John Hastings, second Earl of Pembroke of his house, a gallant young warrior and the intended son-in-law of the king, made himself the spokesman of the anti-clerical courtiers, probably with the good-will of the king.  At Pembroke’s instigation the earls, barons, and commons drew up a petition that, “inasmuch as the government of the realm has long been in the hands of the men of Holy Church, who in no case can be brought to account for their acts, whereby great mischief has happened in times past and may happen in times to come, may it therefore please the king that laymen of his own realm be elected to replace them, and that none but laymen henceforth be chancellor, treasurer, barons of the exchequer, clerk of privy seal, or other great officers of the realm “.[1] Edward fell in with this request.  Wykeham quitted the chancery, and Brantingham the treasury.  Of their lay successors the new chancellor, Sir Robert Thorpe, chief-justice of the court of common pleas, was a close friend of the Earl of Pembroke, while the new treasurer, Sir Richard le Scrope of Bolton, a Yorkshire warrior, represented the interests of John of Gaunt, whose long absences abroad did not prevent his ultimately becoming a strong supporter of the lay policy.  A subsidy of L50,000 and a statute that no new tax should be laid on wool without parliamentary assent concluded the work of this parliament.

    [1] Rot.  Pad., ii., 304.

The lay ministers did not prove as efficient as their clerical predecessors.  Want of acquaintance with administrative routine led them to assess the parliamentary grant so badly that an irregular reassembling of part of the estates was necessary, when it was found that the ministers had ludicrously over-estimated the number of parishes in England among which the grant of L50,000 had been equally divided.  Meanwhile the French war was proceeding worse than before.  Thorpe died in 1372, and another lay chief-justice, Sir John Knyvett, succeeded him in the chancery.  Pembroke, as we have seen, was taken prisoner to Santander within a few weeks of Thorpe’s death.  Fresh taxation was made necessary by every fresh defeat, and the clergy, who looked upon the misfortunes of the anti-clerical earl as God’s punishment for his enmity to Holy Church, had their revenge against their lawyer supplanters, for the parliament of 1372 petitioned that lawyers, who used their position in parliament to advance their clients’ affairs, should not be eligible for election as knights of the shire.  Next year, the discontent of the estates came to a head after the failure of John of Gaunt’s march from Calais to Bordeaux.  The commons, by that time definitely organised as an independent house, answered the demand for fresh supplies by requesting the lords to appoint a committee of their number to confer with them on the state of the realm.  The composition of the committee was not one that favoured the existing administration, and, guided by men like William of Wykeham, it made