<146>Consciousness of strength is the necessary condition of toleration. Whatever tended to weaken the English Church would postpone 1603.Divisions in the English Church.the day when those who regarded her with devotion could bear with equanimity the attacks directed against her by the Catholics. It was only natural that the Catholics themselves, who aimed not at toleration but at supremacy, should see the position of affairs in a different light.
Blackwell, the Archpriest, was overjoyed at the news that the Puritans and their adversaries were struggling with one another for the favour of the new King. “War between the heretics,” he gleefully wrote, “is the peace of the Church.”[149] That strife in which Blackwell rejoiced, all who were not under the influence of Blackwell’s Church were anxious to end. Unfortunately those who wished the Church of England to be strengthened, differed as to the means by which so desirable an object was to be attained. There were some who thought that the Church would grow strong by the silencing of all who wished to deviate from its rules. There were others who believed that their relaxation would promote a nobler unity. Foremost amongst these latter stood Bacon, the great political thinker of the age. “I am partly persuaded,” he wrote, “that the Papists themselves should not need so much the severity of penal laws if the sword of the Spirit were better edged, by strengthening the authority and repressing the abuses <147>of the Church.”[150] Bacon found the root of the matter to consist in spiritual freedom under the guardianship of law. Place must be found in the ministry of the Church for all who were willing to fight the good fight, unless they shook off all bonds by which men were enabled to work together. ‘The silencing of ministers,’ he held, was, in the scarcity of good preachers, ‘a punishment that lighted upon the people as well as upon the party.’ “It is good,” he wrote, “we return unto the ancient bonds of unity in the Church of God, which was, one faith, one baptism; and not, one hierarchy, one discipline; and that we observe the league of Christians, as it is penned by our Saviour Christ, which is in substance of doctrine this: ‘He that is not with us is against us;’ but in things indifferent and but of circumstance this: ‘He that is not against us is with us.’”
If these words do not solve the difficulties of Church discipline for a time when there are differences of opinion on questions of faith as well as on questions of ceremonial, they were admirably suited to the circumstances of the moment. It was a time when it behoved every Protestant Church to close its ranks, not by the elimination of those who differed from some arbitrary standard of conformity, but by welcoming all who based their faith on the belief that truth was to be gained by search and inquiry.
In dedicating this treatise to James, Bacon laid his views before a man who was by no means incapable of appreciating them. Effect of Bacon’s advice upon James.James’s mind was large and tolerant, and he was averse to the language of sectarian fanaticism. In his behaviour during the early months of his reign there were evident signs that he had pondered Bacon’s advice.
James had very soon become aware that in the relations of Puritanism to the Church there was a problem to be solved as difficult as that of the toleration of the Catholics. Nevill sent to Edinburgh.As soon as Elizabeth’s death was known, Archbishop Whitgift despatched Nevill, the Dean of Canterbury, to Edinburgh, in order to make himself acquainted with the <148>sentiments of the new King. The messenger was soon able to report, joyfully, that James had at least no intention of establishing Presbyterianism in England.
On his progress towards London, James was called upon to listen to The Millenary Petition.an address of a very different nature. A petition,[151] strongly supported by the Puritan clergy, was presented to him, in which their wishes were set forth.
The petition was very different from those which had been drawn up early in Elizabeth’s reign, in which the abolition of Episcopacy and the compulsory introduction of Presbyterianism had been demanded. Proposed changes in the Prayer Book.It contented itself with asking for certain definite alterations in the existing system. In the Baptismal Service interrogations were no longer to be addressed to infants; nor was the sign of the cross to be used. The rite of Confirmation was to be discontinued. It had been the practice for nurses and other women to administer baptism to newly-born infants in danger of death. This custom was to be forbidden. The cap and surplice were not to be ‘urged.’ Persons presenting themselves for Communion were to undergo a previous examination, and the Communion was always to be preceded by a sermon. ‘The divers terms of priests and absolution, and some other used,’ were to be ‘corrected.’ The ring was no longer to enter into the marriage service, although it might be retained in private use, as a token given by the husband to his wife.[152] The length <149>of the services was to be abridged, and church music was to be plainer and simpler than it had hitherto been. The Lord’s day was not to be profaned, and, on the other hand, the people were not to be compelled to abstain from labour on holydays. Uniformity of doctrine was to be prescribed, in order that all popish opinions might be condemned. Ministers were not to teach the people to bow at the name of Jesus; and, finally, the Apocrypha was to be excluded from the calendar of the lessons to be read in church.
These demands could not, of course, be granted as they stood. If the clergy alone were to be consulted, a large number would be found among them who would view these matters with very different eyes. The great mass of the laity, especially in country parishes, would be equally averse to the change.[153] Any attempt to enforce the alterations demanded would have stirred up opposition from one end of the country to the other. The difficulties were enormous, even if the Bishops had been inclined to look them fairly in the face. Still, something might have been done if they had been animated by a conciliatory spirit. By a little fair dealing, the peace of the Church would have been preserved far better than by any rigid enactments. That a very different spirit prevailed can cause us no astonishment. To the Elizabethan party some of the proposed changes seemed to be absolutely injurious, whilst others were only necessary in order to meet scruples which appeared to them to be childish and absurd.
The remainder of the petition was occupied by requests, the greater part of which deserved the serious consideration of all parties. The petitioners hoped that none should hereafter be admitted to the ministry who were unable to preach; that such of these who were already admitted should be compelled <150>to maintain preachers; and that a check should be put on the abuse of non-residence. Proposed reforms in the discipline of the Church.It was asked that ministers should not be required to testify by their subscription to the whole of the substance of the Prayer Book, but that it should be sufficient if they subscribed to the Articles and to the King’s Supremacy. With respect to the maintenance of the clergy, the petitioners suggested that the impropriations annexed to bishoprics and colleges should hereafter be let only to those incumbents of livings who were able to preach, and who were at no future time to be called upon to pay any higher rent than that which was demanded at the time when the lease was first granted. Impropriations held by laymen might be charged with a sixth or seventh part of their worth for the maintenance of a preaching ministry. They also asked for reforms in the ecclesiastical courts, especially that excommunication should not be pronounced by lay Chancellors and officials, and that persons might not be ‘excommunicated for trifles and twelve-penny matters.’[154]
The spirit in which this petition was met was not such as to give any hope of an easy solution of the difficulty. Answer by the universities.The Universities were the first to sound the alarm. Cambridge passed a grace forbidding all persons within the University from publicly finding fault with the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England, either by word or writing, upon pain of being suspended from their degrees. Oxford came forward with a violent answer to the petition.[155] If the Universities could have won their cause by scolding, the Puritans would have been crushed for ever. They were accused by the Oxford doctors of factious conduct in daring to disturb the King with their complaints. They were told that they were men of the same kind as those who had so often stirred up treason and sedition in Scotland, and that as for their eagerness to preach, it would have been a happy thing if the Church of <151>England had never heard anything of their factious sermons or of their scurrilous pamphlets.
Their demands were treated with that cool insolence which scarcely deigns to argue with an opponent, and which never attempts to understand his case. It was taken for granted that no concessions could be made by the King unless he were prepared for the establishment of Presbyterianism, and it was argued that the hearts of the people would be stolen away from their Sovereign by preachers who would be sure to teach them that the King’s ‘meek and humble clergy have power to bind their King in chains, and their Prince in links of iron, that is (in their learning) to censure him, to enjoin him penance, to excommunicate him; yea (in case they see cause) to proceed against him as a tyrant.’
In the beginning of July, James astonished the Universities by recommending them to adopt one of the proposals of the petitioners. James proposes that the Universities shall support preaching ministers.He informed them that he intended to devote to the maintenance of preaching ministers such impropriate tithes as he was able to set aside for the purpose, and that he hoped that they would follow his example.[156] Whitgift immediately took alarm and drew up a statement for the King of the inconveniences which were likely to result.[157] Nothing more was heard of the matter. The Universities were left in peace, and the King never found himself in a condition to lay aside money for any purpose whatever.
Another step had already been taken, which shows that James had felt the weight of the latter part of the petition. On May 12 a circular was sent round by Whitgift to the Bishops, demanding an account of the number of preachers in their respective dioceses. This was followed on June 30 by another letter, requiring still more particular information.[158] They were to report on the number of communicants and of recusants in every parish, and were also to give a number of particulars <152>respecting the clergy sufficiently minute to serve as a basis for any course which might remedy the alleged evils.
There was much in all this to raise the hopes of the Puritan ministers. James appeared ready to remove abuses in spite of the opposition of Sept.Touching for the King’s evil.those who thought them to be no abuses at all. In the course of September a scene took place which showed him to be desirous of looking with his own eyes into matters on which the minds of ordinary Englishmen had long been made up. When he first arrived in England James had objected to touch for the king’s evil. He had strong doubts as to the existence of the power to cure scrofulous disease, which was supposed to be derived from the Confessor. The Scotch ministers whom he had brought with him to England urged him to abandon the practice as superstitious. To his English counsellors it was a debasing of royalty to abandon the practice of his predecessors. With no very good will he consented to do as Elizabeth had done, but he first made a public declaration of his fear lest he should incur the blame of superstition. Yet as it was an ancient usage, and for the benefit of his subjects, he would try what would be the result, but only by way of prayer, in which he requested all present to join.[159] In after years he showed less hesitancy, and Shakspere could flatter him by telling not only how Edward had cured the sick by his touch, but how he had left ‘the healing benediction’ to ‘the succeeding royalty.’[160]
During the course of the summer, the Puritans attempted to support their views by obtaining signatures to petitions circulated among the laity.[161] A proclamation was issued in consequence, commanding all persons to abstain from taking part in such demonstrations, and giving assurance that the King would not allow the existing ecclesiastical constitution to be tampered with, though at the same time he was ready to correct abuses. <153>In order to obtain further information on the points in dispute, he had determined that a conference should be held in his presence between certain learned men of both parties. No one, he said, could be more ready than he was to introduce amendments wherever the existence of real evils could be proved.[162]
After several postponements, the antagonists met at Hampton Court on January 14. On the one side 1604Jan. 14.The conference meets.were summoned the Archbishop of Canterbury, eight Bishops, seven Deans, and two other clergymen. The other party were represented by Reynolds, Chaderton, Sparks, and Knewstubs. These four men had been selected by the King, and he could not have made a better choice, or one which would have given more satisfaction to the moderate Puritans. To the The first day’s proceedings.The Puritans excluded.proceedings of the first day they were not admitted. The King wished first to argue with the Bishops, in order to induce them to accept a variety of changes, which were in the main such as Bacon would have approved.
On the second day the case of the complainants was heard. Reynolds commenced by urging the propriety of Jan. 16.On the second day the complainants are heard.altering some points in the Articles, and proposed to introduce into them that unlucky formulary which is known by the name of the Lambeth Articles, by which Whitgift had hoped to bind the Church of England to the narrowest and most repulsive form of Calvinistic doctrine, and thus to undo the work of Elizabeth, who had wisely stifled it in its birth. Reynolds then proceeded to demand that the grounds upon which the rite of Confirmation rested should be reviewed. This was more than Bancroft could bear. He was at this time Bishop of London, and was generally regarded as the man who was to succeed Whitgift as the champion of the existing system. He even went beyond the Archbishop, having publicly declared his belief that the Episcopal constitution of the Church was of Divine institution. In defending the cause entrusted to him, he overstepped all the bounds of decency. Interrupting the speaker, he knelt <154>down before the King and requested ‘that the ancient canon might be remembered,’ which directed that schismatics were not to be listened to when they were speaking against their Bishops. Bancroft’s interruption,If there were any there who had ever subscribed to the Communion Book, he hoped that a hearing would now be refused to them, as an ancient Council had once determined ‘that no man should be admitted to speak against that whereunto he had formerly subscribed.’ He then proceeded to hint that, in being allowed to speak at all, Reynolds and his companions had been permitted to break the statute by which penalties were imposed on all persons depraving the Book of Common Prayer. He concluded by quoting a passage from Cartwright’s works, to the effect that men ought rather to conform themselves ‘in orders and ceremonies to the fashion of the Turks, than to the Papists, which position he doubted they approved, because, contrary to the orders of the Universities, they appeared before his Majesty in Turkey gowns, not in their scholastic habits sorting to their degree.’
The insolent vulgarity of this specimen of episcopal wit was too much for James. Although he fully agreed with Bancroft in his dislike of Reynolds’s arguments, reproved by James.he could not but find fault with him for his unseasonable interruption. The two parties then proceeded to discuss the disputed points as far as they related to questions of doctrine. On the whole, James showed to great advantage in this part of the conference. He had paid considerable attention to matters of this kind, and the shrewd common sense which he generally had at command, when he had no personal question to deal with, raised him above the contending parties. On the one hand, he refused to bind the Church, at Reynolds’s request, to the Lambeth Articles; on the other, in spite of Bancroft’s objections, he accepted Reynolds’s proposal for an improved translation of the Bible.
The question of providing a learned ministry was then brought forward, and promises were given that attention should be paid to the subject. The Bishop of Winchester complained of the bad appointments made by lay patrons. Bancroft, who treated the whole subject as a mere party question, took the <155>opportunity of inveighing against the preachers of the Puritan school, who were, as he said, accustomed to show their disrespect of the Liturgy by walking up and down ‘in the churchyard till sermon time, rather than be present at public prayer.’ The King answered, that a preaching ministry was undoubtedly to be preferred; but that ‘where it might not be had, godly prayers and exhortations did much good.’ “That that may be done,” he ended by saying, “let it, and let the rest that cannot, be tolerated.”
The remaining points of the petition were then brought under discussion. Unless the Puritans have been much misrepresented,[163] their inferiority in breadth of view is conspicuous. If James had been merely presiding over a scholastic disputation, his success would have been complete. But, unfortunately, there were arguments which he could not hear from any who were before him. He was not called upon to decide whether it was proper that the ring should be used in marriage, and the cross in baptism. What he was called upon to decide was whether, without taking into consideration the value of the opinions held by either party, those opinions were of sufficient importance to make it necessary to close the mouths of earnest and pious preachers. Except by Bacon, this question was never fairly put before him. The Puritans wished that their views should be carried out in all parts of England,[164] and when they were driven from this ground they could only ask that respect should be paid to the consciences of the weak, a plea which did not come with <156>a good grace from men who had been anxious to bind the whole body of the English clergy in the fetters of the Lambeth Articles.[165]
The debate which had gone on with tolerable fairness since Bancroft’s interruption, received another turn, from a proposal made by Reynolds, that the Prophesyings should be restored. The restoration of these meetings had been deliberately recommended by Bacon, as the best means for training men for the delivery of sermons. It is doubtful whether James could have been brought to allow them under any circumstances, but Reynolds did not give his proposal a fair chance. He coupled it with a suggestion, that all disputed points which might arise during the Prophesyings should be referred to the Bishop with his Presbyters. At the word Presbyters His anger at the mention of the word ‘Presbyters.’James fired up. He told the Puritans that they were aiming ‘at a Scottish Presbytery, which,’ he said, ‘agreeth as well with a monarchy as God and the devil.’ “Then Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick, shall meet, and at their pleasure censure me and my Council and all our proceedings. Then Will shall stand up, and say, ‘It must be thus;’ then Dick shall reply, and say, ‘Nay, marry, but we will have it thus.’ And, therefore, here I must reiterate my former speech, le Roi s’avi sera. Stay, I pray you, for one seven years, before you demand that from me, and if then you find me pursy and fat, and my windpipes stuffed, I will perhaps hearken to you; for let that government be once up, I am sure I shall be kept in breath; then shall we all of us have work enough, both our hands full. But, Doctor Reynolds, until you find that I grow lazy, let that alone.”
From his own point of view James was right. Liberty brings with it many advantages, but it certainly does not tend to enable men in office to lead an easy life. Yet natural as it <157>must have seemed to him to give such an answer as this, in two minutes he had sealed his own fate and the fate of England for ever. The trial had come, and he had broken down. He had shut the door, not merely against the Puritan cry for the acceptance of their own system, but against the large tolerance of Bacon. The essential littleness of the man was at once revealed. More and more the maxim, “No Bishop, no King,” became the rule of his conduct. The doctrines and practices of the Bishops became connected in his mind with the preservation of his own power. He was gratified by their submissiveness, and he looked upon the views of the opposite party as necessarily associated with rebellion.
At the moment, the self-satisfaction of the controversialist predominated even over the feelings of the monarch. “If this be all they have to say,” he observed as he left the room, “I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse.”
The impression produced upon the bystanders was very different from that which later generations have received. One who was present said, that ‘His Majesty spoke by inspiration of the Spirit of God.’[166] Cecil thanked God for having given the King an understanding heart. Ellesmere declared that he never before understood the meaning of the legal maxim that Rex est mixta persona cum sacerdote. It is usual to ascribe these and similar expressions to the courtier-like facility of giving utterance to flattery. In so doing, we forget that these men were fully persuaded that James was doing right in resisting the demands of the Puritans, and that men are very ready to forget the intemperate form in which an opinion may be clothed, when the substance is according to their mind.
Two days later, the King again met the Bishops, and agreed with them upon certain alterations which were to be made in the Prayer Book. Third day’s conference.It was also determined that Commissions should be appointed for inquiring into the best mode of obtaining a preaching clergy. The <158>Puritans were then called in, and were informed that, with a few exceptions,[167] the practices which they had objected to The decision announced.would be maintained, and that subscription would be enforced to the whole of the Prayer Book, as well as to the Articles and to the King’s Supremacy. Chaderton begged that an exception might be made in favour of the Lancashire clergy, who had been diligent in converting recusants. The King replied that as he had no intention of hurrying anyone, time would be given to all to consider their position; letters should be written to the Bishop of Chester, ordering him to grant a sufficient time to these men. A similar request, however, which was made on behalf of the Suffolk clergy was refused.
The conference was at an end. Browbeaten by the Bishops, and rebuked in no measured or decorous language[168] by James, the defenders of an apparently hopeless cause went back to their labours, to struggle on as best they might. Yet to them the cause they defended was not hopeless, for no doubt ever crossed their minds that it was the cause of God, and it would have seemed blasphemy to them to doubt that that cause would ultimately prevail. Nor were they deprived of human consolation: many hearts would sympathise with them in their wrongs; many a man who cared nothing for minute points of doctrine and ritual, and who was quite satisfied with the service as he had been accustomed to join in it at his parish church, would feel his heart swell with indignation when he heard that men whose fame for learning and piety was unsurpassed by that of any Bishop on the bench, Jan. 18.had been treated with cool contempt by men who were prepared to use their wit to defend every abuse, and to hinder all reform.
James went his way, thinking little of what he had done, <159>and scarcely remembering what had passed, except to chuckle over the adversaries whom he had so easily discomfited by his logical prowess.[169] The Bishops too imagined that their victory was secured for ever, and rejoiced in the overthrow of their opponents. Whitgift feels doubtful of ultimate success.But there was at least one among them who felt that their success was more in appearance than in reality. The aged Whitgift, whose life had been passed in the heat of the conflict, discovered the quarter from which danger was to be apprehended. He hoped, he used to say, that he might not live to see the meeting of Parliament. He was at least spared that misfortune. A few weeks after the conference, his earthly career was at an end. While he was lying in his last illness, the King came to visit him. He found the old man lying almost insensible, but Feb. 29.His last words and death.able to mutter a few words. All that could be heard was ‘Pro ecclesiâ Dei: pro ecclesiâ Dei.’ Narrow-minded and ungentle by nature and education, he had provoked many enemies; but he at least believed that he was working for the Church of God.
Parliament, the very name of which had caused such anxiety to Whitgift, was a very different body from those representative assemblies March 19.The English Parliament.which still existed upon the Continent — the mere shadows of their former selves. Many causes concurred in producing this difference. But the main cause lay in the success with which England itself had grown up into a harmonious civilisation, so that its Parliament was the true representative of a united nation, and not a mere arena in which contending factions might display their strength.
<160>Where this process of amalgamation has not been completed, parliamentary government, in the true sense of the word, is an impossibility. When Louis XIV. astonished the world by declaring that he was himself the State, he was unawares giving utterance to the principle from which he derived his power. In the France of his day, it was the monarch alone who represented the State as a whole, and, as a natural consequence, he was able to trample at his pleasure upon the bodies in which nothing higher was to be seen than the representatives of a party or a faction. If a representative assembly is to succeed in establishing its supremacy over a whole country equal to that which is often found in the hands of an absolute monarch, it must first be able to claim a right to stand up on behalf of the entire nation. The position which was occupied by the House of Commons at the close of the reign of Elizabeth, was due to the complete harmony in which it stood with the feelings and even with the prejudices of all classes of the people.
The right of representing the people was practically confined to the higher classes, who alone could afford the expense of a residence in Westminster. But in scarcely a single instance did they owe their election, at least ostensibly, to their equals in rank. To secure a seat, it was necessary to obtain the favour of those whose interests were more or less different from their own. County members were dependent upon their poorer neighbours, who formed the mass of the forty-shilling freeholders. The borough members, with all the habits and feelings of gentlemen, were equally dependent upon the shopkeepers of the towns for which they sat. Originally, the right of voting in the boroughs had been vested in the resident householders; but this uniformity had given way before the gradual changes which had passed over the several boroughs. In some places, the franchise had been considerably extended; in others, it had been no less considerably narrowed. One member was chosen by almost universal suffrage; another, by a close corporation consisting of the most respectable and intelligent inhabitants. In the smaller boroughs, indeed, the selection of a representative was <161>practically in the hands of the most influential amongst the neighbouring proprietors; but even the form of an election prevented him from nominating persons who would be altogether distasteful to those whose votes he wished to secure. The effect of this was that, except in the case of agricultural labourers, who were, perhaps necessarily, altogether excluded from the suffrage, all class legislation was impossible.
Another change, which had been silently introduced, was of still greater importance. The old rule had been relaxed, which forbade any member to sit for a place in which he was not a resident. If this rule had continued in force, the House would still have represented the popular will, but it would have been sadly deficient in intelligence and ability. Some evil, no doubt, resulted, and persons obtained seats who only owed them to the good-will of a neighbouring proprietor; but this was as nothing in comparison with the advantage which arose from the introduction into the House of a large body of men of ability, recruited especially from amongst the lawyers, who became known to the electors by the talent which they displayed at the bar. The services which this class of men rendered to the cause of freedom were incalculable. The learning of the ablest lawyers in the sixteenth century may have been small in comparison with the stores of knowledge which may be acquired in our own day; but, relatively to the general level of education, it stood far higher. A few years later a race of Parliamentary statesmen would begin to arise from amongst the country gentlemen; but, as yet, almost all pretensions to statesmanship were confined to the council table and its supporters. For the present, the burden of the conflict in the Commons lay upon the lawyers, who at once gave to the struggle against the Crown that strong legal character which it never afterwards lost.
It was to its position as the representative of a united nation that, above all other causes, the House of Commons owed Causes of the national love of liberty.its growing desire to take a prominent part in the guidance of the nation. In struggling against the Catholics, indeed, the Government of Elizabeth had been armed by Parliament and by public opinion with <162>extraordinary powers; but those powers had been required to resist the foreign enemy far more than the English Catholics themselves, who had suffered most from their exercise. Accordingly, a much smaller amount of repression had been needed than would have been required if the nation had been divided against itself. Yet even this repression had left results behind it which were likely to give much trouble. Institutions have a tendency to survive the purposes to which they owe their existence, and it was only natural that James should claim all the powers which had once been entrusted to Elizabeth. On the other hand, it was unlikely that he would be allowed to retain them without a struggle. There was no imminent danger, which made men fear to weaken the Government even when they disapproved of its action.
Between the Crown and the House of Commons the House of Lords could only play a subordinate part. The House of Lords.It had no longer sufficient power to act independently of both. For the present it was, by sympathy and interest, attached to the Government, and it acted for some time more in the spirit of an enlarged Privy Council than as a separate branch of the legislature. It is in its comparative weakness that its real strength consists. If it had been able to oppose a barrier to the Crown, or to the Commons, it would have been swept away long ago. It has retained its position through so many revolutions because it has, from time to time, yielded to the expressed determination of the representatives of the people; whilst it has done good service more by the necessity which it imposes upon the House of Commons of framing their measures so as to consult the feelings of others besides themselves, than by the labours in which it has been itself employed.
On January 11, 1604, a proclamation was issued calling upon the constituencies to send up members to a Parliament. Proclamation for summoning Parliament.In this proclamation, James gave his subjects much good advice, which would now be considered superfluous. He recommended them to choose men fitted for the business of legislation, rather than such as looked to a seat merely as a means of advancing their private interests. In <163>respect to religion, the members should be neither ‘noted for superstitious blindness one way,’ nor ‘for their turbulent humours’ on the other. No bankrupts or outlaws were to be chosen; and all elections were to be freely and openly made. Thus far no great harm was done. But the remainder of the proclamation, which owed its origin to the advice of the Chancellor, was sure to rouse the most violent opposition. The King ordered that all returns should be made into Chancery, where, if any ‘should be found to be made contrary to the proclamation,’ they were ‘to be rejected as unlawful and insufficient.’[170]
On March 19 the Parliament met. Men felt that a crisis was at hand. Never had so many members Parliament meets.attended in their places.[171] They came not without hopes that they would not return home until they had been allowed to sweep away at least some of the grievances of which they complained.
Since the last Parliament had met, one change had taken place which distinctly marked the altered relations which were to subsist between the Crown and the House of Commons. Elizabeth had always taken care that at least one of her principal statesmen should occupy a place amongst the representatives of the people. During the latter years of her reign this duty had devolved upon Cecil. The Secretary was now removed to the House of Lords, and he left none but second-rate officials behind him. With the exception of Sir John Herbert, the second, or, as we should say, the Under-Secretary, a man of very ordinary abilities, not a single Privy Councillor had a seat in the House. Sir Julius Caesar, Sir Thomas Fleming, Sir Henry Montague, and a few others who either held minor offices under Government, or hoped some day to be promoted to them, were all respectable men, but <164>there was not one of them who was capable of influencing the House of Commons.
There was, however, one man in the House who might have filled Cecil’s vacant place. At the commencement of this session, Sir Francis Bacon.Sir Francis Bacon stood high in the estimation of his contemporaries. Two boroughs had elected him as their representative. His fellow-members showed their appreciation of his abilities by entrusting him with the greatest share in their most weighty business. Scarcely a committee was named on any matter of importance on which his name did not occur, and he generally appeared as the reporter, or, as we should say, the chairman, of the committee. If a conference was to be held with the House of Lords, he was almost invariably put forward to take a leading part in the argument. Nor is this to be wondered at; not only were his transcendent abilities universally recognised, but at this time all his opinions were in unison with those of the House itself. Toleration in the Church and reform in the State were the noble objects which he set before him. If James had been capable of appreciating Bacon’s genius, the name of the prophet of natural science might have come down to us as great in politics as it is in philosophy. The defects in his character would hardly have been known, or, if they had been known, they would have been lost in the greatness of his achievements. For the moment, as far as his parliamentary career was concerned, he was borne onwards on the full tide of success. His errors and his fall were yet to come. It is true that his conduct at the trial of Essex had shown that he was not possessed of those finer feelings which might have saved him from many of his greatest mistakes; but, excepting to the friends of Essex himself, that conduct does not seem to have given offence. Excess of submission to Elizabeth was a fault to which Englishmen were disposed to be lenient, and the limits within which public duty ought to overrule private friendship were drawn at a very different line from that which they at present occupy. Yet with all this, he was a dissatisfied man. He had now reached the mature age of forty-four, and he had long been anxious to be in a position from which he might carry out the great policy which he knew to be necessary for <165>the well-being of the nation. The new King had looked coldly upon him. It is sometimes said that his share in the condemnation of Essex had told against him. But that James continued to feel respect for the memory of Essex is, to say the least of it, very problematical. However this may have been, there were other obstacles in his path. Bacon always believed that Cecil was envious of his talents. It is not improbable that the practical statesman regarded his cousin as a visionary; and Cecil had the ear of the King. Bacon retained, indeed, the title of King’s Counsel, and he drew the salary, such as it was; but he was not admitted to any participation in the affairs of government.
Next to Bacon, no man enjoyed the confidence of the House more than Sir Edwin Sandys. Without any pretensions to Bacon’s genius, Sir Edwin Sandys.he possessed a large fund of common sense. The friend and pupil of Hooker, he was no Puritan; but, like so many others amongst his contemporaries, he had learned to raise his voice for the toleration of those with whom he did not wholly agree.
Of the other members, there are few who deserve especial mention. Fuller, Hakewill, Wentworth, and the Hydes.Nicholas Fuller was there, full of Puritan zeal — a hasty and, in some respects, an unwise man. Hakewill too, who in a former Parliament, when the list of monopolies was read, had called out to know if bread were among them; Thomas Wentworth, whose father had suffered for his resistance to arbitrary power in the late reign; the two Hydes, and a few others, made up a little knot of men who would not allow their voices to rest as long as the grievances of the nation were unredressed.
Through some mistake, the Commons were not present when the King came down to the House of Lords to open the session. James, desirous that they should hear his views from his own lips, repeated to them the speech which he had already delivered in the Upper House. He told them that he was unable to thank them sufficiently for the ready welcome which he had met with on his journey into England. He had brought with him two gifts, which he trusted that they would accept in place of many words: one was peace <166>with foreign nations — the other was union with Scotland. To the Puritans he declared himself decidedly opposed, not because they differed from him in their opinions, but because of ‘their confused form of policy and parity; being ever discontented with the present Government, and impatient to suffer any superiority, which maketh their sect unable to be suffered in any well-governed commonwealth.’ As to the Papists, he had no desire to persecute them, especially those of the laity who would be quiet. Since his arrival, he had been anxious to lighten the burdens of those amongst them who would live peaceably, and he had been looking over the laws against them in hopes that ‘some overture’ might be ‘proposed to the present Parliament for clearing those laws by reason … in case they have been in time past further or more rigorously extended by the judges than the meaning of the law was, or might lead to the hurt as well of the innocent as of the guilty persons.’ With respect to the clergy, as long as they maintained the doctrine that the Pope possessed ‘an imperial civil power over all Kings and Emperors,’ and as long as they held that excommunicated sovereigns might be lawfully assassinated, they should not be suffered to remain in the kingdom. Although the laity would be free from persecution they would not be allowed to win over converts to their religion, lest their numbers should increase so as to be dangerous to the liberties of the nation and the independence of the Crown. As to the laws which were to be made in Parliament, he said, “I will thus far faithfully promise unto you that I will ever prefer the weal of the body of the whole Commonwealth, in making of good laws and constitutions, to any particular or private ends of mine, thinking ever the wealth and weal of the Commonwealth to be my greatest weal and worldly felicity — a point wherein a lawful King doth directly differ from a tyrant. … I do acknowledge … that whereas the proud and ambitious tyrant doth think his kingdom and people are only ordained for the satisfaction of his desires and unreasonable appetites, the righteous and just King doth by contrary acknowledge himself to be ordained for the procuring of the wealth and prosperity of his people.” It remained to be seen how far James’s wisdom could embrace all the wants of his <167>people, and how far his temper could stand under the annoyances to which he would be subjected as soon as they ventured to oppose him.
Some time was to elapse before the Commons were able to devote their attention to those important questions relating to the Catholics and the Puritans on which James had expressed a decided opinion.
Upon their return to their own House two cases of privilege came before their notice. One of these brought up the old question of Sherley’s case of privilege.the freedom of members from arrest, though in the present case it was complicated by a further question as whether such a privilege extended to them before the day of the meeting of Parliament. Sir Thomas Sherley, the member for Steyning, had been, March 15.after his election, lodged in the Fleet, at the suit of a City tradesman. The House claimed his presence as a member, and May 15.he took his seat on May 15. This success, however, was not obtained without much difficulty. It was not until the Warden of the Fleet had been committed not only to the Tower, but to the dungeon known by the expressive name of Little Ease, and the intervention of the King himself had been obtained, that he consented to liberate the prisoner. It is gratifying to know that the filthy condition in which the dungeon was found was excused to the House on the ground that it had not been used for many years.[172]
The other case was of much greater importance, as it at once brought the House, in spite of itself, into collision with the Crown. Goodwin’s case.Sir Francis Goodwin had been elected for Buckinghamshire, where he owed his seat to the votes of the smaller freeholders, his opponent, Sir John Fortescue, a Privy Councillor, having been supported by the gentry of the country. In accordance with the King’s proclamation, the Court of Chancery had declared the election void, on the ground that Goodwin was an outlaw; and upon a second election, Fortescue had been chosen to the place which was thus supposed to be vacant. On the day after the matter had been moved <168>in the House, Goodwin was summoned to the bar, and, as soon as his case had been heard, he was ordered to take his seat.
A few days afterwards the Lords sent a message to the Commons, asking for information on the subject. At first March 27.the Commons refused to grant their request, as being unconstitutional; but, upon a second message, informing them that the demand had been made at the King’s desire, they agreed to a conference in order to justify themselves. In this conference they stated that, from the omission of certain technicalities in the proceedings taken against him, Goodwin was not an outlaw in the eye of the law; and that, even if he were, they could produce instances in which outlaws had taken their seats in the House. The King, in replying to them, took the whole affair out of the region of forms and precedents, and March 28.James attacks the privileges of the Commons.raised a question of constitutional law, which was a matter of life or death to the Commons. “He had no purpose,” he told them, “to impeach their privilege, but since they derived all matters of privilege from him, and by his grant, he expected that they should not be turned against him. … By the law, the House ought not to meddle with returns, being all made into Chancery, and are to be corrected or reformed by that court only into which they were returned.” He then proceeded to argue against their assertion that an outlaw could take his seat, and advised them to debate the question and to confer with the judges.
As soon as these expressions were reported to the House, the members knew that it was impossible for them to give way. March 29.Whatever might be the advantages of bringing questions of disputed elections before a regular and impartial tribunal (if such a one could be found), they knew that to yield the point to the King was equivalent to abdicating their independent position for ever. Without any settled design, James had simply proposed to make it possible for himself, or for a future sovereign, to convert the House of Commons into a board of nominees.
It is impossible to refrain from admiring the prudence of the House in this difficulty. Mainly under Bacon’s guidance they <169>threw aside all unimportant parts of the question, and The Commons resist.restricted their opposition to the main point. They appointed a committee to draw up a reply to the King, and, at the same time, brought in a Bill to disable outlaws from sitting in Parliament for the future.
On April 3 the Committee, with Bacon at its head, carried up the answer of the Commons to the Upper House, and April 3.requested that it might be laid before the King. They showed that they had always decided in cases of disputed election, and they denied that they had come precipitately to a conclusion in the present instance. They refused to confer with the judges.
Two days after this the King informed them that he had as great a desire to maintain their privileges as ever any prince had, or as they had themselves. April 5.He had seen and considered of the manner and the matter, he had heard his judges and council, and he was now distracted in judgment; therefore, for his further satisfaction, he desired and commanded, as an absolute king, that there might be a conference between the House and the judges, in the presence of his council, who would make a report to him.
The Commons again gave way on the point of etiquette. There were signs that it was only thus that they could secure unanimity. Some of the members were frightened at James’s tone. “The Prince’s command,” said Yelverton, “is like a thunderbolt; his command upon our allegiance is like the roaring of a lion.”
This discussion with the judges, however, never took place. James acknowledged to the committee which had drawn up the reply of the House, A compromise.that it was the proper judge of the returns. But he asked the Commons, as a personal favour, to set aside both the parties, and to issue a writ for a new election. It is no disparagement to them that they gave way once more. They could not suffer a great cause to be wrecked upon a question of etiquette. It was well known that Goodwin was not anxious to retain his seat. He had even attempted, at the election, to induce the electors to transfer their votes to Fortescue. To satisfy those members <170>who were reasonably jealous of compromising the dignity of the House, a letter was obtained from Goodwin, declaring his readiness to submit to the arrangement.[173]
That the substantial advantage remained with the Commons is evident from the fact that they proceeded, without opposition, to investigate two other cases of disputed election. Both the King and the House had come with credit out of the controversy. Unhappily it did not follow that a similar spirit of compromise would be shown when questions arose which involved a difference of principle.
Meanwhile, neither House had been idle. The Commons, especially, were bent on doing work. Questions of reform, Grievances which required redress.which had been left untouched during the life of Elizabeth, were now ripe for solution. All had felt the indelicacy of pressing her for changes which she would have considered to be injurious to her rights. She had served England well enough to be humoured in her old age. But that obstacle having been removed, the representatives of the people approached these questions in no disloyal or revolutionary spirit. They did not force their demands upon James because he was weaker than his predecessor. If he had been the wisest and ablest of rulers, they would still have asked him to make the redress of grievances the first act of his reign.
One of the first steps taken by the Government was to introduce a Bill recognising James’s title to the throne, in order, by March 29.Recognition of James’s title.acknowledging the principle of hereditary right, to give a final blow to any claims which might be put forward by the representatives of the Suffolk line. As a proof of loyalty, the Bill was hurried through both Houses with all possible expedition. It was read for the first time in the House of Lords on March 26, and on the 29th it had reached a third reading in the Commons.
On the same day as that on which this Bill was brought in, Cecil moved for a conference with the Lower House on the subject of the abuses of Purveyance. During the discussion <171>in the House of Lords on this motion, a message was brought up from the Commons asking for a conference, in order that March 26.Purveyance and Wardship.a petition might be drawn up upon the subject of Wardship. The feudal system was dead, and its relics were cumbering the ground. The abuses of Purveyance had come down from the days of the first Norman sovereigns. When each little district was self-supporting, the arrival of the King’s court must have seemed like the invasion of a hostile army. Even if the provisions consumed had been paid for, the inhabitants would have had much difficulty in replacing their loss. But it frequently happened that they were taken without any payment at all. The time came, at last, when other powers made themselves heard than that of the sword; and when the representatives of the towns joined the knights and barons in Parliament, this was one of the first grievances of which they complained. Session after session new remedies were assented to by the King, and statutes were passed with a frequency which gives too much reason to suspect that they were broken as soon as made. At first the Commons contented themselves with asking that purveyors should be prohibited from appropriating to their own use money which they had received from the Exchequer for the acquittal of debts contracted in the performance of their duty.[174] Twenty-two years later they had risen in their demands, and obtained an assurance that nothing should be taken without the assent of the owner.[175] In the reign of Edward III. various statutes were made upon the subject. At one time the King promised that nothing should be taken without the owner’s assent.[176] At other times he agreed that the purchases were to be appraised by the constable and four discreet men of the neighbourhood.[177] Purveyors who gave less than the price fixed were to be arrested by the town, to be put in gaol, and, upon conviction, to be dealt with as common <172>thieves. In the reign of Henry VI. it was even declared that all persons had a right of openly resisting the offenders.
In spite of these, and many other similar statutes, the grievances complained of still continued unabated. The Commons Bill brought in against the abuses of purveyors.drew up a Bill declaring the illegality of these abuses, but, at the same time, that there might be no complaint against their proceedings, they prepared April 27.Petition to the King.a petition in which they proposed to lay their case before the King. They assured him that they had no wish to infringe upon his rights, but the grievances of which they complained had been declared to be illegal by no less than thirty-six statutes. They alleged that the cart-takers, whose business it was to find carriage for the King’s baggage whenever he moved, were guilty of the grossest abuses in order to put money into their own pockets. They would often order the owners of eight or nine hundred carts to send them in, when two hundred would be sufficient. By this means they hoped that bribes would be offered them by the owners, who would all be anxious to obtain their discharge. Those who were unable or unwilling to pay were often detained for a week before they were allowed to go. Twopence a mile was allowed to those actually employed, which was calculated upon the distance which they had travelled to the place of loading, whilst nothing at all was given for their actual service, or for the return journey. After some hundreds of persons had bribed the officers for exemption, the remainder of the inhabitants of the county were required to make up the full number of carts. What was worse still, the cart-takers were frequently in the habit of selecting tired horses, in the expectation that the owners would be ready to pay money to let them go.
The purveyors themselves were quite as bad. Instead of paying for goods according to the appraisement, they were accustomed to call in strangers of their own choice to make a second valuation, and often forced upon the owners a mere fraction of the sum really due. They frequently refused to pay in ready money, and they committed to prison the constables who assisted those who stood out against their illegal proceedings. In the teeth of the prohibition of the law, they <173>would cut down the trees round a country gentleman’s mansion. Even justices of the peace had been imprisoned for hearing cases against purveyors, although the law expressly required them to take cognisance of such matters.[178]
James answered that he was desirous to remove all causes of complaint; but that he believed arrangements had been made by which such cases could not possibly recur. The King’s answer.He wished, however, that the Commons would confer with the Council on the matter. Some of the officers of the household, who were standing by, declared that all complaints were invariably listened to, and that justice was always done.
A few days after this interview, another attempt was made to obtain the co-operation of the Lords. It is characteristic of the different spirit which prevailed in the two Houses, that May 8.Opinion of the Lords.the Lords proposed a Sunday as the best day for the conference.[179] The Commons requested them to fix upon some other day, as they were determined not to do any business on the Sabbath. With respect to the proposed measure, the Lords showed no mercy to the purveyors, whom they spoke of as harpies. But on a most important point there was a wide difference of opinion. The Commons held that, as the abuses of which they complained were illegal, the King was not in a position to ask for compensation for abandoning them. The Lords knew that the King’s expenses far surpassed his receipts. They questioned whether the King could afford to remit anything to his subjects at present, and they proposed an annual grant of 50,000l. in lieu of purveyance. In defence of this suggestion they took up the unlucky ground that, as there were many penal laws which the King did not press, he had a right to look to his people for some indulgence in return. In other words, the King and the nation were to regard one another as parties to a bargain; the loss of the one was to be the gain of the other. This error was destined to be the leading idea of the Kings of England through more than eighty <174>weary years. They never could comprehend that, if the interests of the Sovereign were really distinct from the interests of the nation, one of the two must give way, and that such a strife could only end in their own ruin.[180]
Upon this the Commons summoned the officers of the Board of Green Cloth, who presided over the whole system, to give evidence. The answers given by these men are curious, as showing the lengths to which official persons will sometimes go. They raked up obsolete statutes to justify the grossest abuses. They asserted their right to exercise the most tyrannical power; and, whenever any charge was made against them for which even they found it impossible to invent an excuse, they boldly denied the facts. The opposition which the Commons met with in the matter of their efforts to deal with purveyance, was only equalled by the opposition which they met with in the Court of Wards.
In dealing with the question of purveyance, the House had, at least at first, been contented with lopping off the abuses; but March.Objections to the Court of Wards.with Wardship the case was different. The whole system was one huge abuse. But, whatever it was, it was strictly legal. It was a system by which every King of England had profited since the days of the Conqueror. There was therefore no mention of proceeding by Bill, but the Lords were asked to join in petitioning the King for leave to treat with him on the subject. The King’s prerogative was unquestioned; but it was hoped that he would yield his rights in consideration of the grant of a large and certain yearly revenue. The system itself might have had some show of reason to support it in the days when feudality was still in vigour. Sovereignty brings with it, even in our own times, obligations which in some cases interfere with personal and domestic liberty; and, in the Middle Ages, every man who had a place in the feudal hierarchy was in some respects a sovereign. The ownership of land carried with it the title to command a greater or less number of men: it was, therefore, only natural that when the owner was a minor, and, in consequence, was <175>unable to take his place at the head of his vassals, the lord should take the land into his own hands, and should receive the profits, as long as there was no one to perform the duties attached to the tenure. For similar reasons, it was not repugnant to the feelings of the age, that where the heir was a female, the lord should take an interest in the disposal of her hand, and should claim a right to select the husband who was in future to have at his command the vassals of the heiress in question.[181] If the colonelcies of regiments were heritable property, similar regulations might be found necessary even in the nineteenth century.
This right not being confined to the Sovereign, but being shared in by all who had vassals depending upon them, the lords were by no means eager, as long as the feudal system really lasted, to exclaim against it. The evils against which the Great Charter provided were abuses with which the system itself had become encrusted. Gradually, however, the old theory sunk into oblivion, and the King’s claims upon wards dwindled into a mere machinery for bringing in money in a most oppressive manner. Men were dissatisfied with the thought that it was possible that, at their death, their lands might undergo a temporary confiscation, and with the knowledge that their daughters might have to bribe some courtier in order to escape from an obnoxious marriage. When the feudal militia ceased to be the army of the nation, every reason for the maintenance of the Court of Wards came to an end. The legal right remained, but the duties with which it was, in theory, connected, had long ago ceased to be performed.
This being the state of opinion on the subject, the Lords readily concurred with the Commons March 26.The Lords concur in a petition on the subject of wardship.in desiring relief.[182] It was not till May 26 that the Commons brought forward a definite proposal. They offered to raise a revenue which would be larger than any that <176>the King had ever obtained from the Court of Wards, and to grant pensions to the officers of the Court for the remainder of their lives. They were not precipitate in their measures. All that they asked for was a general approbation on the King’s part. If they obtained this, May 26.Proposal of the Commons.they would appoint commissioners who should during the recess inquire into the proportion of the burden borne by different counties and individuals, in order that, in the course of the next session, arrangements might be made for offering a sufficient composition to the King and also to those subjects who possessed a similar right over their tenants.
At a conference between the Houses held on May 26,[183] the Lords, under the influence of the Court, threw cold water on even this moderate scheme. The Lords throw cold water on it.They expressed doubts whether it would be possible to raise a sufficient revenue, and blamed the Commons for wasting time over questions of privilege and purveyance, though this latter point had been first moved in their own house. They recommended that the question of Wardships should be dropped till the next session. May 30.The King scolds the Commons.Four days later the King summoned the Commons into his presence and censured their proceedings bitterly.
James, in fact, was thoroughly dissatisfied at their slow progress in a matter on which he had set his heart. At the time April 13.The proposed union with Scotland.when he gave way to them on the subject of the Buckinghamshire election, he pressed them to take in hand his favourite measure for a union with Scotland. He wished, as he told them, to leave at his death ‘one worship of God, one kingdom entirely governed, one uniformity of law.’[184] He saw the advantages which would accrue to both countries from a complete union, and longed to anticipate the fruits which would eventually spring from the carrying out of his project.[185] His constitutional <177>impatience made him anxious that the work should be accomplished by his own hands. His ignorance of human nature brought him speedily into collision with his subjects on this point. It had not been for want of warning: Cecil, as usual, had given him good advice. He told him that the two nations were not ripe for a union as long as they continued to look upon one another with hostile eyes. In process of time, such a measure would be heartily welcomed. All that could now be done was to appoint commissioners on either side, who might discuss the whole question, and determine how far it was practicable to remove the barriers by which the two nations were separated.[186] It was all in vain; James was in such haste to see a marriage between the kingdoms, that he would not allow time for the preliminary courtship.
The disposition of the House of Commons was at once tested by the proposal that they should immediately agree to James’s assumption of April 14.Proposed title of King of Great Britain.the title of King of Great Britain. They felt that in this, which was apparently a mere verbal question, the most important consequences were involved. Bacon expressed the whole difficulty in a few words, when he asked, “By what laws shall this Britain be governed?” In those days of undefined prerogative, it was impossible to say what claims might not be raised: James might attempt to amalgamate the legislatures by proclamation, or he might fill the public offices of State with his countrymen, without leaving any legal ground of resistance.[187] Objected to by the Commons.The Commons therefore thought that there should be some agreement as to the terms of the union before <178>it was ratified by the assumption of a title. The King gave way courteously at first, but he soon grew vexed and angry. Cecil must have felt his triumph when the project of a change of name was abandoned, and the King consented to the appointment of such a commission as his prudent Secretary had recommended. A Bill was brought in, naming twenty-eight commissioners, who were taken equally from the two Houses, to confer with a similar body appointed by the Scots; and it was understood that Parliament was to meet again in the following year, in order to receive their report.
It was hardly possible that James should retain his good humour. In this matter of the Union, the Commons must have April 29.The Commons dissatisfied with the Hampton Court settlement.appeared to him as narrow-minded pedants, eager to raise paltry objections to a magnificent act of statesmanship which they were unable to comprehend. His ill-humour was aggravated by the course taken by the Commons with regard to ecclesiastical affairs. He had decided against the Puritans, and it was commonly said that three parts of the House were Puritans.[188] If so, they were Puritans of a very different stamp from those who, after nearly forty years of arbitrary government, filled many of the benches of the Long Parliament. They committed to the Tower a man who presented a petition in which the Bishops were described as antichrists. They would have been ready to assent to any guarantees which the King might think necessary for maintaining his supremacy in the Church, as well as in the State; but they took a truer view of ecclesiastical questions than James or his bishops were able to take, and they saw that unless concessions were made, all vitality would quickly depart from the Church. If differences were not allowed to exist within, they would break out elsewhere. Little as they thought what the consequences of their acts would be, Elizabeth and Whitgift, James and Bancroft, by making a schism inevitable, were the true fathers of Protestant dissent.
Perhaps such a schism was sooner or later unavoidable, but, if the Commons had been allowed to carry out their views, it <179>might have been long delayed. The moral earnestness of Puritanism would not have been embittered by a long struggle for existence. It would have escaped the worst trial which religion knows — the trial of political success. Men like Baxter, and men like Jeremy Taylor, would have laboured together as brethren in one common faith; truth and godliness would have worked their way insensibly, quietly influencing the whole social fabric in their course. But these are visions; the sad reality presents us with a very different picture.
On April 16, Sir Francis Hastings moved for a committee, to consider ‘April 16.Proceedings of the Commons in ecclesiastical matters.of the confirmation and re-establishing of the religion now established within this kingdom; as also of the settling, increasing, and maintaining a learned ministry, and of whatsoever else may incidentally bring furtherance thereunto.’
The King immediately sent to request that the House, before entering upon such matters,They refuse to confer with Convocation. would confer with Convocation. The Commons, always jealous of that body, sent a distinct refusal, though they expressed their readiness to treat with the Bishops as Lords of Parliament.
They accordingly empowered the committee to propose to the Lords that, in accordance with the Act of 13 Elizabeth, May 5.Proposals sent to the Lords.ministers should be required to subscribe to those articles only which related to doctrine and the sacraments, and that all persons hereafter admitted to the ministry should be at least Bachelors of Arts, and should have the testimony of the University to their moral conduct and ability to preach. If, however, anyone was desirous of ordination who had not studied at either of the Universities, a similar testimonial from six preachers of his own county was to be sufficient. They asked that no more dispensations might be granted for pluralities and non-residence, and hoped that some augmentation might be afforded to small livings of less than the annual value of 20l. Lastly, they begged the Lords to join them in putting a stop to the deprivation of men who objected only to the use of the surplice and of the cross in baptism, ‘which,’ as they said, almost in the very words of Bacon, if, <180>indeed, he were not himself the framer of these proposals, ‘turneth to the punishment of the people.’[189]
Finding the Lords but lukewarm in the cause, they brought in two Bills in their own House — Bills brought in, and lost in the House of Lords.one directed against pluralists, of which we have no particulars, and the other providing for a learned and godly ministry, embodying the opinions which they had expressed in their conference with the other House,[190] but adding a clause which must have been a terror to all unfit expectants of benefices. It was to be enacted that, if any person were afterwards inducted without the testimonials required, the parishioners might lawfully withhold from him the payment of tithes. It is needless to say that both Bills fell through in the Lords.
The condition of business in the House of Commons was therefore by no means satisfactory, when on May 30 May 30.Position of business in the Commons.the King addressed them in terms of disparagement on the subject. Sore as they were at the language in which he spoke, they resolved to show him by their actions that they were not to blame. June 1.Wardships abandoned.On June 1 they determined to abandon the subject of wardships till the following session, and on June 2 they came to a similar resolution on the subject of purveyance. At the same time June 2.The Bill for naming Commissioners for the Union passed.the Bill naming commissioners to treat of the Union was hurried through the House, and sent up to the Lords. James was gratified with the result of his expressions of displeasure, and June 5.James thanks the Commons.sent a message to the Commons, thanking them for what they had done.[191]
The Commons, on their part, naturally desired to justify themselves. June 20.The Apology of the Commons.During the next fortnight they were busily employed in drawing up an Apology for their proceedings, and on June 20 it was completed and read in the House.
The Commons, in whose name it was drawn up, began by explaining that they were under a necessity of justifying their <181>conduct. They acknowledged that the King was Its preamble.a prince eminent for wisdom and understanding, yet as it was impossible for any man, however wise, to understand at a glance the customs of a whole people, he had necessarily been dependent upon others for information. They were sorry to find that he had been grievously misinformed, both with respect to the condition of the people and the privileges of Parliament. They thought it better, therefore, to speak out, and not to leave these misunderstandings as seeds for future troubles.
They had, first, to defend themselves against an insinuation which had been made by one of the Lords, that they had welcomed the King They received the King with expectations of reform.rather from fear of the consequences which would have ensued upon rejecting him, than from any love which they bore to his person. They protested their loyalty to him, and assured him than they had looked forward to his reign with hopefulness, as expecting that under him religion, peace, and justice would flourish, and that ‘some moderate ease’ would be afforded ‘of those burdens and sore oppressions under which the whole land did groan.’ Remembering ‘what great alienation of men’s hearts the defeating of good hopes doth usually breed,’ they could not do better than set forth the grievances which were universally felt.
The misinformation delivered to the King consisted of three points — Three points on which the King had been misinformed.first, that they held ‘not’ their ‘privileges as of right’; secondly, that they ‘were no court of record, nor yet a court that can command view of records;’ and lastly, that the examination of the returns of writs for knights and burgesses is without ‘their compass, and due to the Chancery.’
“From these misinformed positions, Most Gracious Sovereign,” they proceeded to say, “the greatest part of our troubles, distrust, and jealousy have arisen, having apparently[192] found that in this first Parliament of the happy reign of your Majesty, the privileges of our House, and therein the liberties and stability of the whole Kingdom, hath been more universally and <182>dangerously impugned than ever, as we suppose, since the beginning of Parliaments. For although it may be true that, in the latter times of Queen Elizabeth, some one privilege, now and then, were by some particular act attempted against, yet was not the same ever by so public speech, nor by positions in general, denounced against our privileges. Besides that in regard of her sex and age, which we had great cause to tender, and much more upon care to avoid all trouble which by wicked practice might have been drawn to impeach the quiet of your Majesty’s right in the succession, those actions were then passed over which we hoped, in succeeding times of freer access to your Highness’ so renowned grace and justice, to redress, restore, and rectify; whereas, contrarywise, in this Parliament which your Majesty in great grace, as we nothing doubt, intended to be a precedent for all Parliaments that should succeed, clean contrary to your Majesty’s so gracious desire, by reason of those misinformations, not only privileges, but the whole freedom of the Parliament and realm, hath from time to time, on all occasions, been mainly hewed at.”
They then came to particulars. Doubts had been thrown upon the liberty of election. ‘The freedom’ of their ‘speech’ Particular complaints.had been ‘prejudiced by often reproof,’ the Bishop of Bristol had written a book in which they had been reviled.[193] Some of the clergy had been preaching against them, and had even published their protestations against the undoubted right of the House to deal with ecclesiastical affairs. ‘What cause’ they had ‘to watch over their privileges,’ was ‘manifest in itself to all men. The prerogatives of princes’ were daily growing; ‘the privileges of subjects’ were ‘for the most part at an everlasting stand.’ They might ‘be by good providence and care preserved, but, being once lost,’ they were not to be ‘recovered but with much disquiet. If good kings were immortal,’ they might be less careful about their privileges. But a day might come when a hypocrite and a tyrant might sit <183>upon the throne, and it was therefore their bounden duty to provide for posterity.
They had heard that particular speeches had been misreported to the King; they hoped, therefore, that he would allow those members whose words had been misrepresented to justify themselves in the presence of their accusers.
After offering a defence of their conduct in the cases of the Buckinghamshire election, of Sir Thomas Sherley’s imprisonment, and of the Bishop of Bristol’s book, they touched upon the thorny subject of the Union.
“The proposition,” they said, “was new, the importance great, the consequence far-reaching, and not discovered but by long dispute. Their conduct respecting the UnionOur number also is large, and which hath free liberty to speak; but the doubts and difficulties once cleared and removed, how far we were from opposing the just desires of your Majesty (as some evil-disposed minds would perhaps insinuate, who live by division, and prosper by the disgrace of other men) the great expedition, alacrity, and unanimity which was used and showed in passing of the Bill may sufficiently testify.”
Having thus got over this difficulty, perhaps by making more of their own readiness to meet the King’s wishes than the facts of the case would justify, they proceeded to a still more important subject.
“For matter of religion,” they said, “it will appear, by examination of the truth and right, that your Majesty and matters of religion. should be misinformed if any man should deliver[194] that the Kings of England have any absolute power in themselves either to alter religion, (which God forefend should be in the power of any mortal man whatsoever), or to make any laws concerning the same, otherwise than 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 <184>governor in both. Touching our own desires and proceedings therein, they have been not a little misconceived and misinterpreted. We have not come in any Puritan or Brownist spirit to introduce their parity, or to work the subversion of the State ecclesiastical as now it stands, things so far and so clear from our meaning as that, with uniform consent, in the beginning of this Parliament we committed to the Tower a man who out of that humour had, in a petition exhibited to our House, slandered the Bishops; but according to the tenor of your Majesty’s writs of summons directed to the counties from which we came, and according to the ancient and long continued use of Parliaments, as by many records from time to time appeareth, we came with another spirit, even with the spirit of peace; we disputed not of matters of faith and doctrine, our desire was peace only, and our device of unity, how this lamentable and long-lasting dissension amongst the ministers (from which both atheism, sects, and ill-life have received such encouragement, and so dangerous increase) might at length, before help come too late, be extinguished. And for the ways of this peace we are not addicted at all to our own inventions, but ready to embrace any fit way that may be offered. Neither desire we so much that any man, in regard of weakness of conscience, may be exempted after Parliament from obedience to laws established, as that in this Parliament such laws may be enacted as by relinquishment of some few ceremonies of small importance, or by any way better, a perpetual uniformity may be enjoined and observed. Our desire hath been also to reform certain abuses crept into the ecclesiastical estate even as into the temporal; and, lastly, that the land might be furnished with a learned, religious, and godly ministry, for the maintenance of whom we would have granted no small contribution, if in these (as we trust) just and religious desires we had found that correspondency from others which was expected. These minds and hearts we in secret present to that Sovereign Lord who gave them, and in public profess to your gracious Majesty, who, we trust, will so esteem them.”
“There remaineth, dread Sovereign,” they said, in conclusion, after justifying the course which they had taken in the <185>matters of wardship and purveyance, “yet one part more of our duty at this present which faithfulness of heart (not presumption) Conclusion.doth press us to. We stand not in place to speak or to propose things pleasing. Our care is, and must be, to confirm the love, and to tie the hearts of your subjects, the Commons, most firmly to your Majesty. Herein lieth the means of our well deserving of both. There was never Prince entered with greater love, with greater joy and applause of all his people. This love, this joy, let it flourish in their hearts for ever. Let no suspicion have access to their fearful thoughts that their privileges, which they think by your Majesty should be protected, should now by sinister information or counsel be violated or impaired, or that those who with dutiful respect to your Majesty speak freely for the right and good of their country shall be oppressed or disgraced. Let your Majesty be pleased to receive public information from your Commons in Parliament, as well of the abuses in the Church as in the Civil State and Government. For private informations pass often by practice. The voice of the people, in things of their knowledge, is said to be as the voice of God. And if your Majesty shall vouchsafe at your best pleasure and leisure to enter into gracious consideration of our petitions for ease of those burdens under which your whole people have long time mourned, hoping for relief by your Majesty, then may you be assured to be possessed of their hearts for ever, and if of their hearts, then of all they can do and have. And we your Majesty’s most humble and loyal subjects, whose ancestors have with great loyalty, readiness, and joyfulness served your famous progenitors, Kings and Queens of this realm, shall with like loyalty and joy, both we and our posterity, serve your Majesty and your most royal issue for ever with our lives, lands, and goods, and all other our abilities, and by all means endeavour to procure your Majesty’s honour with all plenty, tranquillity, joy, and felicity.”[195]
Such was the address, manly and freespoken, but conservative and monarchical to the core, which the House of Commons was prepared to lay before the King. In it they took up the The Commons take up their position by this Apology.<186>position which they never quitted during eighty-four long and stormy years. To understand this Apology is to understand the causes of the success of the English Revolution. They did not ask for anything which was not in accordance with justice. They did not demand a single privilege which was not necessary for the good of the nation as well as for their own dignity.
The Apology thus prepared was never presented to the King, though there can be little doubt that a copy of it reached his hands. June 19.James’s financial difficulties.The feeling of dissatisfaction which the Commons, in spite of the alacrity with which they had passed the Union Bill, could not but have felt, they expressed in another way, which must have been more annoying to James than the presentation of the Apology could possibly have been.
Even with the strictest economy James would have found much difficulty in bringing his expenditure within the compass of his revenue. With his habits of profusion, all hope of this passed rapidly away. He had already incurred debts which he had no means of paying. The Commons asked for supply.His ministers therefore urged upon the Commons that it would be well to express their loyalty in a tangible form. They stated, with perfect truth, that the King was under the necessity of providing for many extraordinary expenses connected with the commencement of a reign, and that it was impossible in a moment to return to a peace expenditure. If the great questions of the session had received a satisfactory solution, it is probable that these arguments would have carried their proper weight. As it was, the Commons remembered opportunely that a considerable part of the subsidies which had been granted by the last Parliament of the late Queen had not yet been levied, and that No subsidy granted.it was contrary to precedent to grant a fresh subsidy before the last one had been fully paid. They did not give a direct refusal, but the tone which the debate assumed was not such as to promise a result favourable to the Government. On hearing this, James, making a virtue of necessity, wrote a letter to the Commons, in which he informed them that he was unwilling that they should lay any burden <187>on themselves in order to supply him with money.[196] He took care to June 26.The King’s letter.have this letter printed, so as to lay his conduct before the public in as honourable a light as possible.
Doubtless this blow directed against the King had much to do with the frustration of the hope which the Commons entertained of passing a Bill on April.The trading companies.a subject of no slight importance. When James, soon after his arrival in England, had summoned the monopolists to show cause why their patents should not be annulled, he had expressly excepted the trading corporations. The Commons now proposed to treat these corporations as monopolists. At this time the French trade was the only one open to all Englishmen. By its chartered rights the Russia Company claimed the trade with Muscovy; whilst the commerce of the Baltic was in the hands of the Eastland Company.[197] From the Cattegat to the mouth of the Somme, the merchant adventurers held sway.[198] From thence there was a line of free shore till the dominions of the Spanish King presented what had lately been an enemy’s coast. Venice and the East were apportioned to the vessels of the Levant Company. Western Africa had a company of its own; and beyond the Cape, the continents and islands over the trade of which the great East India Company claimed a monopoly, stretched away to the Straits of Magellan, through three-quarters of the circumference of the globe. In the early days of the late reign, such associations had served the purpose of fostering the rising commerce of England. There was not sufficient capital in the hands of individuals to enable them to bear the risk of such distant enterprises, nor was the power of the Government sufficient to guarantee them that protection which alone could make their risks remunerative. The companies undertook some of the responsibilities which at a later period were imposed upon the State. They supported ambassadors, and appointed consuls to represent their interests.[199] <188>They were better able than private persons would have been to discover new outlets for trade. The risk run in making voyages for the first time to such countries as Russia or India was so great, that it was only fair to compensate for it by the monopoly of the trade — at least for a limited period. Nor were the voyages even to friendly ports free from danger. In 1582 the Russia Company had to send out as many as eleven well-armed ships, for fear of enemies and pirates.
Now, however, the time was favourable for reviewing the commercial policy of the country. The Levant Company had surrendered its charter shortly after the King’s accession. Spain was soon to be thrown open to English commerce. The increase of wealth made many persons desirous of engaging in trade who were not members of any company; but, above all, there was a growing feeling of jealousy against the London merchants, on the part of the shipowners of the other ports. A native of Plymouth or of Southampton might engage in the coasting trade, or he might even send his vessel to the other side of the Channel; but if he wished to push his fortune by engaging in commerce on a larger scale, he was at once checked by learning that the charter of some great Company, whose members were sure to be Londoners, stood in his way.
In consequence of the general dissatisfaction with the privileges of the Companies, appeals were made to the Privy Council. These being without result, the whole case was referred to Parliament. A committee investigates the complaints against the companies.A committee of the Lower House, with Sir Edwin Sandys at its head, took great pains to arrive at the truth. It devoted five afternoons to the investigation of the alleged grievances, and to the discussion of a Bill for throwing open trade.[200] Clothiers and merchants from all parts of the realm attended its sittings in crowds. They complained bitterly that the existing system was a juggle, by which the whole commerce of England was thrown into the hands of a few interested persons. Arguments were heard on both sides. The free <189>traders urged the natural right of all men to trade where they would, and reminded the Committee that monopolies were only of recent invention. They said that at most the members of the Companies were only five or six thousand in number, and that of these only four or five hundred were actually engaged in commerce. They pointed to the success of other commercial nations where trade was free. They said that in their policy would be found a remedy for the evil which proclamations and Acts of Parliament had striven in vain to cure. The rapid growth of London in proportion to other towns was astonishing to that generation. The money received in the port of London in a single year for customs and impositions amounted to 110,000l., whilst the whole sum of the receipts from the same sources in all the rest of the kingdom was nothing more than a beggarly 17,000l. They trusted that freedom of trade would be more favourable to the equal distribution of wealth. Ships would be built in greater numbers, mariners would obtain more constant employment, and the Crown would reap the benefit by an increase of customs. They concluded with a remark characteristic of a people amongst whom no broad line of demarcation separated the different classes of the community: the younger sons of the gentry, they said, would be thrown out of employment by the cessation of the war, and therefore an open career should be provided for them in mercantile pursuits, where alone it could be found.
The force of these arguments was only equalled by the shallowness of the opposition made to them. It was gravely urged that no monopoly was granted to any company, because a right possessed by more than a single person could not properly be termed a monopoly. It was said that all England could not produce more than the companies carried abroad; that the time of the apprentices would be thrown away if the existence of the companies were cut short. The counsel on behalf of the monopolists inveighed against the injustice of putting an end to such useful and flourishing societies. He was told that there was no intention of abolishing a single company. The Bill only provided for throwing trade open. If it were true, as was asserted, that commerce on a large scale <190>could not be carried on by private merchants, why this opposition to the Bill? The permission to such merchants to engage in trade would be void of itself, if it was really impossible for them to enter into competition. Again, it was objected that the King would never be able to collect the customs. In reply to this, several merchants offered, in case the Bill passed, to pay for the farm of the customs a higher sum than the average of the receipts of the last five years.
When the Bill stood for a third reading, ‘it was three several days debated, and in the end passed with great consent and applause of the House, as being for the exceeding benefit of all the land, scarce forty voices dissenting from them.’
The Bill was sent up to the House of Lords, where counsel was again heard on both sides. Coke, as Attorney-General, spoke against it, acknowledging its purpose to be good, but objecting to certain defects in it. July 6.Upon this, on July 6, the Bill was dropped. The Commons expressed their intention of taking the matter up again in the following session.[201]
On the following day the King came down to prorogue Parliament. After a few words of praise July 7.The King’s speech.addressed to the House of Lords, he turned to the Commons, pleased to find an opportunity of venting upon them his long pent-up ill-humour.
“I have more to say of you,” he began, “my masters of the Lower House, both in regard of former occasions, and now of your Speaker’s speech. His intemperate language.It hath been the form of most kings to give thanks to their people, however their deserts were. Of some, to use sharp admonishment and reproof. Now, if you expect either great praises or reproofs out of custom, I will deceive you in both. I will not thank where I think no thanks due. You would think me base if I should. It were not Christian; it were not kingly. I do not think you, as the body of the realm, undutiful. There is an old rule, qui benè distinguit benè docet. This House doth not so represent the whole Commons of the realm as the <191>shadow doth the body, but only representatively. Impossible it was for them to know all that would be propounded here, much more all those answers that you would make to all propositions. So as I account not all that to be done by the Commons of the land which hath been done by you, I will not thank them for that you have well done, nor blame them for that you have done ill. I must say this for you, I never heard nor read that there were so many wise and so many judicious men in that House generally; but where many are some must needs be idle heads, some rash, some busy informers.”
After scolding them for some time longer in the same flippant strain, he proceeded to compare the reception which his wishes had met with in England with the obedience which he had always found in Scotland. He must have counted largely on the ignorance of his hearers with respect to Scottish affairs, when he added:— “In my government by-past in Scotland (where I ruled upon men not of the best temper), I was heard not only as a king, but as a counsellor. Contrary, here nothing but curiosity, from morning to evening, to find fault with my propositions. There all things warranted that came from me. Here all things suspected.” He then burst out into an invective against them for their delays in the matter of the Union, and for their encouragement of Puritanism. “You see,” he continued, “in how many things you did not well. The best apology-maker of you all, for all his eloquence, cannot make all good. Forsooth, a goodly matter to make apologies, when no man is by to answer. You have done many things rashly. I say not you meant disloyally. I receive better comfort in you, and account better to be king of such subjects than of so many kingdoms. Only I wish you had kept a better form. I like form as much as matter. It shows respect, and I expect it, being a king, as well born (suppose I say it) as any of my progenitors. I wish you would use your liberty with more modesty in time to come. You must know now that, the Parliament not sitting, the liberties are not sitting. My justice shall always sit in the same seat. Justice I will give to all, and favour to such as deserve it. In cases of justice, if I should <192>do you wrong, I were no just king; but in cases of equity, if I should show favour, except there be obedience, I were no wise man.”[202]
With this characteristic utterance James brought the first session of his first Parliament to a close.
[149] Blackwell to Farnese, Nov. 4⁄14, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[150] Certain Considerations touching the better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England, Bacon’s Letters and Life, iii. 103.
[151] Commonly called the Millenary Petition, because it purported to proceed from ‘more than a thousand ministers.’ It was said by Fuller (Ch. Hist. v. 265), and it has often been repeated, that only seven hundred and fifty preachers’ hands were set thereto. The fact seems to have been that there were no signatures at all to it. The petitioners, in a Defence of their Petition, presented later in the year (Add. MSS. 8978) distinctly say, ‘Neither before were any hands required to it, but only consent.’ They probably received only seven hundred and fifty letters of assent, and left the original words standing, either accidentally or as believing that the sentiments of at least two hundred and fifty out of those who had not come forward were represented in the petition.
[152] This explanation is adopted from the Defence before mentioned (fol. 36 b.)
[153] In An Abridgement of that Book which the Ministers of Lincoln Diocese delivered to His Majesty, 1605, p. 39, it is urged, in favour of abolishing the ceremonies, that ‘many of the people in all parts of the land are known to be of this mind, that the sacraments are not rightly and sufficiently ministered without them.’ The conclusion drawn was that such ceremonies ought not to be allowed to exist, because their use was detrimental to those who placed an idolatrous value upon them.
[154] Collier, vii. 267.
[155] The Answer of the Vice-Chancellor, the Doctors, with the Proctors and other Heads of Houses in the University of Oxford, &c. 1603. The Cambridge Grace is quoted in the epistle dedicatory.
[156] King to Chancellors of the Universities, Wilkins’s Conc. iv. 369. King to Heads of Houses, S. P. Dom. ii. 38.
[157] Whitgift to King, S. P. Dom. ii. 39.
[158] Wilkins’s Conc. iv. 368.
[159] Letter from England, Sept. 28⁄Oct. 8, 1603. Information given by a person leaving England on Jan. 11⁄21, 1604, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[160] Macbeth, iv. 3.
[161] Whitgift and Bancroft to Cecil, Sept. 24, 1603, S. P. Dom. iii. 83 and Fuller, v. 311.
[162] Wilkins’s Conc. iv. 371.
[163] With the exception of a letter of Matthews printed in Strype’s Whitgift, App. xlv., and of Galloway’s in Calderwood, vi. 241, and another of Montague’s to his mother, Winw. ii. 13, our only authority is Barlow’s Sum of the Conference. He has been charged with misrepresentation, and he evidently did injustice to the Puritan arguments which were distasteful to him, and which he did not understand. But if he had introduced any actual misrepresentation, we should certainly have had a more correct account from the other side. After all, if the arguments of the Puritans have been weakened, it is scarcely possible to find elsewhere stronger proofs of Bancroft’s deficiencies in temper and character.
[164] The clause in the petition which relates to the cap and surplice is the only one which seems to ask for permission to deviate from an established order, instead of demanding a change of the order.
[165] The King’s reply is crushing, merely regarded as an argumentum ad hominem. He asked, ‘how long they would be weak? Whether forty-five years were not sufficient for them to grow strong? Who they were that pretended this weakness, for we require not now subscription from laics and idiots, but preachers and ministers, who are not now I trow to be fed with milk, but are enabled to feed others.’
[166] Barlow ascribes this speech to one of the lords. Sir J. Harington, who was also present, assigns it to a Bishop. At the next meeting Whitgift repeated it.
[167] The proclamation giving public notice of this determination was issued on March 5, Rymer, xvi. 574; for the alterations themselves see 565.
[168] There can be no doubt that many of the excrescences have been cut off in Barlow’s narrative from the King’s speeches. The coarse language used by James is noticed in Nugæ Ant. i. 181.
[169] The King to Northampton, Ellis, 3rd ser. iv. 161. Here and elsewhere this letter is said to be written to an otherwise unknown Mr. Blake. It is printed as beginning ‘My faithful Blake, I dare not say, faced 3,’ which is mere nonsense. In the original MS. the word is ‘blake,’ not commencing with a capital letter. 3 is always the cypher for Northampton in James’s correspondence. What James meant was no doubt ‘My faithful black, I dare not say (black) faced Northampton.’ Northampton had, I suppose, objected to being called blackfaced. Blake is equivalent to ‘black.’ In Spottiswoode, for instance, the name of the St. Andrewes’ preacher, David Black, is printed Blake.
[170] Parl. Hist. i. 967. There are two sets of notes for the proclamation in the Egerton Papers, 384: one is in Popham’s hand; the other, founded on it, in Ellesmere’s. The latter alone contains the directions for the reference of disputed elections to Chancery, showing that this assumption originated with him.
[171] In consequence, additional seats were ordered, C. J. i. 141.
[172] C. J. passim from March 22 to May 22, i. 149–222.
[173] C. J. i. 149–169; Parl. Hist. i. 998–1017; Bacon’s Letters and Life, iii. 164.
[174] 3 Ed. I. stat. West. 1, cap. 32.
[175] 25 Ed. I. stat. de Tallagio, cap. 2.
[176] 14 Ed. III. stat. 1, cap. 19.
[177] 4 Ed. III. cap. 3; 5 Ed. III. cap. 2; 25 Ed. III. cap. 1; 36 Ed. III. cap. 2.
[178] C. J. i. 190; Bacon’s Letters and Life, iii. 181.
[179] At this time Sunday was the day upon which a meeting of the Privy Council was always held after service.
[180] C. J. i, 204; L. J. ii. 294.
[181] The lords claimed the right of the marriage of even male heirs, but it is difficult to see on what principle.
[182] C. J. i. 153.
[183] L. J. ii. 309; C. J. i. 230.
[184] C. J. i. 171.
[185] The charge, that he wished for the Union in order to be able to gratify his Scotch favourites, can only be made by those who forget that he had it in his power to make any foreigner a denizen, and thus to enable <177>him to hold lands granted by the Crown, and that his chief favourites were naturalised by Act of Parliament in this session.
[186] Cecil begged the King to postpone the Union, and ‘seulement d’assembler des commissaires deputés et choisis d’une part et d’autre à fin de comparer et accorder des moiens de la bien faire, et cependant donner loisir aux peuples de se hanter, et se lier doucement par marriages.’ — Beaumont to the King, Feb. 19⁄29, 1604. King’s MSS. 125, fol. 29.
[187] It must not be forgotten that the subsequent naturalisation of the Postnati was carried through by the legal technicalities of the lawyers, in defiance of the wish of the House of Commons.
[188] Sir R. Wingfield’s account of his speech, S. P. Dom. vii. 2.
[189] C. J. i. 199.
[190] S. P. Dom. viii. 66.
[191] C. J. i. 230–232.
[192] Here and always ‘apparently’ means ‘plainly.’
[193] On the complaint of the Commons he was compelled to ask pardon. He had undertaken to refute arguments used in the House of Commons — a high offence before debates were published, as the attacked party might be misrepresented, and had no opportunity of reply.
[194] This must refer to the Canons which were passed through Convocation in this session. In an anonymous paper (S. P. Dom. vi. 46) entitled Substance of the Doctrine of the Church of England on the King’s Supremacy, it is expressly stated that the King had the right to confirm ecclesiastical canons, and to give them the force of laws.
[195] Parl. Hist. i. 1030, and S. P. Dom. viii. 70.
[196] C. J. i. 246. There is a printed copy in the S. P. Dom. viii. 78.
[197] Macpherson’s Annals of Commerce, ii. 164.
[198] Ibid. 220.
[199] Suggestions for regulating the Levant Trade, Feb. 29, 1604, S. P. Dom. vi. 70.
[200] C. J. i. 218.
[201] C. J. i. 253.
[202] S. P. Dom. viii. 93.