[391] The manner in which these were obtained, in spite of law, may be noticed among the violent courses of prerogative. By statute 2 E. III. c. 2, confirmed by 10 E. III. c. 2, the king's power of granting pardons was taken away, except in cases of homicide per infortunium. Another act, 14 E. III. c. 15, reciting that the former laws in this respect have not been kept, declares that all pardons contrary to them shall be holden as null. This however was disregarded like the rest; and the commons began tacitly to recede from them, and endeavoured to compromise the question with the crown. By 27 E. III. stat. I, c. 2, without adverting to the existing provisions, which may therefore seem to be repealed by implication, it is enacted that in every charter of pardon, granted at any one's suggestion, the suggestor's name and the grounds of his suggestion shall be expressed, that if the same be found untrue it may be disallowed. And in 13 R. II. stat. 2, c. 1, we are surprised to find the commons requesting that pardons might not be granted, as if the subject were wholly, unknown to the law; the king protesting in reply that he will save his liberty and regality, as his progenitors had done before, but conceding some regulations, far less remedial than what were provided already by the 27th of Edward II. Pardons make a pretty large head in Brooke's Abridgment, and were undoubtedly granted without scruple by every one of our kings. A pardon obtained in a case of peculiar atrocity is the subject of a specific remonstrance in 23 H. VI. Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 111. [392] Rot. Parl. vol. ii. p. 201. A strange policy, for which no rational cause can be alleged, kept Wales and even Cheshire distinct from the rest of the kingdom. Nothing could be more injurious to the adjacent counties. Upon the credit of their immunity from the jurisdiction of the king's courts, the people of Cheshire broke with armed bands into the neighbouring counties, and perpetrated all the crimes in their power. Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 81, 201, 440; Stat. 1 H. IV. c. 18. As to the Welsh frontier, it was constantly almost in a state of war, which a very little good sense and benevolence in any one of our shepherds would have easily prevented, by admitting the conquered people to partake in equal privileges with their fellow-subjects. Instead of this, they satisfied themselves with aggravating the mischief by granting legal reprisals upon Welshmen. Stat. 2 H. IV. c. 16. Welshmen were absolutely excluded from bearing offices in Wales. The English living in the English towns of Wales earnestly petition, 23 H. VI. Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 104, 154, that this exclusion may be kept in force. Complaints of the disorderly state of the Welsh frontier are repeated as late as 12 E. IV. vol. vi. p. 8.