Note (60) — Chapter II
Reading edition
One special sign of the advance of the power of Parliament in the fifteenth century was the practice of bringing in bills in the form of Statutes ready made. Hitherto the Acts of the Commons had taken the form of petitions, and it was sometimes found that, after the Parliament had broken up, the petitions had been fraudulently modified. They now brought in bills, which the King accepted or rejected as they stood. See Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 222.