not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high court of Parliament.

On the first resolution offered by Mr. Burke the votes in favor of it were only 78 while those against it were 270. The other resolutions were not put to vote. This may be regarded as the final answer of the House of Commons to all attempts to save the colonies except by force. The policy of war was thus adopted, with what result the world very well knows

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.

NOTE 1, p. 8.-Ever since the Norman Conquest the royal assent to measures of Parliament has been given in a form from which there has been no variation. To “public bills" the words attached are "le roy le veult"; to petitions, "soit droit fait comme il est désiré "; and for grants of money, "the King heartily thanks his subjects for their good wills." In the present instance, instead of soit droit fait comme il est désiré, the King caused to be appended to the petition, "The King willeth that right be done according to the laws and customs of the realm; that the statutes be put into due execution; and that his subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrong or oppressions contrary to their just rights and liberties, to the preservation whereof he holds himself in conscience as well obliged, as of his own prerogative."-Rushworth, i., 588. On the forms of royal assent see the learned account by Selden in “Parliamentary History," viii., 237.

NOTE 2, p. 9.-Rushworth, i., 591. The version of Eliot's speech given by Rushworth is the one ordinarily reprinted in modern collections. But in the papers of the Earl of St. Germans, a descendant of Sir John Eliot, Mr. John Forster, some years ago, found a copy of the speech corrected by Eliot himself while in prison. This form, much superior to the others, is the one here reproduced.

NOTE 3, p. 16.-Eliot, in the expression, "want of councils," doubtless alludes to the absorption of the various powers of the State by Buckingham. The allusion was not without

reason, as the list of Buckingham's titles shows. He was: Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Buckingham, Earl of Coventry, Viscount Villiers, Baron of Whaddon, Great Admiral of England and Ireland, etc., etc., etc., Governor-General of the Seas and the Ships of the same, Lieutenant-General Admiral, Captain-General and Governor of his Majesty's fleet and army, etc., Minister of the House, Lord Warden, Chancellor, and Admiral of the Cinque Ports, etc., Constable of Dover Castle, Justice in Eyrie of the Forest of Chases on this side of the Trent, Constable of the Castle of Windsor, Gentleman of the Bedchamber, Knight of the Garter, Privy Councillor, etc. The royal domains that he had managed to have given to him brought an income of £284,395 a year. All this was so much drawn from the public treasury. See Bradie's "Constitutional History," new edition, vol. i., p. 424, and Guizot, "Charles I.," Bohn's ed., p. 15.

NOTE 4, p. 17.-The Elector Palatine, Frederick V., had married Elizabeth, the daughter of James I., of England, and by his election as King of Bohemia, became in a certain sense the representative and head of the Protestant party in Germany at the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in 1618. His cause was badly managed at home, and still more wretchedly managed in England. Constantly deluded with hopes of support from the great Protestant power in the North, he was doomed to perpetual disappointment. His cause was shattered at the first serious conflict at White Mountain in 1620, and he was obliged to flee to Holland for his life. Twelve thousand English troops were subsequently sent to the support of Mansfeldt, but they were so ill managed that they nearly all perished before they could be of any assistance. The sacrifice of "honor" and of "men" was most abundant.

NOTE 5, p. 17.—In 1627 Richelieu was engaged in the work of reducing La Rochelle, the stronghold of the Huguenots, into subordination to the King of France. The

work had to be done by means of a siege, which included the construction of a dyke across the mouth of the harbor. Buckingham, inflamed with resentment against Richelieu, for personal reasons, determined to relieve the Rochellois. He collected a hundred ships and seven thousand land forces, and advanced to the rescue. But on reaching the scene of action, instead of advancing immediately to relieve the beleaguered city, he disembarked on the Isle of Rhée, and contented himself with issuing a proclamation, calling upon all French Protestants to arise for a relief of their brethren. The result was two-fold. In the first place, La Rochelle, after one of the most memorable sieges in all history, was reduced; and, secondly, the cause of Protestantism in France was completely crushed. In response to Buckingham's call, the Protestants everywhere arose ; but Richelieu was now at leisure to destroy them, and thus their last hope perished.

NOTE 6, p. 17.-The beauty of this allusion to the policy and the power of Queen Elizabeth has very justly been greatly admired. Nothing could have been more adroit than Eliot's comparison of the ways of Elizabeth with those of Buckingham.

NOTE 7, p. 20.-Having now come to the third division of his subject, "The insufficiency of our generals," Eliot naturally pauses before dragging Buckingham personally upon the But for what follows the Duke was personally respon

scene.

sible.

NOTE 8, p. 21.-In 1625 an expedition of eighty sail had been fitted out for the purpose of intercepting the Spanish treasure ships from America. But by reason of the incompetency of the commander there was no concert of action in the fleet, and the treasure ships escaped, though seven of them that would have richly repaid the expedition might easily have been taken. But not wishing to return empty handed, the