[e] Rot. Parl. vol iii. p. 102.
[f] Rot. Parl. vol. iv. p. 22. It is curious that the authors of the Parliamentary History say that the roll of this parliament is lost, and consequently suppress altogether this important petition. Instead of which they give, as their fashion is, impertinent speeches out of Holingshed, which are certainly not genuine, and would be of no value if they were so.
[g] Henry VI. and Edward IV. in some cases passed bills with sundry provisions annexed by themselves. Thus the act for resumption of grants, 4 E. IV., was encumbered with 289 clauses in favour of so many persons whom the king meant to exempt from its operation; and the same was done in other acts of the same description. Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 517.
[h] The variations of each statute, as now printed, from the parliamentary roll, whether in form or substance, are noticed in Cotton's Abridgment. It may be worth while to consult the preface to Ruffhead's edition of the Statutes, where this subject is treated at some length.
Perhaps the triple division of our legislature may be dated from this innovation. For as it is impossible to deny that, while the king promulgated a statute founded upon a mere petition, he was himself the real legislator, so I think it is equally fair to assert, notwithstanding the formal preamble of our statutes, that laws brought into either house of parliament in a perfect shape, and receiving first the assent of lords and commons, and finally that of the king, who has no power to modify them, must be deemed to proceed, and derive their efficacy, from the joint concurrence of all the three. It is said, indeed, at a much earlier time, that le ley de la terre est fait en parlement par le roi, et les seigneurs espirituels et temporels, et tout la communauté du royaume. Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 293. But this, I must allow, was in the violent session of 11 Ric. II., the constitutional authority of which is not to be highly prized.
[] 8 H. V. vol. iv. p. 127.
[k] The house of commons thanked the king for pardoning Northumberland, whom, as it proved, he had just cause to suspect. 5 H. IV. p. 525.
[m] 5 H. IV. p. 505.
[n] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 529, 568, 573.
[o] p. 547.