EDWARD THE THIRD 1327-1347 [Sidenote: Estate of the Commons] The deposition of Edward the Second proclaimed to the world the power which the English Parliament had gained.

In thirty years from their first assembly at Westminster the Estates had wrested from the Crown the last relic of arbitrary taxation, had forced on it new ministers and a new system of government, had claimed a right of confirming the choice of its councillors and of punishing their misconduct, and had established the principle that redress of grievances precedes a grant of supply.

Nor had the time been less important in the internal growth of Parliament.

Step by step the practical sense of the Houses themselves completed the work of Edward by bringing about change after change in its composition.

The very division into a House of Lords and a House of Commons formed no part of the original plan of Edward the First; in the earlier Parliaments each of the four orders of clergy, barons, knights, and burgesses met, deliberated, and made their grants apart from each other.