Constitutional History of England Volume I Part 21

[445] Journals, 5th and 7th March 1557-8.

[446] D'Ewes, 291; Hatsell, 93. The latter says, "I cannot but suspect, that there was some private history in this affair, some particular offence against the queen, with which we are unacquainted." But I believe the explanation I have given will be thought more to the purpose; and so far from having offended the queen, Hall seems to have had a patron in Lord Burleigh, to whom he wrote many letters, complaining of the Commons, which are extant in the Lansdowne collection. He seems to have been a man of eccentric and unpopular character, and had already incurred the displeasure of the Commons in the session of 1572, when he was ordered to be warned by the serjeant to appear at the bar "to answer for sundry lewd speeches used as well in the house as elsewhere." Another entry records him to have been "charged with seven several articles, but having humbly submitted himself to the house, and confessed his folly, to have been upon the question released with a good exhortation from the speaker." D'Ewes, 207, 212.

[447] Hatsell, 80.

[448] D'Ewes, 341.

[449] D'Ewes, 366. This case, though of considerable importance, is overlooked by Hatsell, who speaks of that of Hall as the only one before the long parliament, wherein the Commons have punished the authors of libels derogatory to their privileges. P. 127. Though he speaks only of libels, certainly the punishment of words spoken is at least as strong an exercise of power.

[450] Journals, 1 Mary, p. 27.

[451] D'Ewes, 393, etc.

[452] _Id._ 430.

[453] _Id._ 539.

[454] _Id._ 596.

[455] D'Ewes, 486. Another trifling circ.u.mstance may be mentioned to show the rising spirit of the age. In the session of 1601, Sir Robert Cecil having proposed that the speaker should _attend_ the lord keeper about some matter, Sir Edward Hobby took up the word in strong language, as derogatory to their dignity; and the secretary, who knew, as later ministers have done, that the Commons are never so unmanageable as on such points of honour, made a proper apology. _Id._ 627.

[456] Birch's _Memoirs_, i. 97, 120, 152, etc., ii. 129; Bacon's Works, vol. ii. p. 416, 435.

[457] Raleigh's _Dedication of his Prerogative of Parliaments to James I._ contains terrible things. "The bonds of subjects to their kings should always be wrought out of iron, the bonds of kings unto subjects but with cobwebs."--"All binding of a king by law upon the advantage of his necessity, makes the breach itself lawful in a king; his charters and all other instruments being no other than the surviving witnesses of his unconstrained will." The object, however, of the book, is to persuade the king to call a parliament (about 1613), and we are not to suppose that Raleigh meant what he said. He was never very scrupulous about truth. In another of his tracts, ent.i.tled _The Prince; or, Thesaurus of State_, he holds, though not without flattery towards James, a more reasonable language. "In every just state some part of the government is or ought to be impartial to the people; as in a kingdom, a voice or suffrage in making laws: and sometimes also in levying of arms, if the charge be great and the prince be forced to borrow help of his subjects, the matter rightly may be propounded to a parliament, that the tax may seem to have proceeded from themselves."

[458] _Le Contre Un_ of La Boetie, the friend of Montaigne, is, as the t.i.tle intimates, a vehement philippic against monarchy. It is subjoined to some editions of the latter's essays. The _Franco-Gallia_ of Hottoman contains little more than extracts from Fredegarius, Aimoin, and other ancient writers, to prove the elective character and general freedom of the monarchy under the two first races. This made a considerable impression at the time, though the pa.s.sages in question have been so often quoted since, that we are almost surprised to find the book so devoid of novelty. Hubert Languet's _Vindicae contra Tyrannos_, published under the name of Junius Brutus, is a more argumentative discussion of the rights of governors and their subjects.

[459] D'Ewes, p. 115.

I have already adverted to Gardiner's resolute a.s.sertion of the law against the prince's single will, as a proof that, in spite of Hume's preposterous insinuations to the contrary, the English monarchy was known and acknowledged to be limited. Another testimony may be adduced from the words of a great protestant churchman. Archbishop Parker, writing to Cecil to justify himself for not allowing the queen's right to grant some dispensation in a case of marriage, says, "he would not dispute of the queen's absolute power, or prerogative royal, how far her highness might go in following the Roman authority; but he yet doubted, that if any dispensation should pa.s.s from her authority, to any subject, not avouchable by laws of her realm, made and established by herself and her three estates, whether that subject be in surety at all times afterwards: specially seeing there be parliament laws, precisely determining cases of dispensations." Strype's _Parker_, 177.

Perhaps, however, there is no more decisive testimony to the established principles of limited monarchy in the age of Elizabeth, than a circ.u.mstance mentioned in Anderson's _Reports_, 154. The queen had granted to Mr. Richard Cavendish an office for issuing certain writs, and directed the judges to admit him to it, which they neglected (that is, did not think fit) to do. Cavendish hereupon obtained a letter from her majesty, expressing her surprise that he was not admitted according to her grant, and commanding them to sequester the profits of the office for his use, or that of any other to whom these might appear to be due, as soon as the controversy respecting the execution of the said office should be decided. It is plain that some other persons were in possession of these profits, or claimed a right therein. The judges conceived that they could not lawfully act according to the said letter and command, because through such a sequestration of the emoluments, those who claimed a right to issue the writs would be disseised of their freehold. The queen, informed that they did not obey the letter, sent another, under the sign manual, in more positive language, ending in these words: "We look that you and every of you should dutifully fulfil our commandment herein, and these our letters shall be your warrant."--21st April 1587. This letter was delivered to the justices in the presence of the chancellor and Lord Leicester, who were commissioned to hear their answer, telling them also, that the queen had granted the patent on account of her great desire to provide for Cavendish. The judges took a little time to consult what should be said; and, returning to the Lords, answered that they desired in all respects humbly to obey her majesty; but, as this case is, could not do so without perjury, which they well knew the queen would not require, and so went away.

Their answer was reported to the queen, who ordered the chancellor, chief justice of the king's bench, and master of the rolls, to hear the judges' reasons; and the queen's council were ordered to attend, when the queen's serjeant began to show the queen's prerogative to grant the issuing of writs, and showed precedents. The judges protested in answer, that they had every wish to a.s.sist her majesty to all her rights, but said that this manner of proceeding was out of course of justice; and gave their reasons, that the right of issuing these writs and fees incident to it was in the prothonotaries and others, who claimed it by freehold; who ought to be made to answer, and not the judges, being more interested therein. This was certainly a little feeble, but they soon recovered themselves. They were then charged with having neglected to obey these letters of the queen; which they confessed, but said that this was no offence or contempt towards her majesty, because the command was against the law of the land; in which case, they said, no one is bound to obey such command. When farther pressed, they said the queen herself was sworn to keep the laws as well as they; and that they could not obey this command without going against the laws directly and plainly, against their oaths, and to the offence of G.o.d, her majesty, the country and commonwealth in which they were born and live: so that if the fear of G.o.d were gone from them, yet the examples of others, and the punishment of those who had formerly transgressed the laws, would remind them and keep them from such an offence. Then they cited the Spensers, and Thorp, a judge under Edward III., and precedents of Richard II.'s time, and of Empson, and the statutes from Magna Charta, which show what a crime it is for judges to infringe the laws of the land; and thus, since the queen and the judges were sworn to observe them, they said that they would not act as was commanded in these letters.

All this was repeated to her majesty for her good allowance of the said reasons, and which her majesty, as I have heard, says the reporter, took well; but nothing farther was heard of the business.--Such was the law and the government, which Mr. Hume has compared to that of Turkey! It is almost certain, that neither James nor Charles would have made so discreet a sacrifice of their pride and arbitrary temper; and in this self-command lay the great superiority of Elizabeth's policy.

[460] _Harborowe of True and Faithful Subjects_, 1559. Most of this pa.s.sage is quoted by Dr. M'Crie, in his _Life of Knox_, vol. i. note BB, to whom I am indebted for pointing it out.

[461] _Commonwealth of England_, b. ii. c. 3.

[462] Bodin says the English amba.s.sador, M. Dail (Mr. Dale), had a.s.sured him, not only that the king may a.s.sent to or refuse a bill as he pleases, but that il ne laisse pas d'en ordonner a son plaisir, et centre la volonte des estats, comme on a vu Henry VIII. avoir toujours use de sa puissance souveraine. He admitted, however, that taxes could only be imposed in parliament. _De la Republique_, l. i. c. 8.

[463] The misrepresentations of Hume as to the English const.i.tution under Elizabeth, and the general administration of her reign, have been exposed since the present chapter was written, by Mr. Brodie, in his _History of the British Empire from the Accession of Charles I. to the Restoration_, vol. i. c. 3. In some respects, Mr. B. seems to have gone too far in an opposite system, and to represent the practical course of government as less arbitrary than I can admit it to have been.

CHAPTER VI

ON THE ENGLISH CONSt.i.tUTION UNDER JAMES I

_Quiet accession of James._--It might afford an ill.u.s.tration of the fallaciousness of political speculations, to contrast the hopes and inquietudes that agitated the minds of men concerning the inheritance of the Crown during Elizabeth's lifetime, while not less than fourteen t.i.tles were idly or mischievously reckoned up, with the perfect tranquillity that accompanied the accession of her successor.[464] The house of Suffolk, whose claim was legally indisputable, if we admit the testament of Henry VIII. to have been duly executed, appear, though no public enquiry had been made into that fact, to have lost ground in popular opinion, partly through an unequal marriage of Lord Beauchamp with a private gentleman's daughter, but still more from a natural disposition to favour the hereditary line rather than the capricious disposition of a sovereign long since dead, as soon as it became consistent with the preservation of the reformed faith. Leicester once hoped, it is said, to place his brother-in-law, the Earl of Huntingdon, descended from the Duke of Clarence, upon the throne; but this pretension had been entirely forgotten. The more intriguing and violent of the catholic party, after the death of Mary, entertaining little hope that the King of Scots would abandon the principles of his education, sought to gain support to a pretended t.i.tle in the King of Spain, or his daughter the infanta, who afterwards married the Archduke Albert, governor of the Netherlands. Others, abhorring so odious a claim, looked to Arabella Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Lennox, younger brother of James's father, and equally descended from the stock of Henry VII., sustaining her manifest defect of primogeniture by her birth within the realm, according to the principle of law that excluded aliens from inheritance. But this principle was justly deemed inapplicable to the Crown. Clement VIII., who had no other view than to secure the re-establishment of the catholic faith in England, and had the judgment to perceive that the ascendency of Spain would neither be endured by the nation, nor permitted by the French king, favoured this claim of Arabella, who though apparently of the reformed religion, was rather suspected at home of wavering in her faith; and entertained a hope of marrying her to the Cardinal Farnese, brother of the Duke of Parma.[465]

Considerations of public interest, however, unequivocally pleaded for the Scottish line; the extinction of long sanguinary feuds, and the consolidation of the British empire, Elizabeth herself, though by no means on terms of sincere friends.h.i.+p with James, and hara.s.sing him by intrigues with his subjects to the close of her life, seems to have always designed that he should inherit her crown. And the general expectation of what was to follow, as well from conviction of his right as from the impracticability of any effectual compet.i.tion, had so thoroughly paved the way, that the council's proclamation of the King of Scots excited no more commotion than that of an heir apparent.[466]

_Question of his t.i.tle to the crown._--The popular voice in favour of James was undoubtedly raised in consequence of a natural opinion that he was the lawful heir to the throne. But this was only according to vulgar notions of right, which respect hereditary succession as something indefeasible. In point of fact, it is at least very doubtful whether James I. or any of his posterity were legitimate sovereigns, according to the sense which that word ought properly to bear. The house of Stuart no more came in by a clear t.i.tle than the house of Brunswick; by such a t.i.tle, I mean, as the const.i.tution and established laws of this kingdom had recognised. No private man could have recovered an acre of land without proving a better right than they could make out to the Crown of England. What then had James to rest upon? What renders it absurd to call him and his children usurpers? He had that which the flatterers of his family most affected to disdain, the will of the people; not certainly expressed in regular suffrage or declared election, but unanimously and voluntarily ratifying that which in itself could surely give no right, the determination of the late queen's council to proclaim his accession to the throne.

It is probable that what has been just said may appear rather paradoxical to those who have not considered this part of our history; yet it is capable of satisfactory proof. This proof consists of four propositions: 1. That a lawful king of England, with the advice and consent of parliament, may make statutes to limit the inheritance of the Crown as shall seem fit;--2. That a statute pa.s.sed in the 35th year of King Henry VIII. enabled that prince to dispose of the succession by his last will signed with his own hand;--3. That Henry executed such a will, by which, in default of issue from his children, the Crown was entailed upon the descendants of his younger sister Mary, d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, before those of Margaret, Queen of Scots;--4. That such descendants of Mary were living at the decease of Elizabeth.

Of these propositions, the two former can require no support; the first being one that it would be perilous to deny, and the second a.s.serting a notorious fact. A question has, however, been raised with respect to the third proposition; for though the will of Henry, now in the chapter-house at Westminster, is certainly authentic, and is attested by many witnesses, it has been doubted whether the signature was made with his own hand, as required by the act of parliament. In the reign of Elizabeth, it was a.s.serted by the Queen of Scots' ministers, that the king being at the last extremity, some one had put a stamp for him to the instrument. It is true, that he was in the latter part of his life accustomed to employ a stamp instead of making his signature. Many impressions of this are extant; but it is evident on the first inspection, not only that the presumed autographs in the will (for there are two) are not like these impressions, but that they are not the impressions of any stamp, the marks of the pen being very clearly discernible.[467] It is more difficult to p.r.o.nounce that they may not be feigned; but such is not the opinion of some who are best acquainted with Henry's handwriting;[468] and what is still more to the purpose, there is no pretence for setting up such a possibility, when the story of the stamp, as to which the partisans of Mary pretended to adduce evidence, appears so clearly to be a fabrication. We have therefore every reasonable ground to maintain, that Henry did duly execute a will, postponing the Scots line to that of Suffolk.

The fourth proposition is in itself undeniable. There were descendants of Mary, d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, by her two daughters, Frances, second d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, and Eleanor, Countess of c.u.mberland. A story had indeed been circulated that Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was already married to a lady of the name of Mortimer at the time of his union with the king's sister. But this circ.u.mstance seems to be sufficiently explained in the treatise of Hales.[469] It is somewhat more questionable, from which of his two daughters we are to derive the hereditary stock. This depends on the legitimacy of Lord Beauchamp, son of the Earl of Hertford by Catherine Grey. I have mentioned in another place the process before a commission appointed by Elizabeth, which ended in declaring that their marriage was not proved, and that their cohabitation had been illicit. The parties alleged themselves to have been married clandestinely in the Earl of Hertford's house, by a minister whom they had never before seen, and of whose name they were ignorant, in the presence only of a sister of the earl, then deceased.

This entire absence of testimony, and the somewhat improbable nature of the story, at least in appearance, may still perhaps leave a shade of doubt as to the reality of the marriage. On the other hand, it was unquestionable that their object must have been a legitimate union; and such a hasty and furtive ceremony as they a.s.serted to have taken place, while it would, if sufficiently proved, be completely valid, was necessary to protect them from the queen's indignation. They were examined separately upon oath to answer a series of the closest interrogatories, which they did with little contradiction, and a perfect agreement in the main; nor was any evidence worth mentioning adduced on the other side; so that, unless the rules of the ecclesiastical law are scandalously repugnant to common justice, their oaths ent.i.tled them to credit on the merits of the case.[470] The Earl of Hertford, soon after the tranquil accession of James, having long abandoned all ambitious hopes, and seeking only to establish his children's legitimacy and the honour of one who had been the victim of their unhappy loves, pet.i.tioned the king for a review of the proceedings, alleging himself to have vainly sought this at the hands of Elizabeth. It seems probable, though I have not met with any more distinct proof of it than a story in Dugdale, that he had been successful in finding the person who solemnised the marriage.[471] A commission of delegates was accordingly appointed to investigate the allegations of the earl's pet.i.tion. But the jealousy that had so long oppressed this unfortunate family was not yet at rest. Questions seem to have been raised as to the lapse of time and other technical difficulties, which served as a pretext for coming to no determination on the merits.[472] Hertford, or rather his son, not long after, endeavoured indirectly to bring forward the main question by means of a suit for some lands against Lord Monteagle. This is said to have been heard in the court of wards, where a jury was impanelled to try the fact. But the law officers of the Crown interposed to prevent a verdict, which, though it could not have been legally conclusive upon the marriage, would certainly have given a sanction to it in public opinion.[473] The house of Seymour was now compelled to seek a renewal of their honours by another channel. Lord Beauchamp, as he had uniformly been called, took a grant of the barony of Beauchamp, and another of the earldom of Hertford, to take effect upon the death of the earl, who is not denominated his father in the patent.[474] But after the return of Charles II., in the patent restoring this Lord Beauchamp's son to the dukedom of Somerset, he is recited to be heir male of the body of the first duke by his wife Anne, which establishes (if the recital of a private act of parliament can be said to establish anything) the validity of the disputed marriage.[475]

The descent from Eleanor, the younger daughter of Mary Brandon, who married the Earl of c.u.mberland, is subject to no difficulties. She left an only daughter, married to the Earl of Derby, from whom the claim devolved again upon females, and seems to have attracted less notice during the reign of Elizabeth than some others much inferior in plausibility. If any should be of opinion that no marriage was regularly contracted between the Earl of Hertford and Lady Catherine Grey, so as to make their children capable of inheritance, the t.i.tle to the Crown, resulting from the statute of 35 H. 8 and the testament of that prince, will have descended, at the death of Elizabeth, on the issue of the Countess of c.u.mberland, the youngest daughter of the d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, Lady Frances Keyes, having died without issue.[476] In neither case could the house of Stuart have a lawful claim. But I may, perhaps, have dwelled too long on a subject which, though curious and not very generally understood, can be of no sort of importance, except as it serves to cast ridicule upon those notions of legitimate sovereignty and absolute right, which it was once attempted to set up as paramount even to the great interests of a commonwealth.

There is much reason to believe that the consciousness of this defect in his parliamentary t.i.tle put James on magnifying, still more than from his natural temper he was p.r.o.ne to do, the inherent rights of primogenitary succession, as something indefeasible by the legislature; a doctrine which, however it might suit the schools of divinity, was in diametrical opposition to our statutes.[477] Through the servile spirit of those times, however, it made a rapid progress; and, interwoven by cunning and bigotry with religion, became a distinguis.h.i.+ng tenet of the party who encouraged the Stuarts to subvert the liberties of this kingdom. In James's proclamation on ascending the throne, he sets forth his hereditary right in pompous and perhaps unconst.i.tutional phrases. It was the first measure of parliament to pa.s.s an act of recognition, acknowledging that, immediately on the decease of Elizabeth, "the imperial crown of the realm of England did by inherent birthright, and lawful and undoubted succession, descend and come to his most excellent majesty, as being lineally, justly, and lawfully, next and sole heir of the blood royal of this realm."[478] The will of Henry VIII. it was tacitly agreed by all parties to consign to oblivion: and this most wisely, not on the principles which seem rather too much insinuated in this act of recognition, but on such substantial motives of public expediency as it would have shown an equal want of patriotism and of good sense for the descendants of the house of Suffolk to have withstood.

James left a kingdom where his authority was incessantly thwarted and sometimes openly a.s.sailed, for one wherein the royal prerogative had for more than a century been strained to a very high pitch, and where there had not occurred for above thirty years the least appearance of rebellion and hardly of tumult. Such a posture of the English commonwealth, as well as the general satisfaction testified at his accession, seemed favourable circ.u.mstances to one who entertained, with less disguise if not with more earnestness than most other sovereigns, the desire of reigning with as little impediment as possible to his own will. Yet some considerations might have induced a prince who really possessed the king-craft wherein James prided himself, to take his measures with caution. The late queen's popularity had remarkably abated during her last years.[479] It is a very common delusion of royal personages to triumph in the people's dislike of those into whose place they expect shortly to come, and to count upon the most transitory of possessions, a favour built on hopes that they cannot realise and discontents that they will not a.s.suage. If Elizabeth lost a great deal of that affection her subjects had entertained for her, this may be ascribed, not so much to Ess.e.x's death, though that no doubt had its share, as to weightier taxation, to some oppressions of her government, and above all to her inflexible tenaciousness in every point of ecclesiastical discipline. It was the part of a prudent successor to preserve an undeviating economy, to remove without repugnance or delay the irritations of monopolies and purveyance, and to remedy those alleged abuses in the church, against which the greater and stronger part of the nation had so long and so loudly raised its voice.

_Early unpopularity of the king._--The new king's character, notwithstanding the vicinity of Scotland, seems to have been little understood by the English at his accession. But he was not long in undeceiving them, if it be true that his popularity had vanished away before his arrival in London.[480] The kingdom was full of acute wits and skilful politicians, quick enough to have seen through a less unguarded character than that of James. It was soon manifest that he was unable to wield the sceptre of the great princess whom he ridiculously affected to despise,[481] so as to keep under that rising spirit, which might perhaps have grown too strong even for her control. He committed an important error in throwing away the best opportunity that had offered itself for healing the wounds of the church of England. In his way to London, the malcontent clergy presented to him what was commonly called the Millenary Pet.i.tion, as if signed by 1000 ministers, though the real number was not so great.[482] This pet.i.tion contained no demand inconsistent with the established hierarchy, nor, as far as I am aware, which might not have been granted without inconvenience. James, however, who had not unnaturally taken an extreme disgust at the presbyterian clergy of his native kingdom, by whom his life had been perpetually hara.s.sed, showed no disposition to treat these pet.i.tioners with favour.[483] The bishops had promised him an obsequiousness to which he had been little accustomed, and a zeal to enhance his prerogative which they afterwards too well displayed. His measures towards the nonconformist party had evidently been resolved upon before he summoned a few of their divines to the famous conference at Hampton Court. In the accounts that we read of this meeting, we are alternately struck with wonder at the indecent and partial behaviour of the king, and at the abject baseness of the bishops, mixed, according to the custom of servile natures, with insolence towards their opponents.[484] It was easy for a monarch and eighteen churchmen to claim the victory, be the merits of their dispute what they might, over four abashed and intimidated adversaries.[485] A very few alterations were made in the church service after this conference, but not of such moment as to reconcile probably a single minister to the established discipline.[486]

The king soon afterwards put forth a proclamation, requiring all ecclesiastical and civil officers to do their duty by enforcing conformity, and admonis.h.i.+ng all men not to expect nor attempt any further alteration in the public service; for "he would neither let any presume that his own judgment, having determined in a matter of this weight, should be swayed to alteration by the frivolous suggestions of any light spirit, nor was he ignorant of the inconvenience of admitting innovation in things once settled by mature deliberation."[487] And he had already strictly enjoined the bishops to proceed against all their clergy who did not observe the prescribed order;[488] a command which Bancroft, who about this time followed Whitgift in the primacy, did not wait to have repeated. But the most enormous outrage on the civil rights of these men was the commitment to prison of ten among those who had presented the Millenary Pet.i.tion; the judges having declared in the star-chamber, that it was an offence finable at discretion, and very near to treason and felony, as it tended to sedition and rebellion.[489]

By such beginnings did the house of Stuart indicate the course it would steer.

An entire year elapsed, chiefly on account of the unhealthiness of the season in London, before James summoned his first parliament. It might perhaps have been more politic to have chosen some other city; for the length of this interval gave time to form a disadvantageous estimate of his administration and to alienate beyond recovery the puritanical party. Libels were already in circulation, reflecting with a sharpness never before known on the king's personal behaviour, which presented an extraordinary contrast to that of Elizabeth.[490] The nation, it is easy to perceive, cheated itself into a persuasion, that it had borne that princess more affection than it had really felt, especially in her latter years; the sorrow of subjects for deceased monarchs being often rather inspired by a sense of evil than a recollection of good. James however little heeded the popular voice, satisfied with the fulsome and preposterous adulation of his court, and intent on promulgating certain maxims concerning the dignity and power of princes, which he had already announced in his discourse on the "True Law of Free Monarchies," printed some years before in Scotland. In this treatise, after laying it down that monarchy is the true pattern of divinity, and proving the duty of pa.s.sive obedience, rather singularly, from that pa.s.sage in the book of Samuel where the prophet so forcibly paints the miseries of absolute power, he denies that the kings of Scotland owe their crown to any primary contract, Fergus, their progenitor, having conquered the country with his Irish; and advances more alarming tenets, as that the king makes daily statutes and ordinances enjoining such pains thereto as he thinks meet, without any advice of parliament or estates; that general laws made publicly in parliament may by the king's authority be mitigated or suspended upon causes only known to him; and that, "although a good king will frame all his actions to be according to the law, yet he is not bound thereto, but of his own will and for example-giving to his subjects."[491] These doctrines, if not absolutely novel, seemed peculiarly indecent as well as dangerous, from the mouth of a sovereign. Yet they proceeded far more from James's self-conceit and pique against the republican spirit of presbyterianism than from his love of power, which (in its exercise I mean, as distinguished from its possession) he did not feel in so eminent a degree as either his predecessor or his son.

In the proclamation for calling together his first parliament, the king, after dilating, as was his favourite practice, on a series of rather common truths in very good language, charges all persons interested in the choice of knights for the s.h.i.+re to select them out of the princ.i.p.al knights or gentlemen within the county; and for the burgesses, that choice be made of men of sufficiency and discretion, without desire to please parents and friends, that often speak for their children or kindred; avoiding persons noted in religion for their superst.i.tious blindness one way, or for their turbulent humour other ways. We do command, he says, that no bankrupts or outlaws be chosen, but men of known good behaviour and sufficient livelihood. The sheriffs are charged not to direct a writ to any ancient town being so ruined that there are not residents sufficient to make such choice, and of whom such lawful election may be made. All returns are to be filed in chancery, and if any be found contrary to this proclamation, the same to be rejected as unlawful and insufficient, and the place to be fined for making it; and any one elected contrary to the purport, effect, and true meaning of this proclamation, to be fined and imprisoned.[492]

_Question of Fortescue and Goodwin's election._--Such an a.s.sumption of control over parliamentary elections was a glaring infringement of those privileges which the House of Commons had been steadily and successfully a.s.serting in the late reign. An opportunity very soon occurred of contesting this important point. At the election for the county of Buckingham, Sir Francis Goodwin had been chosen in preference to Sir John Fortescue, a privy counsellor, and the writ returned into chancery. Goodwin having been some years before outlawed, the return was sent back to the sheriff, as contrary to the late proclamation; and, on a second election, Sir John Fortescue was chosen. This matter being brought under the consideration of the House of Commons, a very few days after the opening of the session, gave rise to their first struggle with the new king. It was resolved, after hearing the whole case, and arguments by members on both sides, that Goodwin was lawfully elected and returned, and ought to be received. The first notice taken of this was by the Lords, who requested that this might be discussed in a conference between the two houses, before any other matter should be proceeded in. The Commons returned for answer, that they conceived it not according to the honour of the house to give account of any of their proceedings. The Lords replied, that having acquainted his majesty with the matter, he desired there might be a conference thereon between the two houses. Upon this message, the Commons came to a resolution that the speaker with a numerous deputation of members should attend his majesty, and report the reasons of their proceedings in Goodwin's case. In this conference with the king, as related by the speaker, it appears that he had shown some degree of chagrin, and insisted that the house ought not to meddle with returns, which could only be corrected by the court of chancery; and that since they derived all matters of privilege from him and his grant, he expected they should not be turned against him. He ended by directing the house to confer with the judges. After a debate which seems, from the minutes in the journals, to have been rather warm, it was unanimously agreed not to have a conference with the judges; but the reasons of the house's proceeding were laid before the king in a written statement or memorial, answering the several objections that his majesty had alleged. This they sent to the Lords, requesting them to deliver it to the king, and to be mediators in behalf of the house for his majesty's satisfaction; a message in rather a lower tone than they had previously taken. The king sending for the speaker privately, told him that he was now distracted in judgment as to the merits of the case; and for his further satisfaction, desired and commanded, as an absolute king, that there should be a conference between the house and the judges. Upon this unexpected message, says the journal, there grew some amazement and silence. But at last one stood up and said: "The prince's command is like a thunderbolt; his command upon our allegiance like the roaring of a lion. To his command there is no contradiction; but how or in what manner we should now proceed to perform obedience, that will be the question."[493] It was resolved to confer with the judges in presence of the king and council. In this second conference, the king, after some favourable expressions towards the house, and conceding that it was a court of record, and judge of returns, though not exclusively of the chancery, suggested that both Goodwin and Fortescue should be set aside, by issuing a new writ. This compromise was joyfully accepted by the greater part of the Commons, after the dispute had lasted nearly three weeks.[494] They have been considered as victorious, upon the whole, in this contest, though they apparently fell short in the result of what they had obtained some years before. But no attempt was ever afterwards made to dispute their exclusive jurisdiction.[495]

_s.h.i.+rley's case of privilege._--The Commons were engaged during this session in the defence of another privilege, to which they annexed perhaps a disproportionate importance. Sir Thomas s.h.i.+rley, a member, having been taken in execution on a private debt before their meeting, and the warden of the Fleet prison refusing to deliver him up, they were at a loss how to obtain his release. Several methods were projected; among which, that of sending a party of members with the serjeant and his mace, to force open the prison, was carried on a division; but the speaker hinting that such a vigorous measure would expose them individually to prosecution as trespa.s.sers, it was prudently abandoned.

The warden, though committed by the house to a dungeon in the Tower, continued obstinate, conceiving that by releasing his prisoner he should become answerable for the debt. They were evidently reluctant to solicit the king's interference; but aware at length that their own authority was insufficient, "the vice-chamberlain, according to a memorandum in the journals, was privately instructed to go to the king, and humbly desire that he would be pleased to command the warden, on his allegiance, to deliver up Sir Thomas; not as pet.i.tioned for by the house, but as if himself thought it fit, out of his own gracious judgment." By this stratagem, if we may so term it, they saved the point of honour, and recovered their member.[496] The warden's apprehensions, however, of exposing himself to an action for the escape gave rise to a statute, which empowers the creditor to sue out a new execution against any one who shall be delivered by virtue of his privilege of parliament, after that shall have expired, and discharges from liability those out of whose custody such persons shall be delivered. This is the first legislative recognition of privilege.[497] The most important part of the whole is a proviso subjoined to the act, "That nothing therein contained shall extend to the diminis.h.i.+ng of any punishment to be hereafter, by censure in parliament, inflicted upon any person who hereafter shall make or procure to be made any such arrest as is aforesaid." The right of commitment, in such cases at least, by a vote of the House of Commons, is here unequivocally maintained.

_Complaints of grievances._--It is not necessary to repeat the complaints of ecclesiastical abuses preferred by this House of Commons, as by those that had gone before them. James, by siding openly with the bishops, had given alarm to the reforming party. It was antic.i.p.ated that he would go farther than his predecessor, whose uncertain humour, as well as the inclinations of some of her advisers, had materially counterbalanced the dislike she entertained of the innovators. A code of new canons had recently been established in convocation with the king's a.s.sent, obligatory perhaps upon the clergy, but tending to set up an unwarranted authority over the whole nation; imposing oaths and exacting securities in certain cases from the laity, and aiming at the exclusion of nonconformists from all civil rights.[498] Against these canons, as well as various other grievances, the Commons remonstrated in a conference with the upper house, but with little immediate effect.[499]

They made a more remarkable effort in attacking some public mischiefs of a temporal nature, which, though long the theme of general murmurs, were closely interwoven with the ancient and undisputed prerogatives of the Crown. Complaints were uttered, and innovations projected by the Commons of 1604, which Elizabeth would have met with an angry message, and perhaps visited with punishment on the proposers. James however was not entirely averse to some of the projected alterations, from which he hoped to derive a pecuniary advantage. The two princ.i.p.al grievances were, purveyance and the incidents of military tenure. The former had been restrained by not less than thirty-six statutes, as the Commons a.s.sert in a pet.i.tion to the king; in spite of which the impressing of carts and carriages, and the exaction of victuals for the king's use, at prices far below the true value, and in quant.i.ty beyond what was necessary, continued to prevail under authority of commissions from the board of green cloth, and was enforced, in case of demur or resistance, by imprisonment under their warrant. The purveyors, indeed, are described as living at free quarters upon the country, felling woods without the owners' consent, and commanding labour with little or no recompense.[500] Purveyance was a very ancient topic of remonstrance; but both the inadequate revenues of the Crown, and a supposed dignity attached to this royal right of spoil, had prevented its abolition from being attempted. But the Commons seemed still more to trench on the pride of our feudal monarchy, when they proposed to take away guardians.h.i.+p in chivalry; that lucrative tyranny, bequeathed by Norman conquerors, the custody of every military tenant's estate until he should arrive at twenty-one, without accounting for the profits. This, among other grievances, was referred to a committee, in which Bacon took an active share. They obtained a conference on this subject with the Lords, who refused to agree to a bill for taking guardians.h.i.+p in chivalry away, but offered to join in a pet.i.tion for that purpose to the king, since it could not be called a wrong, having been patiently endured by their ancestors as well as themselves, and being warranted by the law of the land. In the end the Lords advised to drop the matter for the present, as somewhat unseasonable in the king's first parliament.[501]

In the midst of these testimonies of dissatisfaction with the civil and ecclesiastical administration, the House of Commons had not felt much willingness to greet the new sovereign with a subsidy. No demand had been made upon them, far less any proof given of the king's exigencies; and they doubtless knew by experience, that an obstinate determination not to yield to any of their wishes would hardly be shaken by a liberal grant of money. They had even pa.s.sed the usual bill granting tonnage and poundage for life, with certain reservations that gave the court offence, and which apparently they afterwards omitted. But there was so little disposition to do anything further, that the king sent a message to express his desire that the Commons would not enter upon the business of a subsidy, and a.s.suring them that he would not take unkindly their omission. By this artifice, which was rather transparent, he avoided the not improbable mortification of seeing the proposal rejected.[502]

_Commons' vindication of themselves._--The king's discontent at the proceedings of this session, which he seems to have rather strongly expressed in some speech to the Commons that has not been recorded,[503]

gave rise to a very remarkable vindication, prepared by a committee at the house's command, and ent.i.tled "A Form of Apology and Satisfaction to be delivered to his Majesty," though such may not be deemed the most appropriate t.i.tle. It contains a full and pertinent justification of all those proceedings at which James had taken umbrage, and a.s.serts, with respectful boldness and in explicit language, the const.i.tutional rights and liberties of parliament. If the English monarchy had been reckoned as absolute under the Plantagenets and Tudors as Hume has endeavoured to make it appear, the Commons of 1604 must have made a surprising advance in their notions of freedom since the king's accession. Adverting to what they call the misinformation openly delivered to his majesty in three things; namely, that their privileges were not of right, but of grace only, renewed every parliament on pet.i.tion; that they are no court of record, nor yet a court that can command view of records; that the examination of the returns of writs for knights and burgesses is without their compa.s.s, and belonging to the chancery: a.s.sertions, they say, "tending directly and apparently to the utter overthrow of the very fundamental privileges of our house, and therein of the rights and liberties of the whole Commons of your realm of England, which they and their ancestors, from time immemorial, have undoubtedly enjoyed under your majesty's most n.o.ble progenitors;" and against which they expressly protest, as derogatory in the highest degree to the true dignity and authority of parliament, desiring "that such their protestation might be recorded to all posterity;" they maintain, on the contrary, "1. That their privileges and liberties are their right and inheritance, no less than their very lands and goods; 2. That they cannot be withheld from them, denied or impaired, but with apparent wrong to the whole state of the realm; 3. That their making request, at the beginning of a parliament, to enjoy their privilege, is only an act of manners, and does not weaken their right; 4. That their house is a court of record, and has been ever so esteemed; 5. That there is not the highest standing court in this land that ought to enter into compet.i.tion, either for dignity or authority, with this high court of parliament, which, with his majesty's royal a.s.sent, gives law to other courts, but from other courts receives neither laws nor orders; 6. That the House of Commons is the sole proper judge of return of all such writs, and the election of all such members as belong to it, without which the freedom of election were not entire." They aver that in this session the privileges of the house have been more universally and dangerously impugned than ever, as they suppose, since the beginnings of parliaments. That in regard to the late queen's s.e.x and age, and much more upon care to avoid all trouble, which by wicked practice might have been drawn to impeach the quiet of his majesty's right in the succession, those actions were then pa.s.sed over which they hoped in succeeding times to redress and rectify; whereas, on the contrary, in this parliament, not privileges, but the whole freedom of the parliament and realm had been hewed from them.

"What cause," they proceed, "we, your poor Commons, have to watch over our privileges is manifest in itself to all men. The prerogatives of princes may easily and do daily grow. The privileges of the subject are for the most part at an everlasting stand. They may be by good providence and care preserved; but being once lost, are not recovered but with much disquiet." They then enter in detail on the various matters that had arisen during the session--the business of Goodwin's election, of s.h.i.+rley's arrest, and some smaller matters of privilege to which my limits have not permitted me to allude. "We thought not,"

speaking of the first, "that the judge's opinion, which yet in due place we greatly reverence, being delivered what the common law was, which extends only to inferior and standing courts, ought to bring any prejudice to this high court of parliament, whose power being above the law is not founded on the common law, but have their rights and privileges peculiar to themselves." They vindicate their endeavours to obtain redress of religious and public grievances: "Your majesty would be misinformed," they tell him, "if any man should deliver that the kings of England have any absolute power in themselves, either to alter religion, which G.o.d defend should be in the power of any mortal man whatsoever, or to make any laws concerning the same, otherwise than as in temporal causes, by consent of parliament. We have and shall at all times by our oaths acknowledge, that your majesty is sovereign lord and supreme governor in both."[504] Such was the voice of the English Commons in 1604, at the commencement of that great conflict for their liberties, which is measured by the line of the house of Stuart. But it is not certain that this apology was ever delivered to the king, though he seems to allude to it in a letter written to one of his ministers about the same time.[505]

_Session_, 1605.--The next session, which is remarkable on account of the conspiracy of some desperate men to blow up both Houses of Parliament with gunpowder on the day of their meeting, did not produce much worthy of our notice. A bill to regulate, or probably to suppress, purveyance was thrown out by the Lords. The Commons sent up another bill to the same effect, which the upper house rejected without discussion, by a rule then perhaps first established, that the same bill could not be proposed twice in one session.[506] They voted a liberal subsidy, which the king, who had reigned three years without one, had just cause to require. For though he had concluded a peace with Spain soon after his accession, yet the late queen had left a debt of 400,000, and other charges had fallen on the Crown. But the bill for this subsidy lay a good while in the House of Commons, who came to a vote that it should not pa.s.s till their list of grievances was ready to be presented. No notice was taken of these till the next session beginning in November 1606, when the king returned an answer to each of the sixteen articles in which matters of grievance were alleged. Of these the greater part refer to certain grants made to particular persons in the nature of monopolies; the king either defending these in his answer, or remitting the parties to the courts of law to try their legality.

_Union with Scotland debated._--The princ.i.p.al business of this third session, as it had been of the last, was James's favourite scheme of a perfect union between England and Scotland. It may be collected, though this was never explicitly brought forward, that his views extended to a legislative incorporation.[507] But in all the speeches on this subject, and especially his own, there is a want of distinctness as to the object proposed. He dwells continually upon the advantage of unity of laws, yet extols those of England as the best, which the Scots, as was evident, had no inclination to adopt. Wherefore then was delay to be imputed to our English parliament, if it waited for that of the sister kingdom? And what steps were recommended towards this measure, that the Commons can be said to have declined, except only the naturalisation of the ante-nati, or Scots born before the king's accession to our throne, which could only have a temporary effect?[508] Yet Hume, ever p.r.o.ne to eulogise this monarch at the expense of his people, while he bestows merited praise on his speech in favour of the union, which is upon the whole a well-written and judicious performance, charges the parliament with prejudice, reluctance, and obstinacy. The code, as it may be called, of international hostility, those numerous statutes treating the northern inhabitants of this island as foreigners and enemies, were entirely abrogated. And if the Commons, while both the theory of our own const.i.tution was so unsettled and its practice so full of abuse, did not precipitately give in to schemes that might create still further difficulty in all questions between the Crown and themselves, schemes, too, which there was no imperious motive for carrying into effect at that juncture, we may justly consider it as an additional proof of their wisdom and public spirit. Their slow progress however in this favourite measure, which, though they could not refuse to entertain it, they endeavoured to defeat by interposing delays and impediments, gave much offence to the king, which he expressed in a speech to the two houses, with the haughtiness, but not the dignity, of Elizabeth. He threatened them to live alternately in the two kingdoms, or to keep his court at York; and alluded, with peculiar acrimony, to certain speeches made in the house, wherein probably his own fame had not been spared.[509] "I looked," he says, "for no such fruits at your hands, such personal discourses and speeches, which of all other, I looked you should avoid, as not beseeming the gravity of your a.s.sembly. I am your king; I am placed to govern you, and shall answer for your errors; I am a man of flesh and blood, and have my pa.s.sions and affections as other men; I pray you, do not too far move me to do that which my power may tempt me unto."[510]

_Continual bickerings between the Crown and Commons._--It is most probable, as experience had shown, that such a demonstration of displeasure from Elizabeth would have ensured the repentant submission of the Commons. But within a few years of the most unbroken tranquillity, there had been one of those changes of popular feeling which a government is seldom observant enough to watch. Two springs had kept in play the machine of her administration, affection and fear; attachment arising from the sense of dangers endured, and glory achieved for her people, tempered, though not subdued, by the dread of her stern courage and vindictive rigour. For James not a particle of loyal affection lived in the hearts of the nation, while his easy and pusillanimous, though choleric disposition, had gradually diminished those sentiments of apprehension which royal frowns used to excite. The Commons, after some angry speeches, resolved to make known to the king through the speaker their desire, that he would listen to no private reports, but take his information of the house's meaning from themselves; that he would give leave to such persons as he had blamed for their speeches to clear themselves in his hearing; and that he would by some gracious message make known his intention that they should deliver their opinions with full liberty, and without fear. The speaker next day communicated a slight but civil answer he had received from the king, importing his wish to preserve their privileges, especially that of liberty of speech.[511] This, however, did not prevent his sending a message a few days afterwards, commenting on their debates, and on some clauses they had introduced into the bill for the abolition of all hostile laws.[512] And a pet.i.tion having been prepared by a committee under the house's direction for better execution of the laws against recusants, the speaker, on its being moved that the pet.i.tion be read, said that his majesty had taken notice of the pet.i.tion as a thing belonging to himself, concerning which it was needless to press him.