all effect by pressing for the enactment of a new measure which covered the whole of the ground affected by the statute of provisors and more besides. Equally unlikely is it that the king should have thrown away the valuable powers just granted him by assenting to such an act. If, however, the new statute was interpreted in the sense I have suggested, it was perfectly compatible with the resolution of the commons about provisions. 2 1 An examination of the Cal. of Papal Letters and the Col. of Pat. Rolls shows that the king exercised with great moderation the authority entrusted to him, but does not reveal what principle he followed. It seems to have been commonly believed that after the parliament of 1391 the pope was allowed to dispose of benefices vacant in the curia ; but I have found no confirmation of this in official records (Mon. Evesham, p. 123 ; cf. Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1391-6, p. 33, and Cont. Polychron. ix. 243, which ascribes this concession to the autumn parliament of 1390). 2 The difficulty raised by the proceedings of the parliament of 1393 was noticed by Lingard, who, after summarizing the contents of the statute, writes : ' There is reason to believe that when this bill was discussed in the house of lords, it met with considerable opposition. It was at least withdrawn by the commons, who agreed that the king should refer the whole matter to his council, and have full power to make such alterations and ordinances as he might think fit, and to carry them, when made, into execution. Though they expressed a hope that, when it was thus amended, they should assent to it at the next parliament, it does not appear to have ever been laid before them again ; but to have been occasionally acted upon and occasionally modified, as suited the royal convenience.' In a foot-note Lingard quotes the terms of the commons' concession about provisors, and adds that four years later ' another memorandum to the same import is inserted in the rolls : and it is added, that imme- diately afterwards the prelates protested ', as I have narrated above. ' Hence ', proceeds Lingard, ' I think it plain that this statute was never properly passed in parliament, and on that account does not appear in the rolls ' (History of England, 5th ed., iii. 347 seq.). The passages quoted bristle with anachronisms, and Lingard's assumption that the concession of the commons regarding the statute of provisors referred to a ' bill ' which ultimately became the statute of praemunire, is wholly without warrant. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the statute met with opposition. As for its not being ' properly passed ', it is difficult to say what constituted the ' proper passage ' of a legislative measure in the fourteenth century : at all events, this statute stands written in a contemporary hand in its proper place in the statute roll. langard's state- ment that the statute ' does not appear ' in the rolls of parliament requires qualifica- tion, for the roll of the Winchester parliament contains a formal record of the answers of the prelates to the questions submitted to them, and this embodies a great part of the preamble (Rot. Parl. iii. 304). It is, however, true that there is no trace of the operative clauses. But the absence of a petition for their enactment is of no great moment, and it may still be true that the whole statute was based on ' the prayer ' of the commons. The contents of the preamble suggest that the matters under con- sideration were brought to the notice of the commons by the Crown, and in that case there would doubtless be ' conversations ' both in parliament and in the commons'