In 1407 came the assertion that to the commons not only belonged decisive power, but that they alone had the faculty of originating taxation. It came not as a direct demand for the yielding of a principle, but as an implication that the practice already existed, and as such it gains in strength.
The trend of events leading up to the significant reference is interesting. In 1407 the lords had held a debate in the king’s presence respecting the condition of the kingdom, and had determined upon the number of subsidies needful for national defense. Henry, for the moment forgetting his politics, in a peremptory tone requested the commons to send a delegation to the House of Lords “to hear and to report to their companions that which they should have in command of our lord the king.” The commons sent a committee of twelve in response to the request; they heard that “it was the will of our said lord the King they should report to the rest of their companions” the determination of the lords, and that, “they should see to it that they conformed most nearly to the purpose of the Lords aforesaid.” When the delegates returned, their report was received by the commons as being an infringement upon their liberties. The king, hearing of the temper of the commons, reassuming immediately his habit of the politician, “declares, by the advice and consent of the lords in manner following,” that it is lawful for both houses to commune apart by themselves “of the state of the realm and of the remedy necessary for the same.” So far the king has merely recognized the need for separate deliberations by the two houses; the phrase which implies the existence in the House of Commons of the power to initiate taxation is this: “Any grant by the commons granted, and by the lords assented to.”[258] Thus is admitted by implication the order in which a grant should be made by the two houses. In the same communication the king renounces any right which he might previously have held to know the amount or conditions of a prospective grant until both houses should be of one mind. The grant which eased so sweeping an admission from the king was generous.[259] It consisted of a fifteenth and a half and a tenth and a half, a subsidy on wool, and tunnage and poundage for two years.[260]