The first statute met the demands of 1339. “And for this grant,” it says, speaking of the liberal wool subsidy mentioned above, “the king by the assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and all others assembled in Parliament, hath granted, that from the feast of Pentecost that cometh in a year, he nor his heirs shall not demand, assess, nor take, nor suffer to be taken more custom of a sack of wool of any Englishman but half a mark of custom only; and upon woolfells and leather the old custom.... And this establishment lawfully to be holden and kept, the king hath promised in the presence of the prelates, earls, barons, and others in his Parliament, no more to charge, set, or assess, upon the custom, but in the manner as afore is said.”[221] The second statute was still more sweeping: “We ... will and grant for us and our heirs, to the same prelates, earls, barons, and commons, citizens, burgesses, and merchants ... that they be” not “from henceforth charged nor grieved to make common aid, or to sustain charge, if it be not by the common assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and other great men, and commons of our said realm of England, and that in the Parliament; and that all the profits rising from the said aid, and of the wards and marriages, customs, and escheats, and other profits rising of the said realm of England, shall be put and spent upon the maintenance of the safeguard of our said realm of England and of our wars....”[222] [Parliament the sole taxing authority in law] The importance of these two acts is readily apparent. The promise of Edward to abide by the recommendation of Parliament in the matter of the subsidy on wool, was an admission by the king that not he but they had final control over the laying of customs duties. Thus was established the principle to be defended and likewise to be questioned in the future, that Parliament alone had power to lay a tax on wool. In the second place, by the statute which provided that no charge or aid should be levied but by consent of Parliament, tallage died a legislative death.[223] And not only was this statute aimed at tallages but as well at every species of unauthorized taxation. Thus was enunciated the profoundly important principle that Parliament was the sole authority for levying taxes not merely on the nation at large, as had long been the practice, but in every department of the government, on the royal demesne as readily as on the shires themselves. If the practice of future years had lived up to the ideal expressed in this statute, it would be possible to draw a line at the year 1340 and say that thereafter Englishmen exercised the right of taxing themselves.