The parliament often endeavored, in the last reign, to deprive the prince of this prerogative; but, in the present, they were content with an abridgment of it.

They enacted, that no pardon for rapes, or for murder from malice prepense, should be valid, unless the crime were particularly specified in it.[*] There were also some other circumstances required for passing any pardon of this kind: an excellent law, but ill observed, like most laws that thwart the manners of the people, and the prevailing customs of the times.
* 13 Richard II.chap.

1 It is easy to observe, from these voluntary associations among the people, that the whole force of the feudal system was in a manner dissolved, and that the English had nearly returned, in that particular, to the same situation in which they stood before the Norman conquest.
It was, indeed, impossible that that system could long subsist under the perpetual revolutions to winch landed property is every where subject.
When the great feudal baronies were first erected, the lord lived in opulence in the midst of his vassals: he was in a situation to protect, and cherish and defend them: the quality of patron naturally united itself to that of superior: and these two principles of authority mutually supported each other.

But when by the various divisions and mixtures of property, a man's superior came to live at a distance from him, and could no longer give him shelter or countenance, the tie gradually became more fictitious than real: new connections from vicinity or other causes were formed: protection was sought by voluntary services and attachment: the appearance of valor spirit, abilities in any great man, extended his interest very far, and if the sovereign were deficient in these qualities, he was no less, if not more exposed to the usurpations of the aristocracy, than even during the vigor of the feudal system.
The greatest novelty introduced into the civil government during this reign was the creation of peers by patent.

Lord Beauchamp, of Holt, was the first peer that was advanced to the house of lords in this manner.
The practice of levying benevolences is also first mentioned in the present reign.