_Parliament of 1621._--The king's speech on opening the session was,

like all he had made on former occasions, full of hopes and promises,

taking cheerfully his share of the blame as to past disagreements, and

treating them as little likely to recur, though all their causes were

still in operation.[589] He displayed, however, more judgment than usual

in the commencement of this parliament. Among the methods devised to

compensate the want of subsidies, none had been more injurious to the

subject than patents of monopoly, including licences for exclusively

carrying on certain trades. Though the government was principally

responsible for the exactions they connived at, and from which they

reaped a large benefit, the popular odium fell of course on the

monopolists. Of these the most obnoxious was Sir Giles Mompesson, who,

having obtained a patent for gold and silver thread, sold it of baser

metal. This fraud seems neither very extraordinary nor very important;

but he had another patent for licensing inns and alehouses, wherein he

is said to have used extreme violence and oppression. The House of

Commons proceeded to investigate Mompesson's delinquency. Conscious that

the Crown had withdrawn its protection, he fled beyond sea. One Michell,

a justice of peace, who had been the instrument of his tyranny, fell

into the hands of the Commons, who voted him incapable of being in the

commission of the peace, and sent him to the Tower.[590] Entertaining,

however, upon second thoughts, as we must presume, some doubts about

their competence to inflict this punishment, especially the former part

of it, they took the more prudent course with respect to Mompesson, of

appointing Noy and Hakewill to search for precedents in order to show

how far and for what offences their power extended to punish delinquents

against the state as well as those who offended against that house. The

result appears some days after, in a vote that "they must join with the

Lords for punishing Sir Giles Mompesson; it being no offence against our

particular house, nor any member of it, but a general grievance."[591]

The earliest instance of parliamentary impeachment, or of a solemn

accusation of any individual by the Commons at the bar of the Lords, was

that of Lord Latimer in the year 1376. The latest hitherto was that of

the Duke of Suffolk in 1449; for a proceeding against the Bishop of

London in 1534, which has sometimes been reckoned an instance of

parliamentary impeachment, does not by any means support that privilege

of the Commons.[592] It had fallen into disuse, partly from the loss of

that control which the Commons had obtained under Richard II. and the

Lancastrian kings; and partly from the preference the Tudor princes had

given to bills of attainder or of pains and penalties, when they wished

to turn the arm of parliament against an obnoxious subject. The revival

of this ancient mode of proceeding in the case of Mompesson, though a

remarkable event in our constitutional annals, does not appear to have

been noticed as an anomaly. It was not indeed conducted according to all

the forms of an impeachment. The Commons, requesting a conference with

the other house, informed them generally of that person's offence, but

did not exhibit any distinct articles at their bar. The Lords took up

themselves the inquiry; and having become satisfied of his guilt, sent a

message to the Commons, that they were ready to pronounce sentence. The

speaker accordingly, attended by all the house, demanded judgment at the

bar: when the Lords passed as heavy a sentence as could be awarded for

any misdemeanour; to which the king, by a stretch of prerogative, which

no one was then inclined to call in question, was pleased to add

perpetual banishment.[593]

The impeachment of Mompesson was followed up by others against Michell,

the associate in his iniquities; against Sir John Bennet, judge of the

prerogative court, for corruption in his office; and against Field,

Bishop of Landaff, for being concerned in a matter of bribery.[594] The

first of these was punished; but the prosecution of Bennet seems to have

dropped in consequence of the adjournment, and that of the bishop ended

in a slight censure. But the wrath of the Commons was justly roused

against that shameless corruption, which characterises the reign of

James beyond every other in our history.

_Proceedings against Lord Bacon._--It is too well known, how deeply the

greatest man of that age was tarnished by the prevailing iniquity.

Complaints poured in against the chancellor Bacon for receiving bribes

from suitors in his court. Some have vainly endeavoured to discover an

excuse which he did not pretend to set up, and even ascribed the

prosecution to the malevolence of Sir Edward Coke.[595] But Coke took no

prominent share in this business; and though some of the charges against

Bacon may not appear very heinous, especially for those times, I know

not whether the unanimous conviction of such a man, and the conscious

pusillanimity of his defence do not afford a more irresistible

presumption of his misconduct than anything specially alleged. He was

abandoned by the court, and had previously lost, as I rather suspect,

Buckingham's favour; but the king, who had a sense of his transcendent

genius, remitted the fine of L40,000 imposed by the Lords, which he was

wholly unable to pay.[596]

There was much to commend in the severity practised by the house towards

public delinquents; such examples being far more likely to prevent the

malversation of men in power than any law they could enact. But in the

midst of these laudable proceedings, they were hurried by the passions

of the moment into an act of most unwarrantable violence. It came to the

knowledge of the house that one Floyd, a gentleman confined in the Fleet

prison, had used some slighting words about the elector palatine and his

wife. It appeared in aggravation, that he was a Roman catholic. Nothing

could exceed the fury into which the Commons were thrown by this very

insignificant story. A flippant expression, below the cognisance of an

ordinary court, grew at once into a portentous offence, which they

ransacked their invention to chastise. After sundry novel and monstrous

propositions, they fixed upon the most degrading punishment they could

devise. Next day, however, the chancellor of the exchequer delivered a

message, that the king, thanking them for their zeal, but desiring that

it should not transport them to inconveniences, would have them consider

whether they could sentence one who did not belong to them, nor had

offended against the house or any member of it; and whether they could

sentence a denying party, without the oath of witnesses; referring them

to an entry on the rolls of parliament in the first year of Henry IV.,

that the judicial power of parliament does not belong to the Commons. He

would have them consider whether it would not be better to leave Floyd

to him, who would punish him according to his fault.

This message put them into some embarrassment. They had come to a vote

in Mompesson's case, in the very words employed in the king's message,

confessing themselves to have no jurisdiction, except over offences

against themselves. The warm speakers now controverted this proposition

with such arguments as they could muster; Coke, though from the reported

debates he seems not to have gone the whole length, contending that the

house was a court of record, and that it consequently had power to

administer an oath.[597] They returned a message by the speaker,

excepting to the record in 1 H. 4, because it was not an act of

parliament to bind them, and persisting, though with humility, in their

first votes.[598] The king replied mildly; urging them to show

precedents, which they were manifestly incapable of doing. The Lords

requested a conference, which they managed with more temper, and

notwithstanding the solicitude displayed by the Commons to maintain

their pretended right, succeeded in withdrawing the matter to their own

jurisdiction.[599] This conflict of privileges was by no means of

service to the unfortunate culprit; the Lords perceived that they could

not mitigate the sentence of the lower house without reviving their

dispute, and vindicated themselves from all suspicion of indifference

towards the cause of the Palatinate by augmenting its severity. Floyd

was adjudged to be degraded from his gentility, and to be held an

infamous person; his testimony not to be received; to ride from the

Fleet to Cheapside on horseback without a saddle, with his face to the

horse's tail, and the tail in his hand, and there to stand two hours in

the pillory, and to be branded in the forehead with the letter K; to

ride four days afterwards in the same manner to Westminster, and there

to stand two hours more in the pillory, with words in a paper in his

hat showing his offence; to be whipped at the cart's tail from the Fleet

to Westminster Hall; to pay a fine of L5000, and to be a prisoner in

Newgate during his life. The whipping was a few days after remitted on

Prince Charles's motion; but he seems to have undergone the rest of the

sentence. There is surely no instance in the annals of our own, and

hardly of any civilised country, where a trifling offence, if it were

one, has been visited with such outrageous cruelty. The cold-blooded

deliberate policy of the Lords is still more disgusting than the wild

fury of the lower house.[600]

This case of Floyd is an unhappy proof of the disregard that popular

assemblies, when inflamed by passion, are ever apt to show for those

principles of equity and moderation, by which, however the sophistry of

contemporary factions may set them aside, a calm judging posterity will

never fail to measure their proceedings. It has contributed at least,

along with several others of the same kind, to inspire me with a jealous

distrust of that indefinable, uncontrollable privilege of parliament,

which has sometimes been asserted, and perhaps with rather too much

encouragement from those whose function it is to restrain all exorbitant

power. I speak only of the extent to which theoretical principles have

been carried, without insinuating that the privileges of the House of

Commons have been practically stretched in late times beyond their

constitutional bounds. Time and the course of opinion have softened down

those high pretensions, which the dangers of liberty under James the

First, as well as the natural character of a popular assembly, then

taught the Commons to assume; and the greater humanity of modern ages

has made us revolt from such disproportionate punishments as were

inflicted on Floyd.[601]

Everything had hitherto proceeded with harmony between the king and

parliament. His ready concurrence in their animadversion on Mompesson

and Michell, delinquents who had acted at least with the connivance of

government, and in the abolition of monopolies, seemed to remove all

discontent. The Commons granted two subsidies early in the session

without alloying their bounty with a single complaint of grievances. One

might suppose that the subject of impositions had been entirely

forgotten, not an allusion to them occurring in any debate.[602] It was

voted indeed, in the first days of the session, to petition the king

about the breach of their privilege of free speech, by the imprisonment

of Sir Edwin Sandys, in 1614, for words spoken in the last parliament;

but the house did not prosecute this matter, contenting itself with some

explanation by the secretary of state.[603] They were going on with some

bills for reformation of abuses, to which the king was willing to

accede, when they received an intimation that he expected them to

adjourn over the summer. It produced a good deal of dissatisfaction to

see their labour so hastily interrupted; especially as they ascribed it

to a want of sufficient sympathy on the court's part with their

enthusiastic zeal for the elector palatine.[604] They were adjourned by

the king's commission, after an unanimous declaration ("sounded forth,"

says one present, "with the voices of them all, withal lifting up their

hats in their hands so high as they could hold them, as a visible

testimony of their unanimous consent, in such sort, that the like had

scarce ever been seen in parliament") of their resolution to spend

their lives and fortunes for the defence of their own religion and of

the Palatinate. This solemn protestation and pledge was entered on

record in the journals.[605]

They met again after five months, without any change in their views of

policy. At a conference of the two houses, Lord Digby, by the king's

command, explained all that had occurred in his embassy to Germany for

the restitution of the Palatinate; which, though absolutely ineffective,

was as much as James could reasonably expect without a war.[606] He had

in fact, though, according to the laxity of those times, without

declaring war on any one, sent a body of troops under Sir Horace Vere,

who still defended the Lower Palatinate. It was necessary to vote more

money, lest these should mutiny for want of pay. And it was stated to

the Commons in this conference, that to maintain a sufficient army in

that country for one year would require L900,000; which was left to

their consideration.[607] But now it was seen that men's promises to

spend their fortunes in a cause not essentially their own are written in

the sand. The Commons had no reason perhaps to suspect that the charge

of keeping 30,000 men in the heart of Germany would fall much short of

the estimate. Yet after long haggling they voted only one subsidy,

amounting to L70,000; a sum manifestly insufficient for the first

equipment of such a force.[608] This parsimony could hardly be excused

by their suspicion of the king's unwillingness to undertake the war, for

which it afforded the best justification.

_Disagreement between the king and Commons._--James was probably not

much displeased at finding so good a pretext for evading a compliance

with their martial humour; nor had there been much appearance of

dissatisfaction on either side (if we except some murmurs at the

commitment of one of their most active members, Sir Edwin Sandys, to the

Tower, which were tolerably appeased by the secretary Calvert's

declaration that he had not been committed for any parliamentary

matter),[609] till the Commons drew up a petition and remonstrance

against the growth of popery; suggesting, among other remedies for this

grievance, that the prince should marry one of our own religion, and

that the king would direct his efforts against the power (meaning Spain)

which first maintained the war in the Palatinate. This petition was

proposed by Sir Edward Coke. The courtiers opposed it as without

precedent; the chancellor of the duchy observing that it was of so high

and transcendent a nature, he had never known the like within those

walls. Even the mover defended it rather weakly, according to our

notions, as intended only to remind the king, but requiring no answer.

The scruples affected by the courtiers, and the real novelty of the

proposition, had so great an effect, that some words were inserted,

declaring that the house "did not mean to press on the king's most

undoubted and royal prerogative."[610] The petition, however, had not

been presented, when the king, having obtained a copy of it, sent a

peremptory letter to the speaker, that he had heard how some fiery and

popular spirits had been imboldened to debate and argue on matters far

beyond their reach or capacity, and directing him to acquaint the house

with his pleasure that none therein should presume to meddle with

anything concerning his government or mysteries of state; namely, not to

speak of his son's match with the princess of Spain, nor to touch the

honour of that king, or any other of his friends and confederates.

Sandys's commitment, he bade them be informed, was not for any

misdemeanour in parliament. But to put them out of doubt of any question

of that nature that may arise among them hereafter, he let them know

that he thought himself very free and able to punish any man's

misdemeanours in parliament, as well during their sitting as after,

which he meant not to spare upon occasion of any man's insolent

behaviour in that place. He assured them that he would not deign to hear

their petition, if it touched on any of those points which he had

forbidden.[611]

The house received this message with unanimous firmness, but without any

undue warmth. A committee was appointed to draw up a petition, which,

in the most decorous language, and with strong professions of regret at

his majesty's displeasure, contained a defence of their former

proceedings, and hinted very gently, that they could not conceive his

honour and safety, or the state of the kingdom, to be matters at any

time unfit for their deepest consideration in time of parliament. They

adverted more pointedly to that part of the king's message which

threatened them for liberty of speech, calling it their ancient and

undoubted right, and an inheritance received from their ancestors, which

they again prayed him to confirm.[612] His answer, though considerably

milder than what he had designed, gave indications of a resentment not

yet subdued. He dwelt at length on their unfitness for entering on

matters of government, and commented with some asperity even on their

present apologetical petition. In the conclusion he observed that

"although he could not allow of the style, calling their privileges an

undoubted right and inheritance, but could rather have wished that they

had said that their privileges were derived from the grace and

permission of his ancestors and himself (for most of them had grown from

precedent which rather shows a toleration than inheritance); yet he gave

them his royal assurance, that as long as they contained themselves

within the limits of their duty, he would be as careful to maintain

their lawful liberties and privileges as he would his own prerogative;

so that their house did not touch on that prerogative which would

enforce him or any just king to retrench their privileges."[613]

This explicit assertion that the privileges of the Commons existed only

by sufferance, and conditionally upon good behaviour, exasperated the

house far more than the denial of their right to enter on matters of

state. In the one, they were conscious of having somewhat transgressed

the boundaries of ordinary precedents; in the other, their individual

security, and their very existence as a deliberative assembly, were at

stake. Calvert, the secretary, and the other ministers, admitted the

king's expressions to be incapable of defence, and called them a slip of

the pen at the close of a long answer.[614] The Commons were not to be

diverted by any such excuses from their necessary duty of placing on

record a solemn claim of right. Nor had a letter from the king,

addressed to Calvert, much influence; wherein, while he reiterated his

assurances of respecting their privileges, and tacitly withdrew the

menace that rendered them precarious, he said that he could not with

patience endure his subjects to use such anti-monarchical words to him

concerning their liberties, as "ancient and undoubted right and

inheritance," without subjoining that they were granted by the grace and

favour of his predecessors.[615] After a long and warm debate, they

entered on record in the Journals their famous protestation of December

18th, 1621, in the following words:--

"The Commons now assembled in parliament, being justly occasioned

thereunto, concerning sundry liberties, franchises, privileges, and

jurisdictions of parliament, amongst others not herein mentioned, do

make this protestation following:--That the liberties, franchises,

privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and

undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England; and

that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the king, state, and the

defence of the realm, and of the church of England, and the making and

maintenance 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 hath, and of right ought to have,

freedom of speech to propound, treat, reason, and bring to conclusion,

the same: that the Commons in parliament have like liberty and freedom

to treat of those matters in such order as in their judgments shall seem

fittest: and that every such member of the said house hath like freedom

from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation (other than by the

censure of the house itself) for or concerning any bill, 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, and questioned for anything said or done in parliament,

the same is to be showed to the king by the advice and assent of all the

Commons assembled in parliament, before the king give credence to any

private information."[616]

_Dissolution of the Commons, after a strong remonstrance._--This

protestation was not likely to pacify the king's anger. He had already

pressed the Commons to make an end of the business before them, under

pretence of wishing to adjourn them before Christmas, but probably

looking to a dissolution. They were not in a temper to regard any

business, least of all to grant a subsidy, till this attack on their

privileges should be fully retracted. The king therefore adjourned, and

in about a fortnight after dissolved them. But in the interval, having

sent for the journal book, he erased their last protestation with his

own hand; and published a declaration of the causes which had provoked

him to this unusual measure, alleging the unfitness of such a protest,

after his ample assurance of maintaining their privileges, the irregular

manner in which, according to him, it was voted, and its ambiguous and

general wording, which might serve in future times to invade most of the

prerogatives annexed to the imperial Crown. In his proclamation for

dissolving the parliament, James recapitulated all his grounds of

offences; but finally required his subjects to take notice that it was

his intention to govern them as his progenitors and predecessors had

done, and to call a parliament again on the first convenient

occasion.[617] He immediately followed up this dissolution of parliament

by dealing his vengeance on its most conspicuous leaders: Sir Edward

Coke and Sir Robert Philips were committed to the Tower; Mr. Pym, and

one or two more, to other prisons; Sir Dudley Digges, and several who

were somewhat less obnoxious than the former, were sent on a commission

to Ireland, as a sort of honourable banishment.[618] The Earls of Oxford

and Southampton underwent an examination before the council; and the

former was committed to the Tower on pretence of having spoken words

against the king. It is worthy of observation that, in this session, a

portion of the upper house had united in opposing the court. Nothing of

this kind is noticed in former parliaments, except perhaps a little on

the establishment of the reformation. In this minority were considerable

names; Essex, Southampton, Warwick, Oxford, Say, Spencer. Whether a

sense of public wrongs, or their particular resentments, influenced

these noblemen, their opposition must be reckoned an evident sign of the

change that was at work in the spirit of the nation, and by which no

rank could be wholly unaffected.[619]

_Marriage treaty with Spain._--James, with all his reputed

pusillanimity, never showed any signs of fearing popular opinion. His

obstinate adherence to the marriage treaty with Spain was the height of

political rashness in so critical a state of the public mind. But what

with elevated notions of his prerogative and of his skill in government

on the one hand, what with a confidence in the submissive loyalty of the

English on the other, he seems constantly to have fancied that all

opposition proceeded from a small troublesome faction, whom if he could

any way silence, the rest of his people would at once repose in a

dutiful reliance on his wisdom. Hence he met every succeeding parliament

with as sanguine hopes as if he had suffered no disappointment in the

last. The nation was however wrought up at this time to an alarming

pitch of discontent. Libels were in circulation about 1621, so bitterly

malignant in their censures of his person and administration, than two

hundred years might seem, as we read them, to have been mistaken in

their date.[620] Heedless, however, of this growing odium, James

continued to solicit the affected coyness of the court of Madrid. The

circumstances of that negotiation belong to general history.[621] It is

only necessary to remind the reader that the king was induced, during

the residence of Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham in Spain, to

swear to certain private articles, some of which he had already

promised before their departure, by which he bound himself to suspend

all penal laws affecting the catholics, to permit the exercise of their

religion in private houses, and to procure from parliament, if possible,

a legal toleration. This toleration, as preliminary to the entire

re-establishment of popery, had been the first great object of Spain in

the treaty. But that court, having protracted the treaty for years, in

order to extort more favourable terms, and interposed a thousand

pretences, became the dupe of its own artifices; the resentment of a

haughty minion overthrowing with ease the painful fabric of this tedious

negotiation.

_Parliament of 1624._--Buckingham obtained a transient and unmerited

popularity by thus averting a great public mischief, which rendered the

next parliament unexpectedly peaceable. The Commons voted three

subsidies and three-fifteenths, in value about L300,000;[622] but with a

condition, proposed by the king himself, that, in order to ensure its

application to naval and military armaments, it should be paid into the

hands of treasurers appointed by themselves, who should issue money only

on the warrant of the council of war. He seemed anxious to tread back

the steps made in the former session, not only referring the highest

matters of state to their consideration, but promising not to treat for

peace without their advice. They, on the other hand, acknowledged

themselves most bound to his majesty for having been pleased to require

their humble advice in a case so important, not meaning, we may be sure,

by these courteous and loyal expressions, to recede from what they had

claimed in the last parliament as their undoubted right.[623]

_Impeachment of Middlesex._--The most remarkable affair in this session

was the impeachment of the Earl of Middlesex, actually lord treasurer of

England, for bribery and other misdemeanours. It is well known that the

Prince of Wales and Duke of Buckingham instituted this prosecution to

gratify the latter's private pique against the wishes of the king, who

warned them they would live to have their fill of parliamentary

impeachment. It was conducted by managers on the part of the Commons in

a very regular form, except that the depositions of witnesses were

merely read by the clerk; that fundamental rule of English law which

insists on the _viva voce_ examination, being as yet unknown, or

dispensed with in political trials. Nothing is more worthy of notice in

the proceedings upon this impeachment than what dropped from Sir Edwin

Sandys, in speaking upon one of the charges. Middlesex had laid an

imposition of L3 per ton on French wines, for taking off which he

received a gratuity. Sandys, commenting on this offence, protested in

the name of the Commons, that they intended not to question the power of

imposing claimed by the king's prerogative: this they touched not upon

now; they continued only their claim, and when they should have occasion

to dispute it, would do so with all due regard to his majesty's state

and revenue.[624] Such cautious and temperate language, far from

indicating any disposition to recede from their pretensions, is rather a

proof of such united steadiness and discretion as must ensure their

success. Middlesex was unanimously convicted by the peers.[625] His

impeachment was of the highest moment to the Commons; as it restored for

ever that salutary constitutional right which the single precedent of

Lord Bacon might have been insufficient to establish against the

ministers of the Crown.

The two last parliaments had been dissolved without passing a single

act, except the subsidy bill of 1621. An interval of legislation for

thirteen years was too long for any civilised country. Several statutes

were enacted in the present session, but none so material as that for

abolishing monopolies for the sale of merchandise, or for using any

trade.[626] This is of a declaratory nature, and recites that they are

already contrary to the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm.

Scarce any difference arose between the Crown and the Commons. This

singular calm might probably have been interrupted, had not the king put

an end to the session. They expressed some little dissatisfaction at

this step,[627] and presented a list of grievances, one only of which is

sufficiently considerable to deserve notice; namely, the proclamations

already mentioned in restraint of building about London, whereof they

complain in very gentle terms, considering their obvious illegality and

violation of private right.[628]

The Commons had now been engaged, for more than twenty years, in a

struggle to restore and to fortify their own and their fellow subjects'

liberties. They had obtained in this period but one legislative measure

of importance, the late declaratory act against monopolies. But they had

rescued from disuse their ancient right of impeachment. They had placed

on record a protestation of their claim to debate all matters of public

concern. They had remonstrated against the usurped prerogatives of

binding the subject by proclamation, and of levying customs at the

out-ports. They had secured beyond controversy their exclusive privilege

of determining contested elections of their members. They had

maintained, and carried indeed to an unwarrantable extent, their power

of judging and inflicting punishment, even for offences not committed

against their house. Of these advantages some were evidently incomplete;

and it would require the most vigorous exertions of future parliaments

to realise them. But such exertions the increased energy of the nation

gave abundant cause to anticipate. A deep and lasting love of freedom

had taken hold of every class except perhaps the clergy; from which,

when viewed together with the rash pride of the court, and the

uncertainty of constitutional principles and precedents, collected

through our long and various history, a calm by-stander might presage

that the ensuing reign would not pass without disturbance, nor perhaps

end without confusion.

FOOTNOTES:

[464] Father Persons, a subtle and lying Jesuit, published in 1594,

under the name of Doleman, a treatise entitled _Conference about the

next Succession to the Crown of England_. This book is dedicated to Lord

Essex, whether from any hopes entertained of him, or as was then

supposed, in order to injure his fame and his credit with the queen.

_Sidney Papers_, i. 357; Birch's _Memoirs_, i. 313. It is written with

much art, to show the extreme uncertainty of the succession, and to

perplex men's minds by multiplying the number of competitors. This,

however, is but the second part of his _Conference_, the aim of the

first being to prove the right of commonwealths to depose sovereigns,

much more to exclude the right heir, especially for want of true

religion. "I affirm and hold," he says, "that for any man to give his

help, consent, or assistance towards the making of a king whom he

judgeth or believeth to be faulty in religion, and consequently would

advance either no religion, or the wrong, if he were in authority, is a

most grievous and damnable sin to him that doth it, of what side soever

the truth be, or how good or bad soever the party be that is

preferred."--P. 216. He pretends to have found very few who favour the

King of Scots' title; an assertion by which we may appreciate his

veracity. The protestant party, he tells us, was wont to favour the

house of Hertford, but of late have gone more towards Arabella, whose

claim the Lord Burleigh is supposed to countenance. P. 241. The drift of

the whole is to recommend the infanta, by means of perverted history and

bad law, yet ingeniously contrived to ensnare ignorant persons. In his

former and more celebrated treatise, _Leicester's Commonwealth_, though

he harps much on the embarrassments attending the succession, Persons

argues with all his power in favour of the Scottish title, Mary being

still alive, and James's return to the faith not desperate. Both these

works are full of the mendacity generally and justly ascribed to his

order; yet they are worthy to be read by any one who is curious about

the secret politics of the queen's reign.

Philip II. held out assurances, that if the English would aid him in

dethroning Elizabeth, a free parliament should elect any catholic

sovereign at their pleasure, not doubting that their choice would fall

on the infanta. He promised also to enlarge the privileges of the

people, to give the merchants a free trade to the Indies, with many

other flattering inducements. Birch's _Memoirs_, ii. 308. But most of

the catholic gentry, it is just to observe, would never concur in the

invasion of the kingdom by foreigners, preferring the elevation of

Arabella, according to the pope's project. This difference of opinion

gave rise, among other causes, to the violent dissensions of that party

in the latter years of Elizabeth's reign; dissensions that began soon

after the death of Mary, in favour of whom they were all united, though

they could never afterwards agree on any project for the succession.

Winwood's _Memorials_, i. 57; _Lettres du Cardinal d'Ossat_, ii. 501.

For the life and character of the famous Father Persons, or Parsons,

above mentioned, see Dodd's _Church History_, the _Biographia

Britannica_, or Miss Aikin's _James I._, i. 360. Mr. Butler is too

favourably inclined towards a man without patriotism or veracity. Dodd

plainly thinks worse of him than he dares speak.

[465] D'Ossat, _ubi supra_. Clement had, some years before, indulged the

idle hope that France and Spain might unite to conquer England, and

either bestow the kingdom on some catholic prince or divide it between

themselves, as Louis XII. and Ferdinand had done with Naples in 1501; an

example not very inviting to the French. D'Ossat, Henry's minister at

Rome, pointed out the difficulties of such an enterprise, England being

the greatest naval power in the world, and the people warlike. The pope

only replied, that the kingdom had been once conquered, and might be so

again; and especially being governed by an old woman, whom he was

ignorant enough to compare with Joanna II. of Naples. Vol. i. 399. Henry

IV. would not even encourage the project of setting up Arabella, which

he declared to be both unjust and chimerical. _Mem. de Sully_, l. 15. A

knot of protestants were also busy about the interests of Arabella, or

suspected of being so; Raleigh, Cobham, Northumberland, though perhaps

the last was catholic. Their intrigues occupy a great part of the

letters of other intriguers, Cecil and Lord Henry Howard, in the _Secret

Correspondence with King James_, published by Sir David Dalrymple, vol.

i. _passim_.

[466] The explicit declaration on her death-bed ascribed to her by Hume

and most other writers, that her kingsman the King of Scots should

succeed her, is not confirmed by Carey, who was there at the time. "She

was speechless when the council proposed the King of Scots to succeed

her, but put her hand to her head as if in token of approbation." E. of

Monmouth's _Memoirs_, p. 176. But her uniform conduct shows her

intentions. See, however, D'Israeli's _Curiosities of Literature_, iii.

107.

It is impossible to justify Elizabeth's conduct towards James in his own

kingdom. What is best to be said for it is, that his indiscretion, his

suspicious intrigues at Rome and Madrid, the dangerous influence of his

favourites, and the evident purpose of the court of Spain to make him

its tool, rendered it necessary to keep a very strict watch over his

proceedings. If she excited the peers and presbyters of Scotland against

their king, he was not behind her in some of the last years of her

reign. It appears by a letter from the Earl of Mar, in Dalrymple's

_Secret Correspondence_, p. 2, that James had hopes of a rebellion in

England in 1601, which he would have had no scruple in abetting. And a

letter from him to Tyrone, in the Lansdowne MSS. lxxxiv. 36, dated 22nd

Dec. 1597, when the latter was at least preparing for rebellion, though

rather cautious, is full of expressions of favour, and of promises to

receive his assistance thankfully at the queen's death. This letter

being found in the collection once belonging to Sir Michael Hicks, must

have been in Lord Burleigh's, and probably in Elizabeth's hands; it

would not make her less inclined to instigate conspiracies across the

Tweed. The letter is not an original, and may have been communicated by

some one about the King of Scots in the pay of England.

[467] See Burnet, vol. i, Appendix 267, for Secretary Lethington's

letter to Cecil, where he tells a circumstantial story so positively,

and so open, if false, to a contradiction it never received, that those

who lay too much stress on this very equivocal species of presumption

would, if the will had perished, have reckoned its forgery beyond

question. The king's death approaching, he asserts, "some as well known

to you as to me caused William Clarke, sometimes servant to Thomas

Heneage, to sign the supposed will with a stamp, for otherwise signed it

was never;" for which he appeals to an attestation of the late Lord

Paget in parliament, and requests the depositions of several persons now

living to be taken. He proceeds to refer him "to the original will

surmised to be signed with the king's own hand, that thereby it may most

clearly and evidently appear by some differences, how the same was not

signed with the king's hand, but stamped as aforesaid. And albeit it is

used both as an argument and calumniation against my sovereign by some,

that the said original hath been embezzled in Queen Mary's time, I trust

God will and hath reserved the same to be an instrument to relieve

[prove] the truth, and to confound false surmises, that thereby the

right may take place, notwithstanding the many exemplifications and

transcripts, which being sealed with the great seal, do run abroad in

England." Lesley, Bishop of Ross, repeats the same story with some

additions. Bedford's _Hereditary Right_, p. 197. A treatise of Hales,

for which he suffered imprisonment, in defence of the Suffolk title

under the will, of which there is a manuscript in the British Museum,

Harl. MSS. 537, and which is also printed in the appendix to the book

last quoted, leads me to conjecture that the original will had been

mislaid or rather concealed at that time. For he certainly argues on the

supposition that it was not forthcoming, and had not himself seen it;

but "he has been informed that the king's name is evidently written with

a pen, though some of the strokes are unseen, as if drawn by a weak and

trembling hand." Everyone who has seen the will must bear witness to the

correctness of this information. The reappearance of this very

remarkable instrument was, as I conceive, after the Revolution; for

Collier mentions that he had heard it was in existence; and it is also

described in a note to the _Acta Regia_.

[468] It is right to mention, that some difference of opinion exists as

to the genuineness of Henry's signature. But as it is attested by many

witnesses, and cannot be proved a forgery, the legal presumption turns

much in its favour.

[469] Bedford's (Harbin's) _Hereditary Right Asserted_, p. 204.

[470] A manuscript in the Cottonian library, Faustina A. xi., written

about 1562 in a very hostile spirit, endeavours to prove from the want

of testimony, and from some variances in their depositions (not very

material ones), that their allegations of matrimony could not be

admitted, and that they had incurred an ecclesiastical censure for

fornication. But another, which I have also found in the Museum, Harl.

MSS. 6286, contains the whole proceedings and evidence, from which I

have drawn the conclusion in the text. Their ignorance of the clergyman

who performed the ceremony is not perhaps very extraordinary; he seems

to have been one of those vagabond ecclesiastics, who, till the marriage

act of 1752, were always ready to do that service for a fee.

[471] "Hereupon I shall add, what I have heard related from persons of

great credit, which is, that the validity of this marriage was

afterwards brought to a trial at the common law; when the minister who

married them being present, and other circumstances agreeing, the jury

(whereof John Digby of Coleshill, in com. War. esquire, was the foreman)

found it a good marriage." _Baronage of England_, part ii. 369. Mr.

Luders doubts the accuracy of Dugdale's story; and I think it not

unlikely that it is a confused account of what happened in the court of

wards.

[472] I derive this fact from a Cotton MS. Vitellius C. xvi. 412, etc.;

but the volume is much burned, and the papers confused with others

relative to Lord Essex's divorce. See as to the same suit, or rather

perhaps that mentioned in the next note, Birch's _Negotiations_, p. 219,

or Aikin's _James I._ i. 225.

[473] "The same day a great cause between the Lord Beauchamp and

Monteagle was heard in the court of wards, the main point whereof was to

prove the lawfulness of E. of Hertford's marriage. The court sat until

five of the clock in the afternoon, and the jury had a week's respite

for the delivery of their verdict." Letter of Sir E. Hoby to Sir T.

Edmonds, Feb. 10, 1606. "For my lord of Hertford's cause, when the

verdict was ready to be given up, Mr. Attorney interposed himself for

the king, and said that the land that they both strove for was the

king's, and until his title were decided, the jury ought not to proceed;

not doubting but the king will be gracious to both lords. But thereby

both land and legitimation remain undecided." The same to the same March

7. Sloane MSS. 4176.

[474] Dugdale's _Baronage_; Luders' _Essay on the Right of Succession to

the Crown in the Reign of Elizabeth_. This ingenious author is, I

believe, the first who has taken the strong position as to the want of

legal title to the house of Stuart which I have endeavoured to support.

In the entertaining letters of Joseph Mede on the news of the day (Harl.

MSS. 389), it is said that the king had thoughts of declaring Hertford's

issue by Lady Catherine Grey illegitimate in the parliament of 1621, and

that Lord Southampton's commitment was for having searched for proofs of

their marriage. June 30, 1622.

[475] Luders, _ubi supra_.

[476] The representative of the title of Mary Brandon, Duchess of

Suffolk, that is, the person on whom the claim has descended, according

to the rules which determine the succession of the crown, on the

supposition that Hertford was duly married to Catherine Grey, is the

present Duchess of Buckingham; upon the contrary supposition, the

Marquis of Stafford. This is, of course, if we may take for granted the

accuracy of common books of genealogy. I have not adverted to one

objection which some urged at the time, as we find by Persons's

treatises, _Leicester's Commonwealth_, and the _Conference_, to the

legitimacy of the Seymours. Catherine Grey had been betrothed, or

perhaps married, to Lord Herbert, son of the Earl of Pembroke, during

the brilliant days of her family, at the close of Edward's reign. But on

her father's fall Pembroke caused a sentence of divorce to be

pronounced, the grounds of which do not appear, but which was probably

sufficient in law to warrant her subsequent union with Hertford. No

advantage is taken of this in the proceedings, which seems to show that

there was no legal bond remaining between the parties. Camden says she

was divorced from Lord Herbert, "being so far gone with child, as to be

very near her time." But from her youth at the time, and the silence of

all other writers, I conclude this to be unworthy of credit.

[477] Bolingbroke is of this opinion; considering the act of recognition

as "the aera of hereditary right, and of all those exalted notions

concerning the power of prerogative of kings and the sacredness of their

persons." _Dissertation on Parties_, Letter II.

[478] Stat. 1 Jac. c. 1.

[479] This is confirmed by a curious little tract in the British Museum,

Sloane MSS. 827, containing a short history of the queen's death, and

new king's accession. It affords a good contemporary illustration of the

various feelings which influenced men at this crisis, and is written in

a dispassionate manner. The author ascribes the loss of Elizabeth's

popularity to the impoverishment of the realm, and to the abuses which

prevailed. Carte says, "foreigners were shocked on James's arrival at

the applause of the populace who had professed to adore the late queen,

but in fact she had no huzzas after Essex's execution. She was in four

days' time as much forgot as if she had never existed, by all the world,

and even by her own servants." Vol. iii. p. 707. This is exaggerated,

and what Carte could not know; but there is no doubt that the generality

were glad of a change.

[480] Carte, no foe surely to the house of Stuart, says: "By the time he

reached London, the admiration of the intelligent world was turned into

contempt." On this journey he gave a remarkable proof of his hasty

temper and disregard of law, in ordering a pickpocket taken in the fact

to be hanged without trial. The historian last quoted thinks fit to say

in vindication, that "all felonies committed within the verge of the

court are cognizable in the court of the king's household," referring to

33 H. 8, c. i. This act, however, contains no such thing; nor does any

court appear to have been held. Though the man's notorious guilt might

prevent any open complaint of so illegal a proceeding, it did not fail

to excite observation. "I hear our new king," says Sir John Harrington,

"has hanged one man before he was tried; it is strangely done: now if

the wind bloweth thus, why may not a man be tried before he has

offended?" _Nugae Antiquae_, vol. i. p. 180.

Birch and Carte tell us, on the authority of the French ambassador's

despatches, that on this journey he expressed a great contempt for

women, suffering them to be presented on their knees, and indiscreetly

censuring his own wife; that he offended the military men by telling

them they might sheathe their swords, since peace was his object; that

he showed impatience of the common people who flocked to see him while

hunting, driving them away with curses, very unlike the affable manners

of the late queen. This is confirmed by Wilson, in Kennet's _Complete

History_, vol. ii. p. 667.

[481] Sully, being sent over to compliment James on his accession,

persisted in wearing mourning for Elizabeth, though no one had done so

in the king's presence, and he was warned that it would be taken ill;

"dans une cour ou il sembloit qu'on eut si fort affecte de mettre en

oubli cette grande reine qu'on n'y faisoit jamais mention d'elle, et

qu'on evitoit meme de prononcer son nom." _Mem. de Sully_, l. 14. James

afterwards spoke slightingly to Sully of his predecessor, and said that

he had long ruled England through her ministers.

[482] It was subscribed by 825 ministers from twenty-five counties. It

states, that neither as factious men desiring a popular party in the

church, nor as schismatics aiming at the dissolution of the state

ecclesiastical, they humbly desired the redress of some abuses. Their

objections were chiefly to the cap and surplice, the cross in baptism,

baptism by women, confirmation, the ring in marriage, the reading of the

Apocrypha, bowing at the name of Jesus, etc.; to non-residence and

incapable ministers, the commendams held by bishops, unnecessary

excommunications, and other usual topics. Neal, p. 408; Fuller, part ii.

p. 22.

[483] The puritans seem to have flattered themselves that James would

favour their sect, on the credit of some strong assertions he had

occasionally made of his adherence to the Scots kirk. Some of these were

a good while before; but on quitting the kingdom he had declared that he

left it in a state which he did not intend to alter. Neal, 406. James,

however, was all his life rather a bold liar than a good dissembler. It

seems strange that they should not have attended to his _Basilicon

Doron_, printed three years before, though not for general circulation,

wherein there is a passage quite decisive of his disposition towards the

presbyterians and their scheme of polity. The Millenary Petition indeed

did not go so far as to request anything of that kind.

[484] Strype's _Whitgift_, p. 571; Collier, p. 675; Neal, p. 411;

Fuller, part ii. p. 7.; _State Trials_, vol. ii. p. 69; _Phoenix

Britannicus_, i. 141; Winwood, ii. 13. All these, except the last, are

taken from an account of the conference published by Barlow, and

probably more favourable to the king and bishops than they deserved. See

what Harrington, an eye-witness, says in _Nugae Antiquae_, i. 181, which I

would quote as the best evidence of James's behaviour, were the passage

quite decent.

[485] Reynolds, the principal disputant on the puritan side, was nearly,

if not altogether, the most learned man in England. He was censured by

his faction for making a weak defence; but the king's partiality and

intemperance plead his apology. He is said to have complained of unfair

representation in Barlow's account. _Hist. and Ant. of Oxford_, ii. 293.

James wrote a conceited letter to one Blake, boasting of his own

superior logic and learning. Strype's _Whitgift_, Append. 239.

[486] Rymer, xvi. 565.

[487] Strype's _Whitgift_, 587. How desirous men not at all connected in

faction with the puritans were of amendments in the church, appears by a

tract of Bacon, written, as it seems, about the end of 1603, vol. i. p.

387.--He excepts to several matters of ceremony; the cap and surplice,

the ring in marriage, the use of organs, the form of absolution,

lay-baptism, etc.; and inveighs against the abuse of excommunication,

against non-residence and pluralities, the oath _ex officio_, the sole

exercise of ordination and jurisdiction by the bishop, conceiving that

the dean and chapter should always assent, etc. And, in his predominant

spirit of improvement, asks, "Why the civil state should be purged and

restored by good and wholesome laws made every three or four years in

parliament assembled, devising remedies as fast as time breedeth

mischief; and contrariwise the ecclesiastical state should still

continue upon the dregs of time, and receive no alteration now for these

forty-five years or more?"

[488] _Id. ibid._

[489] Neal, 432; Winwood, ii. 36.

[490] See one of the _Somers Tracts_, vol. ii. p. 144, entitled

"Advertisements of a Loyal Subject, drawn from the Observation of the

People's Speeches." This appears to have been written before the meeting

of parliament. The French ambassadors, Sully and La Boderie, thought

most contemptibly of the king. Lingard, vol. ix. p. 107. His own

courtiers, as their private letters show, disliked and derided him.

[491] King James's Works, p. 207.

[492] _Parl. Hist._ i. 967.

[493] Commons' Journals, i. 166.

[494] It appears that some of the more eager patriots were dissatisfied

at the concession made by vacating Goodwin's seat, and said they had

drawn on themselves the reproach of inconstancy and levity. "But the

acclamation of the house was, that it was a testimony of our duty, and

no levity." It was thought expedient, however, to save their honour,

that Goodwin should send a letter to the speaker expressing his

acquiescence. P. 168.

[495] Commons' Journals, 147, etc.; _Parl. Hist._ 997; Carte, iii. 730,

who gives, on this occasion, a review of the earlier cases where the

house had entered on matters of election. See also a rather curious

letter of Cecil in Winwood's _Memorials_, ii. 18, where he artfully

endeavours to treat the matter as of little importance.

[496] Commons' Journals, page 155, etc.; _Parl. Hist._ 1028; Carte, 734.

[497] 1 Jac. i. c. 13.

[498] By one of these canons, all persons affirming any of the

thirty-nine articles to be erroneous are excommunicated _ipso facto_;

consequently become incapable of being witnesses, of suing for their

debts, etc. Neal, 428. But the courts of law disregarded these _ipso

facto_ excommunications.

[499] _Somers Tracts_, ii. 14; Journals, 199, 235, 238; _Parl. Hist._

1067. It is here said, that a bill restraining excommunications passed

into a law, which does not appear to be true, though James himself had

objected to their frequency. I cannot trace such a bill in the journals

beyond the committee, nor is it in the statute-book. The fact is, that

the king desired the house to confer on the subject with the

convocation, which they justly deemed unprecedented, and derogatory to

their privileges; but offered to confer with the bishops, as lords of

parliament. Journals, 173.

[500] Bacon's Works, i. 624; Journals, 190, 215.

[501] Commons' Journals, 150, etc.

[502] Journals, 246.

[503] Journals, 230.

[504] _Parl. Hist._ 1030, from Petyt's _Jus Parliamentarium_, the

earliest book, as far as I know, where this important document is

preserved. The entry on the Journals, p. 243, contains only the first

paragraph. Hume and Carte have been ignorant of it. It is just alluded

to by Rapin.

It is remarked that the attendance of members in this session was more

frequent than had ever been known, so that fresh seats were required.

Journals, 141.

[505] "My faithful 3, such is now my misfortune, as I must be for this

time secretary to the devil in answering your letters directed unto him.

That the entering now into the matter of the subsidy should be deferred

until the council's next meeting with me, I think no ways convenient,

especially for three reasons. First, ye see it has bin already longest

delayd of anything, and yet yee see the lower house are ever the longer

the further from it; and (as in everything that concerns mee) delay of

time does never turn them towards mee, but, by the contrary, every hour

breedeth a new trick of contradiction amongst them, and every day

produces new matter of sedition, so fertile are their brains in ever

buttering forth venome. Next, the Parlt. is now so very near an end, as

this matter can suffer no longer delay. And thirdly, if this be not

granted unto before they receive my answer unto their petition, it needs

never to be moved, for the will of man or angel cannot devise a pleasing

answer to their proposition, except I should pull the crown not only

from my own head, but also from the head of all those that shall succeed

unto mee, and lay it down at their feet. And that freedom of uttering my

thoughts, which no extremity, strait nor peril of my life could ever

bereave mee of in time past, shall now remain with me, as long as the

soul shall with the body. And as for the Reservations of the Bill of

Tonnage and Poundage, yee of the Upper House must out of your Love and

Discretion help it again or otherwise they will in this, as in all

things else that concern mee, wrack both me and all my Posterity. Yee

may impart this to little 10 and bigg Suffolk. And so Farewell from my

Wildernesse, wch I had rather live in (as God shall judge mee) like an

Hermite in this Forrest, then be a King over such a People as the pack

of Puritans are that over-rules the lower house.

J. R."

MS. penes autorem.

I cannot tell who is addressed in this letter by the numeral 3; perhaps

the Earl of Dunbar. By 10 we must doubtless understand Salisbury.

[506] _Parl. Hist. Journals_, 274, 278, etc. In a conference with the

Lords on this bill, Mr. Hare, a member, spoke so warmly, as to give

their lordships offence, and to incur some reprehension. "You would have

thought," says Sir Thomas Hoby, in a manuscript letter in the Museum,

Sloane MSS. 4161, "that Hare and Hyde represented two tribunes of the

people." But the Commons resented this infringement on their privileges,

and after voting that Mr. Hare did not err in his employment in the

committee with the Lords, sent a message to inform the other house of

their vote, and to request that they "would forbear hereafter any

taxations and reprehensions in their conferences." Journals, 20th and

22nd Feb.

[507] Journals, 316.

An acute historical critic doubts whether James aimed at an union of

legislatures, though suggested by Bacon. Laing's _Hist. of Scotland_,

iii. 17. It is certain that his own speeches on the subject do not

mention this; nor do I know that it was ever distinctly brought forward

by the government; yet it is hard to see how the incorporation could

have been complete without it. Bacon not only contemplates the formation

of a single parliament, but the alterations necessary to give it effect

(vol. i. p. 638), suggesting that the previous commission of lords of

articles might be adopted for some, though not for all purposes. This of

itself was a sufficient justification for the dilatoriness of the

English parliament. Nor were the common lawyers who sat in the house

much better pleased with Bacon's schemes for remodelling all our laws.

See his speech (vol. i. p. 654) for naturalising the ante-nati. In this

he asserts the kingdom not to be fully peopled; "the territories of

France, Italy, Flanders, and some parts of Germany, do in equal space of

ground bear and contain a far greater quantity of people, if they were

mustered by the poll;" and even goes on to assert the population to have

been more considerable under the heptarchy.

[508] It was held by twelve judges out of fourteen, in Calvin's case,

that the post-nati, or Scots born after the king's accession, were

natural subjects of the King of England. This is laid down, and

irresistibly demonstrated, by Coke, then chief justice, with his

abundant legal learning. _State Trials_, vol. ii. 559.

It may be observed, that the high-flying creed of prerogative mingled

itself intimately with this question of naturalisation; which was much

argued on the monarchical principle of personal allegiance to the

sovereign, as opposed to the half-republican theory that lurked in the

contrary proposition. "Allegiance," says Lord Bacon, "is of a greater

extent and dimension than laws or kingdoms, and cannot consist by the

laws merely, because it began before laws; it continueth after laws, and

it is in vigour when laws are suspended and have not had their force."

_Id._ 596. So Lord Coke: "Whatsoever is due by the law or constitution

of man may be altered; but natural legiance or obedience of the subject

to the sovereign cannot be altered; ergo, natural legiance or obedience

to the sovereign is not due by the law or constitution of man."--652.

There are many doubtful positions scattered through the judgment in this

famous case. Its surest basis is the long series of precedents, evincing

that the natives of Jersey, Guernsey, Calais, and even Normandy and

Guienne, while these countries appertained to the kings of England,

though not in right of its crown, were never reputed aliens.

[509] The house had lately expelled Sir Christopher Pigott for

reflecting on the Scots nation in a speech. Journals, 13th Feb. 1607.

[510] Commons' Journals, 366.

The journals are full of notes of these long discussions about the union

in 1604, 1606, 1607, and even 1610. It is easy to perceive a jealousy

that the prerogative by some means or other would be the gainer. The

very change of name to Great Britain was objected to. One said, we

cannot legislate for Great Britain. P. 186. Another, with more

astonishing sagacity, feared that the king might succeed, by what the

lawyers call _remitter_, to the prerogatives of the British kings before

Julius Caesar, which would supersede Magna Charta. P. 185.

James took the title of King of Great Britain in the second year of his

reign. Lord Bacon drew a well-written proclamation on that occasion.

Bacon, i. 621; Rymer, xvi. 603. But it was, not long afterwards,

abandoned.

[511] Commons' Journals, p. 370.

[512] P. 377.

[513] Commons' Journals, p. 384.

[514] James entertained the strange notion that the war with Spain

ceased by his accession to the throne. By a proclamation dated 23rd June

1603, he permits his subjects to keep such ships as had been captured by

them before the 24th April, but orders all taken since to be restored to

the owners. Rymer, xvi. 516. He had been used to call the Dutch rebels,

and was probably kept with difficulty by Cecil from displaying his

partiality still more outrageously. Carte, iii. 714. All the council,

except this minister, are said to have been favourable to peace. _Id._

938.

[515] Winwood, vol. ii. 100, 152, etc.; Birch's _Negotiations of

Edmondes_. If we may believe Sir Charles Cornwallis, our ambassador at

Madrid, "England never lost such an opportunity of winning honour and

wealth, as by relinquishing the war." The Spaniards were astonished how

peace could have been obtained on such advantageous conditions. Winwood,

p. 75.

[516] Bacon, i. 663; Journals, p. 341. Carte says, on the authority of

the French ambassador's despatches, that the ministry secretly put

forward this petition of the Commons in order to frighten the Spanish

court into making compensation to the merchants, wherein they succeeded.

iii. 766. This is rendered very improbable by Salisbury's behaviour. It

was Carte's mistake to rely too much on the despatches he was permitted

to read in the Depot des Affaires Etrangeres; as if an ambassador were

not liable to be deceived by rumours in a country of which he has in

general too little knowledge to correct them.

[517] There was a duty on wool, woolfells, and leather, called magna, or

sometimes antiqua custuma, which is said in Dyer to have been by

prescription, and by the barons in Bates's case to have been imposed by

the king's prerogative. As this existed before the 25th Edward I., it is

not very material whether it were so imposed, or granted by parliament.

During the discussion, however, which took place in 1610, a record was

discovered of 3 Edw. I. proving it to have been granted par tous les

grauntz del realme, par la priere des comunes des marchants de tout

Engleterre. Hale, 146. The prisage of wines, or duty of two tons from

every vessel, is considerably more ancient; but how the Crown came by

this right does not appear.

[518] Dyer, fol. 165. An argument of the great lawyer Plowden in this

case of the queen's increasing the duty on cloths is in the British

Museum, Hargrave MSS. 32, and seems, as far as the difficult handwriting

permitted me to judge, adverse to the prerogative.

[519] This case I have had the good fortune to discover in one of Mr.

Hargrave's MSS. in the Museum, 132, fol. 66. It is in the handwriting of

Chief Justice Hyde (temp. Car. I.), who has written in the margin: "This

is the report of a case in my lord Dyer's written original, but is not

in the printed books." The reader will judge for himself why it was

omitted, and why the entry of the former case breaks off so abruptly.

"Philip and Mary granted to the town of Southampton that all malmsy

wines should be landed at that port under penalty of paying treble

custom. Some merchants of Venice having landed wines elsewhere, an

information was brought against them in the exchequer (1 Eliz.), and

argued several times in the presence of all the judges. Eight were of

opinion against the letters patent, among whom Dyer and Catlin, chief

justices, as well for the principal matter of restraint in the landing

of malmsies at the will and pleasure of the merchants, for that it was

against the laws, statutes, and customs of the realm (Magna Charta, c.

30; 9 E. 3; 14 E. 3; 25 E. 3, c. 2; 27 E. 3; 28 E. 3; 2 R. 2, c. 1, and

others), as also in the assessment of treble custom, _which is merely

against the law_; also the prohibition above said was held to be

private, and not public. But Baron Lake _e contra_, and Browne J.

_censuit deliberandum_. And after, at an after meeting the same Easter

term at Serjeants' Inn, it was resolved as above. And after by

parliament (5 Eliz.) the patent was confirmed and affirmed against

aliens."

[520] Bacon, i. 521.

[521] Hale's _Treatise on the Customs_, part 3; in Hargrave's

_Collection of Law Tracts_. See also the preface by Hargrave to Bates's

case, in the _State Trials_, where this most important question is

learnedly argued.

[522] He had previously published letters patent, setting a duty of six

shillings and eight-pence a pound, in addition to two-pence already

payable, on tobacco; intended no doubt to operate as a prohibition of a

drug he so much hated. Rymer, xvi. 602.

[523] _State Trials_, ii. 371.

[524] Hale's _Treatise on the Customs_. These were perpetual, "to be for

ever hereafter paid to the king and his successors, on pain of his

displeasure." _State Trials_, 481.

[525] Journals, 295, 297.

[526] Mr. Hakewill's speech, though long, will repay the diligent

reader's trouble, as being a very luminous and masterly statement of

this great argument. _State Trials_, ii. 407. The extreme inferiority of

Bacon, who sustained the cause of prerogative, must be apparent to every

one. _Id._ 345. Sir John Davis makes somewhat a better defence; his

argument is, that the king may lay an embargo on trade, so as to prevent

it entirely, and consequently may annex conditions to it. _Id._ 399. But

to this it was answered, that the king can only lay a temporary embargo,

for the sake of some public good, not prohibit foreign trade altogether.

As to the king's prerogative of restraining foreign trade, see extracts

from Hale's MS. Treatise de Jure Coronae, in Hargrave's Preface to

_Collection of Law Tracts_, p. xxx. etc. It seems to have been chiefly

as to exportation of corn.

[527] Aikin's _Memoirs of James I._ i. 350. This speech justly gave

offence. "The 21st of this present (May 1610)," says a correspondent of

Sir Ralph Winwood, "he made another speech to both the houses, but so

little to their satisfaction that I hear it bred generally much

discomfort to see our monarchical power and royal prerogative strained

so high, and made so transcendent every way, that if the practice should

follow the positions, we are not likely to leave to our successors that

freedom we received from our forefathers; nor make account of anything

we have, longer than they list that govern." Winwood, iii. 175. The

traces of this discontent appear in short notes of the debate. Journals,

p. 430.

[528] Journals, 431.

[529] _Somers Tracts_, vol. ii. 159; in the Journals much shorter.

[530] These canons were published in 1690 from a copy belonging to

Bishop Overall, with Sancroft's imprimatur. The title-page runs in an

odd expression: "Bishop Overall's Convocation-Book concerning the

Government of God's Catholic Church and the Kingdoms of the whole

World." The second canon is as follows: "If any man shall affirm that

men at the first ran up and down in woods and fields, etc., until they

were taught by experience the necessity of government; and that

therefore they chose some among themselves to order and rule the rest,

giving them power and authority so to do; and that consequently all

civil power, jurisdiction, and authority, was first derived from the

people and disordered multitude, or either is originally still in them,

or else is deduced by their consent naturally from them, and is not

God's ordinance, originally descending from him and depending upon him,

he doth greatly err."--P. 3.

[531] Coke's 2nd Institute, 601; Collier, 688; _State Trials_, ii. 131.

See too an angry letter of Bancroft, written about 1611 (Strype's _Life

of Whitgift_, Append. 227), wherein he inveighs against the common

lawyers and the parliament.

[532] Cowell's _Interpreter, or Law Dictionary_; edit. 1607. These

passages are expunged in the later editions of this useful book. What

the author says of the writ of prohibition, and the statutes of

praemunire, under these words, was very invidious towards the common

lawyers, treating such restraints upon the ecclesiastical jurisdiction

as necessary in former ages, but now become useless since the annexation

of the supremacy of the Crown.

[533] Commons' Journals, 339, and afterwards to 415. The authors of the

_Parliamentary History_ say there is no further mention of the business

after the conference, overlooking the most important circumstance, the

king's proclamation suppressing the book, which yet is mentioned by

Rapin and Carte, though the latter makes a false and disingenuous excuse

for Cowell. Vol. iii. p. 798. Several passages concerning this affair

occur in Winwood's _Memorials_, to which I refer the curious reader. Vol.

iii. p. 125, 129, 131, 136, 137, 145.

[534] Winwood, iii. 123.

[535] _Somers Tracts_, ii. 162; _State Trials_, ii. 519.

[536] The court of the council of Wales was erected by statute 34 H. 8,

c. 26, for that principality and its marches, with authority to

determine such causes and matters as should be assigned to them by the

king, "as heretofore hath been accustomed and used;" which implies a

previous existence of some such jurisdiction. It was pretended, that the

four counties of Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester, and Salop were

included within their authority, as marches of Wales. This was

controverted in the reign of James by the inhabitants of these counties,

and on reference to the twelve judges, according to Lord Coke, it was

resolved that they were ancient English shires, and not within the

jurisdiction of the council of Wales; "and yet," he subjoins, "the

commission was not after reformed in all points as it ought to have

been." Fourth Inst. 242. An elaborate argument in defence of the

jurisdiction may be found in Bacon, ii. 122. And there are many papers

on this subject in Cotton MSS. Vitellius, C. i. The complaints of this

enactment had begun in the time of Elizabeth. It was alleged that the

four counties had been reduced from a very disorderly state to

tranquillity by means of the council's jurisdiction. But, if this were

true, it did not furnish a reason for continuing to exclude them from

the general privileges of the common law, after the necessity had

ceased. The king, however, was determined not to concede this point.

Carte, iii. 794.

[537] Commons' Journals for 1610, _passim_; Lords' Journals, 7th May,

_et post_; _Parl. Hist._ 1124, _et post_; Bacon, i. 676; Winwood, iii.

119, _et post_.

[538] It appears by a letter of the king, in Murden's _State Papers_, p.

813, that some indecent allusions to himself in the House of Commons had

irritated him. "Wherein we have misbehaved ourselves, we know not, nor

we can never yet learn; but sure we are, we may say with Bellarmin in

his book, that in all the lower houses these seven years past,

especially these two last sessions, Ego pungor, ego carpor. Our fame and

actions have been tossed like tennis-balls among them, and all that

spite and malice durst do to disgrace and inflame us hath been used. To

be short, this lower house by their behaviour have perilled and annoyed

our health, wounded our reputation, emboldened all ill-natured people,

encroached upon many of our privileges, and plagued our people with

their delays. It only resteth now, that you labour all you can to do

that you think best to the repairing of our estate."

[539] "Your queen," says Lord Thos. Howard, in a letter, "did talk of

her subjects' love and good affection, and in good truth she aimed well;

our king talketh of his subjects' fear and subjection, and herein I

think he doth well too, as long as it holdeth good." _Nugae Antiquae_, i.

395.

[540] The court of James I. was incomparably the most disgraceful scene

of profligacy which this country has ever witnessed; equal to that of

Charles II. in the laxity of female virtue, and without any sort of

parallel in some other respects. Gross drunkenness is imputed even to

some of the ladies who acted in the court pageants (_Nugae Antiquae_, i.

348), which Mr. Gifford, who seems absolutely enraptured with this age

and its manners, might as well have remembered. _Life of Ben Jonson_, p.

231, etc. The king's prodigality is notorious.

[541] "It is atheism and blasphemy," he says in a speech made in the

star-chamber, 1616, "to dispute what God can do; good Christians content

themselves with his will revealed in his word; so it is presumption and

high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a

king cannot do this or that." King James's works, p. 557.

It is probable that his familiar conversation was full of this

rodomontade, disgusting and contemptible from so wretched a pedant, as

well as offensive to the indignant ears of those who knew and valued

their liberties. The story of Bishops Neile and Andrews is far too trite

for repetition.

[542] Carte, iii. 747; Birch's _Life of P. Henry_, 405. Rochester, three

days after, directed Sir Thomas Edmondes at Paris to commence a

negotiation for a marriage between Prince Charles and the second

daughter of the late King of France. But the ambassador had more sense

of decency, and declined to enter on such an affair at that moment.

[543] Winwood, vol. ii.; Carte, iii. 749; Watson's _Hist. of Philip

III._ Appendix. In some passages of this negotiation Cecil may appear

not wholly to have deserved the character I have given him for adhering

to Elizabeth's principles of policy. But he was placed in a difficult

position, not feeling himself secure of the king's favour, which,

notwithstanding his great previous services, that capricious prince, for

the first year after his accession, rather sparingly afforded; as

appears from the _Memoirs of Sully_, l. 14, and _Nugae. Antiquae_, i. 345.

It may be said that Cecil was as little Spanish, just as Walpole was as

little Hanoverian, as the partialities of their respective sovereigns

would permit for their own reputation. It is hardly necessary to

observe, that James and the kingdom were chiefly indebted to Cecil for

the tranquillity that attended the accession of the former to the

throne. I will take this opportunity of noticing that the learned and

worthy compiler of the catalogue of the Lansdowne manuscripts in the

Museum has thought fit not only to charge Sir Michael Hicks with

venality, but to add: "It is certain that articles among these papers

contribute to justify very strong suspicions, that neither of the

secretary's masters [Lord Burleigh and Lord Salisbury] was altogether

innocent on the score of corruption." _Lands. Cat._ vol. xci. p. 45.

This is much too strong an accusation to be brought forward without more

proof than appears. It is absurd to mention presents of fat bucks to men

in power, as bribes; and rather more so to charge a man with being

corrupted because an attempt is made to corrupt him, as the

catalogue-maker has done in this place. I would not offend this

respectable gentleman; but by referring to many of the Lansdowne

manuscripts I am enabled to say that he has travelled frequently out of

his province, and substituted his conjectures for an analysis or

abstract of the document before him.

[544] A great part of Winwood's third volume relates to this business,

which, as is well known, attracted a prodigious degree of attention

throughout Europe. The question, as Winwood wrote to Salisbury, was "not

of the succession of Cleves and Juliers, but whether the house of

Austria and the church of Rome, both now on the wane, shall recover

their lustre and greatness in these parts of Europe."--P. 378. James

wished to have the right referred to his arbitration, and would have

decided in favour of the Elector of Brandenburg, the chief protestant

competitor.

[545] Winwood, vols. ii. and iii. _passim_. Birch, that accurate master

of this part of English history, has done justice to Salisbury's

character. _Negotiations of Edmondes_, p. 347. Miss Aikin, looking to

his want of constitutional principle, is more unfavourable, and perhaps

on the whole justly; but what statesman of that age was ready to admit

the new creed of parliamentary control over the executive government?

_Memoirs of James_, i. 395.

[546] "On Sunday, before the king's going to Newmarket (which was Sunday

last was a se'nnight), my Lord Coke and all the judges of the common law

were before his majesty to answer some complaints made by the civil

lawyers for the general granting of prohibitions. I heard that the Lord

Coke, amongst other offensive speech, should say to his majesty that his

highness was defended by his laws. At which saying, with other speech

then used by the Lord Coke, his majesty was very much offended, and told

him he spoke foolishly, and said that he was not defended by his laws,

but by God, and so gave the Lord Coke, in other words, a very sharp

reprehension, both for that and other things; and withal told him that

Sir Thomas Crompton (judge of the admiralty) was as good a man as Coke;

my Lord Coke having then, by way of exception, used some speech against

Sir Thomas Crompton. Had not my lord treasurer, most humbly on his knee,

used many good words to pacify his majesty and to excuse that which had

been spoken, it was thought his highness would have been much more

offended. In the conclusion, his majesty, by the means of my lord

treasurer, was well pacified, and gave a gracious countenance to all the

other judges, and said he would maintain the common law." Lodge, iii.

364. The letter is dated 25th November 1608, which shows how early Coke

had begun to give offence by his zeal for the law.

[547] 12 Reports. In his second Institute, p. 57, written a good deal

later, he speaks in a very different manner of Bates's case, and

declares the judgment of the court of exchequer to be contrary to law.

[548] 12 Reports. There were, however, several proclamations afterwards

to forbid building within two miles of London, except on old

foundations, and in that case only with brick or stone, under penalty of

being proceeded against by the attorney-general in the star-chamber.

Rymer, xvii. 107 (1618), 144 (1619), 607 (1624). London nevertheless

increased rapidly, which was by means of licences to build; the

prohibition being in this, as in many other cases enacted chiefly for

the sake of the dispensations.

James made use of proclamations to infringe personal liberty in another

respect. He disliked to see any country-gentleman come up to London,

where, it must be confessed, if we trust to what those proclamations

assert and the memoirs of the age confirm, neither their own behaviour,

nor that of their wives and daughters, who took the worst means of

repairing the ruin their extravagance had caused, redounded to their

honour. The king's comparison of them to ships in a river and in the sea

is well known. Still, in a constitutional point of view, we may be

startled at proclamations commanding them to return to their

country-houses and maintain hospitality, on pain of condign punishment.

Rymer, xvi. 517 (1604); xvii. 417 (1622), 632 (1624).

I neglected, in the first chapter, the reference I had made to an

important dictum of the judges in the reign of Mary, which is decisive

as to the legal character of proclamations even in the midst of the

Tudor period. "The king, it is said, may make a proclamation quoad

terrorem populi, to put them in fear of his displeasure, but not to

impose any fine, forefeiture, or imprisonment; for no proclamation can

make a new law, but only confirm and ratify an ancient one." Dalison's

Reports, 20.

[549] Winwood, iii. 193.

[550] Carte, iii. 805.

[551] The number of these was intended to be two hundred, but only

ninety-three patents were sold in the first six years. Lingard, ix. 203,

from _Somers Tracts_. In the first part of his reign he had availed

himself of an old feudal resource, calling on all who held L40 a year in

chivalry (whether of the crown or not, as it seems) to receive

knighthood, or to pay a composition. Rymer, xvi. 530. The object of this

was of course to raise money from those who thought the honour

troublesome and expensive, but such as chose to appear could not be

refused; and this accounts for his having made many hundred knights in

the first year of his reign. Harris's _Life of James_, 69.

[552] MS. penes autorem.

[553] Carte, iv. 17.

[554] Wilson, in Kennet, ii. 696.

[555] This act (34 H. 8, c. 26) was repealed a few years afterwards. 21

J. 1, c. 10.

[556] Commons' Journals, 466, 472, 481, 486. Sir Henry Wotton at length

muttered something in favour of the prerogative of laying impositions,

as belonging to hereditary though not to elective princes. _Id._ 493.

This silly argument is only worth notice, as a proof what erroneous

notions of government were sometimes imbibed from an intercourse with

foreign nations. Dudley Digges and Sandys answered him very properly.

[557] The judges having been called upon by the House of Lords to

deliver their opinions on the subject of impositions, previous to the

intended conference, requested, by the mouth of Chief Justice Coke, to

be excused. This was probably a disappointment to Lord Chancellor

Egerton, who had moved to consult them, and proceeded from Coke's

dislike to him and to the court. It induced the house to decline the

conference. Lords' Journals, 23rd May.

[558] Lords' Journals, May 31; Commons' Journals, 496, 498.

[559] Carte, iv. 23. Neville's memorial above mentioned was read in the

house, May 14.

[560] Carte, iv. 19, 20; Bacon, i. 695; C. J. 462.

[561] C. J. 506; Carte, 23. This writer absurdly defends the prerogative

of laying impositions on merchandise as part of the _law of nations_.

[562] It is said that, previously to taking this step, the king sent for

the Commons, and tore all their bills before their faces in the

banqueting-house at Whitehall. D'Israeli's _Character of James_, p. 158,

on the authority of an unpublished letter.

[563] Carte; Wilson; Camden's _Annals of James I._ (in Kennet, ii. 643).

[564] Carte, iv. p. 56.

[565] 12 Reports, 119.

[566] _State Trials_, ii. 889.

[567] There had, however, been instances of it, as in Sir Walter

Raleigh's case (Lodge, iii. 172, 173); and I have found proofs of it in

the queen's reign; though I cannot at present quote my authority. In a

former age, the judges had refused to give an extra-judicial answer to

the king. Lingard, v. 382, from the year-book, Pasch. 1 H. 7, 15, Trin.

1.

[568] _State Trials_, ii. 869; Bacon, ii. 483, etc.; Dalrymple's

_Memorials of James I._, vol. i. p. 56. Some other very unjustifiable

constructions of the law of treason took place in this reign. Thomas

Owen was indicted and found guilty, under the statute of Edward III.,

for saying, that "the king, being excommunicated (_i.e._ if he should be

excommunicated) by the pope, might be lawfully deposed and killed by any

one, which killing would not be murder, being the execution of the

supreme sentence of the pope;" a position very atrocious, but not

amounting to treason. _State Trials_, ii. 879. And Williams, another

papist, was convicted of treason by a still more violent stretch of law,

for writing a book predicting the king's death in the year 1621. _Id._

1085.

[569] Bacon, ii. 500, 518, 522; Cro. Jac. 335, 343.

[570] Bacon, ii. 517, etc.; Carte, iv. 35; _Biograph. Brit._, art. Coke.

The king told the judges, he thought his prerogative as much wounded if

it be publicly disputed upon, as if any sentence were given against it.

[571] See D'Israeli, _Character of James I._, p. 125. He was too much

affected by his dismissal from office.

[572] Camden's _Annals of James I._ in Kennet, vol. ii.; Wilson,

_ibid._, 704, 705; Bacon's Works, ii. 574. The fine imposed was L30,000;

Coke voted for L100,000.

[573] Fuller's _Church Hist._ 56; Neal, i. 435; Lodge, iii. 344.

[574] _State Trials_, ii. 765.

[575] Collier, 712, 717; Selden's Life in _Biographia Brit._

[576] Carte, iii. 698.

[577] _State Trials_, ii. 23; Lodge's _Illustrations_, iii. 217.

[578] Winwood, iii. 201, 279.

[579] _Id._ 178. In this collection are one or two letters from

Arabella, which show her to have been a lively and accomplished woman.

It is said in a manuscript account of circumstances about the king's

accession, which seems entitled to some credit, that on its being

proposed that she should walk at the queen's funeral, she answered with

spirit that, as she had been debarred her majesty's presence while

living, she would not be brought on the stage as a public spectacle

after her death. Sloane MSS. 827.

Much occurs on the subject of this lady's imprisonment in one of the

valuable volumes in Dr. Birch's handwriting, among the same MSS. 4161.

Those have already assisted Mr. D'Israeli in his interesting memoir on

Arabella Stuart, in the _Curiosities of Literature_, New Series, vol. i.

They cannot be read (as I should conceive) without indignation at James

and his ministers. One of her letters is addressed to the two

chief-justices, begging to be brought before them by habeas corpus,

being informed that it is designed to remove her far from those courts

of justice where she ought to be tried and condemned, or cleared, to

remote parts, whose courts she holds unfitted for her offence. "And if

your lordships may not or will not grant unto me the ordinary relief of

a distressed subject, then I beseech you become humble intercessors to

his majesty that I may receive such benefit of justice, as both his

majesty by his oath hath promised, and the laws of this realm afford to

all others, those of his blood not excepted. And though, unfortunate

woman! I can obtain neither, yet I beseech your lordships retain me in

your good opinion, and judge charitably till I be proved to have

committed any offence either against God or his majesty deserving so

long restraint or separation from my lawful husband."

Arabella did not profess the Roman catholic religion, but that party

seem to have relied upon her; and so late as 1610, she incurred some

"suspicion of being collapsed." Winwood, ii. 117.

This had been also conjectured in the queen's life-time. _Secret

Correspondence of Cecil with James I._, p. 118.

[580] _State Trials_, ii. 769.

[581] Sir Charles Cornwallis's _Memoir of Prince Henry_, reprinted in

the Somers Tracts, vol. ii., and of which sufficient extracts may be

found in Birch's life, contains a remarkably minute detail of all the

symptoms attending the prince's illness, which was an epidemic typhus

fever. The report of his physicians after dissection may also be read in

many books. Nature might possibly have overcome the disorder, if an

empirical doctor had not insisted on continually bleeding him. He had no

other murderer. We need not even have recourse to Hume's acute and

decisive remark that, if Somerset had been so experienced in this trade,

he would not have spent five months in bungling about Overbury's death.

Carte says (vol. iv. 33) that the queen charged Somerset with designing

to poison her, Prince Charles, and the elector palatine, in order to

marry the electress to Lord Suffolk's son. But this is too extravagant,

whatever Anne might have thrown out in passion against a favourite she

hated. On Henry's death the first suspicion fell of course on the

papists. Winwood, iii. 410. Burnet doubts whether his aversion to popery

did not hasten his death. And there is a remarkable letter from Sir

Robert Naunton to Winwood, in the note of the last reference, which

shows that suspicions of some such agency were entertained very early.

But the positive evidence we have of his disease outweighs all

conjecture.

[582] The circumstances to which I allude are well known to the curious

in English history, and might furnish materials for a separate

dissertation, had I leisure to stray in these by-paths. Hume has treated

them as quite unimportant; and Carte, with his usual honesty, has never

alluded to them. Those who read carefully the new edition of the _State

Trials_, and various passages in Lord Bacon's _Letters_, may form for

themselves the best judgment they can. A few conclusions may, perhaps,

be laid down as established, 1. That Overbury's death was occasioned,

not merely by Lady Somerset's revenge, but by his possession of

important secrets, which in his passion he had threatened Somerset to

divulge. 2. That Somerset conceived himself to have a hold over the king

by the possession of the same or some other secrets, and used indirect

threats of revealing them. 3. That the king was in the utmost terror at

hearing of these measures; as is proved by a passage in Weldon's

_Memoirs_, p. 115, which, after being long ascribed to his libellous

spirit, has lately received the most entire confirmation by some letters

from More, lieutenant of the Tower, published in the _Archaeologia_, vol.

xviii. 4. That Bacon was in the king's confidence, and employed by him

so to manage Somerset's trial, as to prevent him from making any

imprudent disclosure, or the judges from getting any insight into that

which it was not meant to reveal. See particularly a passage in his

letter to Coke, vol. ii. 514, beginning, "This crime was second to none

but the powder-plot."

Upon the whole, I cannot satisfy myself in any manner as to this

mystery. Prince Henry's death, as I have observed, is out of the

question; nor does a different solution, hinted by Harris and others,

and which may have suggested itself to the reader, appear probable to my

judgment on weighing the whole case. Overbury was an ambitious,

unprincipled man; and it seems more likely than anything else, that

James had listened too much to some criminal suggestion from him and

Somerset; but of what nature I cannot pretend even to conjecture; and

that through apprehension of this being disclosed, he had

pusillanimously acquiesced in the scheme of Overbury's murder.

It is a remarkable fact, mentioned by Burnet, and perhaps little

believed, but which, like the former, has lately been confirmed by

documents printed in the _Archaeologia_, that James in the last year of

his reign, while dissatisfied with Buckingham, privately renewed his

correspondence with Somerset, on whom he bestowed at the same time a

full pardon, and seems to have given him hopes of being restored to his

former favour. A memorial drawn up by Somerset, evidently at the king's

command, and most probably after the clandestine interview reported by

Burnet, contains strong charges against Buckingham. _Archaeologia_, vol.

xvii. 280. But no consequences resulted from this; James was either

reconciled to his favourite before his death, or felt himself too old

for a struggle. Somerset seems to have tampered a little with the

popular party in the beginning of the next reign. A speech of Sir Robert

Cotton's in 1625 (_Parl. Hist._ ii. 145) praises him, comparatively at

least with his successor in royal favour; and he was one of those

against whom informations were brought in the star-chamber for

dispersing Sir Robert Dudley's famous proposal for bridling the

impertinences of parliament. Kennet, iii. 62. The patriots, however, of

that age had too much sense to encumber themselves with an ally equally

unserviceable and infamous. There cannot be the slightest doubt of

Somerset's guilt as to the murder, though some have thought the evidence

insufficient (Carte, iv. 34); he does not deny it in his remarkable

letter to James, requesting, or rather demanding, mercy, printed in the

Cabala and in Bacon's Works.

[583] Raleigh made an attempt to destroy himself on being committed to

the Tower; which of course affords a presumption of his consciousness

that something could be proved against him. Cayley's _Life of Raleigh_,

vol. ii. p. 10. Hume says, it appears from Sully's _Memoirs_ that he had

offered his services to the French ambassador. I cannot find this in

Sully; whom Raleigh, however, and his party seem to have aimed at

deceiving by false information. Nor could there be any treason in making

an interest with the minister of a friendly power. Carte quotes the

despatches of Beaumont, the French ambassador, to prove the connection

of the conspirators with the Spanish plenipotentiary. But it may be

questioned whether he knew any more than the government gave out. If

Raleigh had ever shown a discretion bearing the least proportion to his

genius, we might reject the whole story as improbable. But it is to be

remembered that there had long been a catholic faction, who fixed their

hopes on Arabella; so that the conspiracy, though extremely injudicious,

was not so perfectly unintelligible as it appears to a reader of Hume,

who has overlooked the previous circumstances. It is also to be

considered, that the king had shown so marked a prejudice against

Raleigh on his coming to England, and the hostility of Cecil was so

insidious and implacable, as might drive a man of his rash and impetuous

courage to desperate courses. See Cayley's _Life of Raleigh_, vol. ii.;

a work containing much interesting matter, but unfortunately written too

much in the spirit of an advocate, which, with so faulty a client, must

tend to an erroneous representation of facts.

[584] This estate was Sherborn Castle, which Raleigh had not very fairly

obtained from the see of Salisbury. He settled this before his

conviction upon his son; but an accidental flaw in the deed enabled the

king to wrest it from him, and bestow it on the Earl of Somerset. Lady

Raleigh, it is said, solicited his majesty on her knees to spare it; but

he only answered, "I mun have the land, I mun have it for Carr." He gave

him, however, L12,000 instead. But the estate was worth L5000 per annum.

This ruin of the prospects of a man far too intent on aggrandisement

impelled him once more into the labyrinth of fatal and dishonest

speculations. Cayley, 89, etc.; _Somers Tracts_, ii. p. 22, etc.;

_Curiosities of Literature_, New Series, vol. ii. It has been said that

Raleigh's unjust conviction made him in one day the most popular, from

having been the most odious, man in England. He was certainly such under

Elizabeth. This is a striking, but by no means solitary, instance of the

impolicy of political persecution.

[585] Rymer, xvi. 789. He was empowered to name officers, to use martial

law, etc.

[586] James made it a merit with the court of Madrid, that he had put to

death a man so capable of serving him merely to give them satisfaction.

_Somers Tracts_, ii. 437. There is even reason to suspect that he

betrayed the secret of Raleigh's voyage to Gondomar, before he sailed.

Hardwicke, _State Papers_, i. 398. It is said in Mr. Cayley's _Life of

Raleigh_ that his fatal mistake in not securing a pardon under the great

seal was on account of the expense. But the king would have made some

difficulty at least about granting it.

[587] This project began as early as 1605. Winwood, vol. ii. The king

had hopes that the United Provinces would acknowledge the sovereignty of

Prince Henry and the infanta on their marriage; and Cornwallis was

directed to propose this formally to the court of Madrid. _Id._ p. 201.

But Spain would not cede the point of sovereignty; nor was this scheme

likely to please either the states-general or the court of France.

In the later negotiation about the marriage of Prince Charles, those of

the council who were known or suspected catholics, Arundel, Worcester,

Digby, Weston, Calvert, as well as Buckingham, whose connections were

such, were in the Spanish party. Those reputed to be jealous protestants

were all against it. Wilson, in Kennet, ii. 725. Many of the former were

bribed by Gondomar. _Id._ and Rushworth, i. 19.

[588] The proclamation for this parliament contains many of the

unconstitutional directions to the electors, contained, as has been

seen, in that of 1604, though shorter. Rymer, xvii. 270.

[589] "Deal with me, as I shall desire at your hands," etc. "He knew

not," he told them, "the laws and customs of the land when he first

came, and was misled by the old counsellors whom the old queen had

left;"--he owns that at the last parliament there was "a strange kind of

beast called undertaker," etc. _Parl. Hist._ i. 1180. Yet this coaxing

language was oddly mingled with sallies of his pride and prerogative

notions. It is evidently his own composition, not Bacon's. The latter,

in granting the speaker's petitions, took the high tone so usual in this

reign, and directed the House of Commons like a schoolmaster. Bacon's

Works, i. 701.

[590] Debates of Commons in 1621, vol. i. p. 84. I quote the two volumes

published at Oxford in 1766; they are abridged in the new _Parliamentary

History_.

[591] _Id._ 103, 109.

[592] The Commons in this session complained to the Lords, that the

Bishop of London (Stokesley) had imprisoned one Philips on suspicion of

heresy. Some time afterwards, they called upon him to answer their

complaint. The bishop laid the matter before the Lords, who all declared

that it was unbecoming for any lord of parliament to make answer to any

one in that place; "quod non consentaneum fuit aliquem procerum

praedictorum alicui in eo loco responsorum." Lords' Journals, i. 71. The

lords, however, in 1701 (_State Trials_, xiv. 275), seem to have

recognised this as a case of impeachment.

[593] Debates in 1621, p. 114, 228, 229.

[594] _Id. passim._

[595] Carte.

[596] Clarendon speaks of this impeachment as an unhappy precedent, made

to gratify a private displeasure. This expression seems rather to point

to Buckingham than to Coke; and some letters of Bacon to the favourite

at the time of his fall display a consciousness of having offended him.

Yet Buckingham had much more reason to thank Bacon as his wisest

counsellor, than to assist in crushing him. In his works (vol. i. p.

712) is a tract, entitled "Advice to the Duke of Buckingham," containing

instructions for his governance as minister. These are marked by the

deep sagacity and extensive observation of the writer. One passage

should be quoted in justice to Bacon. "As far as it may lie in you, let

no arbitrary power be intruded; the people of this kingdom love the laws

thereof, and nothing will oblige them more than a confidence of the free

enjoying of them: what the nobles upon an occasion once said in

parliament, 'Nolumus leges Angliae mutari,' is imprinted in the hearts of

all the people." I may add that with all Bacon's pliancy, there are

fewer over-strained expressions about the prerogative in his political

writings than we should expect. His practice was servile, but his

principles were not unconstitutional. We have seen how strongly he urged

the calling of parliament in 1614: and he did the same, unhappily for

himself, in 1621. Vol. ii. p. 580. He refused also to set the great seal

to an office intended to be erected for enrolling prentices, a

speculation apparently of some monopolists; writing a very proper letter

to Buckingham, that there was no ground of law for it. P. 555.

I am very loth to call Bacon, for the sake of Pope's antithesis, "the

meanest of mankind." Who would not wish to believe the feeling language

of his letter to the king, after the attack on him had already begun? "I

hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt

heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice;

howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times."--P.

589. Yet the general disesteem of his contemporaries speaks forcibly

against him. Sir Simon d'Ewes and Weldon, both indeed bitter men, give

him the worst of characters. "Surely," says the latter, "never so many

parts and so base and abject a spirit tenanted together in any one

earthen cottage as in this man." It is a striking proof of the splendour

of Bacon's genius, that it was unanimously acknowledged in his own age

amidst so much that should excite contempt. He had indeed ingratiated

himself with every preceding parliament through his incomparable

ductility; having take an active part in their complaints of grievances

in 1604, before he became attorney-general, and even on many occasions

afterwards while he held that office, having been intrusted with the

management of conferences on the most delicate subjects. In 1614, the

Commons, after voting that the attorney-general ought not to be elected

to parliament, made an exception in favour of Bacon. Journals, p. 460.

"I have been always gracious in the lower house," he writes to James in

1616, begging for the post of chancellor; "I have interest in the

gentlemen of England, and shall be able to do some good effect in

rectifying that body of parliament-men, which is cardo rerum." Vol. ii.

p. 496.

I shall conclude this note by observing, that, if all Lord Bacon's

philosophy had never existed, there would be enough in his political

writings to place him among the greatest men this country has produced.

[597] Debates in 1621, vol. ii. p. 7.

[598] Debates, p. 14.

[599] In a former parliament of this reign, the Commons having sent up a

message, wherein they entitled themselves the knights, citizens,

burgesses, and barons of the commons' court of parliament, the Lords

sent them word that they would never acknowledge any man that sitteth in

the lower house to have the right or title of a baron of parliament; nor

could admit the term of the commons' court of parliament; "because all

your house together, without theirs, doth make no court of parliament."

4th March, 1606. Lords' Journals. Nevertheless the Lords did not scruple

almost immediately afterwards, to denominate their own house a court, as

appears by memoranda of 27th and 28th May; they even issued a habeas

corpus as from a court, to bring a servant of the Earl of Bedford before

them. So also in 1609, 16th and 17th of February. And on April 14th and

18th, 1614; and probably later, if search were made.

I need hardly mention, that the barons mentioned above, as part of the

Commons, were the members for the cinque ports, whose denomination is

recognised in several statutes.

[600] Debates in 1621, vol. i. p. 355, etc.; vol. ii. p. 5, etc. Mede

writes to his correspondent on May 11, that the execution had not taken

place; "but I hope it will." The king was plainly averse to it.

[601] The following observation on Floyd's case, written by Mr. Harley,

in a manuscript account of the proceedings (Harl. MSS. 6274), is well

worthy to be inserted. I copy from the appendix to the above-mentioned

debates of 1621. "The following collection," he has written at the top,

"is an instance how far a zeal against popery and for one branch of the

royal family, which was supposed to be neglected by King James, and

consequently in opposition to him, will carry people against common

justice and humanity." And again at the bottom: "For the honour of

Englishmen, and indeed of human nature, it were to be hoped these

debates were not truly taken, there being so many motions contrary to

the laws of the land, the laws of parliament, and common justice. Robert

Harley, July 14, 1702." It is remarkable that this date is very near the

time when the writer of these just observations, and the party which he

led, had been straining in more than one instance the privileges of the

House of Commons, not certainly with such violence as in the case of

Floyd, but much beyond what can be deemed their legitimate extent.

[602] In a much later period of the session, when the Commons had lost

their good humour, some heat was very justly excited by a petition from

some brewers, complaining of an imposition of four-pence on the quarter

of malt. The courtiers defended this as a composition in lieu of

purveyance. But it was answered that it was compulsory, for several of

the principal brewers had been committed and lay long in prison for not

yielding to it. One said that impositions of this nature overthrew the

liberty of all the subjects of this kingdom; and if the king may impose

such taxes, then are we but villains, and lose all our liberties. It

produced an order that the matter be examined before the house, the

petitioners to be heard by council, and all the lawyers of the house to

be present. Debates of 1621, vol. ii. 252; Journals, p. 652. But nothing

further seems to have taken place, whether on account of the magnitude

of the business which occupied them during the short remainder of the

session, or because a bill which passed their house to prevent illegal

imprisonment, or restraint on the lawful occupation of the subject, was

supposed to meet this case. It is a remarkable instance of arbitrary

taxation, and preparatory to an excise.

[603] Debates of 1621, p. 14; Hatsell's _Precedents_, i. 133.

[604] Debates, p. 114, _et alibi, passim_.

[605] Vol. ii. 170, 172.

[606] _Id._ p. 186.

[607] P. 189. Lord Cranfield told the Commons there were three reasons

why they should give liberally. 1. That lands were now a third better

than when the king came to the crown. 2. That wools, which were then

20_s._ were now 30_s._ 3. That corn had risen from 26_s._ to 36_s._ the

quarter. _Ibid._ There had certainly been a very great increase of

wealth under James, especially to the country gentlemen; of which their

style of building is an evident proof. Yet in this very session

complaints had been made of the want of money, and fall in the price of

lands (vol. i. p. 16); and an act was proposed against the importation

of corn (vol. ii. p. 87). In fact, rents had been enormously enhanced in

this reign, which the country gentlemen of course endeavoured to keep

up. But corn, probably through good seasons, was rather lower in 1621

than it had been--about 30_s._ a quarter.

[608] P. 242, etc.

[609] _Id._ 174, 200. Compare also p. 151. Sir Thomas Wentworth appears

to have discountenanced the resenting this as a breach of privilege.

Doubtless the house showed great and even excessive moderation in it;

for we can hardly doubt that Sandys was really committed for no other

cause than his behaviour in parliament. It was taken up again

afterwards. P. 259.

[610] P. 261, etc.

[611] P. 284.

[612] P. 289.

[613] P. 317.

[614] P. 330.

[615] P. 339.

[616] P. 359.

[617] Rymer, xvii. 344; _Parl. Hist._ Carte, 93; Wilson.

[618] Besides the historians, see Cabala, part ii. p. 155 (4to edit.);

D'Israeli's _Character of James I._, p. 125; and Mede's Letters, Harl.

MSS. 389.

[619] Wilson's _Hist. of James I._ in Kennet, ii. 247, 749. Thirty-three

peers, Mr. Joseph Mede tells us in a letter of Feb. 24, 1621 (Harl. MSS.

389), "signed a petition to the king which they refused to deliver to

the council, as he desired, nor even to the prince, unless he would say

he did not receive it as a counsellor; whereupon the king sent for Lord

Oxford, and asked him for it; he, according to previous agreement, said

he had it not; then he sent for another, who made the same answer: at

last they told him they had resolved not to deliver it, unless they were

admitted all together. Whereupon his majesty, wonderfully incensed, sent

them all away, _re infecta_, and said that he would come into parliament

himself, and bring them all to the bar." This petition, I believe, did

not relate to any general grievances, but to a question of their own

privileges, as to their precedence of Scots peers. Wilson, _ubi supra_.

But several of this large number were inspired by more generous

sentiments; and the commencement of an aristocratic opposition deserves

to be noticed. In another letter, written in March, Mede speaks of the

good understanding between the king and parliament; he promised they

should sit as long as they like, and hereafter he would have a

parliament every three years. "Is not this good if it be true?... But

certain it is that the Lords stick wonderful fast to the Commons and all

take great pains."

The entertaining and sensible biographer of James has sketched the

characters of these Whig peers. Aikin's _James I._, ii. 238.

[620] One of these may be found in the _Somers Tracts_, ii. 470,

entitled Tom Tell-truth, a most malignant ebullition of disloyalty,

which the author must have risked his neck as well as ears in

publishing. Some outrageous reflections on the personal character of the

king could hardly be excelled by modern licentiousness. Proclamations

about this time against excess of lavish speech in matters of state

(Rymer, xvii. 275, 514), and against printing or uttering seditious and

scandalous pamphlets (_Id._ 522, 616) show the tone and temper of the

nation.

[621] The letters on this subject, published by Lord Hardwicke (_State

Papers_, vol. i.) are highly important; and being unknown to Carte and

Hume, render their narratives less satisfactory. Some pamphlets of the

time, in the second volume of the _Somers Tracts_, may be read with

interest; and Howell's _Letters_, being written from Madrid during the

Prince of Wales's residence, deserve notice. See also Wilson in Kennet,

p. 750, _et post_. Dr. Lingard has illustrated the subject lately (ix.

271).

[622] Hume, and many other writers on the side of the Crown, assert the

value of a subsidy to have fallen from L70,000, at which it had been

under the Tudors, to L55,000, or a less sum. But though I will not

assert a negative too boldly, I have no recollection of having found any

good authority for this; and it is surely too improbable to be lightly

credited. For admit that no change was made in each man's rate according

to the increase of wealth and diminution of the value of money, the

amount must at least have been equal to what it had been; and to suppose

the contributors to have prevailed on the assessors to underrate them,

is rather contrary to common fiscal usage. In one of Mede's letters,

which of course I do not quote as decisive, it is said that the value of

a subsidy was _not above_ L80,000; and that the assessors were directed

(this was in 1621) not to follow former books, but value every man's

estate according to their knowledge, and not his own confession.

[623] _Parl. Hist._ 1383, 1388, 1390; Carte, 119. The king seems to have

acted pretty fairly in this parliament, bating a gross falsehood in

denying the intended toleration of papists. He wished to get further

pledges of support from parliament before he plunged into a war, and was

very right in doing so. On the other hand, the prince and Duke of

Buckingham behaved in public towards him with great rudeness. _Parl.

Hist._ 1396.

[624] _Parl. Hist._ 1421.

[625] Clarendon blames the impeachment of Middlesex for the very reason

which makes me deem it a fortunate event for the constitution, and seems

to consider him as a sacrifice to Buckingham's resentment. Hacket also,

the biographer of Williams, takes his part. Carte, however, thought him

guilty (p. 116); and the unanimous vote of the peers is much against

him, since that house was not wholly governed by Buckingham. See too the

"Life of Nicholas Farrar" in Wordsworth's _Ecclesiastical Biography_,

vol. iv.; where it appears that that pious and conscientious man was one

of the treasurer's most forward accusers, having been deeply injured by

him. It is difficult to determine the question from the printed trial.

[626] 21 Jac. 1, c. 3. See what Lord Coke says on this act, and on the

general subject of monopolies. 3 Inst. 181.

[627] _P. H._ 1483.

[628] _Id._ 1488.