1485-1603 but to solicit her that some limitations of the crown should be enacted, in failure of her issue. They first took up this matter in 1562, after the Queen had been suffering under a dangerous sickness, and Elizabeth returned a courteous answer to their address. But in 1566, when it was renewed, a serious disagreement occurred. Both houses united, with a boldness of which there had, for the Elizabeth. perhaps, been no example for more than a hundred years, Parliament to overcome the Queen's repugnance; and some of her pertinacious own council even asserted in parliament that she ought marriage of to be forced to marry, or else a successor ought to be named by parliament against her will. When she sent a positive injunction to the speaker, forbidding the Commons to proceed any further in the business, Paul Wentworth boldly moved to know, whether this command was not against their privileges; long and sharp debates followed; and Elizabeth, who always knew when to give way, discreetly revoked her commandment. This is the most serious disagreement on record between the crown and the Commons, since the days of Richard II. and Henry IV. Bill for the of the Book. 16. Puritan Influence in Parliament, and its Effects. For the next five years Elizabeth convoked no parliament, and when it next met, in 1571, she ordered the members not to meddle with matters of state. No proceedings took place on the succession, in consequence; but the Commons entered upon a new topic, owing to the strength of the Puritans in the house. One Strickland brought in a bill for the reformation of the Prayer Book, on which he was sent for by the council, and put reformation under confinement. This was noticed as an infringement Prayer of their liberties; the ministers excused the act, because the bill was against the Queen's prerogative and ecclesiastical supremacy; but Mr. Yelverton maintained that all matters not treasonable, nor too much to the derogation of the crown, were tolerable in the house, where all things came to be considered, and where there was such fulness of power, that even the Attack right of the crown was determined by it. Princes were to upon the have their prerogatives, but yet to be confined within preroga reasonable limits. The Queen could not of herself make laws, neither could she break them. Elizabeth, seeing that the Commons would address her to restore Strickland, prudently released him; but sent them word that she would not have ecclesiastical matters dealt with by parliament. The Commons, however, persisted, and sent several bills up to the Lords, where they fell to the ground.* This session was the first in which * Hallam's Const. Hist., I., 253: Hume, V., 173-178. royal tives. the prero gative. CHAP. VII. some of the abuses of Elizabeth's civil government were attacked, Mr. Bell making a motion against an exclusive patent granted to a company of Bristol merchants. Bell having been sent for by the council, returned to the house "with such an amazed countenance that it daunted all the rest," and it became the common whisper that no one must speak against licences, lest the Queen and the council should be angry. Fleetwood defended the prerogative of Some mem- granting patents, on the ground that trade and commerce bers defend were entirely under the control of the sovereign; and he quoted precedents, to show that no man might speak in parliament of the royal prerogative. Sir Humphrey Gilbert carried this doctrine still further, and intimated that it was as treasonable to say that the Queen was not to use her prerogatives, as to affirm that she was not the Queen. But these speeches, though related by Hume for the purpose of defending his view of the absolute government of Elizabeth, were rather directed to intimidate the house, by exaggerating their inability to contend with the crown, than to prove the law of the land to be against them. The next parliament of 1572, displayed little spirit; but Bold speech at the next meeting, in February, 1576, Peter Wentworth, of Peter brother to Paul Wentworth, before mentioned, and 1576. member for Tregony, in Cornwall, broke out, in a speech of uncommon boldness, against the Queen's arbitrary encroachments upon their privileges. * Wentworth The liberty of free speech, he said, had been so many ways infringed, that they were in danger, while they contented themselves with the name, of losing and foregoing the thing. It was common for a rumour to spread through the house, "the Queen likes or dislikes such a matter; beware what you do." Messages were sometimes brought down, either commanding or inhibiting, very injurious to the liberty of debate. He instanced the interference with the house in dealing with matters of religion, last session; he spoke bitterly against the bishops, and with still greater indignation of the Queen's refusal to assent to the attainder of Mary. He then surprised the house by saying "None is without fault, no, not our noble Queen, but has committed great and dangerous faults to herself," and he went on taxing her with ingratitude and unkindness to her subjects.† This direct attack upon the Queen, in matters relating to her public government, will seem very unparliamentary to us; but we must remember that it was part of Elizabeth's character to render herself extremely prominent, and responsible in public esteem, Responsi bility of ministers not yet acknowledged. for the measures of her government; and that the doctrine of the responsibility of ministers was still unknown. Wentworth, however, had gone too far for the Commons. They judged it expedient to sequester him; and appointed Hume, V., 178-182; Hallam, I., 253. + Hallam, I., 255; Hume, V., 225-226. 1485-1603 a committee of all the privy councillors in the house to examine him. Wentworth declined their authority till they declared that they sat as members of the house, and not as councillors; and the issue of the affair was, that, after a month's confinement in the Tower, the Queen informed the house that it was her pleasure he should be released. The next session was in 1581, and, after the new speaker was admonished not to allow the house to meddle with her majesty's person or estate, or Church government, the Commons showed such spirit as to appoint a public fast on their own authority, though to be enforced on none but themselves. They had to apologise for this seeming encroachment upon the supremacy. In February, 1588, the Puritan spirit again burst out. A Mr. Cope offered to the house again a bill annulling all ecclesiastical laws then in force, and privileges establishing a new form of common prayer which he ment. 1588. presented. The speaker interposed; a debate followed; and Mr. Wentworth, the next time the house sat, proposed to read these questions: Wentworth defends the of parlia Whether this council was not a place for any member to utter the griefs of the commonwealth freely and without control? Whether any other council but parliament can make, add, or diminish from the laws of the realm? Whether it was not against the orders of the house to make known its business to the sovereign, without the consent of the house? (The speaker had sent the bill and the form of prayer to the Queen.) Whether the speaker can overrule the house? Whether the prince can stand, without parliament not altering the government of the state? Wentworth was imprisoned, as were those, also, who had supported the bill, and not released till the parliament was dissolved, three weeks afterwards. In the next parliament, the Commons continued to seek redress of ecclesiastical grievances; but they were more cautious than before, and when one Damport moved to present a bill for restraining the tyranny of the ecclesiastical commission, no one durst second the motion. They attacked some civil abuses, as purveyance, with more resolution; and the Queen gave them a gracious answer, declaring her willingness to redress them. In 1593, the unconquerable Peter Wentworth presented a petition concerning the succession, for which Wentworth he had already prepared a bill, and again suffered imprison- again ment. And, a few days afterwards, Morice, attorney of to the the Court of Wards, presented a bill for the reformation of certain ecclesiastical abuses. He also was committed to custody. But the Commons made a motion that they, as well as other obnoxious court. 1593. CHAP. VII. members who had been imprisoned, should be released; which the ministers opposed, and the matter ended.* Why the sat in the Commons. 17. Influence of the Crown in Parliament. In these men, Wentworth, Yelverton, Strickland, and their little band of Puritans, we have the originators of that party, which, animated by religious zeal, as well as civil freedom, never ceased to resist the prerogatives of the crown, until they were reduced within the limits of our existing constitution. But besides these, there was still a considerable party, sometimes carrying the house along with them, who, with patient resolution and inflexible aim, asserted in every session, the one great privilege which the sovereign contested -the right of parliament to inquire into, and suggest a remedy for, every public mischief or danger. The court felt the important influence which these patriotic members had in the ministers house, and hence the leading ministers, Knollys, Hatton, House of and Cecil, sat among the Commons, and took a leading part in their discussions. If the parliament had been so subservient as Hume makes it, the court would not have taken this trouble; neither would it have added to the number of members, by granting the franchise to petty boroughs which were under its influence. The ministry took much pains with the elections, and the house was, accordingly, filled with placemen, civilians, and common lawyers, grasping for preferment. It was those who uttered the slavish speeches which Hume so frequently quotes, in proof of the doctrines of absolutism, which he states were then in vogue. But they contrast very strikingly with the manliness and public spirit of the independent country gentlemen. The court could easily fill the house with its partisans, because the ancient statute, passed in Henry the Fifth's reign, requiring every city and borough to elect none but members of their own community, had become obsolete. A debate on this subject took place in the session of 1571; and we find in it, perhaps, the A Commoner sits for his own constitu ency and earliest assertion of an important constitutional principle —that each member of the House of Commons is deputed to serve, not only for his constituents, but for the whole the whole kingdom. This principle forms one of the great distinctive marks between a modern English parliament, and the estates of continental kingdoms; and it has contributed in a great measure to the weight and dignity, as well as beneficial efficiency, of the House of Commons.† realm. * Hallam, I., 256-261; Hume, V., 363-366. + Hallam's Const. Hist., I., 264-266. 1485-1603 18. Assertions of Privilege by the Commons. These were very frequent under the Tudors, and they afford additional proofs, that the House of Commons was not so feeble and insignificant an assembly as has been supposed. The earliest privilege claimed was the exemption of members from arrest on civil process Exemption during the session. This privilege was claimed and from arrest. admitted several times under the Plantagenets; generally by a distinct act of parliament, or by a writ of privilege out of Chancery. But in 1543, the Commons undertook to avenge their own injury. One Ferrers, a burgess, and in the royal service, was arrested on his way to the house. The Commons sent their serjeant to demand his release; but the gaolers and sheriffs of London ill-treated the serjeant. The Commons then imprisoned the gaolers and sheriffs, as well as the plaintiff who had sued Ferrers, and Henry, who knew as well as his daughter, how to give way, confirmed, in the strongest manner, this assertion of privilege; and intimated that the imprisonment of Ferrers was an offence against himself, even more than against the Commons. After this, the Commons had frequent recourse to the writ of privilege to release their members; but in 1575, they repeated the proceeding in Ferrers's case, sending their serjeant to release one Smalley, a member's servant; for the privilege of immunity extended to the menial servants of members, until it was taken away by the statute of George III. The Commons, moreover, frequently imprisoned persons for assaults on their Their members, during the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth. In power to 1584, they committed one who had served a subpoena out contempt of the Star Chamber on a member; and before the end of House, Elizabeth's reign, it had become their established law of jurisdiction privilege, "that no subpoena, or summons for the attendance of a member in any other court, ought to be served without leave obtained, or information given to the house; and that the persons who procured or served such process were guilty of a breach of privilege, and were punishable by commitment or otherwise, by the order of the house." This important privilege furnished security against those irregular detentions and examinations by the council, which in despite of the promised liberty of speech, had, as we have seen, oppressed some of the most distinguished members.* This power of punishing those who molested members by legal process, was applied also to offences against established order, committed by any of themselves. In the reign of Edward VI. John Storie, a *Hallam's Const. Hist., I., 270. punish for or of its |