In the sixth year of Edward III. the proctors of the clergy are specially mentioned as present at the speech pronounced by the king's commissioner, and retired, along with the prelates, to consult together upon the business submitted to their deliberation. They proposed accordingly a sentence of excommunication against disturbers of the peace, which was assented to by the lords and commons. The clergy are said afterwards to have had leave, as well as the knights, citizens, and burgesses, to return to their homes; the prelates and peers continuing with the king.[335] This appearance of the clergy in full parliament is not, perhaps, so decisively proved by any later record. But in the eighteenth of the same reign several petitions of the clergy are granted by the king and his council, entered on the roll of parliament, and even the statute roll, and in some respects are still part of our law.[336] To these it seems highly probable that the commons gave no assent; and they may be reckoned among the other infringements of their legislative rights. It is remarkable that in the same parliament the commons, as if apprehensive of what was in preparation, besought the king that no petition of the clergy might be granted till he and his council should have considered whether it would turn to the prejudice of the lords or commons.[337] A series of petitions from the clergy, in the twenty-fifth of Edward. III., had not probably any real assent of the commons, though it is once mentioned in the enacting words, when they were drawn into a statute.[338] Indeed the petitions correspond so little with the general sentiment of hostility towards ecclesiastical privileges manifested by the lower house of parliament, that they would not easily have obtained its acquiescence. The convocation of the province of Canterbury presented several petitions in the fiftieth year of the same king, to which they received an assenting answer; but they are not found in the statute-book. This, however, produced the following remonstrance from the commons at the next parliament: "Also the commons beseech their lord the king, that no statute nor ordinance be made at the petition of the clergy, unless by assent of your commons; and that your commons be not bound by any constitutions which they make for their own profit without the commons' assent. For they will not be bound by any of your statutes or ordinances made without their assent."[339] The king evaded a direct answer to this petition. But the province of Canterbury did not the less present their own grievances to the king in that parliament, and two among the statutes of the year seem to be founded upon no other authority.[340]