tenced by the Star Chamber to the payment of various fines, and imprisonment during the king's pleasure.

4. Popular Insurrections in the Midland Counties, 1607. Large estates in Northamptonshire and the neighbouring counties, which had belonged to Tresham and others concerned in the Gunpowder Plot, were granted to royal favorites. To increase these estates, the new proprietors encroached on the common lands; those who were injured presented a remonstrance to the council, but finding no redress, and being joined by other discontented parties, assembled in bands, varying in number from one to five thousand, under certain unknown persons wearing masks. The entire movement was professedly under the guidance of " a base fellow," called Reynolds, but whom his followers named Captain Pouch, from a large pouch or purse, which he wore at his side. The "Levellers," as they were called, bent all their strength to level and lay open the old commons, without exercising any manner of theft or violence upon any man's person, goods, or cattle". Reynolds, asserted to have been an imposter or madman, assured the peasants that he acted under the inspiration of God, and with the license of the king. He strictly forbad the use of profane words, personal violence, or any illegal act; their sole business, he said, was to lay open such enclosed fields as had formerly been free and common. When it was found that neither magistrates nor lord-lieutenants could stop these excesses, a regular force was sent down, and after many had been slain and others made prisoners, the remainder dispersed. Captain Pouch and the leaders suffered as traitors, and the other prisoners as felons, because they had not dispersed at the reading of the king's proclamation.

SECTION V. JAMES'S FIRST PARLIAMENT, 1604-1611:

1. The King's high notions of prerogative. It was the misfortune of James that he brought to the English throne extravagant notions of kingly prerogative, just at that juncture of our history, when the spirit of popular liberty was reviving. What his views were concerning the power of princes, appears in his "True Law of Free Monarchies," published in Scotland several years before he came to England. In that discourse he showed that monarchy is the true pattern of divinity; that passive obedience is the duty of subjects; that the kings of Scotland owe not their crown to any primary contract; that the king makes daily statutes and ordinances with penalties thereto, without the advice of parliament; that general laws made in parliament may be mitigated or suspended by royal authority; and that "although a good king will frame all his actions to be according to the law,

yet he is not bound thereto, but of his own will, and for example giving to his subjects". Neither were these mere theories, but evidently held by James as maxims to be followed in his government; of this he gave almost immediate proof.

"It was," observes Macaulay, "at this time that those strange theories which Filmer afterwards formed into a system, and which became the badge of the most violent class of Tories and high churchmen, first emerged into notice. It was gravely maintained that the Supreme Being regarded hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government, with peculiar favor; that the rule of succession in order of primogeniture was a divine institution, anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation; that no human power, not even that of the whole legislature, no length of adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries, could deprive the legitimate prince of his rights; that his authority was necessarily always despotic; that the laws by which, in England and in other countries the prerogative was limited, were to be regarded merely as concessions which the sovereign had freely made and might at his pleasure resume; and that any treaty into which a king might enter with his people was merely a declaration of his present intentions, and not a contract of which the performance could be demanded."

2. The growing power of the Commons. The Reformation was destined to tell in its results, on the political institutions of this country, as it had already done on its religious. It taught men to think, to investigate, and then to deny the value of many things which for centuries had been subjects of veneration. After overthrowing a religious government, the foremost rank of reformers directed their attention to the secular powers, claiming for themselves the same right to investigate and reform, as well one kind of government as the other. For a time this desire of change was kept in check by the powerful spirit of Elizabeth, but in the latter years of her reign the signs of a coming conflict were clearly discernable. The Commons, generally so tame in the early Tudor period, gradually gathered courage, and before it closed were undoubtedly awake to their duties and Hallam says, "the House of Commons in Elizabeth's reign contained men of a bold and steady patriotism, well read in the laws and records of old times, sensible to the dangers of their country and abuses of government, and conscious that it was their privilege and duty to watch over the common weal. This led to several conflicts between the crown and parliament; wherein, if the former often asserted the victory, the latter sometimes kept the field, and was left on the whole a gainer at the close of the campaign."

power.

3. James reminded that he is a limited monarch by the Speaker of the Commons, 1604. In the proclamation calling a parliament, the king had assumed a right of controlling

parliamentary elections, by charging that knights should be selected from the principal knights and gentlemen within the county, and that the burgesses should be men of sufficiency and discretion. The sheriffs were charged not to direct a writ to ruined towns. And further, that returns contrary to the proclamation would be rejected as unlawful and insufficient, and the place fined for making it; and that persons elected contrary to the true meaning of the proclamation, would be subjected to fine and imprisonment. The knowledge previously possessed of the king's notions on the question of prerogative, together with his pretending in this proclamation to determine the course to be observed in the election of members, led the Speaker to address his majesty, at the opening of the parliament, in the following unpalatable strain : "New laws could not be instituted, nor imperfect laws reformed, nor inconvenient laws abrogated, by any other power than that of the high court of parliament, that is by the agreement of the Commons, the accord of the Lords, and the assent of the Sovereign: that to him belonged the right either negatively to frustrate, or affirmatively to ratify, but that he could not institute; every bill must pass the two Houses before it could be submitted to his pleasure.'

4. The Commons establish their right to decide contested elections, 1604. The proclamation issued by the king for the guidance of elections forbad the return of any outlaw. When the returns were made, the clerk of the crown refused to receive that of Sir Francis Goodwin, chosen for the county of Buckingham, on the ground that he had, some years before, been outlawed. At the second election, Sir John Fortescue, a privy councillor, was chosen. This matter was taken up by the Commons as soon as the session opened, and gave rise to their first struggle with the new king. After hearing the whole case, the House resolved that Goodwin was lawfully elected and returned. The Lords sent down to request that the matter might be discussed in a conference between the two Houses; this was absolutely refused by the Commons, as the question entirely regarded their own privileges, neither would they, as James directed them to do, confer with the judges on this subject. James then commanded, as an absolute king, that they should debate the question with the judges, in his presence; he added, "that all their privileges were derived from his grant, and hoped they would not turn them against him."

The Commons now began to realise the full consequences of the power assumed by the chancellor, and the members gave expression to their feelings in the strongest language. One said, "The prince's command is like a thunderbolt; his command

:

upon our allegiance like the roaring of a lion": another said, with reference to the power of the chancellor, "By this course, the free elections of the counties is taken away, and none shall be chosen but such as shall please the king and council". By others it was said, "This may be called a quo warranto to seize all our liberties" and, "A chancellor, by this course, may call a parliament consisting of what persons he pleases. Any suggestion, by any person, may be the cause of sending out a new writ. It is come to this plain question, whether the chancery or parliament ought to have authority"? The Commons ultimately consented to confer with the judges; at the conference, James conceded that the House was a judge of returns, though not exclusively of the chancery. He then suggested that Goodwin and Fortescue should be set aside, and a new writ issued. Though the case ended in a compromise, the victory was really with the Commons, for no attempt has since been made to dispute the right they then claimed, of exclusive jurisdiction in deciding contested elections. Even Hume eulogises the Commons on this result: "A power like this, so essential to the exercise of all other powers, themselves so essential to public liberty, cannot fairly be deemed an encroachment in the commons; but must be regarded as an inherent privilege, happily rescued from that ambiguity which the negligence of some former parliaments had thrown upon it."

5. Commissioners appointed to treat with the Scots for a Union, 1604. In the first session, at the request of the king, who wished to incorporate England and Scotland, to the intent that all his subjects might have the same rights, and be amenable to the same laws, commissioners were appointed to meet and deliberate on the question. The commissioners agreed to the entire repeal of all the hostile laws between the two kingdoms to the abolition of border courts and customs: to a free intercourse of trade throughout the king's dominions and to the subjects of of one kingdom being naturalised in the other. Great difficulties were, however, found to be in the way of uniting the two kingdoms. The Scots were indignant at the idea of a union, which seemed to imply the idea of their subjection to a nation they had resisted for so many centuries. Nor was it to be expected that the laws and institutions of a people could be changed without grave offence to the Scots, even though their king did maintain the superiority of those of England. The subject was not favorably entertained by the English. It was before the parliament repeatedly in successive sessions, but neither the prayer of the king, nor the great advantages which he assured them would follow, could remove the strong dislike entertained to the scheme. To some extent, James had himself to blame for the

aversion of the English nation, at this time, to his countrymen. They had indeed fattened in this land of promise; money, posts, and titles had been lavished upon them, till it was said, the country would be devoured by the poor and hungry Scots.

The members of the Commons, when the subject was under discussion, used unmeasured language. Pigott, the member for Buckingham, expressed his astonishment at the notion of a union, between a rich and fertile country like England, and a land like Scotland, poor, barren, and disgraced by nature; between rich, frank, and honest men, and a proud, beggarly, and traitorous race; and as if this were too mild in expression, he declared that the difference between an Englishman and a Scot, was the same as that between a judge and a thief. James, having threatened the Commons, Pigott was expelled; this, however, was not deemed a sufficient atonement, for other members had shown their contempt for the Scots in the same way. The king, therefore, in a speech to the Houses, threatened to live alternately in the two kingdoms, or keep his court at York; he then cautioned them not to move him to do, what his power might tempt him to do. Of the points recommended by the commissioners, only the first two were adopted; but the courts of law decided that the rights of naturalisation belonged to all Scots who were post-nati, or born after the king's accession.

6. Apology of the Commons to the king, touching their privileges, 1604. The object of this important document was to put on record a protest against misinformation delivered to his majesty, and to assert the constitutional rights and liberties of parliament. The points to which reference was made were three-that the Commons held their privileges not of right, but of grace only; that they were not a court of record; and that the examination of returns of writs was without their compass, and belonged to the chancery. After reviewing the attempts to maintain these principles, they say :

"Against which assertions, most gracious sovereign, tending directly and apparently to the utter overthrow of the very fundamental privileges of our House, and therein of the Rights and Liberties of the whole Commons of England, which they and their ancestors, from time immemorable have undoubtedly enjoyed under your majesty's most noble progenitors; we, the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the House of Commons assembled in England, with uniform consent for ourselves, and our posterity, do expressly protest, as being derogatory in the highest degree to the true dignity, and authority of your majesty's high court of parliament, and consequently to the rights of all your majesty's said subjects, and the whole body of this kingdom; and desire that this our protestation may be recorded to all posterity." The Commons then maintain, "1. That their privileges and liber