But what ought to induce us to reject these three suppositions is, that

they must all of them be considered as bare possibilities. The partisans

of Mary can give no reason for preferring one to the other. Not the

slightest evidence ever appeared to support any one of them. Neither at

that time, nor at any time afterwards, was any reason discovered, by the

numerous zealots at home and abroad who had embraced Mary’s defence, to

lead us to the belief of any of these three suppositions; and even her

apologists at present seem not to have fixed on any choice among

these supposed possibilities. The positive proof of two very credible

witnesses, supported by the other very strong circumstances, still

remains unimpeached. Babington, who had an extreme interest to have

communication with the queen of Scots, believed he had found a means

of correspondence with her, and had received an answer from her. He,

as well as the other conspirators, died in that belief. There has not

occurred, since that time, the least argument to prove that they were

mistaken; can there be any reason at present to doubt the truth of their

opinion? Camden, though a professed apologist for Mary, is constrained

to tell the story in such a manner as evidently supposes her guilt. Such

was the impossibility of finding any other consistent account, even by a

man of parts, who was a contemporary!

In this light might the question have appeared even during Mary’s trial.

But what now puts her guilt beyond all controversy is the following

passage of her letter to Thomas Morgan, dated the 27th of July, 1586:

“As to Babington, he hath both kindly and honestly offered himself and

all his means to be employed any way I would; whereupon I hope to have

satisfied him by two of my several letters since I had his; and the

rather for that I opened him the way, thereby I received his with your

aforesaid.” Murden, p. 533. Babington confessed that he had offered her

to assassinate the queen. It appears by this that she had accepted the

offer; so that all the suppositions of Walsingham’s forgery, or the

temerity or treachery of her secretaries, fall to the ground.]

[Footnote 27: NOTE AA, p 231 This parliament granted the queen a supply

of a subsidy and two fifteenths. They adjourned, and met again after

the execution of the queen of Scots; when there passed some remarkable

incidents, which it may be proper not to omit. We shall give them in

the words of Sir Simon D’Ewes, (p. 410, 411,) which are almost wholly

transcribed from Townshend’s Journal. On Monday, the 27th of February,

Mr. Cope, first using some speeches touching the necessity of a learned

ministry, and the amendment of things amiss in the ecclesiastical

estate, offered to the house a bill and a book written; the bill

containing a petition, that it might be enacted, that all laws now in

force touching ecclesiastical government should be void; and that it

might be enacted, that the Book of Common Prayer now offered, and none

other, might be received into the church to be used. The book contained

the form of prayer and administration of the sacraments, with divers

rites and ceremonies to be used in the church; and he desired that the

book might be read. Whereupon Mr. Speaker in effect used this speech:

For that her majesty before this time had commanded the house not to

meddle with this matter, and that her majesty had promised to take order

in those causes, he doubted not but to the good satisfaction of all her

people, he desired that it would please them to spare the reading of

it. Notwithstanding the house desired the reading of it. Whereupon Mr.

Speaker desired the clerk to read. And the court being ready to read it,

Mr. Dalton made a motion against the reading of it, saying, that it was

not meet to be read, and it did appoint a new form of administration

of the sacraments and ceremonies of the church, to the discredit of

the Book of Common Prayer and of the whole state; and thought that this

dealing would bring her majesty’s indignation against the house, thus to

enterprise this dealing with those things which her majesty especially

had taken into her own charge and direction. Whereupon Mr. Lewkenor

spake, showing the necessity of preaching and of a learned ministry, and

thought it very fit that the petition and book should be read. To this

purpose spake Mr. Hurleston and Mr. Bainbrigg; and so, the time being

passed, the house broke up, and neither the petition nor book read. This

done, her majesty sent to Mr. Speaker, as well for this petition and

book, as for that other petition and book for the like effect, that was

delivered the last session of parliament, which Mr. Speaker sent to

her majesty. On Tuesday, the 28th of February, her majesty sent for Mr.

Speaker, by occasion whereof the house did not sit. On Wednesday, the

first of March, Mr. Wentworth delivered to Mr. Speaker certain articles,

which contained questions touching the liberties of the house, and to

some of which he was to answer, and desired they might be read. Mr.

Speaker desired him to spare his motion until her majesty’s pleasure was

further known touching the petition and book lately delivered into the

house; but Mr. Wentworth would not be so satisfied, but required

his articles might be read. Mr. Wentworth introduced his queries by

lamenting that he, as well as many others, were deterred from speaking

by their want of knowledge and experience in the liberties of the house;

and the queries were as follows: Whether this council were not a

place for any member of the same here assembled, freely and without

controlment of any person or danger of laws, by bill or speech to utter

any of the griefs of this commonwealth whatsoever, touching the service

of God, the safety of the prince, and this noble realm? Whether that

great honor may be done unto God, and benefit and service unto the

prince and state, without free speech in this council that may be done

with it? Whether there be any council which can make, add, or diminish

from the laws of the realm, but only this council of parliament? Whether

it be not against the orders of this council to make any secret or

matter of weight, which is here in hand, known to the prince or any

other, concerning the high service of God, prince, or state without the

consent of the house? Whether the speaker or any other may interrupt any

member of this council in his speech used in this house tending to any

of the forenamed services? Whether the speaker may rise when he will,

any matter being propounded, without consent of the house or not?

Whether the speaker may overrule the house in any matter or cause there

in question, or whether he is to be ruled or overruled in any matter

or not? Whether the prince and state can continue, and stand, and

be maintained, without this council of parliament, not altering the

government of the state? At the end of these questions, says Sir Simon

D’Ewes, I found set down this short memorial ensuing; by which it may be

perceived both what Serjeant Puckering, the speaker, did with the said

questions after he had received them, and what became also of this

business, viz.: “These questions Mr. Puckering pocketed up, and showed

Sir Thomas Henage, who so handled the matter, that Mr. Wentworth went

to the Tower, and the questions not at all moved. Mr. Buckler of Essex

herein brake his faith in forsaking the matter, etc., and no more was

done.” After setting down, continues Sir Simon D’Ewes, the said business

of Mr. Wentworth in the original journal book, there follows only this

short conclusion of the day itself, viz.: “This day, Mr. Speaker being

sent for to the queen’s majesty, the house departed.” On Thursday, the

2d of March, Mr. Cope, Mr. Lewkenor, Mr. Hurleston, and Mr. Bainbrigg

were sent for to my lord chancellor and by divers of the privy council,

and from thence were sent to the Tower. On Saturday the 4th day of

March, Sir John Higham made a motion to this house, for that divers good

and necessary members thereof were taken from them, that it would please

them to be humble petitioners to her majesty for the restitution of them

again to this house. To which speeches Mr. Vice-chamberlain answered,

that if the gentlemen were committed for matter within the compass of

the privilege of the house, then there might be a petition; but if not,

then we should give occasion to her majesty’s further displeasure; and

therefore advised to stay until they heard more, which could not be

long. And further, he said, touching the book and the petition, her

majesty had, for divers good causes best known to herself, thought fit

to suppress the same, without any further examination thereof; and yet

thought it very unfit for her majesty to give any account of her doings.

But whatsoever Mr. Vice-chamberlain pretended, it is most probable

these members were committed for intermeddling with matters touching the

church, which her majesty had often inhibited, and which had caused so

much disputation and so many meetings between the two houses the last

parliament.

This is all we find of the matter in Sir Simon D’Ewes and Townshend; and

it appears that those members who had been committed, were detained in

custody till the queen thought proper to release them. These questions

of Mr. Wentworth are curious; because they contain some faint dawn

of the present English constitution, though suddenly eclipsed by

the arbitrary government of Elizabeth. Wentworth was indeed by his

Puritanism, as well as his love of liberty, (for these two characters,

of such unequal merit, arose and advanced together,) the true forerunner

of the Hambdens, the Pyms, and the Hollises, who in the next age, with

less courage, because with less danger, rendered their principles so

triumphant. I shall only ask, whether it be not sufficiently clear from

all these transactions, that in the two succeeding reigns it was

the people who encroached upon the sovereign, not the sovereign who

attempted, as is pretended, to usurp upon the people?]

[Footnote 28: NOTE BB, p. 259. The queen’s speech in the camp of Tilbury

was in these words. “My loving people, we have been persuaded, by some

that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to

armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but assure you, I do not desire

to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear: I

have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest

strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects.

And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my

recreation or sport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the

battle to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for

my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood; even in the dust.

I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the

heart of a king, and of a king of England too; and think foul scorn

that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the

borders of my realms; to which rather than any dishonor should grow by

me, I myself will take up arms. I myself will be your general, judge,

and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already,

by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we

do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you.

In the mean time, my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead; than whom

never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting,

by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your

valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those

enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.”]

[Footnote 29: NOTE CC, p. 264. Strype, vol. iii. p. 525. On the 4th of

September, boon after the dispersion of the Spanish armada, died

the earl of Leicester, the queen’s great but unworthy favorite. Her

affection for him continued to the last. He had discovered no conduct in

any of his military enterprises, and was suspected of cowardice; yet she

intrusted him with the command of her armies during the danger of the

Spanish invasion; a partiality which might have proved fatal to her, had

the duke of Parma been able to land his troops in England. She had

even ordered a commission to be drawn for him, constituting him her

lieutenant, in the kingdoms of England and Ireland; but Burleigh and

Hatton represented to her the danger of intrusting such unlimited

authority in the hands of any subject, and prevented the execution of

that design. No wonder that a conduct so unlike the usual jealousy of

Elizabeth, gave reason to suspect that her partiality was founded on

some other passion than friendship. But Elizabeth seemed to carry her

affection to Leicester no farther than the grave; she ordered his goods

to be disposed of at a public sale, in order to reimburse herself

of some debt which he owed her; and her usual attention to money was

observed to prevail over her regard to the memory of the deceased. This

earl was a great hypocrite, a pretender to the strictest religion, an

encourager of the Puritans, and founder of hospitals.]

[Footnote 30: NOTE DD, p. 264. Strype, vol. iii. p. 542. Id. append, p.

239. There are some singular passages in this last speech, which may be

worth taking notice of, especially as they came from a member who was no

courtier; for he argues against the subsidy. “And first,” says he, “for

the _necessity_ thereof, I cannot deny, but if it were a charge imposed

upon us by her majesty’s commandment, or a demand proceeding from her

majesty by way of request, that I think there is not one among us all,

either so disobedient a subject in regard of our duty, or so unthankful

a man in respect of the inestimable benefits which by her or from her

we have received, which would not with frank consent, both of voice and

heart, most willingly submit himself thereunto, without any unreverend

inquiry into the causes thereof. For it is continually in the mouth of

us all, that our lands, goods, and lives, are at our prince’s disposing.

And it agreeth very well with that position of the civil law, which

sayeth, ‘Quod omnia regis aunt,’ But how? ‘Ita tamen ut omnium sint. Ad

regem enim potestas omnium pertinet; ad singulos proprietas.’ So that

although it be most true that her majesty hath over ourselves and our

goods ‘potestatem imperandi,’ yet it is true, that until that power

command, (which, no doubt, will not command without very just cause,)

every subject hath his own ‘proprietatem possidendi.’ Which power and

commandment from her majesty, which we have not yet received, I take it,

(saving reformation,) that we are freed from the cause of _necessity_.

And the cause of necessity is the dangerous estate of the commonwealth,”

etc. The tenor of the speech pleads rather for a general benevolence

than a subsidy; for the law of Richard III. against benevolence was

nevei conceived to have any force. The member even proceeds to assert,

with some precaution, that it was in the power of parliament to refuse

the king’s demand of a subsidy; and that there was an instance of

that liberty in Heary III.’s time near four hundred years before. _Sub

Fine_.]

[Footnote 31: NOTE EE, p. 266 We may judge of the extent and importance

of these abuses by a speech of Bacon’s against purveyors, delivered in

the first session of the first parliament of the subsequent reign,

by which also we may learn that Elizabeth had given no redress to the

grievances complained of. “First,” says he, “they take in kind what

they ought not to take; secondly, they take in quantity a far greater

proportion than cometh to your majesty’s use; thirdly, they take in an

unlawful manner, in a manner, I say, directly and expressly prohibited

by the several laws. For the first, I am a little to alter their name;

for in stead of takers, they become taxers. Instead of taking provisions

for your majesty’s service, they tax your people ‘ad redimendam

vexationem;’ imposing upon them and extorting from them divers sums of

money, sometimes in gross, sometimes in the nature of stipends annually

paid, ‘ne noceant,’ to be freed and eased of their oppression Again,

they take trees, which by law they cannot do; timber trees which are

the beauty, countenance, and shelter of men’s houses; that men have long

spared from their own purse and profit; that men esteem for their use

and delight, above ten times the value; that are a loss which men cannot

repair or recover. These do they take, to the defacing and spoiling of

your subjects’ mansions and dwellings, except they may be compounded

with to their own appetites. And if a gentleman be too hard for them

while he is at home, they will watch their time when there is but a

bailiff or a servant remaining, and put the axe to the root of the tree,

ere even the master can stop it. Again, they use a strange and most

unjust exaction in causing the subjects to pay poundage of their own

debts, due from your majesty unto them; so as a poor man, when he has

had his hay, or his wood, or his poultry (which perchance he was full

loath to part with, and had for the provision of his own family, and not

to put to sale) taken from him, and that not at a just price, but under

the value, and cometh to receive his money, he shall have after the rate

of twelve pence in the pound abated for poundage of his due payment upon

so hard conditions. Nay, further, they are grown to that extremity, (as

is affirmed, though it be scarce credible, save that in such persons all

things are credible,) that they will take double poundage once when the

debenture is made, and again the second time when the money is paid. For

the second point, most gracious sovereign, touching the quantity which

they take far above that which is answered to your majesty’s use; it is

affirmed unto me by divers gentlemen of good report, as a matter which I

may safely avouch unto your majesty, that there is no pound profit which

redoundeth unto your majesty in this course, but induceth and begetteth

three pound damage upon your subjects, beside the discontentment. And to

the end they may make their spoil more securely, what do they? Whereas

divers statutes do strictly provide, that whatsoever they take shall De

registered and attested, to the end that by making a collation of that

which is taken from the country and that which is answered above,

their deceits might appear, they, to the end, to obscure their deceits,

utterly omit the observation of this, which the law prescribeth. And

therefore to descend, if it may please your majesty, to the third sort

of abuse, which is of the unlawful manner of their taking, whereof

this question is a branch; it is so manifold, as it rather asketh an

enumeration of some of the particulars than a prosecution of all.

For their price, by law they ought to take as they can agree with the

subject; by abuse, they take at an imposed and enforced price. By law

they ought to take but one apprizement by neighbors in the country; by

abuse, they make a second apprizement at the court gate; and when the

subjects’ cattle come up many miles, lean and out of plight by reason of

their travel, then they prize them anew at an abated price. By law, they

ought to take between sun and sun; by abuse, they take by twilight and

in the night time, a time well chosen for malefactors. By law, they

ought not to take in the highways, (a place by her majesty’s high

prerogative protected, and by statute by special words excepted;) by

abuse, they take in the highways. By law, they ought to show their

commission, etc. A number of other particulars there are,” etc. Bacon’s

Works, vol. iv. p. 305, 306.

Such were the abuses which Elizabeth would neither permit her

parliaments to meddle with, nor redress herself. I believe it will

readily be allowed, that this slight prerogative alone, which has passed

almost unobserved amidst other branches of so much greater importance,

was sufficient to extinguish all regular liberty. For what elector,

or member of parliament, or even juryman, durst oppose the will of the

court, while he lay under the lash of such an arbitrary prerogative?

For a further account of the grievous and incredible oppressions of

purveyors, see the Journals of the house of commons, vol. i. p. 190.

There is a story of a carter, which may be worth mentioning on this

occasion. “A carter had three times been at Windsor with his cart, to

carry away, upon summons of a remove, some part of the stuff of her

majesty’s wardrobe; and when he had repaired thither once, twice, and

the third time, and that they of the wardrobe had told him the third

time, that the remove held not, the carter, slapping his hand on his

thigh, said, ‘Now I see that the queen is a woman as well as my wife;’

which words being overheard by her majesty, who then stood at the

window, she said, ‘What a villain is this?’ and so sent him three angels

to stop his mouth.” Birch’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 155.]

[Footnote 32: NOTE FF, p. 274. This year, the nation suffered a great

loss, by the death of Sir Francis Walsingham, secretary of state; a man

equally celebrated for his abilities and his integrity. He had passed

through many employments, had been very frugal in his expense, yet died

so poor, that his family was obliged to give him a private burial. He

left only one daughter, first married to Sir Philip Sidney, then to the

earl of Essex, favorite of Queen Elizabeth, and lastly to the earl of

Clanriearde of Ireland. The same year died Thomas Randolph, who had been

employed by the queen in several embassies to Scotland; as did also the

earl of Warwick, elder brother to Leicester.]

[Footnote 33: NOTE GO, p. 276. This action of Sir Richard Greenville is

so singular as to merit a more particular relation. He was engaged alone

with the whole Spanish fleet of fifty-three sail, which had ten thousand

men on board; and from the time the fight began, which was about three

in the afternoon, to the break of day next morning, he repulsed the

enemy fifteen times, though they continually shifted their vessels,

and hoarded with fresh men. In the beginning of the action he himself

received a wound; but he continued doing his duty above deck till

eleven at night, when receiving a fresh wound, he was carried down to be

dressed. During this operation, he received a shot in the head, and the

surgeon was killed by his side. The English began now to want powder.

All their small arms were broken or become useless. Of their number,

which were but a hundred and three at first, forty were killed, and

almost all the rest wounded. Their masts were beat overboard, their

tackle cut in pieces, and nothing but a hulk left, unable to move one

way or other. In this situation, Sir Richard proposed to the ship’s

company, to trust to the mercy of God, not to that of the Spaniards, and

to destroy the ship with themselves, rather than yield to the enemy.

The master gunner, and many of the seamen, agreed to this desperate

resolution; but others opposed it and obliged Greenville to surrender

himself prisoner. He died a few days after; and his last words were,

“Here die I, Richard Greenville, with a joyful and quiet mind; for that

I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his

country, queen, religion, and honor; my soul willingly departing from

this body, leaving behind the lasting fame of having behaved as every

valiant soldier is in his duty bound to do.” The Spaniards lost in this

sharp, though unequal action, four ships, and about a thousand men; and

Greenville’s vessel perished soon after, with two hundred Spaniards in

her. Hacklyt’s Voyages, vol. iii. part 2, p. 169. Camden, p. 565.]

[Footnote 34: NOTE HH, p. 294. It is usual for the speaker to disqualify

himself for the office; but the reasons employed by this speaker are so

singular that they may be worth transcribing. “My estate,” said he, “is

nothing correspondent for the maintenance of this dignity, for my father

dying left me a younger brother, and nothing to me but my bare annuity.

Then growing to man’s estate, and some small practice of the law, I took

a wife, by whom I have had many children; the keeping of us all being a

great impoverishing to my estate, and the daily living of us all nothing

but my daily industry. Neither from my person not my nature doth this

choice arise; for he that supplieth this place ought to be a man big

and comely, stately and well-spoken, his voice great, his carriage

majestical, his nature haughty, and his purse plentiful and heavy: but

contrarily, the stature of my body is small, myself not so well spoken,

my voice low, my carriage lawyer-like, and of the common fashion, my

nature soft and bashful, my purse thin, light, and never yet plentiful.

If Demosthenes, being so learned and eloquent as he was, one whom none

surpassed, trembled to speak before Phocion at Athens, how much more

shall I, being unlearned and unskilful to supply the place of dignity,

charge, and trouble, to speak before so many Phocions as here be?

yea, which is the greatest, before the unspeakable majesty and

sacred personage of our dread and dear sovereign; the terror of whose

countenance will appal and abase even the stoutest hearts; yea, whose

very name will pull down the greatest courage? for how mightily do the

estate and name of a prince deject the haughtiest stomach even of their

greatest subjects? D’Ewes, p. 459.]

[Footnote 35: NOTE II, p. 299. Cabala, p. 234. Birch’s Memoirs, vol.

ii. p. 386. Speed, p. 877 The whole letter of Essex is so curious and

so spirited, that the reader may not be displeased to read it. “My very

good lord Though there is not that man this day living, whom I would

sooner make judge of any question that might concern me than yourself,

yet you must give me leave to tell you, that in some cases I must appeal

from all earthly judges; and if any, then surely in this, when the

highest judge on earth has imposed on me the heaviest punishment,

without trial or hearing. Since then I must either answer your

lord-ship’s argument, or else forsake mine own just defence, I will

force, mine aching head to do me service for an hour. I must first deny

my discontent, which was forced, to be a humorous discontent; and that

it was unseasonable, or is of so long continuing, your lordship should

rather condole with me than expostulate. Natural seasons are expected

here below; but violent and unseasonable storms come from above. There

is no tempest equal to the passionate indignation of a prince; nor yet

at any time so unseasonable, as when it lighteth on those that might

expect a harvest of their careful and painful labors. He that is once

wounded must needs feel smart, till his hurt is cured, or the part hurt

become senseless. But cure I expect none, her majesty’s heart being

obdurate against me; and be without sense I cannot, being of flesh and

blood. But, say you, I may aim at the end. I do more than aim; for I see

an end of all my fortunes, I have set an end to all my desires. In this

course do I any thing for my enemies? When I was at court, I found them

absolute; and therefore I had rather they should triumph alone, than

have me attendant upon their chariots. Or do I leave my friends? When

I was a courtier, I could yield them no fruit of my love unto them; and

now that I am a hermit, they shall bear no envy for their love towards

me. Or do I forsake myself because I do enjoy myself? Or do I overthrow

my fortunes, because I build not a fortune of paper walls, which every

puff of wind bloweth down? Or do I ruinate mine honor, because I leave

following the pursuit, or wearing the false badge or mark of the shadow

of honor? Do I give courage or comfort to the foreign foe, because I

reserve myself to encounter with him? or because I keep my heart from

business, though I cannot keep my fortune from declining? No, no, my

good lord; I give every one of these considerations its due weight; and

the more I weigh them, the more I find myself justified from offending

in any of them. As for the two last objections, that I forsake my

country when it hath most need of me, and fail in that indissoluble duty

which I owe to my sovereign, I answer, that if my country had at this

time any need of my public service, her majesty, that governeth it,

would not have driven me to a private life. I am tied to my country by

two bonds; One public, to discharge carefully and industriously that

trust which is committed to me; the other private, to sacrifice for it

my life and carcass, which hath been nourished in it Of the first I am

free, being dismissed, discharged, and disabled by her majesty. Of the

other, nothing can free me but death; and, therefore, no occasion of my

performance shall sooner offer itself but I shall meet it half way.

The indissoluble duty which I owe unto her majesty is only the duty

of allegiance, which Imnever have nor never can fail in. The duty of

attendance is no indissoluble duty. I owe her majesty the duty of an

earl, and of lord marshal of England. I have been content to do her

majesty the service of a clerk; but I can never serve her as a villain

of slave. But yet you say I must give way unto the time. So I do; for

now that I see the storm come, I have put myself into the harbor. Seneca

saith, we must give way to fortune. I know that fortune is both blind

and strong, and therefore I go as far as I can out of her way. You say

the remedy is not to strive. I neither strive nor seek for remedy.

But you say I must yield and submit. I can neither yield myself to be

guilty, nor allow the imputation laid upon me to be just. I owe so much

to the Author of all truth, as I can never yield truth to be falsehood,

nor falsehood to be truth. Have I given cause, you ask, and yet take a

scandal when I have done? No. I gave no cause, not so much as Fimbria’s

complaint against me; for I did ‘totum telum corpore recipere,’ receive

the whole sword into my body. I patiently bear all, and sensibly feel

all that I then received when this scandal was given me. Nay, more, when

the vilest of all indignities are done unto me,” etc. This noble

letter, Bacon afterwards, in pleading against Essex, called bold and

presumptuous, and derogatory to her majesty. Birch’s Memoirs, vol. ii.

p. 338.]

[Footnote 37: NOTE KK, P. 321. Most of Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers

feigned love and desire towards her, and addressed themselves to her in

the style of passion and gallantry. Sir Walter Raleigh, having fallen

into disgrace, wrote the following letter to his friend, Sir Robert

Cecil, with a view, no doubt, of having it shown to the queen. “My heart

was never broke till this day, that I hear the queen goes away so far

off, whom I have followed so many years, with so great love and desire

in so many journeys, and am now left behind here in a dark prison all

alone. While she was yet near at hand, that I might hear of her once in

two or three days, my sorrows were the less; but even now, my heart it

cast into the depth of all misery. I, that was wont to behold her riding

like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind

blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks, like a nymph, sometimes

sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel,

sometimes playing like Orpheus; behold the sorrow of this world! once

amiss hath bereaved me of all. O glory, that only sdineth in misfortune,

what is become of thy assurance? All wounds have scars but that of

fantasy: all affections their relenting but that of womankind. Who is

the judge of friendship but adversity, only when is grace witnessed but

in offences? There were no divinity but by reason of compassion; for

revenges are brutish and mortal. All those times past, the loves,

the sighs, the sorrows, the desires, cannot they weigh down one

frail misfortune? Cannot one drop of gall be hid in so great heaps of

sweetness? I may then conclude, ‘Spes et fortuna, valete.’ She is gone

in whom I trusted; and of me hath not one thought of mercy, nor any

respect of that which was Do with me now, therefore, what you list. I am

more weary of life than they are desirous I should perish; which, if it

had been for her, as it is by her, I had been too happily born.” Murden,

657. It is to be remarked, that this nymph, Venus, goddess, angel, was

then about sixty. Yet five or six years after, she allowed the same

language to be held to her. Sir Henry Unton, her ambassador in France,

relates to her a conversation which he had with Henry IV. That monarch,

after having introduced Unton to his mistress, the fair Gabrielle, asked

him how he liked her. “I answered sparingly in her praise,” said the

minister, “and told him, that if, without offence, I might speak it,

I had the picture of a far more excellent mistress, and yet did her

picture come far short of her perfection of beauty. As you love me, said

he, show it me, if you have it about you. I made some difficulties; yet,

upon his importunity, offered it to his view very secretly, holding it

still in my hand. He beheld it with passion and admiration, saying, that

I had reason, ‘Je me rends,’ protesting that he had never seen the like;

so, with great reverence, he kissed it twice or thrice, I detaining it

still in my hand. In the end, with some kind of contention, he took

it from me, vowing that I might take my leave of it; for he would not

forego it for any treasure; and that to possess the favor of the lovely

picture, he would forsake all the world, and hold himself most happy;

with many other most passionate speeches.” Murden, p. 718. For further

particulars on this head, see the ingenious author of the Catalogue of

Royal and Noble Authors, article Essex.]

[Footnote 38: NOTE LL, P. 337.

It may not be amiss to subjoin some passages of these speeches; which

may serve to give us a just idea of the government of that age, and of

the political principles which prevailed during the reign of Elizabeth.

Mr. Laurence Hyde proposed a bill, entitled, An act for the explanation

of the common law in certain cases of letters patent. Mr. Spicer said,

“This bill may touch the prerogative royal, which, as I learned the last

parliament, is so transcendent, that the------of the subject may not

aspire thereunto. Far be it therefore from me that the state and

prerogative royal of the prince should be tied by me, or by the act of

any other subject.” Mr. Francis Bacon said, “As to the prerogative royal

of the prince, for my own part, I ever allowed of it; and it is such as

I hope will never be discussed. The queen, as she is our sovereign, hath

both an enlarging and restraining power. For by her prerogative she

may set at liberty things restrained by statute, law, or otherwise;

and secondly, by her prerogative she may restrain things which be at

liberty. For the first, she may grant a ‘non obstante’ contrary to the

penal laws. With regard to monopolies and such like cases, the case hath

ever been to humble ourselves onto her majesty, and by petition desire

to have our grievances remedied, especially when the remedy touched

her so nigh in point of prerogative. I say, and I say it again, that we

ought not to deal, to judge or meddle with her majesty’s prerogative. I

wish, therefore, every man to be careful of this business.” Dr. Bennet

said, “He that goeth about to debate her majesty’s prerogative had need

to walk warily.” Mr. Laurence Hyde said, “For the bill itself, I made

it, and I think I understand it; and far be it from this heart of mine

to think, this tongue to speak, or this hand to write any thing either

in prejudice or derogation of her majesty’s prerogative royal and the

state.” “Mr. Speaker,” quoth Serjeant Harris, “for aught I see, the

house moveth to have this bill in the nature of a petition. It must then

begin with more humiliation. And truly, sir, the bill is good of itself,

but the penning of it is somewhat out of course.” Mr. Montague said,

“The matter is good and honest, and I like this manner of proceeding by

bill well enough in this matter. The grievances are great, and I would

only unto you thus much, that the last parliament we proceeded by way

of petition, which had no successful effect.” Mr. Francis More said, “I

know the queen’s prerogative is a thing curious to be dealt withal; yet

all grievances are not comparable. I cannot utter with my tongue, or

conceive with my heart, the great grievances that: the town and country,

for which I serve, suffereth by some of these monopolies. It bringeth

the general profit into a private hand, and the end of all this is

beggary and bondage to the subjects. We have a law for the true and

faithful currying of leather. There is a patent sets all at liberty,

notwithstanding that statute. And to what purpose is it to do any

thing by act of parliament, when the queen will undo the same by her

prerogative? Out of the spirit of humiliation, Mr. Speaker, I do speak

it, there is no act of hers that hath been or is mores derogatory to

her own majesty, more odious to the subject, more dangerous to the

commonwealth, than the granting of these monopolies.” Mr. Martin said,

“I do speak for a town that grieves and pines, tor a country

that groaneth and languisheth, under the burden of monstrous and

unconscionable substitutes to the monopolitans of starch, tin, fish,

cloth, oil, vinegar, salt, and I know not what; nay, what not? The

principalest commodities, both of my town and country, are engrossed

into the hands of these bloodsuckers of the commonwealth. If a body, Mr.

Speaker, being let blood, be left still languishing without any remedy,

how can the good estate of that body still remain? Such is the state of

my town and country; the traffic is taken away, the inward and private

commodities are taken away, and dare not be used without the license of

these monopolitans. If these bloodsuckers be still let alone to suck up

the best and principalest commodities which the earth there hath given

us, what will become of us, from whom the fruits of our own soil, and

the commodities of our own labor, which, with the sweat of our brows,

even up to the knees in mire and dirt, we have labored for, shall be

taken by warrant of supreme authority, which the poor subject dare

not gainsay?” Mr. George Moore said, “We know the power of her majesty

cannot be restrained by any act. Why, wherefore, should we thus talk s

Admit we should make this statute with a non obstante; yet the queen may

grant a patent with a non obstante to cross this non obstante. I think,

therefore, it agreeth more with the gravity and wisdom of this house, to

proceed with all humbleness by petition than bill.” Mr. Downland said,

“As I would be no let or over-vehement in any thing, so I am not sottish

or senseless of the common grievance of the commonwealth. If we proceed

by way of petition, we can have no more gracious answer then we had the

last parliament to our petition. But since that parliament, we have no

reformation.” Sir Robert Wroth said, “I speak, and I speak it boldly,

these patentees are worse than ever they were.” Mr. Hayward Townsend

proposed, that they should make suit to her majesty, not only to repeal

all monopolies grievous to the subject, but also that it would please

her majesty to give the parliament leave to make an act that they might

be of no more force, validity, or effect, than they are at the common

law, without the strength of her prerogative. Which though we might

now do, and the act being so reasonable, we might assure ourselves

her majesty would not delay the passing thereof, yet we, her loving

subjects, etc., would not offer without her privity and consent, (the

cause so nearly touching her prerogative,) or go about to do any such

act.

On a subsequent day, the bill against monopolies was again introduced,

and Mr. Spicer said, “It is to no purpose to offer to tie her majesty’s

hands by act of parliament, when she may loosen herself at her

pleasure.” Mr. Davies said, “God hath given that power to absolute

princes, which he attributes to himself. Dixi quod Dii estis.’” (N.

B. This axiom he applies to the kings of England.) Mr. Secretary Cecil

said, “I am servant to the queen, and before I would speak and give

consent to a case that should debase her prerogative, or abridge it, I

would wish that my tongue were cut out of my head. I am sure there

were law-makers before there were laws; (meaning, I suppose, that the

sovereign was above the laws.) One gentleman went about to possess us

with the execution of the law in an ancient record of 5 or 7 of Edward

III. Likely enough to be true in that time, when the king was afraid of

the subject. If you stand upon law, and dispute of the prerogative, hark

ye what Bracton says: ‘Praerogativam nestram nemo audeat disputare.’ And

for my own part, I like not these courses should be taken. And you,

Mr. Speaker, should perform the charge her majesty gave unto you in the

beginning of this parliament, not to receive bills of this nature; for

her majesty’s ears be open to all grievances, and her hands stretched

out to every man’s petitions. When the prince dispenses with a penal

law, that is left to the alteration of sovereignty, that is good and

irrevocable.” Mr. Montague said, “I am loath to speak what I know, lest,

perhaps, I should displease. The prerogative royal is that which is

now in question, and which the laws of the land have ever allowed bad

maintained. Let us, therefore, apply by petition to her majesty.”

After the speaker told the house that the queen had annulled many of the

patents, Mr. Francis More said, “I must confess, Mr. Speaker, I moved

the house both the last parliament and this, touching this point; but I

never meant (and I hope the house thinketh so) to set limits and bounds

to the prerogative royal.” He proceeds to move that thanks should be

given to her majesty; and also that whereas divers speeches have been

moved extravagantly in the house, which, doubtless, have been told

her majesty, and perhaps ill conceived of by her, Mr. Speaker would

apologize, and humbly crave pardon for the same. N. B. These extracts

were taken by Townsend, a member of the house, who was no courtier; and

the extravagance of the speeches seems rather to be on the other side.

It will certainly appear strange to us that this liberty should be

thought extravagant.

However, the queen, notwithstanding her cajoling the house, was so ill

satisfied with these proceedings, that she spoke of them peevishly in

her concluding speech, and told them, that she perceived that private

respects with them were privately masked under public presence. D’Ewes,

p. 619.

There were some other topics in favor of prerogative, still more

extravagant, advanced in the house this parliament. When the question

of the subsidy was before them, Mr. Serjeant Heyle said, “Mr. Speaker,

I marvel much that the house should stand upon granting of a subsidy

or the time of payment, when all we have is her majesty’s, and she may

lawfully at her pleasure take it from us; yea, she hath as much right

to all our lands and goods as to any revenue of her crown.” At which all

the house hemmed, and laughed, and talked “Well,” quoth Serjeant Heyle,

“all your hemming shall not put me out of countenance.” So Mr. Speaker

stood up and said, “It is a great disorder that this house should be so

used.” So the said serjeant proceeded, and when he had spoken a little

while, the house hemmed again; and so he sat down. In his latter speech,

he said, he could prove his former position by precedents in the time

of Henry III., King John, King Stephen, etc., which was the occasion

of then: hemming. D’Ewes, p. 633. It is observable, that Heyle was an

eminent lawyer, a man of character. Winwood, vol. i. p. 290. And though

the house in general showed their disapprobation, no one cared to take

him down, Or oppose these monstrous positions. It was also asserted this

session, that in the same manner as the Roman consul was possessed of

the power of rejecting or admitting motions in the senate, the speaker

might either admit or reject bills in the house. D’Ewes, p. 677. The

house declared themselves against this opinion; but the very proposal of

it is a proof at what a low ebb liberty was at that time in England.

In the year 1591, the judges made a solemn decree, that England was an

absolute empire, of which the king was the head. In consequence of this

opinion, they determined, that even if the act of the first of Elizabeth

had never been made, the king was supreme head of the church; and might

have erected, by his prerogative, such a court as the ecclesiastical

commission; for that he was the head of all his subjects. Now that court

was plainly arbitrary. The inference is, that his power was equally

absolute over the laity. See Coke’s Reports, p. 5. Caudrey’s case.]

[Footnote 39: NOTE MM, p. 359. We have remarked before, that Harrison,

in book ii. chap. 11, says, that in the reign of Henry VIII. there

were hanged seventy-two thousand thieves and rogues, (besides other

malefactors;) this makes about two thousand a year: but in Queen

Elizabeth’s time, the same author says, there were only between three

and four hundred a year banged for theft and robbery; so much had the

times mended. But in our age, there are not forty a year hanged for

those crimes in all England. Yet Harrison complains of the relaxation of

the laws, that there were so few such rogues punished in his time. Our

vulgar prepossession in favor of the morals of former and rude ages, is

very absurd, and ill-grounded. The same author says, (chap. 10,) that

there were computed to be ten thousand gypsies in England; a species of

banditti introduced about the reign of Henry VIII.; and he adds, that

there will be no way of extirpating them by the ordinary course of

justice. The queen must employ martial law against them. That race has

now almost totally disappeared in England, and even in Scotland, where

there were some remains of them a few years ago. However arbitrary the

exercise of martial law in the crown, it appears that nobody in the age

of Elizabeth entertained any jealousy of it.]

[Footnote 40: NOTE NN, p. 367. Harrison, in his Description of Britain,

printed in 1577, has the following passage, (chap. 13:) “Certes there

is no prince in Europe that hath a more beautiful sort of ships than the

queen’s majesty of England at this present; and those generally are

of such exceeding force, that two of them, being well appointed and

furnished as they ought, will not let to encounter with three or four of

them of other countries, and either bowge them or put them to flight,

if they may not bring them home. The queen’s highness hath, at this

present, already made and furnished to the number of one and twenty

great ships, which lie for the most part in Gillingham Rode. Beside

these, her grace hath other in hand also, of whom hereafter, as their

turns do come about, I will not let to leave some further remembrance.

She hath likewise three notable galleys, the Speedwell, the Tryeright,

and the Black Galley, with the sight whereof, and the rest of the navy

royal, it is incredible to say how marvellously her grace is delighted;

and not without great cause, sith by their means her coasts are kept in

quiet, and sundry foreign enemies put back, which otherwise would invade

us.” After speaking of the merchant ships, which, he says, are commonly

estimated at seventeen or eighteen hundred, he continues: “I add,

therefore, to the end all men should understand somewhat of the great

masses of treasure daily employed upon our navy, how there are few of

those ships of the first and second sort, (that is, of the merchant

ships,) that, being apparelled and made ready to sail, are not worth one

thousand pounds, or three thousand ducats at the least, if they should

presently be sold. What shall we then think of the navy royal, of which

some one vessel is worth two of the other, as the shipwright has often

told me? It is possible that some covetous person, hearing this report,

will either not credit at all, or suppose money so employed to be

nothing profitable to the queen’s coffers; as a good husband said once,

when he heard that provisions should be made for armor, wishing the

queen’s money to be rather laid out to some speedier return of gain

unto her grace. But if he wist that the good keeping of the sea is the

safeguard of our land, he would alter his censure, and soon give over

his judgment.” Speaking of the forests, this author says, “An infinite

deal of wood hath been destroyed within these few years; and I dare

affirm, that if wood do go so fast to decay in the next hundred years of

grace, as they have done or are like to do in this, it is to be feared

that sea coal will be good merchandise even in the city of London.”

Harrison’s prophecy was fulfilled in a very few years; for about 1615,

there were two hundred sail employed in carrying coal to London. See

Anderson, vol. i. p. 494.]

[Footnote 41: NOTE OO, p. 373. Life of Burleigh, published by Collins,

f--44. The author hints that this quantity of plate was considered only

as small in a man of Burleigh’s rank. His words are, “His plate was not

above fourteen or fifteen thousand pounds.” That he means pounds weight

is evident. For, by Burleigh’s will, which is annexed to his life, that

nobleman gives away in legacies, to friends and relations, near four

thousand pounds weight, which would have been above twelve thousand

pounds sterling in value. The remainder he orders to be divided into two

equal portions; the half to his eldest son and heir; the other half to

be divided equally among his second son and three daughters. Were we

therefore to understand the whole value of his plate to be only 14 or

16,000 pounds sterling, he left not the tenth of it to the heir of his

family.]

[Footnote 42: NOTE PP, p. 373. Harrison says, “The greatest part of

our building in the cities and good towns of England consisteth only

of timber, cast over with thick clay to keep out the wind. Certes, this

rude kind of building made the Spaniards in Queen Mary’s days to wonder;

but chiefly when they saw that large diet was used in many of these so

homely cottages, insomuch that one of no small reputation amongst them

said after this manner: These English, quoth he, have their houses made

of sticks and dirt, but they fare commonly so well as the king. Whereby

it appeareth, that he liked better of our good fare in such coarse

cabins, than of their own thin diet in their princely habitations and

palaces. The clay with which our houses are commonly empanelled, is

either white, red, or blue.” Book ii. chap. 12. The author adds, that

the new houses of the nobility are commonly of brick or stone, and that

glass windows were beginning to be used in England.]

[Footnote 43: NOTE QQ, p. 375. The following are the words of Roger

Ascham, the queen’s preceptor: “It is your shame, (I speak to you all,

young gentlemen of England,) that one maid should go beyond ye all in

excellency of learning and knowledge of divers tongues. Point out six of

the best given gentlemen of this court, and all they together show not

so much good will, spend not so much time, bestow not so many hours

daily, orderly, and constantly, for the increase of learning and

knowledge, as doth the queen’s majesty herself. Yea, I believe that

besides her perfect readiness in Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish,

she readeth here now at Windsor more Greek every day, than some

prebendary of this church doth Latin in a whole week. Amongst all the

benefits which God had blessed me withal, next the knowledge of Christ’s

true religion, I count this the greatest, that it pleased God to call

me to be one poor minister in setting forward these excellent gifts of

learning,” etc. (page 242.) “Truly,” says Harrison, “it is a rare thing

with us now to hear of a courtier which hath but his own language; and

to say how many gentlewomen and ladies there are that, besides sound

knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues, are thereto no less skilful in

the Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some one of them, it resteth

not in me, sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen do

surmount in this behalf, so these come little or nothing at all behind

them for their parts; which industry God continue. The stranger, that

entereth in the court of England upon the sudden, shall rather imagine

himself to come into some public school of the university, where many

give ear to one that readeth unto them, than into a prince’s palace, if

you confer thus with those of other nations.” Description of Britain,

book ii. chap. 15. By this account, the court had profited by the

example of the queen. The sober way of life practised by the ladies of

Elizabeth’s court appears from the same author. Reading, spinning, and

needlework occupied the elder; music the younger. Id. ibid.]

[Footnote 44: NOTE RR, p. 391. Sir Charles Cornwallis, the king’s

ambassador at Madrid, when pressed by the duke of Lernia to enter into

a league with Spain, said to that minister, “Though his majesty was an

absolute king, and therefore not bound to give an account to any of his

actions, yet that so gracious and regardful a prince he was of the love

and contentment of his own subjects, as I assured myself he would not

think it fit to do any thing of so great consequence without acquainting

them with his intentions.” Winwood, vol. ii. p. 222. Sir Walter Raleigh

has this passage in the preface to his History of the World: “Philip

II., by strong hand and main force, attempted to make himself not

only an absolute monarch over the Netherlands, like unto the kings and

monarchs of England and France, but, Turk like, to tread under his feet

all their natural and fundamental laws, privileges, and ancient rights.”

We meet with this passage in Sir John Davis’s Question concerning

impositions, (p. 161:) “Thus we see, by this comparison, that the king

of England doth lay but his little finger upon his subjects, when other

princes and states do lay their heavy loins upon their people. What is

the reason of this difference? from whence cometh it? assuredly not from

a different power or prerogative; for the king of England is as

absolute a monarch as any emperor or king in the world, and hath as many

prerogatives incident to his crown.” Coke, in Cawdry’s case, says, “that

by the ancient laws of this realm, England is an absolute empire and

monarchy; and that the king is furnished with plenary and entire power,

prerogative, and jurisdiction, and is supreme governor over all persons

within this realm,’” Spencer, speaking of some grants of the English

kings to the Irish corporations, says, “all which, though at the time of

their first grant they were tolerable, and perhaps reasonable, yet now

are most unreasonable and inconvenient. But all these will easily be cut

off, with the superior power of her majesty’s prerogative, against which

her own grants are not to be pleaded or enforced.” State of Ireland p.

1637, edit. 1706. The same author, in p. 1660, proposes a plan for the

civilization of Ireland; that the queen should create a marshal in every

county, who might ride about with eight or ten followers in search of

stragglers and vagabonds: the first time he catches any, he may punish

them more lightly by the stocks; the second time, by whipping; but the

third time, he may hang them, without trial or process, on the first

bough: and he thinks that this authority may more safely be intrusted to

the provost marshal than to the sheriff; because the latter magistrate,

having a profit by the escheats of felons, may be tempted to hang

innocent persons. Here a real absolute, or rather despotic power is

pointed out; and we may infer from all these passages, either that the

word absolute bore a different sense from what it does at present, or

that men’s ideas of the English, as well as Irish government, were then

different. This latter inference seems juster. The word, being derived

from the French, bore always the same sense as in that language. An

absolute monarchy, in Charles I,’s answer to the nineteen propositions

is opposed to a limited; and the king of England is acknowledged not to

be absolute: so much had matters changed even before the civil war. In

Sir John Fortescue’s treatise of absolute and limited monarchy, a book

written in the reign of Edward IV., the word absolute is taken in the

same sense as at present; and the government of England is also said not

to be absolute. They were the princes of the house of Tudor chiefly

who introduced that administration which had the appearance of absolute

government. The princes before them were restrained by the barons;

as those after them by the house of commons. The people had, properly

speaking, little liberty in either of these ancient governments, but

least in the more ancient.]

[Footnote 45: NOTE SS, p. 392. Even this parliament, which showed so

much spirit and good sense in the affair of Goodwin, made a strange

concession to the crown in their fourth session. Toby Mathews, a member,

had been banished by order of the council, upon direction from

his majesty. The parliament not only acquiesced in this arbitrary

proceeding, but issued writs for a new election: such novices were they

as yet in the principles of liberty. See Journ. 14th Feb. 1609. Mathews

was banished by the king on account of his change of religion to Popery.

The king had an indulgence to those who had been educated Catholics; but

could not bear the new converts. It was probably the animosity of the

commons against the Papists which made them acquiesce in this precedent,

without reflecting on the consequences. The jealousy of liberty, though

roused, was not yet thoroughly enlightened.]

[Footnote 46: NOTE TT, p. 394. At that time, men of genius and of

enlarged minds had adopted the principles of liberty, which were as yet

pretty much unknown to the generality of the people. Sir Matthew Hales

has published a remonstrance against the king’s conduct towards the

parliament during this session. The remonstrance is drawn with great

force of reasoning and spirit of liberty; and was the production of Sir

Francis Bacon and Sir Edwin Sandys, two men of the greatest parts and

knowledge in England. It is drawn in the name of the commons; but as

there is no hint of it in the journals, we must conclude, either that

the authors, sensible that the strain of the piece was much beyond the

principles of the age, had not ventured to present it to the house, or

that it had been for that reason rejected. The dignity and authority of

the commons are strongly insisted upon in this remonstrance; and it

is there said, that their submission to the ill treatment which they

received during the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign, had proceeded

from their tenderness towards her age and her sex. But the authors are

mistaken in these facts: for the house received and submitted to as bad

treatment in the beginning and middle of that reign. The government

was equally arbitrary in Mary’s reign, in Edward’s, in Henry VIII. and

VII.’s. And the further we go back into history, though there might

be more of a certain irregular kind of liberty among the barons, the

commons were still of less authority.]

[Footnote 47: NOTE UU, p. 398. This parliament passed an act of

recognition of the king’s title in the most ample terms. They recognized

and acknowledged, that immediately upon the dissolution and decease of

Elizabeth, late queen of England, the imperial crown thereof did, by

inherent birthright and lawful and undoubted succession, descend and

come to his most excellent majesty, as being lineally, justly, and

lawfully next and sole heir of the blood royal of this realm. I James

I. cap. 1. The Puritans, though then prevalent, did not think proper

to dispute this great constitutional point. In the recognition of Queen

Elizabeth, the parliament declares, that the queen’s highness is, and in

very deed and of most mere right ought to be, by the laws of God and

by the laws and statutes of this realm, our most lawful and rightful

sovereign, liege lady, and queen, etc. It appears, then, that if King

James’s divine right be not mentioned by parliament, the omission

came merely from chance, and because that phrase did not occur to the

compiler of the recognition; his title being plainly the same with that

of his predecessor, who was allowed to have a divine right.]

[Footnote 50: NOTE XX, p. 405. Some historians have imagined, that the

king had secret intelligence of the conspiracy, and that the letter to

Monteagle was written by his direction, in order to obtain the praise

of penetration in discovering the plot. But the known facts refute this

supposition. That letter, being commonly talked of, might naturally have

given an alarm to the conspirators, and made them contrive their escape.

The visit of the lord chamberlain ought to have had the same effect. In

short, it appears that nobody was arrested or inquired after for some

days, till Fawkes discovered the names of the conspirators. We may

infer, however, from a letter in Winwood’s Memorials, (vol. ii p. 171,)

that Salisbury’s sagacity led the king in his conjectures, and that the

minister, like an artful courtier, gave his master the praise of the

whole discovery.

[Footnote 51: NOTE YY, p. 417. We find the king’s answer in Winwood’s

Memorials, vol. iii. r. 198, 2d edit. “To the third and fourth, (namely,

that it might be lawful to arrest the king’s servants without leave, and

that no man should be enforced to lend money, nor to give a reason why

he would not,) his majesty sent us an answer, that because we brought

precedents of antiquity to strengthen those demands, he allowed not of

any precedents drawn from the time of usurping or decaying princes,

or people too bold and wanton; that he desired not to govern in that

commonwealth where subjects should be assured of all things, and hope

for nothing. It was one thing ‘submittere principatum legibus,’ and

another thing ‘submittere principatum subditis.’ That he would not leave

to posterity such a mark of weakness upon his reign; and therefore his

conclusion was, ‘non placet petitio, non placet exemplum.:’ yet with

this mitigation, that in matters of loans he would refuse no reasonable

excuse, nor should my lord chamberlain deny the arresting of any of his

majesty’s servants, if just cause was shown.” The parliament, however,

acknowledged at this time with thankfulness to the king, that he allowed

disputes and inquiries about his prerogative much beyond what had been

indulged by any of his predecessors. Parliament. Hist. vol. v. p. 230.

This very session he expressly gave them leave to produce all their

grievances, without exception.]

[Footnote 52: NOTE ZZ, p. 420. It may not be unworthy of observation,

that James, in a book called The true Laws of free Monarchies, which

he published a little before his accession to the crown of England,

affirmed, “That a good king, although he be above the law, will subject

and frame his actions thereto, for example’s sake to his subjects, and

of his own free will, but not as subject or bound thereto.” In another

passage, “According to the fundamental law already alleged, we daily

see, that in the parliament, (which is nothing else but the head court

of the king and his vassals,) the laws are but craved by his subjects,

and only made by him at their rogation, and with their advice. For

albeit the king make daily statutes and ordinances, enjoining such pains

thereto as he thinks meet, without any advice of parliament or estates,

yet it lies in the power of no parliament to make any kind of law or

statute, without his sceptre be to it, for giving it the force of a law.”

King James’s Works, p. 202. It is not to be supposed that, at such a

critical juncture, James had so little sense as directly, in so material

a point, to have openly shocked what were the universal established

principles of that age: on the contrary, we are told by historians, that

nothing tended more to facilitate his accession, than the good opinion

entertained of him by the English on account of his learned, and

judicious writings. The question, however, with regard to the royal

power, was at this time become a very dangerous point; and without

employing ambiguous, insignificant terms, which determined nothing, it

was impossible to please both king and parliament. Dr. Cowell, who had

magnified the prerogative in words too intelligible, fell this session

under the indignation of the commons. Parliament. Hist vol. v. p. 221.

The king himself after all his magnificent boasts, was obliged to make

his escape through a distinction which he framed between a king in

abstracto and a king in concreto: an abstract king, he said, had all

power; but a concrete king was bound to observe the laws of the country

which he governed. King James’s Works, p. 533. But how bound? by

conscience only? or might his subjects resist him, and defend their

privileges? This he thought not fit to explain. And so difficult is it

to explain that point, that to this day, whatever liberties may be used

by private inquirers, the laws have very prudently thought proper to

maintain a total silence with regard to it.]

[Footnote 53: NOTE AAA, p. 434. Parliament. Hist. vol. v. p. 290. So

little fixed at this time were the rules of parliament, that the commons

complained to the peers of a speech made in the upper house by the

bishop of Lincoln; which it belonged only to that house to censure, and

which the other could not regularly be supposed to be acquainted with.

These at least are the rules established since the parliament became

a real seat of power and scene of business: neither the king must take

notice of what passes in either house, nor either house of what passes

in the other, till regularly informed of it. The commons, in their

famous protestation 1621, fixed this rule with regard to the king,

though at present they would not bind themselves by it. But as liberty

was yet new, those maxims which guard and regulate it were unknown and

unpractised.]

[Footnote 54: NOTE BBB, p. 452. Some of the facts in this narrative,

which seem to condemn Raleigh, are taken from the king’s declaration,

which, being published by authority when the facts were recent, being

extracted from examinations before the privy council, and subscribed by

six privy councillors, among whom was Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury,

a prelate nowise complaisant to the court, must be allowed to have great

weight, or rather to be of undoubted credit. Yet the most material facts

are confirmed either by the nature and reason of the thing, or by Sir

Walter’s own apology and his letters. The king’s declaration is in the

Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii. No. 2.

1. There seems to be an improbability that the Spaniards, who knew

nothing of Raleigh’s pretended mine, should have built a town, in

so wide a coast, within three miles of it. The chances are extremely

against such a supposition; and it is more natural to think that the

view of plundering the town led him thither, than that of working a

mine. 2. No such mine is there found to this day. 3. Raleigh in fact

found no mine, and in fact he plundered and burned a Spanish town. Is it

not more probable, therefore, that the latter was his intention? How

can the secrets of his breast be rendered so visible as to counterpoise

certain facts? 4. He confesses, in his letter to Lord Carew, that

though he knew it, yet he concealed from the king the settlement of

the Spaniards on that coast. Does not this fact alone render him

sufficiently criminal? 5. His commission empowers him only to settle on

a coast possessed by savage and barbarous inhabitants. Was it not the

most evident breach of orders to disembark on a coast possessed by

Spaniards? 6. His orders to Keymis, when he sent him up the river, are

contained in his own apology; and from them it appears that he knew

(what was unavoidable) that the Spaniards would resist, and would

oppose the English landing and taking possession of the country. His

intentions, therefore, were hostile from the beginning. 7. Without

provocation, and even when at a distance, he gave Keymis orders to

dislodge the Spaniards from their own town. Could any enterprise be more

hostile? And, considering the Spaniards as allies to the nation, could

any enterprise be more criminal? Was he not the aggressor, even though

it should be true that the Spaniards fired upon his men at landing?

It is said he killed three or four hundred of them. Is that so light a

matter? 8. In his letter to the king, and in his apology, he grounds his

defence on former hostilities exercised by the Spaniards against other

companies of Englishmen. These are accounted for by the ambiguity of

the treaty between the nations. And it is plain, that though these might

possibly be reasons for the king’s declaring war against that nation,

they could never entitle Raleigh to declare war, and, without any

commission, or contrary to his commission, to invade the Spanish

settlements. He pretends indeed that peace was never made with Spain

in the Indies; a most absurd notion! The chief hurt which the Spaniards

could receive from England was in the Indies; and they never would have

made peace at all, if hostilities had been still to be continued on

these settlements. By secret agreement, the English were still allowed

to support the Dutch, even after the treaty of peace. If they had also

been allowed to invade the Spanish settlements, the treaty had been a

full peace to England, while the Spaniards were still exposed to the

full effects of war. 9. If the claim to the property of that country,

as first discoverers, was good, in opposition to present settlement,

as Raleigh pretends, why was it not laid before the king, with all its

circumstances, and submitted to his judgment? 10. Raleigh’s force is

acknowledged by himself to have been insufficient to support him in the

possession of St. Thomas, against the power of which Spain was master

on that coast; yet it was sufficient as he owns, to take by surprise and

plunder twenty towns. It was not therefore his design to settle, but to

plunder. By these confessions, which I have here brought together, he

plainly betrays himself. 11. Why did he not stay and work his mine, as

at first he projected? He apprehended that the Spaniards would be upon

him with a greater force. But before he left England, he knew that this

must be the case, if he invaded any part of the Spanish colonies. His

intention therefore never was to settle, but only to plunder. 12. He

acknowledges that he knew neither the depth nor riches of the mine,

but only that there was some ore there. Would he have ventured all his

fortune and credit on so precarious a foundation? 13. Would the other

adventurers, if made acquainted with this, have risked every thing to

attend him? Ought a fleet to have been equipped for an experiment? Was

there not plainly an imposture in the management of this affair? 14. He

says to Keymis, in his orders, “Bring but a basket full of ore, and

it will satisfy the king that my project was not imaginary.” This was

easily done from the Spanish mines, and he seems to have been

chiefly displeased at Keymis for not attempting it. Such a view was a

premeditated apology to cover his cheat. 15. The king in his declaration

imputes it to Raleigh, that as soon as he was at sea, he immediately

fell into such uncertain and doubtful talk of his* mine, and said that

it would be sufficient if he brought home a basket full of ore. From

the circumstance last mentioned, it appears that this imputation was not

without reason. 16. There are many other circumstances of great weight

in the king’s declaration: that Raleigh, when he fell down to Plymouth,

took no pioneers with him, which he always declared to be his intention;

that he was nowise provided with instruments for working a mine, but had

a sufficient stock of warlike stores; that young Raleigh, in attacking

the Spaniards, employed the words, which, in the narration, I have

put in his mouth; that the mine was movable, and shifted as he saw

convenient; not to mention many other public facts, which prove him to

have been highly criminal against his companions as well as his country.

Howel, in his letters, says, that there lived in London, in 1645, an

officer, a man of honor, who asserted that he heard young Raleigh speak

these words, (vol. ii. letter 63.) That was a time when there was no

interest in maintaining such a fact. 17. Raleigh’s account of his first

voyage to Guiana proves him to have been a man capable of the most

extravagant credulity or most impudent imposture. So ridiculous are the

stories which he tells of the Inca’s chimerical empire in the midst

of Guiana; the rich city of El Dorado, or Manao, two days’ journey in

length, and shining with gold and silver; the old Peruvian prophecies

in favor of the English, who, he says, were expressly named as the

deliverers of that country, long before any European had ever touched

there; the Amazons, or republic of women; and in general, the vast and

incredible riches which he saw on that continent, where nobody has

yet found any treasures. This whole narrative is a proof that he was

extremely defective either in solid understanding, or morals, or both.

No man’s character indeed seems ever to have been carried to such

extremes as Raleigh’s, by the opposite passions of envy and pity. In the

former part of his life, when he was active and lived in the world,

and was probably best known, he was the object of universal hatred and

detestation throughout England; in the latter part, when shut up in

prison, he became, much more unreasonably, the object of great love and

admiration.

As to the circumstances of the narrative, that Raleigh’s pardon was

refused him, that his former sentence was purposely kept in force

against him, and that he went out under these express conditions, they

may be supported by the following authorities: 1. The king’s word, and

that of six privy counsellors, who affirm it for fact. 2. The nature

of the thing. If no suspicion had been entertained of his intentions,

a pardon would never have been refused to a man to whom authority was

intrusted. 3. The words of the commission itself where he is simply

styled Sir Walter Raleigh, and not faithful and not beloved, according

to the usual and never-failing style on such occasions. 4. In all the

letters which he wrote home to Sir Ralph Winwood and to his own wife, he

always considers himself as a person unpardoned and liable to the law.

He seems, indeed, immediately upon the failure of his enterprise, to

have become desperate, and so have expected the fate which he met with.

It is pretended, that the king gave intelligence to the Spaniards of

Raleigh’s project; as if he had needed to lay a plot for destroying a

man whose life had been fourteen years, and still was, in his power. The

Spaniards wanted no other intelligence to be on their guard, than the

known and public fact of Raleigh’s armament. And there was no reason

why the king should conceal from them the project of a settlement which

Raleigh pretended, and the king believed, to be entirely innocent.

The king’s chief blame seems to have lain in his negligence, in allowing

Raleigh to depart without a more exact scrutiny: but for this he

apologizes by saying, that sureties were required for the good behavior

of Raleigh and all his associates in the enterprise, but that they gave

in bonds for each other: a cheat which was not perceived till they had

sailed, and which increased the suspicion of bad intentions.

Perhaps the king ought also to have granted Raleigh a pardon for his old

treason, and to have tried him anew for his new offences. His punishment

in that case would not only have been just, but conducted in a just and

unexceptionable manner. But we are told, that a ridiculous opinion at

that time prevailed in the nation, (and it is plainly supposed by

Sir Walter in his apology,) that, by treaty, war was allowed with the

Spaniards in the Indies, though peace was made in Europe: and while that

notion took place, no jury would have found Raleigh guilty. So that had

not the king punished him upon the old sentence, the Spaniards would

have had a just cause of complaint against the king, sufficient to have

produced a war, at least to have destroyed all cordiality between the

nations.

This explication I thought necessary in order to clear up the story of

Raleigh; which, though very obvious, is generally mistaken in so gross a

manner, that I scarcely know its parallel in the English history.]

[Footnote 55: NOTE CCC, p. 458 This parliament is remarkable for being

the epoch in which were first regularly formed, though without acquiring

these denominations, the parties of court and country; parties which

have ever since continued, and which, while they often threaten

the total dissolution of the government, are the real causes of its

permanent life and vigor. In the ancient feudal constitution, of which

the English partook with other European nations, there was a mixture,

not of authority and liberty, which we have since enjoyed in this

island, and which now subsist uniformly together; but of authority and

anarchy, which perpetually shocked with each other, and which took place

alternately, according as circumstances were more or less favorable to

either of them. A parliament composed of barbarians, summoned from their

fields and forests, uninstructed by study, conversation, or travel;

ignorant of their own laws and history, and unacquainted with the

situation of all foreign nations; a parliament called precariously by

the king, and dissolved at his pleasure; sitting a few days, debating a

few points prepared for them, and whose members were impatient to return

to their own castles, where alone they were great, and to the chase,

which was their favorite amusement: such a parliament was very little

fitted to enter into a discussion of all the questions of government,

and to share, in a regular manner, the legal administration. The name,

the authority of the king alone appeared, in the common course of

government; in extraordinary emergencies, he assumed, with still better

reason, the sole direction; the imperfect and unformed laws left in

every thing a latitude of interpretation; and when the ends pursued by

the monarch were in general agreeable to his subjects, little scruple

or jealousy was entertained with regard to the regularity of the means.

During the reign of an able, fortunate, or popular prince, no member

of either house, much less of the lower, durst think of entering into

a formed party in opposition to the court; since the dissolution of the

parliament must in a few days leave him unprotected to the vengeance of

his sovereign, and to those stretches of prerogative which were then so

easily made in order to punish an obnoxious subject. During an unpopular

and weak reign, the current commonly ran so strong against the monarch,

that none durst enlist themselves in the court party; or if the prince

was able to engage any considerable barons on his side, the question was

decided with arms in the field, not by debates or arguments in a senate

or assembly. And upon the whole, the chief circumstance which, during

ancient times, retained the prince in any legal form of administration,

was, that the sword, by the nature of the feudal tenures, remained still

in the hands of his subjects; and this irregular and dangerous check had

much more influence than the regular and methodical limits of the laws

and constitution. As the nation could not be compelled, it was necessary

that every public measure of consequence, particularly that of levying

new taxes, should seem to be adopted by common consent and approbation.

The princes of the house of Tudor, partly by the vigor of their

administration, partly by the concurrence of favorable circumstances,

had been able to establish a more regular system of government; but they

drew the constitution so near to despotism, as diminished extremely the

authority of the parliament. The senate became in a great degree the

organ of royal will and pleasure: opposition would have been regarded as

a species of rebellion: and even religion, the most dangerous article in

which innovations could be introduced, had admitted, in the course of

a few years, four several alterations, from the authority alone of the

sovereign. The parliament was not then the road to honor and preferment:

the talents of popular intrigue and eloquence were uncultivated and

unknown: and though that assembly still preserved authority, and

retained the privilege of making laws and bestowing public money, the

members acquired not upon that account, either with prince or people,

much more weight and consideration. What powers were necessary for

conducting the machine of government, the king was accustomed of himself

to assume. His own revenues supplied him with money sufficient for his

ordinary expenses. And when extraordinary emergencies occurred, the

prince needed not to solicit votes in parliament, either for making laws

or imposing taxes, both of which were now became requisite for public

interest and preservation.

The security of individuals, so necessary to the liberty of popular

councils, was totally unknown in that age. And as no despotic princes,

scarcely even the Eastern tyrants, rule entirely without the concurrence

of some assemblies, which supply both advice and authority, little but

a mercenary force seems then to have been wanting towards the

establishment of a simple monarchy in England. The militia, though more

favorable to regal authority than the feudal institutions, was much

inferior in this respect to disciplined armies; and if it did not

preserve liberty to the people, it preserved at least the power, if ever

the inclination should arise, of recovering it.

But so low at that time ran the inclination towards liberty, that

Elizabeth, the last of that arbitrary line, herself no less arbitrary,

was yet the most renowned and most popular of all the sovereigns that

had filled the throne of England. It was natural for James to take the

government as he found it, and to pursue her measures, which he heard

so much applauded; nor did his penetration extend so far as to discover,

that neither his circumstances nor his character could support so

extensive an authority. His narrow revenues and little frugality began

now to render him dependent on his people, even in the ordinary course

of administration: their increasing knowledge discovered to them

that advantage which they had obtained; and made them sensible of the

inestimable value of civil liberty. And as he possessed too little

dignity to command respect, and too much good nature to impress fear, a

new spirit discovered itself every day in the parliament; and a party,

watchful of a free constitution, was regularly formed in the house of

commons.

But notwithstanding these advantages acquired to liberty, so extensive

was royal authority, and so firmly established in all its parts, that

it is probable the patriots of that age would have despaired of ever

resisting it, had they not been stimulated by religious motives, which

inspire a courage unsurmountable by any human obstacle.

The same alliance which has ever prevailed between kingly power and

ecclesiastical authority, was now fully established in England; and

while the prince assisted the clergy in suppressing schismatics and

innovators, the clergy, in return, inculcated the doctrine of an

unreserved submission and obedience to the civil magistrate. The

genius of the church of England, so kindly to monarchy, forwarded the

confederacy; its submission to episcopal jurisdiction; its attachment to

ceremonies, to order, and to a decent pomp and splendor of worship;

and, in a word, its affinity to the tame superstition of the Catholics,

rather than to the wild fanaticism of the Puritans.

On the other hand, opposition to the church, and the persecutions under

which they labored, were sufficient to throw the Puritans into the

country party, and to beget political principles little favorable to the

high pretensions of the sovereign. The spirit too of enthusiasm;

bold, daring, and uncontrolled; strongly disposed their minds to adopt

republican tenets; and inclined them to arrogate, in their actions and

conduct, the same liberty which they assumed in their rapturous flights

and ecstasies. Ever since the first origin of that sect, through the

whole reign of Elizabeth as well as of James, Puritanical principles had

been understood in a double sense, and expressed the opinions favorable

both to political and to ecclesiastical liberty. And as the court,

in order to discredit all parliamentary opposition, affixed the

denomination of Puritans to its antagonists, the religious Puritans

willingly adopted this idea, which was so advantageous to them, and

which confounded their cause with that of the patriots or country party.

Thus were the civil and ecclesiastical factions regularly formed; and

the humor of the nation, during that age, running strongly towards

fanatical extravagancies, the spirit of civil liberty gradually revived

from its lethargy, and by means of its religious associate, from which

it reaped more advantage than honor, it secretly enlarged its dominion

over the greater part of the kingdom.

This note was in the first editions a part of the text; but the

author omitted it, in order to avoid as much as possible the style of

dissertation in the body of his History. The passage, however,

contains views so important, that he thought it might be admitted as a

footnote]

[Footnote 56: NOTE DDD, p. 465. This protestation is so remarkable, that

it may not be improper to give it in its own words. “The commons now

assembled in parliament, being justly occasioned thereunto, concerning

sundry liberties, franchises, and privileges of parliament, amongst

others here mentioned, do make this protestation following: That the

liberties, franchises, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient

and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England;

and that the urgent and arduous affairs concerning the king, state, and

defence of the realm and of the church of England, and the maintenance

and making of laws, and redress of mischiefs and grievances which daily

happen within this realm, are proper subjects and matter of counsel and

debate in parliament; and that, in the handling and proceeding of those

businesses, every member of the house of parliament hath, and of right

ought to have, freedom of speech to propound, treat, reason, and bring

to conclusion the same; and that the commons in parliament have like

liberty and freedom to treat of these matters, in such order as in their

judgment shall seem fittest; and that every member of the said house

hath like freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation,

(other than by censure of the house itself,) for or concerning any

speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters touching the

parliament or parliament business. And that if any of the said members

be complained of or questioned for any thing done or said in parliament,

the same is to be shown to the king by the advice and assent of all the

commons assembled in parliament, before the king give credence to any

private information.” Franklyn, p. 65. Rush, vol. i p. 53. Kennet, p.

747. Coke, p. 77.]

[Footnote 57: NOTE EEE, p. 434. The moment the prince embarked at St.

Andero’s, he said to those about him, that it was folly in the Spaniards

to use him so ill, and allow him to depart: a proof that the duke had

made him believe they were insincere in the affair of the marriage and

the Palatinate; for as to his reception in other respects, it had been

altogether unexceptionable. Besides, had not the prince believed the

Spaniards to be insincere, he had no reason to quarrel with them, though

Bucking-* *ham had. It appears, therefore, that Charles himself must

have been deceived. The multiplied delays of the dispensation, though

they arose from accident, afforded Buckingham a plausible pretext for

charging the Spaniards with insincerity.]

[Footnote 58: NOTE FFF, p. 486. Among other particulars, he mentions a

sum of eighty thousand pounds borrowed from the king of Denmark. In a

former speech to the parliament, he told them that he had expended

five hundred thousand pounds in the cause of the palatine, besides the

voluntary contributions given him by the people. See Franklyn, p. 50.

But what is more extraordinary, the treasurer, in order to show his own

good services, boasts to the parliament, that by his contrivance sixty

thousand pounds had been saved in the article of exchange in the sums

remitted to the palatine. This seems a great sum; nor is it easy to

conceive whence the king could procure such vast sums as would require a

sum so considerable to be paid in exchange. From the whole, however, it

appears, that the king had been far from neglecting the interests of his

daughter and son-in-law, and had even gone far beyond what his narrow

revenue could afford.]

[Footnote 59: NOTE GGG, p. 486. How little this principle had prevailed

during any former period of the English government, particularly during

the last reign, which was certainly not so perfect a model of liberty as

most writers would represent it, will easily appear from many passages

in the history of that reign. But the ideas of men were much changed

during about twenty years of a gentle and peaceful administration. The

commons, though James of himself had recalled all patents of monopolies,

were not contented without a law against them, and a declaratory law

too; which was gaining a great point, and establishing principles very

favorable to liberty: but they were extremely grateful when Elizabeth,

upon petition, (after having once refused their requests,) recalled

a few of the most oppressive patents, and employed some soothing

expressions towards them.

The parliament had surely reason, when they confessed, in the seventh

of James, that he allowed them more freedom of debate than ever was

indulged by any of his predecessors. His indulgence in this particular,

joined to his easy temper, was probably one cause of the great power

assumed by the commons. Monsieur de la Boderie, in his despatches, (vol.

i. p. 449,) mentions the liberty of speech in the house of commons as a

new practice.]

[Footnote 60: NOTE HHH, p. 491. Rymer, tom. xviii. p. 224. It is certain

that the young prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II., had Protestant

governors from his early infancy; first the earl of Newcastle, then the

marquis of Hertford. The king, in his memorial to foreign churches after

the commencement of the civil wars, insists on his care in educating

his children in the Protestant religion, as a proof that he was nowise

inclined to the Catholic, Rush. vol. v. p. 752. It can scarcely,

therefore, be questioned, but this article, which has so odd an

appearance, was inserted only to amuse the pope, and was never intended

by either party to be executed.]

[Footnote 61: NOTE III, p. 499. “Monarchies,” according to Sir Walter

Raleigh, “are of two sorts touching their power or authority, viz. 1.

Entire, where the whole power of ordering all state matters, both in

peace and war, doth by law and custom appertain to the prince, as in the

English kingdom; where the prince hath the power to make laws, league,

and war, to create magistrates, to pardon life, of appeal, etc. Though

to give a contentment to the other degrees, they have a suffrage in

making laws, yet ever subject to the prince’s pleasure and negative

will. 2. Limited or restrained, that hath no full power in all the

points and matters of state, as the military king that hath not the

sovereignty in time of peace, as the making of laws, etc., but in war

only, as the Polonian king.” Maxims of State.

And a little after: “In every just state, some part of the government

is, or ought to be, imparted to the people, as in a kingdom, a voice and

suffrage in making laws; and sometimes also of levying of arms, (if the

charge be great, and the prince forced to borrow help of his subjects,)

the matter rightly may be propounded to a parliament, that the tax

may seem to have proceeded from themselves. So consultations and some

proceedings in judicial matters may in part be referred to them. The

reason, lest, seeing themselves to be in no number nor of reckoning,

they mislike the state or government.” This way of reasoning differs

little from that of King James, who considered the privileges of the

parliament as matters of grace and indulgence, more than of inheritance.

It is remarkable that Raleigh was thought to lean towards the

Puritanical party, notwithstanding these positions. But ideas of

government change much in different times.

Raleigh’s sentiments on this head are still more openly expressed in his

Prerogatives of Parliaments, a work not published till after his death.

It is a dialogue between a courtier, or counsellor, and a country

justice of peace, who represents the patriot party, and defends the

highest notion of liberty which the principles of that age would bear.

Here is a passage of it: “Counsellor. That which is done by the king,

with the advice of his private or privy council, is done by the king’s

absolute power. Justice. And by whose power is it done in parliament but

by the king’s absolute power? Mistake it not, my lord: the three estates

do but advise as the privy council doth; which advice if the king

embrace, it becomes the king’s own act in the one, and the king’s law in

the other,” etc.

The earl of Clare, in a private letter to his son-in-law, Sir Thomas

Wentworth, afterwards earl of Strafford, thus expresses himself “We live

under a prerogative government, where book law submits to lex loquens.”

He spoke from his own and all his ancestors experience. There was no

single instance of power which a king of England might not at that time

exert, on pretence of necessity or expediency: the continuance alone, or

frequent repetition of arbitrary administration, might prove dangerous,

for want of force to support it. It is remarkable, that this letter of

the earl of Clare was written in the first year of Charles’s reign; and

consequently must be meant of the general genius of the government, not

the spirit or temper of the monarch. See Strafford’s Letters, vol. i.

p. 32. From another letter in the same collection, (vol. i. p. 10,)

it appears that the council sometimes assumed the power of forbidding

persons disagreeable to the court to stand in the elections. This

authority they could exert in some instances; but we are not thence to

inter, that they could shut the door of that house to every one who was

not acceptable to them. The genius of the ancient government reposed

more trust in the king, than to entertain any such suspicion; and it

allowed scattered instances of such a kind, as would have been totally

destructive of the constitution, had they been continued without

interruption.

I have not met with any English writer in that age who speaks of England

as a limited monarchy, but as an absolute one, where the people have

many privileges. That is no contradiction. In all European monarchies

the people have privileges; but whether dependent or independent on the

will of the monarch, is a question that in most governments it is better

to forbear. Surely that question was not determined before the age of

James. The rising spirit of the parliament, together with that king’s

love of general, speculative principles, brought it from its obscurity,

and made it be commonly canvassed. The strongest testimony that I

remember from a writer of James’s age in favor of English liberty, is in

Cardinal Bentivoglio, a foreigner, who mentions the English government

as similar to that of the Low Country provinces under their princes,

rather than to that of France or Spain. Englishmen were not so sensible

that their prince was limited, because they were sensible that no

individual had any security against a stretch of prerogative: but

foreigners, by comparison, could perceive that these stretches were at

that time, from custom or other causes, less frequent in England than

in other monarchies. Philip de Comines, too, remarked the English

constitution to be more popular in his time than that of France. But in

a paper written by a patriot in 1627, it is remarked, that the freedom

of speech in parliament had been lost in England since the days of

Comines. Franklyn, p. 238. Here is a stanza of Malherbe’s Ode to Mary de

Medicis, the queen regent, written in 1614.

Entre les rois à qui cet age Doit son principal ornement, Ceux de la

Tamise et du Tage Font louer leur gouvernement: Mais en de si calmes

provinces, Où le peuple adore les princes, Et met au gré le plus haut

L’honneur du sceptre légitime, Sauroit-on excuser le crime De ne regner

pas comme il faut.

The English, as well as the Spaniards, are here pointed out as much

more obedient subjects than the French, and much more tractable and

submissive to their princes. Though this passage be taken from a poet,

every man of judgment will allow its authority to be decisive. The

character of a national government cannot be unknown in Europe; though

it changes sometimes very suddenly. Machiavel, in his Dissertations on

Livy, says repeatedly, that France was the most legal and most popular

monarchy then in Europe.]

[Footnote 62: NOTE KKK, p. 499. Passive obedience is expressly and

zealously inculcated in the homilies composed and published by authority

in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The convocation, which met in the very

first year of the king’s reign, voted as high monarchical principles as

are contained in the decrees of the University of Oxford during the

rule of the Tories. These principles, so far from being deemed a novelty

introduced by James’s influence, passed so smoothly, that no historian

has taken notice of them: they were never the subject of controversy,

or dispute, or discourse; and it is only by means of Bishop Overall’s

Convocation Book, printed near seventy years after, that we are

acquainted with them. Would James, who was so cautious, and even timid,

have ventured to begin his reign with a bold stroke, which would have

given just ground of jealousy to his subjects? It appears from that

monarch’s Basilicon Doron, written while he was in Scotland, that the

republican ideas of the origin of power from the people, were at that

time esteemed Puritanical novelties. The patriarchal scheme, it is

remarkable, is inculcated in those votes of the convocation preserved by

Overall; nor was Filmer the first inventor of those absurd notions.]

[Footnote 63: NOTE LLL, p. 514. That of the honest historian Stowe seems

not to have been of this number. “The great blessings of God,” says

he, “through increase of wealth in the common subjects of this land,

especially upon the citizens of London; such within men’s memory, and

chiefly within these few years of peace, that, except there were now

due mention of some sort made thereof, it would in time to come be held

incredible,” etc. In another place, “Amongst the manifold tokens and

signs of the infinite blessings of Almighty God bestowed upon this

kingdom, by the wondrous and merciful establishing of peace within

ourselves, and the full benefit of concord with all Christian nations

and others; of all which graces let no man dare to presume he can speak

too much; whereof in truth there can never be enough said, neither was

there ever any people less considerate and less thankful than at this

time, being not willing to endure the memory of their present happiness,

as well as in the universal increase of commerce and traffic throughout

the kingdom, great building of royal ships and by private merchants, the

repeopling of cities, towns, and villages, beside the discernible and

sudden increase of fair and costly buildings, as well within the city

of London as the suburbs thereof, especially within these twelve years,”

etc.]