:

ties are their right and inheritance, no less than their very lands and goods 2. That they cannot be withheld from them, denied or impaired, but with apparent wrong to the whole state of the realm: 3. That their making request at the beginning of a parliament, to enjoy their privilege, is only an act of manners, and does not weaken their right: 4. That their House is a court of record, and has been ever so esteemed: 5. That there is not the highest standing court in the land that ought to enter into competition, either for dignity or authority, with the high court of parliament, which with his majesty's royal assent, gives law to other courts, but from other courts receives neither laws nor orders: 6. That the House of Commons is the sole proper judge of return of all such writs, and the election of all such members as belong to it, without which the freedom of election were not entire." To this they add, what cause we your poor Commons have to watch over our privileges is manifest in itself to all men. The prerogatives of princes may easily, and do daily grow. The privileges of the subject are for the most part at an everlasting stand. They may be by good providence and care preserved; but being once lost are not recovered but with much disquiet."

7. Further penal laws against Papists, 1606. The parliament which should have met on the previous 5th November, did not assemble till the 21st January, 1606. Though it was clear that only desperate men had implicated themselves in the Gunpowder Plot, and the king in his opening speech said, he did not impute the guilt of that infamous scheme to any but the parties concerned, the parliament nevertheless proceeded to add to the severity of the penal laws against Catholics, by passing two new bills. And for the purpose of dividing the Catholic body, a new oath of allegiance was framed in offensive terms: "I do further swear that I do from my heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical, this damnable doctrine and position, that princes which be excommunicate or deprived by the pope may be deposed or murdered by their subjects or any other whosoever". Those who refused the oath were to be subject to perpetual imprisonment, the forfeiture of their personal property, and the rents of their lands during life; in the case of married women, imprisonment in the common gaol till the oaths were taken. Those who took the oath suffered only the ordinary penalties. This oath became afterwards a subject of controversy between James and Cardinal Bellarmine.

The following summary is from Lingard. "After a long succession of debates, conferences, and amendments, the new code received the royal assent. It repealed none of the laws then in force, but added to their severity by two new bills, containing more than seventy articles, inflicting penalties on the catholics in all their several capacities of masters, servants, husbands, parents, children, heirs, executors, patrons, barristers, and physicians. 1. Catholic recusants were forbidden, under particular penalties, to appear at court, or within ten miles of the boundaries of the city of London, or to remove on

C

any occasion, more than five miles from their homes, without a special license under the signature of four neighbouring magistrates. 2. They were made incapable of practising in surgery or physic, or in the common or civil law; of acting as judges, clerks, or officers in any court or corporation; of presenting to the livings, schools, or hospitals in their gift; or of performing the offices of administrators, executors, or guardians. 3. Husbands and wives, unless they had been married by a Protestant minister, were made to forfeit every benefit to which he or she might otherwise be entitled from the property of the other; unless their children were baptized by a Protestant minister within a month after the birth, each omission subjected them to a fine of one hundred pounds; and if after death they were not buried in a Protestant cemetery, their executors were liable to pay for each corpse the sum of twenty pounds. 4. Every child sent for education beyond the sea, was from that moment debarred from taking any benefit by devise, descent, or gift, until he should return and conform to the established church, all such benefit being assigned by law to the Protestant next of kin. 5. Every recusant was placed in the same situation as if he had been excommunicated by name; his house might be searched, his books and furniture, having or thought to have any relation to his worship or religion, might be burnt, and his horses and arms might be taken from him at any time, by an order of the neighbouring magistrates. 6. All the existing penalties for absence from church were continued, but with two improvements: (1.) It was made optional in the king, whether he would take the fine of twenty pounds per lunar month, or in lieu of it, all the personal, and two-thirds of the real estate; and (2.) Every householder. of whatever religion, receiving Catholic visitors, or keeping Catholic servants, was liable to pay for each individual ten pounds per lunar month."

8. Discussion on Dr. Cowell's "Interpreter", 1610. James, though extremely unwilling to meet his parliament, was again compelled to do so, by reason of his necessities. When the Houses met, the attention of the Commons was directed to the "Interpreter" or Law Dictionary, written by Dr. Cowell, an eminent civilian, with the private approbation of James. Certain articles in this book maintained the king's absolute power, and in consequence were held to be subversive of the liberties of the subject. Thus, speaking of the king, it is said, "He is above law by his absolute power. . . . And though at his coronation he take an oath not to alter the laws of the land, yet this oath notwithstanding, he may alter or suspend any particular law that seemeth hurtful to the public estate". In speaking of the prerogative, the Dr. said "the king, by the custom of this kingdom, maketh no laws without the consent of the three estates, though he may quash any law concluded of by them". These propositions, much as they might suit the king's notions of his own power, were so utterly at variance with the growing spirit of the Commons, that they could not be allowed to pass without cen

sure.

And the more so, as the Dr. was of repute in his profession, and was said to have put forth these offensive positions, at the instigation of Bancroft the primate. The Commons claimed the assistance of the Lords to punish the author of such unconstitutional doctrines, to which they consented. James was however unwilling that the matter should proceed further, and therefore informed the Houses, that he would deal with it himself. Cowell's book was suppressed by proclamation, and the writer consigned for a brief period to prison.

9. A proposition to abolish the Feudal burthens, 1610. This question had been before the House in 1604, when the grievances of purveyance and wardship were complained of in a petition. In the matter of purveyance, the Commons asserted, that in spite of its restraint by not less than thirty-six statutes, it was still a monster grievance. The purveyors took corn, flesh, in fact any kind of food at their own prices; they impressed carts and carriages in the same arbitrary manner; they lived at free quarters upon the country, cut down woods without the consent of the owner, and commanded labor with little or no recompense. And to complete the abuse, those who were found to demur or resist these "harpies", were imprisoned under warrant of the Board of Green Cloth. The other grievance complained of was wardship, or "the custody of every military tenant's estate until he should arrive at twenty-one, without accounting for the profits". To take away the former, the peers would join in petitioning the king, but not the latter, which they said was warranted by the law of the land.

In the session of 1610, Cecil being compelled to look about him for a considerable sum to pay off the king's debts, proposed that the parliament should vote a perpetual yearly revenue of £200,000, and to incline the House to this extraordinary demand, he promised in the king's name that every grievance should be redressed. Being thus encouraged, the Commons complain of the imposition of taxes by royal authority; the arbitrary and illegal proceedings of the High Commission Court; the attempt to make proclamations take the force of law; the delays of the courts to grant writs of prohibition, and Habeas Corpus; of certain patents of monopolies; and the jurisdiction of the council of Wales, over the four neighbouring counties. As these grievances were considered as encroachments on the rights of the people, the Commons were unwilling to chaffer with the crown for their restitution. But with regard to wardship, tenure of knight service, and purveyance, which were parts of the king's prerogatives, they were willing to make a bargain. A negotiation was therefore opened, and Cecil appeared willing to enter into their views.

James objected to give up knight's service, though he would submit to part with its lucrative incidents-reliefs, primer seisin, and wardship, and also the right of purveyance. For these concessions, the king set £300,000 as a proper compensation. After much haggling, the Commons offered £200,000, which was accepted by the king. Two points of importance yet remained to be determined; what security could the Commons obtain that these prerogatives so purchased, should not again be exercised, for the court lawyers held them to be beyond the control of statute; and in what way the £200,000 per annum should be levied. At this point, the parliament was prorogued for three months, and when it met again, the Commons were found to have cooled, for they had doubts of the king's sincerity, and were out of temper at the continuance of the grievances named in their petition, which threatened to destroy their liberties. James was displeased, and failing in an attempt to weaken the opposition, put an end to his first parliament.

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SECTION VI. JAMES'S SECOND OR ADDLE

PARLIAMENT," 1614.

1. Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, now acts as prime minister. The failure of the scheme which Cecil had proposed for securing a regular permanent revenue, left him in unsurmountable difficulties; the treasury was empty and the public officers demanding their salaries. He fell into deep depression of spirits, and retired from business to drink the waters of Bath. Finding no relief, he set out for London, but died on the road at Marlborough, worn out and wretched. His place was supplied by the king's favorite, Robert Carr, who had fallen under the royal notice at a tilting match. James taught him "the craft of a courtier", but he did not publicly take part in the affairs of the nation till the death of Salisbury, when he began to transact business as prime minister and principal secretary, though the Earl of Suffolk bad succeeded to the office of lord-treasurer. Much as Salisbury had been disliked, the nation found cause to regret his death, as the base character of his successor became developed.

2. Many complaints made by the Commons, and the parliament dismissed, 1614. This parliament existed but two months, and being dissolved without a single act, was nicknamed the "Addle Parliament." James would have avoided a parliament altogether, but he was wholly without money, and the extraordinary means of raising a revenue had now failed. Bacon, the attorney-general, who had taken the place of Coke in the royal

favor, assured the king that by following a plan which he sug gested, the House of Commons might be made manageable. By this scheme, the influence of the crown and its servants were to be employed in filling up the House with persons well affected to his majesty; winning over the lawyers; granting the more reasonable of the Commons' requests; and the king's avoiding irritating speeches to his parliament. The parliament was opened with a conciliatory speech, but the Commons was not to be won, for the secret of the "Undertakers", as those who undertook to manage the Commons were called, was out; and they were charged with arrogance in interfering with the liberty of election, and with violating the privileges of the Commons; it was even debated whether Sir Francis Bacon could legally sit in the House. Instead of proceeding with the supply, the Commons turned to what they held as the great grievance the customs at the outports, and impositions by prerogative.

A conference was demanded with the peers, they in doubt consulted the judges, but Coke, now chief justice of the King's Bench, after privately consulting with the rest of the judges, declined to give an opinion, on the plea, that standing judicially between the king and his subjects, it was not proper that they should be disputants in any cause. The peers on this declined a conference, and the king, somewhat impatient, sent a message, that if they did not proceed with the supply, he would dissolve the parliament. In reply, the Commons stated they would vote no supplies till the grievances were redressed. The parliament was therefore dissolved and five members committed to the Tower, "for licentiousness of speech". Hallam, speaking of the "Undertakers", observes: "This circumstance, like several others in the present reign, is curious, as it shows the rise of a systematic parliamentary influence, which was one day to become the mainspring of the government".

SECTION VII. THE DISGRACE OF SOMERSET AND RALEIGH.

1. Somerset found guilty of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1616. Overbury, of an ancient family of Gloucestershire, was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, and afterwards entered at the Middle Temple. He however preferred foreign travel, and having visited the continent, went to Scotland, where he became acquainted with Robert Carr, then a page to the Earl of Dunbar. The page came to London with Overbury, and met with good fortune. Carr's advancement made Overbury's services necessary to him; the latter being possessed of fair scholarship, while the former was illiterate. Overbury was made sewer to