It has been observed, under the reign of Edward III., that the practice of leaving statutes to be drawn up by the judges, from the petition and answer jointly, after a dissolution of parliament, presented an opportunity of falsifying the intention of the legislature, whereof advantage was often taken. Some very remarkable instances of this fraud occurred in the succeeding reigns. An ordinance was put upon the roll of parliament, in the fifth of Richard II., empowering sheriffs of counties to arrest preachers of heresy and their abettors, and detain them in prison till they should justify themselves before the church. This was introduced into the statutes of the year; but the assent of lords and commons is not expressed. In the next parliament the commons, reciting this ordinance, declare that it was never assented to or granted by them, but what had been proposed in this matter was without their concurrence (that is, as I conceive, had been rejected by them), and pray that this statute be annulled; for it was never their intent to bind themselves or their descendants to the bishops more than their ancestors had been bound in times past. The king returned an answer, agreeing to this petition. Nevertheless the pretended statute was untouched, and remains still among our laws;[199] unrepealed, except by desuetude, and by inference from the acts of much later times. This commendable reluctance of the commons to let the clergy forge chains for them produced, as there is much appearance, a similar violation of their legislative rights in the next reign. The statute against heresy in the second of Henry IV. is not grounded upon any petition of the commons, but only upon one of the clergy. It is said to be enacted by consent of the lords, but no notice is taken of the lower house in the parliament roll, though the statute reciting the petition asserts the commons to have joined in it.[200] The petition and the statute are both in Latin, which is unusual in the laws of this time. In a subsequent petition of the commons this act is styled "the statute made in the second year of your majesty's reign at the request of the prelates and clergy of your kingdom;" which affords a presumption that it had no regular assent of parliament.[201] And the spirit of the commons during this whole reign being remarkably hostile to the church, it would have been hardly possible to obtain their consent to so penal a law against heresy. Several of their petitions seem designed indirectly to weaken its efficacy.[202]