_The Negative given to the Demand of the Clergy at Merton_ (Vol. vii., p.
17.).--Warburton agrees with Bishop Hurd on this subject, for he observes
as follows, in one of his letters (the 84th), that--
"At a parliament under Henry III., 'Rogaverunt omnes Episcopi ut
consentirent quod nati ante matrimonium essent legitimi, et omnes
Comites et Barones una voce responderunt quod nolunt leges Angliæ
mutari.' This famous answer has been quoted a thousand and a thousand
times, and yet nobody seems to have understood the management. The
bishops, as partizans of the Pope, were for subjecting England to the
imperial and papal laws, and therefore began with a circumstance most
to the taste of the Barons. The Barons smelt the contrivance; and
rejected a proposition most agreeable to them, for fear of the
consequences, the introduction of the imperial laws, whose very genius
and essence was arbitrary despotic power. Their answer shows it:
'Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari:' they had nothing to object to the
reform, but they were afraid for the constitution."