CHAPTER XVI. THE PARLIAMENT OF 1592-3. DEATH OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HATTON. THE GREAT SEAL COMMITTED TO SIR JOHN PUCKERING AS "LORD KEEPER.". MEETING OF PARLIAMENT. - OPENING SPEECH OF THE LORD KEEPER. HIS REPLY TO THE PETITIONS OF THE SPEAKER. - PETER WENTWORTH. HE AND OTHERS IMPRISONED.— JAMES MORRICE; HIS TREATISE AGAINST THE HIGH COURT OF COMMISSION. - INTRODUCES THE SAME SUBJECT TO THE CONSIDERATION OF THE COMMONS.- - DEBATE UPON IT. - THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE CONCERNING IT. — MORRICE COMMITTED TO PRISON. MOTION TO PETITION FOR RELEASE OF IMPRISONED MEMBERS. — Bill for REDUCING DISLOYAL SUBJECTS TO THEIR DUE OBEDIENCE. DEBATE UPON IT.- PASSED WITH AMENDMENTS. — AN ABSTRACT OF THE BILL. A BILL AGAINST POPISH RECUSANTS. — THE QUEEN'S SPEECH AT THE CLOSE OF PARLIAMENT. — MR. CARTWRIGHT keLEASED FROM PRISON. NO MORE SEPARATISTS EXECUTED. — THE QUEEN ORDERS THEIR DELIVERANCE FROM PRISON. NEW IMPRISONMENTS.— BANISHMENT AND VOLUNTARY EXILE. INDECENT VIOLENCE OF CHIEF JUSTICE ANDERSON. THE LULL OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.- PURITANISM TURNS AGGRESSIVE. - - THE romantic passion of Hatton for Queen Elizabeth1 received a rude shock when she suddenly instituted legal proceedings against him for the immediate recovery of forty-two thousand pounds due to the royal exchequer. This went to his heart; and, on the 20th of September, in the fiftyfirst year of his age, he died under the combined influence of disease and "grief of mind." In the following June, the Great Seal was committed to the custody of Sir John Puckering, "with the 1 Ante, Vol. I. p. 464, note. * Camden, 458. D'Ewes, 456. Fuller's Worthies, II. 508. Life of Hatton, 498. Lord Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors,” (Philadelphia, 1847,) II. 135. lower rank of Lord Keeper." It devolved, therefore, upon him to open the Parliament which met, according to the royal summons, on Monday, February 19th, 1592-32 Those returned for the lower House, having taken the usual oath before the Lord Steward (the Earl of Derby) and his deputies, as required by law, upon notice that the queen and the Lords awaited. them in the upper House, repaired thither. The Lord Keeper in his opening speech dwelt largely upon "the great malice of the king of Spain towards the realm "; who, having been balked in his former attempt at invasion, was preparing ships for the same purpose, "of a less bulk and after another fashion," and had also "wrought most of the nobility of Scotland to conspire against their king, to give landing to his forces there, and to assist him in his invasion thither." He added, that her Majesty, for the proper defence of her realm against these intents and machinations, had not only exhausted her exchequer, but had "caused a part of her Highness's crown to be sold"; and that therefore it was incumbent upon her subjects to devise means to "assist her Majesty in such an insupportable charge." In conclusion: "Her Majesty further hath willed me to signify unto you, that the calling of this Parliament now is not for the making of any new laws and statutes,- for there are already a sufficient number both of ec 1 Camden, 458. Stow, 765. Campbell (II. 155) says May. 2 D'Ewes, 456, 468. Townshend's Historical Collections, 31 (London, 1680). 3 D'Ewes, 468. * 5 Eliz., Cap. I. Sec. XIII. ..... clesiastical and temporal.. Wherefore it is her Majesty's pleasure that the time be not spent therein. But the principal cause of this Parliament is, that her Majesty might consult with her subjects for the better withstanding of those intended invasions, which are now greater than were ever heretofore heard of. And whereas heretofore it hath been used that many have delighted themselves in long orations, full of verbosity and of vain ostentations, more than in speaking things of substance," it is her will that ". ... the good hours should not be lost in idle speeches, but..... be bestowed wholly upon such businesses as are needful to be considered of.1 [You are especially commanded by her Majesty to take heed that no ear be given, nor time afforded, to the wearisome solicitations of those that commonly be called Puritans, wherewith all the late Parliaments have been exceedingly importuned; which sort of men, whilst that (in the giddiness of their spirits) they labor and strive to advance a new eldership, they do nothing else but disturb the good repose of the Church and Commonwealth, which is as well grounded for the body of religion itself, and as well guided for the discipline, as any realm that confesseth the Truth. And the same thing is already made good to the world by many of the writings of godly and learned men, neither answered nor answerable by any of these new-fangled refiners. And as the present case standeth, it may be doubted whether they or the Jesuits do offer more danger, or be more speedily to be 1 D'Ewes, 458. Townshend, 32, 33. Hansard, I. 858, 859. repressed. For albeit the Jesuits do empoison the hearts of her Majesty's subjects, under pretext of conscience, to withhold them from their due obedience to her Majesty, yet they do the same but closely and in privy corners. But these men do both teach and publish in their printed books, and teach in all their conventicles, sundry opinions not only dangerous to a well-settled estate and the policy of the realm, by putting a pike1 between the clergy and the laity; but also much derogatory to her sacred Majesty and her crown, as well by diminution of her ancient and lawful revenues and by denying her Highness's prerogative and supremacy, as by offering peril to her Majesty's safety in her own kingdom. In all which things (however in other points they pretend to be at war with the Popish Jesuits) yet by this separation of themselves from the unity of their fellow-subjects, and by abasing the sacred authority and majesty of their prince, they do both join and concur with Jesuits in opening the door and preparing the way to the Spanish invasion that is threatened against the realm. And thus, having according to the weakness of my best understanding delivered her Majesty's royal pleasure and wise direction, I rest there; with humble suit of her Majesty's most gracious pardon in supplying my defects, and recommend you to the Author of all good counsel."]" 1 Sic. Quere, pique? Lloyd, 607, 608. The part of this Speech which I have enclosed in brackets is not to be found in D'Ewes, Townshend, or Hansard. Lloyd, from whom I quote it, says that it was delivered by Sir John Puckering in the House of Lords in the year 1588. It is indeed true that he was in the The Commons elected Edward Coke, her Majesty's Solicitor-General, as their Speaker; and on Thursday his election was ratified by her Majesty's "allowance." In reply to his petitions for liberty of speech, for freedom from arrests, and for access to her Majesty, the Lord Keeper said : "To your three demands the queen answereth, liberty of speech is granted you; but how far, this is to be thought on. There be two things of most necessity, and those two do most harm,- Wit and Speech; the one exercised in invention; the other uttering things invented. Privilege of speech is House of Lords during that session of the Parliament; and that on the tenth day of February, and on the fifteenth, he was appointed on two different committees. But he was there as an 66 attendant, but not a member," and was only one of joint committees with the Lords, a thing "very usually done in Parliaments foregoing the queen's reign." (D'Ewes, 422, 423.) In correspondence with this, we find it also stated incidentally, that, at the opening of the Parliament of 1592-3, the Commons were received into the upper House by "her Highness, with divers of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and such others as had place there." (Ibid., 469.) Other cases of " mere attendants upon the upper House" are recorded by D'Ewes, pp. 142, 143, 198, 199, 201, 317. But although Puckering was in the House of Lords in the session of 1588-9, and served there on committees, he could not have delivered then and there such a speech as is attributed to him by Lloyd, for it is evidently befitting only one upon whom devolved the duty of opening a Parliament. This duty did not devolve upon Puckering until this session of 1592-3; and never devolved upon him again, for he died in 1596, before another Parliament. I have therefore disregarded the date given by Lloyd, and have inserted the Speech which Lloyd records, as a part of that which Puckering "delivered in the House of Lords" at the opening of this Parliament of 1592–3. It is evident that Puckering, and probably the queen, confounded the school of Cartwright with that of Barrow; for the former never had held "conventicles," nor did they "separate themselves from the unity of their fellow-subjects" in the Church; while they only-and not the latter-sought the "diminution of the queen's lawful ” —legal-"revenues " of tenths and first-fruits. |