It was not only in money bills that the originating power was supposed to reside in the commons. The course of proceedings in parliament, as has been seen, from the commencement at least of Edward III.'s reign, was that the commons presented petitions, which the lords, by themselves, or with the assistance of the council, having duly considered, the sanction of the king was notified or withheld. This was so much according to usage, that, on one occasion, when the commons requested the advice of the other house on a matter before them, it was answered that the ancient custom and form of parliament had ever been for the commons to report their own opinion to the king and lords, and not to the contrary; and the king would have the ancient and laudable usages of parliament maintained.[246] It is singular that in the terror of innovation the lords did not discover how materially this usage of parliament took off from their own legislative influence. The rule, however, was not observed in succeeding times; bills originated indiscriminately in either house; and indeed some acts of Henry V., which do not appear to be grounded on any petition, may be suspected, from the manner of their insertion in the rolls of parliament, to have been proposed on the king's part to the commons.[247] But there is one manifest instance in the 18th of Henry VI., where the king requested the commons to give their authority to such regulations[248] as his council might provide for redressing the abuse of purveyance; to which they assented.