In 1363 the Chancellor opened Parliament with a speech in English, no doubt as a tongue intelligible to the members of the Lower House.

From a petition in 1376 that knights of the shire may be chosen by common election of the better folk of the shire and not merely nominated by the sheriff without due election, as well as from an earlier demand that the sheriffs themselves should be disqualified from serving in Parliament during their term of office, we see that the Crown had already begun not only to feel the pressure of the Commons but to meet it by foisting royal nominees on the constituencies.

Such an attempt at packing the House would hardly have been resorted to had it not already proved too strong for direct control.

A further proof of its influence was seen in a prayer of the Parliament that lawyers practising in the King's Courts might no longer be eligible as knights of the shire.

The petition marks the rise of a consciousness that the House was now no mere gathering of local representatives, but a national assembly, and that a seat in it could no longer be confined to dwellers within the bounds of this county or that.
But it showed also a pressure for seats, a passing away of the old dread of being returned as a representative and a new ambition to gain a place among the members of the Commons.