Privilege of ing contest CHAP. VII. zealous Roman Catholic, was so committed; in Mary's reign he again fell under the censure of the house for disrespect to the speaker. A more remarkable assertion of this privilege occurred in 1581. Arthur Hall, a burgess for Grantham, and the master of Smalley, before mentioned, was fined and expelled for publishing a book against the parliament. The famous Dr. Parry was also reprimanded and expelled in 1585, because he spoke warmly against the bill inflicting the penalty of death on Jesuits and seminary priests; and in the following year, Bland, a currier, was reprimanded and fined for speaking disrespectfully of the house. Another and most important privilege, the right of determining all matters relative to their own elections, was asserted by the determin- Commons in Elizabeth's reign, perhaps for the first time. ed elections These had, hitherto, been decided in chancery, from which the writ issued, and into which the return was made. Several instances of the house exercising this privilege could be cited; and Elizabeth always confessed their right, but it was not fully established before the next reign. The tenaciousness of their own dignity and privileges was also shown by the Commons in ments with some disagreements with the upper house. In 1597, they complained of the Lords receiving a message from them at of privilege their bar without uncovering, or rising from their places. But the Lords proved that this custom was observed only in the case of bills being sent up. On another occasion, the Commons complained that the Lords had sent back amendments to a bill written on paper, instead of parchment. A third dispute arose from the Lords insisting, in a conference with the lower house, upon three subsidies when the Commons would only agree to two (1593). Francis Bacon spoke on this matter, and said, that "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 house was Disagree the Lords on matters quite awakened to the privilege of originating money bills, and a proposition for another conference with the Lords was lost on a division of 217 to 128. Thus early did the Commons, even on frivolous matters, indicate their rising spirit of jealousy of the superiority which the peers arrogated.* 19. Laws enacted. The alterations in the constitution made by statute during the Tudor period, were neither few nor inconsiderable. Those relating to ecclesiastical government, as well as * Hallam's Const. Hist,, I., 275-276. 1485-1603 the changes made in offences of high treason, have already been pointed out; it, therefore, only remains here to mention those which were more particularly connected with the civil government, and which have not yet received attention. under a de facto. In the II Henry VII. an act was passed confirming one passed in the previous reign, by which it was enacted, that the subject should not Statute incur any punishment for serving a king de facto, against the interests securing of the king de jure. This statute settled an important question as to the subject the effect of acts of attainder passed during the civil war, as each king faction prevailed, and got possession of parliamentary power. The question was referred to the judges in the first parliament of Henry, who resolved, "that the descent of the crown itself takes away all defects and stops in blood, by reason of attainder." The act confirmed this decision; and the constitutional principle which it established, viz.: that possession of the throne gives a sufficient title to the subject's allegiance, and justifies his resistance of those who may pretend to a better right, was brought into operation at the critical period of the Revolution, when it was made the justification of William III. as king, by many who found difficulty in getting over the divine right of James II.* Fines. Another celebrated statute of Henry VII., and one which has been erroneously cited as an instance of his sagacious policy, and as the principal cause of exalting the royal authority upon the ruins of the aristocracy, was the statute of fines (4 Henry VII.). It is merely a transcript from one of Statute of Richard III., which was enacted to obviate any doubt which might hang upon the validity of Richard's laws. The present statute enacted, that a fine levied with proclamations in a public court of justice, shall, after five years, except in particular circumstances, be a bar to all claims upon lands. For further information upon this, and also upon fines and alienations, the comprehension of which is necessary to the understanding of this statute, the student is referred to the authorities mentioned below.† Another act of Henry VII. conferred a sort of constitutional right on such persons as are poor, to sue in formâ pauperis, in the courts of law, and to have counsel assigned them, without payment of fees. tuting the The Court of Wards was constituted by the 32 Henry VIII., and placed under the jurisdiction of one person, called the master of the court, Act constiwith a body of officers to assist him, for the purpose of taking Court of possession of the lands belonging to the King's wards, and of selling Wards. the same during minority; in short, all the rights and prerogatives which the feudal system had conferred upon the crown with regard to minors, widows, and others, as idiots and imbeciles, were enforced by this court. The great constitutional law of Elizabeth's reign, the "Act for the Relief of the Poor," will be fully described in the ensuing chapter. 20. The English Constitution was not an absolute Monarchy. From the foregoing view of the practical exercise of government in this period, and of the resistance which parliament made, vigorously, if not successfully, to the high assumptions of the crown, more especially in the reign of Elizabeth, it will be seen *Hallam's Const. Hist., 9-10; Macaulay, III, 379, † Reeves's Hist. of the English Law, IV., 133; Pictoral Hist., book vi., ch. iii. Two to civil liberty always CHAP. VII. that the English constitution was a monarchy bounded by law, far unlike the actual state of the principal kingdoms on the continent, much more, such states as Turkey or Muscovy, to which Hume continually likens England under Elizabeth's rule. Elizabeth certainly attempted a more absolute power than any of her predecessors; but her own wisdom, and the sagacity of her counsellors, always avoided offence in this. Two guarantees to civil liberty were always observed in her reign. Justice guarantees was openly administered according to known laws, truly interpreted, and fair constructions of evidence. Parliament observed. had the right to inquire into, and obtain the redress of, public grievances. The language adopted in addressing Elizabeth was, indeed, remarkably submissive; but hypocritical adulation was so much among the vices of the age, that the want of it passed for rudeness. Several passages might be quoted from the writers of the period, and the speeches in parliament, even from addresses to the Queen, which would prove conclusively that Englishmen then, did not consider that they were the subjects of an absolute monarch, or that they enjoyed no greater measure of civil freedom, or had no more fundamental liberties to boast of, than Frenchmen or Spaniards. Speaker Onslow, in addressing the Queen, in 1566, expressly said, that, by the common law, she could not do as she would at her own pleasure, without order, as other princes did. Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, in answer porary to Knox's book, called "Blast of the Trumpet against the opinions. Monstrous Regiment (i. e. government) of Women," which was directed in reality against Mary, Queen of Scots, said that England was a mixed monarchy, the image of which was in the parliament, wherein were three estates; the King or Queen representing the monarchy; the Lords, the aristocracy; and the burgesses and knights, the democracy; and that, if parliament used their privileges, the King could ordain nothing without them. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity furnishes evidence still more satisfactory; as also does the treatise on the Commonwealth of England, written by Sir Thomas Smith, secretary of state to Elizabeth. There was, however, a notion very prevalent in the cabinet of Elizabeth, that, besides the common prerogatives, the crown possessed a kind of paramount sovereignty, which was denominated its absolute power, incident to the abstract nature of sovereignty. A sort of dictatorship, in fact, for the preservation of the state from destruction; on the same ground that martial law is proclaimed during an invasion, and Contem Absolute power. 1485-1603 houses destroyed in expectation of a siege. But this extravagant notion was soon destroyed; it was the source of all James I.'s bickerings with his parliaments, and of the troubles which brought his son to the scaffold.* CHAPTER VIII. THE PEOPLE. SECTION I.-TRADERS AND SEAFARERS. Of all the Cape of Good Hope discovered. He was 1. Discoveries of the Portuguese and Spaniards. inventions of the middle ages, that which produced the most rapid change in the fortunes and knowledge of Europeans, was the invention of the mariner's compass, which was first brought into use for naval purposes in the fourteenth century. The Canaries were the earliest discovery made by it (1345); and in the next century the Portuguese made numerous discoveries along the African coast, until Vasco di Gama, in 1498, doubled the Cape of Good Hope (which Bartholomew Diaz had previously discovered), and reached India, where he established the first Portuguese settlement in Cochin. followed by the great Albuquerque, who established Goa (1511), and made it the capital of all the other settlements in the east. A regular trade thus began with India along the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and the monopoly of the Mediterranean trade with the east, held by the Genoese and Venetians, became worthless. One of the fleets employed in this new traffic was cast on the Discovery shores of the American continent (1500), and thus Brazil of Brazil, was discovered. But in the meantime, the existence of a new world across the Atlantic had been ascertained by Columbus, the great Genoese navigator, who made his first voyage westward in 1492, in order, as he thought, to reach the further side of India. Men were then ignorant of the true shape of the earth, voyages of believing it to be flat; and so the world laughed at Columbus, Columbus as a visionary. He laid his plans before many courts; and sent his brother Bartholomew to Henry VII. to ask his support. The English King, eager to acquire wealth, but reluctant to risk anything in its acquisition, sent for Columbus, to learn • Hallam's Const. Hist., I., 276-284. W Conquests of Cortez and Pizarro. CHAP. VIII. more of the strange enterprise. But he was too late; Isabella of Spain had already supplied Columbus with money and ships, and thus Spain became the discoverer and owner of the western world. The realisation of Columbus's wonderful dreams put all Europe in a great ferment; private gentlemen fitted out expeditions on their own account, one of whom, Amerigo Vespucci, published such a popular account of his voyages, that the new continent was called after him. About 1521, Cortez, after a bloody war, conquered Mexico; Pizarro conquered Peru about 1535; and other adventurers subdued Terra Firma, New Grenada, and other countries on what was called the Spanish Main. The possession of the gold and silver mines was the object of these conquests; to work the mines, the Spaniards imported negroes from Africa; and two fleets, called the Plate or Silver Fleets, annually brought their treasures to Spain, the one sailing from Porto Bello, the other from Vera Cruz. Besides which, a galleon, or plate ship, sailed annually to the Philippines, which fell into the possession of Spain, together with the other Portuguese settlements, when Philip II. united Spain and Portugal under one crown (1581). The Spaniards and Portuguese were thus the first, and, for a time, the only European nations who established colonies in new lands. To prevent quarrels, therefore, Alexander VI., as arbiter of the world, assigned to Spain all the countries situated to the west of a meridian 375 leagues westward of the Azores, and the rest to Portugal. First Voyage round the world. According to this decision, the position of the Moluccas became a point of dispute; and it was to decide this that Magellan set out on the first voyage round the world (1519-1522). 2. English Discoveries: Cabot's Expeditions. Although the voyages of the Spaniards and Portuguese had excited the English as much as any other European nation, and dazzled their imaginations with the pictures of new worlds, and new races of men who were the owners of unbounded treasures, which they had neither the power to defend nor the skill to extract from the earth, they had not, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, attained to such skill in navigation, as qualified them for carrying into execution such long and hazardous expeditions. While industry and commerce had been making gradual progress for the last two centuries, both in the north and south of Europe, the English, absorbed in their ineffectual efforts to conquer France, continued blind to the advantages of their own situation, and they did little |