The Constitution, though frequently violated in practice, remained theoretically intact. of True and Faithful Subjects. A.D. 1559. than three subsidies, while the Commons wished to give only two. Hereupon Mr. Francis Bacon (afterwards the celebrated Chancellor) rose, and while disclaiming any wish to refuse a subsidy, 'disliked that this House should join with the Upper House in granting it. For the custom and privilege of this House hath always been, first to make offer of the subsidies from hence, then to the Upper House; except it were that they present a bill unto this House, with desire of our assent thereto, and then to send it up again.' The Court party tried hard to bring about another conference with the Lords, but their motion to that effect was lost on a division by 217 to 128.1 Notwithstanding the arbitrary practice of Elizabeth's government, and the submissive and adulatory strain in which she was always addressed by the Commons, it is evident that the theory of the Constitution, as a monarchy greatly limited by law, remained intact. The facts already cited might be regarded as sufficient proof of this assertion, but it is supported by still further evidence of much weight. Aylmer's In the Harborowe of True and Faithful Subjects,' pubHarborowe lished in 1559 by Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, in answer to John Knox's celebrated treatise against female monarchy entitled 'A Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women,' 2 the author thus enumerates his reasons why, in England, 'it was not so dangerous a matter to have a woman ruler as men take it to be:' 'First, it is not she that ruleth, but the laws, the executors whereof be her judges appointed by her, her justices, and such other officers. Secondly, she maketh no statutes or laws, but the honourable court of parliament; she breaketh none, but it must be she and they together, or else not. If on the other part the regiment were such as all hanged on the king's or queen's will, and not upon 1 D'Ewes, 486; Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 276. 2 Knox's 'Blast' was written in the time of Queen Mary and directed against her, but it was of course equally applicable to her sister Elizabeth. the laws written; if she might decree and make laws alone without her senate; if she judged offences according to her wisdom, and not by limitation of statutes and laws; if she might dispose alone of war and peace; if, to be short, she were a mere monarch, and not a mixed ruler, you might peradventure make me to fear the matter the more, and the less to defend the cause.' 1 Onslow's Again, in 1566, Mr. Onslow, then Solicitor-general and Mr. Speaker Speaker of the Commons, addressing Queen Elizabeth at address to the conclusion of the session said: 'By our common law, the Queen. A.D. 1566. although there be for the prince provided many princely prerogatives and royalties, yet it is not such as the prince can take money or other things, or do as he will at his own pleasure without order; but quietly to suffer his subjects to enjoy their own, without wrongful oppression; wherein other princes by their liberty do take as pleaseth them.' 2 Harrison, in his 'Description of England,' published in Harrison's 1577, says of the Parliament: This House hath the most Description of England high and absolute power of the realm; for thereby kings A.D. 1577. and mighty princes have from time to time been deposed from their thrones; laws either enacted or abrogated; offenders of all sorts punished; and corrupted religion either disannulled or reformed. To be short, whatsoever the people of Rome did in their centuriatis or tribunitiis comitiis, the same is and may be done by authority of our Parliament House, which is the head and body of all the realm, and the place wherein every particular person is intended to be present, if not by himself, yet by his advocate or attorney. For this cause also, anything there enacted is not to be misliked, but obeyed by all men without contradiction or grudge.' 3 1 Harborowe of True and Faithful Subjects, 1559, cited by Brodie, Hist. Brit. Emp.-Title in margin 'It is less danger to be governed in England by a woman than anywhere else.' Aylmer afterwards presents a picture of the wretchedness of the French, and compares their condition, and that of other continental states, with the situation of England. 2 D'Ewes, p. 115. 3 Harrison's Description of England, cited by Brodie, Hist. Brit. Emp. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. Sir Thomas That the same theory of the Constitution prevailed in the later period of Elizabeth's reign is evidenced by the words of the judicious Hooker in his 'Ecclesiastical Polity.' 'I cannot choose,' he says, 'but commend highly their wisdom, by whom the foundations of this commonwealth have been laid; wherein, though no manner person or cause be unsubject unto the king's power, yet so is the power of the king over all and in all limited, that unto all his proceedings the law itself is a rule. The axioms of our regal government are these: "Lex facit regem "—the king's grant of any favour made contrary to the law is void;— "Rex nihil potest nisi quod jure potest." . . what power the King hath he hath it by law; the bounds and limits of it are known, the entire community giveth general order by law how all things publicly are to be done; and the King as the head thereof, the highest in authority over all, causeth, according to the same law, every particular to be framed and ordered thereby. The whole body politic maketh laws, which laws give power unto the King; and the King having bound himself to use according to law that power, it so falleth out that the execution of the one is accomplished by the other.' 1 Similar views of the Constitution-vaguely and somewhat timidly expressed it is true-are found in the Commonwealth of England' of Sir Thomas Smith, one of Elizabeth's Secretaries of State.? On the other hand a novel theory-utterly unknown to the ancient English Constitution-of an absolute and paramount power inherent in the very nature of the regal office, had already found not a few supporters among the lawyers and courtiers of Elizabeth's reign. It was only after long 1 Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, bk. viii. [c. ii. 13]. The first four books were published in 1594; the fifth in 1597; the remaining three not till fortyseven years after his death, which happened in the year 1600. The sixth book, though written by Hooker, did not belong to this work; the real sixth book appears therefore to have been lost. See Keble's edition. 2 Smith's Commonwealth, book ii. c. 3. 1589, twelve years after the author's death. This work was not published till years of bitter conflict, after the decapitation of one monarch and the deposition of another, that this theory of government which the Stuart dynasty adopted, developed, and pushed to its extreme logical results, was at length finally vanquished by the ancient free principles of the Constitution which it had attempted to supplant. [Interesting illustrations of social life, and of the position both of Recusants and of the Puritan party under Elizabeth, will be found in the Journ. Derbysh. Arch. Soc., 1885, in a Paper on the Fitzherberts of Norbury, by Rev. J. C. Cox, and in the Yorksh. Arch. and Top. Journ., 1884, in a history of the Stapeltons of Yorkshire, by H. E. Chetwynd-Stapylton. In the brief chapter devoted to Elizabeth by M. Glasson, Hist. du Dr. et des Inst. Pol. de l'Angl. v. 36-47, readers unfamiliar with medieval history might be led to suppose that the term Anglican Church, or Church of England, was a post-Reformation invention, instead of being, as the Reformation Statutes of Henry VIII. recognise, the regular medieval designation in use in the most formal documents, e.g., Magna Charta. And in explaining the Thirty-Nine Articles, M. Glasson certainly uses language open to grave misconstruction, in saying that the English King, under these Articles, takes the place of the Pope, and is "aussi puissant pour décider du dogme, pour faire administrer les sacrements, pour conférer à d'autres la puissance spirituelle, que l'ait jamais été le pontife romain lui-même" (op. cit. v. 39, 40, n.). But Art. xxxvii. explicitly denies to Princes "the ministering either of God's Word, or of the Sacraments," and Art. xxxvi. expressly approves the Ordinal set forth under Edw. VI. The Congé d'élire, which may possibly have misled M. Glasson, is itself a witness, however imperfectly, to the persistency of the doctrine of Magna Charta, 'quod Anglicana Ecclesia libera sit, et habeat jura sua integra, et libertates suas illaesas.'-ED.] 492 JAMES I. 1603-1625. sion. party. CHAPTER XIII. THE STUART PERIOD. (A.D. 1603-1688.) 1. FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE PASSING OF THE PETITION OF RIGHT. JAMES I. came to the English throne at a critical period Tendency of of our history. The reactionary movement towards despolitical and potism, which began under Henry VI., reached its climax religious thought at under Henry VIII., and had since been slowly receding his accesbefore the reviving spirit of freedom. During the latter The Puritan years of Elizabeth the Puritan party had become organised and powerful. Whilst the old Queen lived, they were, for the most part, content to postpone the active assertion of the rights of the people against the Crown. They looked forward with hope to the advent of her successor, in the expectation of voluntary concessions; but were determined in any case to carry out further reforms in the ecclesiastical system, and to insist upon all the ancient privileges of Parliament, and all the legal liberties of the subject. Violent changes were not, however, generally desired. Although there was a party hostile to the hierarchy, the bulk of the Puritans had no desire to abolish episcopacy, and would have been fully satisfied with a dispensation from certain ceremonies which too forcibly reminded them of the religion they had renounced. The Presbyterian education of James had led them to anticipate a ready acquiescence in such a James's Pres- moderate measure of reform. But the king's experience of byterian the Presbyterian clergy had, in fact, been productive of prejudices the very opposite to what the English Puritans had expected. The Scotch clergy,' observes Mr. Brodie, Effect of education. |