[Footnote 219: This dissatisfaction had been expressed in no very gentle language by the Commons in Parliament on the 7th of the preceding June, the very day on which they speak in such strong terms of the good and amiable qualities of the Prince. Indeed, we can scarcely avoid suspecting that the Commons intended to reflect, by a sort of side-wind, on the want in the King of an adequate estimate of his son's worth; with somewhat perhaps of an implied contrast between his excellences and the defects of his father, whose unsatisfactory proceedings seem at this time to have been gradually alienating the public respect, and transferring his popularity to his son.] Whether the Prince took any part in these proceedings, or not, we are left in ignorance. Equally in the dark are we as to his line of conduct with regard to those thirty-one articles proposed by the Commons, just a fortnight afterwards; articles evidently tending to interfere with the royal prerogative, and to limit the powers and increase the responsibility of the King's council. "The Speaker requested that all the lords of the council should be sworn to observe these articles;" but they refused to comply, unless the King, "of his own motion," should specially command them to take the oath. This proceeding respecting the council forms an important feature in its history, as it proves the very extensive manner in which the Commons (p. 227) interested themselves in its measures and constitution. Whether we may trace to these transactions, as their origin, the differences which in after years show themselves plainly between the King and his son, or whether other causes were then in operation, which time has veiled from our sight, or which documents still in existence, but hitherto unexamined, may bring again to light, we cannot undertake to determine.[220] Be that as it may, though from this time we find Henry of Monmouth on some occasions in Wales, yet he seems to have taken more and more a part in the management of the nation at large; and, as he grew in the estimation of the great people of the land, his royal father appears to have more and more retired from public business, and to have sunk in importance. Few documents[221] are preserved among the records now accessible which give any information as to the Prince's proceedings through the year 1407; but those few are by no means (p. 228) devoid of interest, as throwing some light upon the progress of the Welsh rebellion, and, in a degree, on Henry's character being at the same time confirmatory of the view above taken of his occupations.