But humble as was their tone the growing power of the Commons showed itself in significant changes.  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.  Whether they would or no indeed the Commons were driven forward to a more direct interference with public affairs.  From the memorable statute of 1322 their right to take equal part in all matters brought before Parliament had been incontestable, and their waiver of much of this right faded away before the stress of time.  Their assent was needed to the great ecclesiastical statutes which regulated the relation of the See of Rome to the realm.  They naturally took a chief part in the enactment and re-enactment of the Statute of Labourers.  The Statute of the Staple, with a host of smaller commercial and economical measures, was of their origination.  But it was not till an open breach took place between the baronage and the prelates that their full weight was felt.  In the Parliament of 1371, on the resumption of the war, a noble taunted the Church as an owl protected by the feathers which other birds had contributed, and which they had a right to resume when a hawk’s approach threatened them.  The worldly goods of the Church, the metaphor hinted, had been bestowed on it for the common weal, and could be taken from it on the coming of a common danger.  The threat was followed by a prayer that the chief offices of state, which had till now been held by the leading bishops, might be placed in lay hands.  The prayer was at once granted:  William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, resigned the Chancellorship, another prelate the Treasury, to lay dependants of the great nobles; and the panic of the clergy was seen in large grants which were voted by both Convocations.