15. The last occasion on which Parliament exercised Second its powers of appointing a Regent was on the Queen's Act, 1840. Regency marriage, in 1840. An Act was passed by which, in the event of any child of her Majesty succeeding to the throne under the age of eighteen, Prince Albert, as the surviving parent, was appointed Regent, without any council of regency, or any limitation upon the exercise of the royal prerogatives,-except an incapacity to assent to any bill for altering the succession to the throne, or affecting the uniformity of worship in the Church of England, or the rights of the Church of Scotland.1 From this general view of the history of Regencies we must now return to the particular period of which this chapter more especially treats. Edward IV. III. has no Under Edward IV. and Richard III., Parliament has Parliament no history. The nobility, thinned by civil war and the under hands of the executioner, and split up into contending and Richard factions, were unable to offer any political resistance to history. the power of the Crown. The Commons, by themselves, were as yet unequal to the contest. Under Edward IV. both Lords and Commons, instead of contending, like their predecessors, for the establishment of rights and the redress of grievances, were subservient to the Royal will. His was the first reign in which no public remedial statute was passed, nor even a petition presented similar to those with which we have seen the Commons, in former reigns, approaching the throne. For five years, from January 1477 to November 1483, no Parliament was summoned,—a suspension of the National Council without example since 1327. In money matters Edward appears to have made himself, as far as possible, independent of Parliamentary grants. He derived a very large income from the numerous forfeited estates of his enemies; and all the feudal dues 1 3 & 4 Vict. c. 52. 2 In Edward IV.'s last Parliament, in 1483, the Commons ventured to make some complaints with respect to the wearing of liveries, the maintenance of the public peace, and one or two other topics. Rot. Parl. vi. 198. Benevolences. Sir John Fortescue's testimony to the freedom of tution. and the customs duties on merchandise were exacted with the greatest rigour. He also extorted frequent tenths from the clergy, and, discarding the specious appellation of 'loans,' by which former Kings had endeavoured to disguise the forced contributions of their subjects, he compelled the richer classes to make apparently voluntary gifts, under the new and less plausible name of benevolences. As already mentioned, no complaint of any kind appears in the parliamentary records of his reign; but it is evident from a passage in the remarkable address presented to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, when invited, in 1483, to assume the Crown, that the nation, though hitherto silent, had not been insensible to the illegality. For certainly wee be determined,' say the authors of the address, ' rather to aventure and committe us to the perill of oure lyfs and jopardye of deth, than to lyve in suche thraldome and bondage as we have lyved long tyme heretofore, oppressed and injured by extorcions and newe imposicions ayenst the lawes of God and man, and the libertee, old policee and lawes of this realme, wheryn every Englishman is enherited.'1 Accordingly, in Richard III.'s only Parliament, Benevolences were declared by statute to be for ever illegal.2 Our consideration of the growth of Constitutional government during the 15th century may be appropriately closed by a quotation which no writer on the English the Consti- constitution,' says Hallam, 'can be excused from inserting.' Sir John Fortescue, chief justice of the King's Bench under Henry VI., in his treatise 'De Laudibus Legum Angliae,' written for the instruction of that King's young son Edward, Prince of Wales, gives the following exposition of the nature of the English kingship :-' A King of England cannot at his pleasure make any alterations in the laws of the land, for the nature of his government is not only regal but political. Had it been merely regal, he would have a power to make what innovations and alterations he pleased in the laws of the kingdom, impose taillages and other hardships upon the people whether they would or no, without their consent, which sort of government the civil laws point out when they declare "Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem." But it is much otherwise with a king whose government is political, because he can neither make any alteration or change in the laws of the realm without the consent of the subjects, nor burthen them against their wills with strange impositions, so that a people governed by such laws as are made by their own consent and approbation enjoy their properties securely, and without the hazard of being deprived of them, either by the King or any other. The same things may be effected under an absolute prince, provided he do not degenerate into the tyrant. Of such a prince, Aristotle, in the third of his Politics, says, "It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws." But because it does not always happen that the person presiding over a people is so qualified, St. Thomas, in the book which he writ to the king of Cyprus, "De Regimine Principum," wishes that a kingdom could be so instituted as that the king might not be at liberty to tyrannize over his people; which only comes to pass in the present case; that is, when the sovereign power is restrained by political laws. Rejoice, therefore, my good prince, that such is the law of the kingdom which you are to inherit, because it will afford, both to yourself and subjects, the greatest security and satisfaction.' And again: 'As the head of a body natural cannot change its nerves and sinews, cannot deny to the several parts their proper energy, their due proportion and aliment of blood; neither can a king, who is the head of a body politic, change the laws thereof, nor take from the people what is theirs by right, against their consent. Thus you have, sir, the formal institution of every political kingdom, from whence you may guess at the power which a king may exercise with respect to the laws and the subject. For he is appointed to protect his subjects in their lives, properties, and laws; for this very end and purpose he has the delega tion of power from the people, and he has no just claim to any other power but this.' 1 1 De Laudibus Legum Angliae, c. 9, 13. See also his treatise on Absolute and Limited Monarchy, and De Natura Legis Naturæ.' Two centuries previously, Bracton, writing under Henry III., had borne very similar testimony to the limited nature of the English kingship: 'Rex autem habet superiorem, Deum, s. Item legem, per quam factus est rex. Item curiam suam, videlicet comites, barones, quia comites dicuntur quasi socii regis, et qui habet socium, habet magistrum; et ideo, si rex fuerit sine fraeno, i. sine lege, debent ei fraenum ponere, nisi ipsimet fuerint cum rege sine fraeno.'-L. ii. c. 16, § 3. [M. Duruy, Hist. du Moyen Age, Paris, 1864, p. 450, remarks that by the middle of the fifteenth century the English people had in the Great Charter the declaration of their rights, and as its guarantees they had for individual liberty, Trial by Jury, for national liberty, the Parliament. M. Duruy also sets forth the difference between the contemporary movements towards national unity in England and in France at that period. 'On remarquera que tandis que l'Angleterre s'organisait pour marcher vers le noble but de la liberté politique, la France s'organisait pour arriver à une grande et forte monarchie où le roi s'élèverait seul au-dessus de tous. On aurait donc pu dès ce moment prévoir que le sentiment le plus vif de l'une serait la liberté, celui de l'autre l'égalité.' Op. cit. p. 456. M. Glasson, Hist. du Dr. et des Inst. de l'Angl., iv. 84, thus sums up the position of the English monarchy at the close of the fifteenth century. Ses pouvoirs sont considérables, immenses, et la royauté tentera plus tard de les élargir encore pour arriver à la monarchie absolue. Mais elle se heurtera à la volonté inébranlable de la nation qui saura faire respecter trois principes fondamentaux, déjà solidement établis . . . et qui forment les assises du régime parlementaire le roi ne peut faire aucun acte législatif sans le consentement de son Parlement; il ne peut pas imposer de taxes sans le consentement de ce même Parlement; il est tenu de gouverner selon les lois du pays et s'il viole ces lois, ses agents et ses conseillers sont responsables.' By Parliament, M. Glasson here obviously means both Houses. On this period interesting side lights are thrown in Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles (Camden Soc. 1880), ed. by James Gairdner.-ED.] 367 CHAPTER X. THE TUDOR PERIOD. (A.D. 1483-1603.) REIGNS OF HENRY VII., HENRY VIII, EDWARD VI., MARY. characteris tics of the Period. THE Tudor period is almost synchronous with the 16th General century, an age remarkable for its material prosperity, its intellectual and religious activity, and its political retro- Tudor gression. The mighty impulse given to Commerce by the discovery of America and of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, coupled with the certainty imparted to the science of navigation by the use of the compass, caused an enormous increase of the wealth of the middle classes. Intent upon the acquisition of private gain, the merchants and traders were for the most part satisfied to leave questions of government to others, so long as they themselves were permitted to pursue their avocations in peace. Simultaneously with the extraordinary expansion of Commerce there were other causes at work which tended to withdraw men's minds from the consideration of purely political topics. The revival of Learning, and its rapid dissemination among all classes through the medium of the printingpress, the profound religious agitation of the Reformation, and the spirit of bold enquiry which it excited concerning matters of the deepest interest hitherto generally accepted as beyond dispute,-all contributed to concentrate popular attention upon intellectual and religious progress, to the neglect of politics. On the continent of Europe, the introduction of standing armies, and the revolution in |