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RISE OF 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT 
 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 A Short History of England, from the 
 Earliest Times to the Death of Queen Victoria. 
 
 For the use of Upper and Middle Forms of Schools. 
 With Tables, Plans, Maps, Index, etc. Crown 8vo, 
 3^. 6d. Or, in Two Parts, 2s. each. 
 
 Part I. To the Death of Elizabeth, a.d. 1603. 
 Part II. a.d. 1603 to 1901. 
 
 A Handbook in Outline of the Political 
 History of England to 1901. Chronologically 
 arranged. By A. H. Dyke Acland and Cyril 
 Ransome, M.A. Crown Svo, 6s. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
RISE OF 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 CYRIL RANSOME, M.A. 
 
 MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 YORKSHIRE COLLEGE, VICTORIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 NEW IMPRESSION 
 ■ ' * » * 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1907 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
\ 
 
 
 
 « 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 That constitutional history is very dry, is an 
 axiom admitted by almost all who have never 
 read it ; that it is far more interesting than 
 what is commonly received as history, is almost 
 equally admitted by those who have. 
 
 Constitutional histories are usually left un- 
 read, partly because they are long, partly 
 because they generally contain a great deal 
 of matter which the ordinary reader does not 
 want to know, and partly because their arrange- 
 ment is such that it is difficult to pick out 
 exactly the information that is sought. 
 
 In this book, the author has endeavoured 
 to confine his attention solely to the growth 
 of the present relations between the sovereign, 
 the ministry, the two Houses of Parliament 
 and the people, and to put before the reader 
 
 239000 
 
Vi PREFACE. 
 
 in a plain narrative form the history of their 
 development. 
 
 The facts, it is to be hoped, are those which 
 may be found in the large constitutional histories 
 of Canon Stubbs, Mr. Hallam, Sir Erskine 
 May and Mr. Bagehot, whose works must 
 always be the authorities to which any student 
 of constitutional history will eventually turn ; 
 but the present book aims at putting those 
 facts in such a way that they may be read not 
 only by those who have time and opportunity 
 for study, but by the busy man to whom time 
 is an object, and by the student who desires, 
 before embarking, to take a view of the shores 
 of the ocean on which he is in some danger 
 of losing himself. 
 
 Leeds, March, 1883. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Dawn of the English Constitution. 
 
 Continuity of English institutions — The sovereign — The Parlia- 
 ment — The law courts — The English in Germany — Tacitus' 
 description — The tribal assembly — The principes and duces 
 — The comitatus — The lord or loaf-giver — The thegn or 
 gesith — Connection with feudalism — The migration to Britain 
 — Division of the land — Shires, hundreds, townships — The 
 rise of kingship — Ealdormen (principes) become kings — 
 Amalgamation of the tribes into kingdoms — Growth of the 
 heptarchy — Increased power of the kings — The witenagemot 
 — The shire-moot — The hundred-moot — The town-moot — 
 Constitution of the witenagemot — Powers of the witenage- 
 mot — Prerogatives and revenues of the king 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 English Kingship before the Conquest, and rise of 
 Feudalism. 
 
 Meaning of heptarchy — Supremacy of Kent — Supremacy of Nor- 
 thumbria — Supremacy of Mercia — Union of England under 
 Egbert — Battle of Ellandun — Invasions of the Danes — Re- 
 conquest of the Danelagh — Edward the Elder overlord of 
 Great Britain — Rise of the great earldoms — Earldoms ulti- 
 mately prejudicial to monarchy — King's power strengthened : 
 I. By reconquest of the Danes ; 2. By submission of Welsh 
 and Scots — Symptoms of its strength — Edgar's position- 
 Cause of decline of the king's power — Rise of feudalism— 
 
 PAGE 
 
vili TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Continental feudalism — King, dukes, counts, seigneurs and 
 serfs — Growth of feudalism in England ; its origin, the 
 comitatus — The personal tie — The holding of land — The 
 lords' court — Military service — Canute's earldoms — Inde- 
 pendence of the earls — Resemblance to continental history... 10 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Reforms of William the Conqueror. 
 
 Weakness of Edward the Confessor — Partiality for foreigners — 
 The Norman character — Training of William the Conqueror 
 — Pretexts for invasion — Battle of Senlac and election of 
 William — Importance of the election — Prerogatives of former 
 kings secured — Homage exacted from the king of Scots — 
 Homage refused to the pope — Attitude of William towards 
 his followers — King, feudal superior of all landowners — 
 Abolition of the great earldoms — Establishment of three 
 counties palatine — Careful distribution of forfeited estates — 
 Castles retained in the king's hands — Local courts retained 
 — Fyrd regularly employed — Fealty exacted from every land- 
 owner — English and continental nobility compared — Com- 
 parative insignificance of English nobles — Absence of private 
 wars — Equality of taxation — Nobility of office, not of birth — 
 Oath exacted from every landowner — William's attitude 
 towards the Church — Restrictions on the papal power — 
 Restrictions on the making of canons — Restrictions on the 
 right of excommunicating — Domesday book — Dissatisfaction 
 of the Normans — Opening of the struggle between the feudal 
 nobility and the crown — Lasting influence of the Conqueror's 
 regulations ... ... ... ... „. ... iS 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 English Constitution under the Norman Kings. 
 
 Policy of William the Conqueror maintained— Election of William 
 Rufus — Barons defeated by the aid of the English — Character 
 of William Rufus — Election of Henry I. — Charter of Henry 
 I. — Imprisonment of Ranulf Flambard — Marriage with Maud 
 — Quarrel about election of bishops — Compromise effected — 
 Defeat of Robert of Belesme — Defeat of Robert of Normandy 
 — The Constitution under Henry I. — Powers of the king : 
 I. Elected sovereign ; 2. Supreme feudal landowner — No 
 constitutional control — The chief ministers — Honorary — 
 Official— The justiciar— The chancellor — The treasurer —The 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. ix 
 
 curia regis — Its composition — Its duties — The Court of Ex- 
 chequer — The curia compared to the High Court of Justice 
 — The magnum concilium, the witenagemot in Norman 
 dress — Changes due to conquest — No real check on the king 
 — Local government — Courts of shire and hundred — The 
 frankpledge — Greatness of Henry I. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Reforms of Henry II. 
 
 Destruction of Henry II. 's system — Unpopularity of Maud — 
 Unfitness of Stephen for his part — The Conqueror's policy 
 reversed — The Church alienated — Civil wars — Election of 
 Henry II. — Alliance of king, clergy, and people against the 
 nobles — Character and training of Henry II. — Suppression of 
 disorder — Destruction of castles — Curia regis reorganized — ■ 
 Henry's ecclesiastical reforms — The clerical courts — Eccle- 
 siastical and civil courts divided by William the Conqueror 
 — Abuses of this system — Constitutions of Clarendon — Resist- 
 ance of Becket — Failure of Henry's scheme — Henry's judicial 
 reforms — Assize of Clarendon — The justices-in-eyre — The 
 circuits — The jury system — The grand jury — The petty jury 
 — The civil jury — Committees of the curia regis — Repression 
 of the barons — Strengthening of the local courts — Institution 
 of scutage — Last revolt of the barons — Reorganization of the 
 militia— Meetings of the magnum concilium — Success of 
 Henry II. ... ... ... »„< *.* 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Great Charter, and rise of Parliament. 
 
 Accession of Richard I. — Alliance of nobles, clergy, and people 
 against the king — Character of Richard — The new nobility — 
 Growth of the towns — Gradual separation of the towns from 
 the county government — Grant of charters — Richard's min- 
 isters — Rebellion against William Longchamp — Election of 
 John — Character of John — Effects of the loss of Normandy 
 — Growth of national feeling — Quarrel with the Church — 
 Stephen Langton — Charter of Henry I., model of the Great 
 Charter — Signature of Magna Charter — Provisions : I. The 
 Church ; 2. Feudalism ; 3. Constitution — The great council 
 — Its composition — Weak points in scheme — General pro- 
 visions — Carrying out of the charter — The Court of Common 
 Pleas — Character of Henry III. — Rise of Simon de Montfort 
 
 PAGE 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 — Provisions of Oxford — De Montfort's Parliament — Repre- 
 sentation — Early instances of, in counties — Election of knights 
 of the shire — Citizens and burgesses — Parliament a develop- 
 ment of the witan — Importance of Earl Simon ... ... 55 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Parliament under the first Edwards. 
 
 Accession of Edward I. — Resemblance to Plenry II. — Struggle 
 with the clergy — Statute of Mortmain — Taxation of Church 
 property — Grants by convocation — Judicial reforms — Model 
 Parliament of 1295 — ^ ts members — Its powers : 1. Judicial ; 
 2. Legislative ; 3. Financial — Control over taxation secured 
 — Confirmatio Cartarum — De tallagio non concedendo — 
 Importance of Parliament under Edward I. — Character of 
 Edward II. — Rise of favourites — Meaning of word "fa- 
 vourite " — Piers Gaveston — Policy of the younger branch 
 of royal family — The lords ordainers — The Despensers — 
 Deposition of Edward II. — Activity of Parliament under 
 Edward III. — Lords and Commons — Close alliance between 
 the Houses — Aims of Parliament: to control (1) expendi- 
 ture ; (2) appointment of ministers — Concessions of Edward 
 III. — Their repudiation — Unpopularity of Clerical ministers 
 — Administration of John of Gaunt — the Good Parliament — ■ 
 Impeachment of ministers ... ... ... tc . C8 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Powers of Mediaeval Parliament at their Height. 
 
 Apparent strength of Parliament at the accession of Richard II. — 
 Its illusory character — Alliance between the Lords and 
 Commons — Great powers of the nobles, due : 1. To then- 
 wealth ; 2. Rise of retainers — Attempt of Edward III. to 
 strengthen the royal family — Marriages of Edward III.'s 
 sons — Minority of Richard II. — Appointment of the council 
 — Conflict between the council and the great lords — Fall of 
 the lords appellant — Inability of the Commons to resist the 
 king — Shrewsbury Parliament — Richard's arbitrary rule — 
 Nobles and clergy unite to depose Richard — Lessons of 
 Richard II. 's reign — Constitutional rule of Henry IV. — ■ 
 Ministers controlled by the Parliament — Success of Henry's 
 rule — Triumphs of Henry V. prejudicial to parliamentary 
 government — Minority of Henry VI. — Rise of the Privy 
 Council — Its development from the curia regis — Its members 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI 
 
 under Richard II. — Encroachments of the council on the 
 powers of Parliament — Proclamations — Decline of parlia- 
 mentary power — Meetings rarer — Franchise restricted — 
 Decline completed by the fall of the nobility — King freed 
 from control — Other causes of king's power — Strong govern- 
 ment wanted — Policy of Edward IV. and Henry VII. ... 80 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Parliament under the New Monarchy. 
 
 Rise of despotism in the fifteenth century — Destruction of feu- 
 dalism — Demand for better security for life and property 
 — Monarchy strengthened by war — Despotism in France 
 under Louis XI. — Despotism in Spain under Ferdinand and 
 Isabella — Fall of the nobles in England — Absence of a stand- 
 ing army — Constitutional checks on the crown — Practical 
 value of these checks — Powers of the Crown — Appointment 
 of judges — Appointment of ministers — The chancellor — The 
 treasurer — Policy of Edward IV. — Aims of Henry VII. — 
 Impoverishment of the nobles — Abolition of retainers — 
 Establishment of the Court of Star Chamber — Exaction of 
 benevolences — Wealth of the king ... ... ... 92 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Parliament under Henry VIII. 
 
 Position of Parliament — Character of Henry VIII. — Thomas 
 Wolsey — The Reformation — Wolsey, chancellor and papal 
 legate — Wolsey's home policy — Exactions of the court — 
 Relations between Wolsey and Parliament — Parliament 
 brought into prominence by the Reformation — The Parliament 
 of 1 529-1 536 — Dissolution of the monasteries — Danger of 
 king becoming independent of Parliament— Popularity of 
 Henry VIII.'s measures — Special privileges granted to him 
 by Parliament : 1. Proclamations to have force of law ; 2. 
 Right of leaving the crown by will — Importance of Henry 
 VIII.'s reign in parliamentary history — The council under ' 
 Edward VI. — Its constitution — Rise of the secretaries of state 
 — The Court of Star Chamber — Committees of Star Chamber 
 — Its unconstitutional procedure — The Court of High Com- 
 mission — Growing strength of the Commons — Shown by 
 creation of rotten boroughs — Causes of the new. power — 
 Increased wealth of the country — Influence of the gentry — 
 The Commons a match for the crown ... ... ... 103 
 
Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 Revival of Parliamentary Activity. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Absence of rebellion under the Tudors — Character of Queen 
 Elizabeth — Elizabeth and her Parliament — Causes of quarrel: 
 I. Her marriage; 2. Nomination of an heir ; 3. Puritanism 
 — Armada a turning point — Demand for constitutional rights 
 — The monopolies — Importance of securing good-will of Par- 
 liament — Theories of Government — Feudal idea of kingship 
 — Personal monarchy — Constitutional monarchy — Change 
 from the Tudors to the Stuarts — Character of James I. — 
 Elements of constitutional freedom — Parliamentary control 
 over: 1. Legislature; 2. Law courts ; 3. Finance — Absence 
 of such control under James I. — Influence of the king in 
 the law courts — Irregular meeting of Parliament fatal to 
 constitutional government ... ... ... ... 114 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Parliament under James I. 
 
 The Commons gain : 1. Control over their own elections ; 2. 
 Freedom from arrest — Importance of these gains — Other 
 points of variance — Commons declare their privileges in 
 danger — James's violations of the law — Increased customs — 
 Resistance of Bates — Judges decide for James — Issue of the 
 book of rates — Views of the lawyers — Discontent of the 
 Commons — Dissolution of Parliament — James's favourites — 
 Arbitrary acts of the court — The Addled Parliament of 1614 
 — Dismissal of Coke — Unpopularity of the court — Necessity 
 for supplies — Parliament of 1621 — Impeachment of Bacon 
 — Freedom of speech demanded — Parliamentary privileges 
 asserted under James I. ... ... ... ... 126 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Early Parliaments of Charles L 
 
 Characters of Charles I. and James I. contrasted — Shortlived 
 popularity of Charles — His marriage — Meeting of his first 
 Parliament — Cautious policy of the Commons — Tonnage and 
 poundage rejected by the king — Illegal collection of customs 
 — Failure of Charles's war policy — Meeting of second Parlia- 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ment — Chief opponents of the court made sheriffs — Writ 
 withheld from the Earl of Bristol — Laud's Church policy — 
 Threatened impeachment of Buckingham — Dissolution of 
 Parliament — Collection of forced loans and benevolences — 
 Imprisonment of malcontents— Arbitrary government — 
 Meeting of third Parliament — The Petition of Right — -Its 
 terms — Murder of Buckingham — Secession of Wentworth 
 — Question at issue between Wentworth and Eliot — Charles's 
 point of view — Dissolution of third Parliament — Death of 
 Sir John Eliot — Resolve of Charles to govern without Parlia- 
 ment — Unsuitableness of the moment chosen ... ... n.8 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Rebellion and its Causes. 
 
 The advisers of the crown — Wentworth — Laud — Financial re- 
 forms of Wentworth — Sources of the king's revenue — His 
 expenses — Extravagance of Henrietta — Necessity for more 
 money — Illegal exactions — From the merchants by tonnage 
 arid poundage — From the nobility by the reclamation of the 
 forests — From the gentry, distraint of knighthood — From the 
 commonalty, illegal companies — Ship money collected — The 
 Hampden trial— The Court of Star Chamber — The Court of 
 High Commission — The Short Parliament — Charles and the 
 Church — Lessons from the years 1630- 1640 — The Long 
 Parliament — Trial of Strafford — The holding of Parliament 
 — The Triennial Act — Arrangements for elections — Opinion 
 of Charles II.— Fall of the Court of Star Chamber— Fall 
 of the Court of High Commission — Appointment of judges — 
 Expulsion of bishops from the House of Lords — The Militia 
 Bill — History of the militia — Outbreak of the war — Execution 
 of Charles I. — The republic established — Abolition of the 
 House of Lords — Election of a Council of State — Expulsion 
 of the members — Barebones Parliament — Cromwell becomes 
 Protector — The Instrument of Government — First Parliament 
 — Cromwell's difficulties — The Petition and Advice — Failure 
 of Cromwell's plan— The Restoration ... ... ... 149 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Restoration Parliament. 
 
 Opening of a new period — Impossibility of return to the old 
 state of things — Question of the day — Was Parliament to 
 control the king's policy? — Power of Parliament — The king's 
 
XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 expenses — Revenue settled — Feudal tenures abolished — A 
 standing army — Origin of our present force — Repeal of the 
 Triennial Act — The Corporation Act — The taxation of the 
 clergy-^-Rise of an opposition — The country party — Charles's 
 position different from that of his father — Appropriation of 
 supplies — Appointment of ministers — Fall of Clarendon — 
 The Cabal — Germs of cabinet government — Its development 
 in the Privy Council — Cabal, the earliest name for a cabinet 
 — Advantages of the plan — Importance of standing armies — 
 Was Charles to increase the army? — Unpopularity of the 
 Cabal — The dispensing power — Late appearance of this 
 grievance — The declaration of indulgence — The Cabal de- 
 stroyed by the Test Act — Danby — Impossibility of facing the 
 Opposition — Temple's scheme to strengthen the government 
 ■ — Its failure — Was Parliament to control king? — Question 
 still unanswered ... ... ... ... ... 169 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Final Struggle between King and Parliament. 
 
 Dissolution of Charles II. 's first Parliament — Habeas Corpus Act 
 — Struggle over the Exclusion Bill — Rise of organized parties 
 — Views of the Whigs and the Tories — Names meaningless 
 — Distribution of the parties — Tories strong in the country 
 — Whigs strong in the towns — Charles's plan of making the 
 towns Tory — Remodelling of the corporations — Excellence 
 of the plan — Benefit reaped by James — Compliance of his 
 first Parliament — Tories alienated by attacks on Church — 
 Union of Whigs and Tories against James — Reasons for 
 necessity of armed intervention — James's army balanced by 
 that of William of Orange — The throne declared vacant — 
 Bill of Righ ts — Curious absence of new restrictions on king 
 — Cause of this — Real meaning of the revolution — Blow to 
 the Tories — Control of purse made effectual — Supplies appro- 
 priated and voted for limited periods — Mutiny Act for one 
 year only — Impartiality of law courts secured — Changes in 
 the working of the Constitution ... ... ... 184 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Rise of Party Government. 
 
 Policy of government at the mercy of the House of Commons — 
 Cause of this — William's intention to employ all parties — 
 Impossibility of doing this — Party government suggested by 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sunderland — Party government adopted by William — Party 
 government becomes the rule under Anne — Crown influence 
 in the Commons — Prevalence of bribery — Places used as 
 bribes — Placemen excluded from the House by Act of Settle- 
 ment — Danger of this scheme — Repeal of the clause — Need 
 for presence of ministers in the House — The American 
 system — New officers obliged to be re-elected — The Unwritten 
 Constitution — Effect of the characters of Anne, George I., 
 and George II. — Changes in the working of the cabinet — \s 
 The premier — Corporate character of the ministry — Dissen- 
 sions between the Lords and Commons — Attempt of the 
 Lords to prevent creation of peers — Did the House of 
 Commons represent the nation ? ... ... ... 199 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Influence of the Crown. 
 
 Great power of the nobility in the eighteenth century — Changes 
 in the seat of political power — Alliance between the Whigs 
 and the merchants — Influence of the nobility — Liberality of 
 their views — Opposition of George III. to party government 
 — Revival of the Tories — George III. educated by Tories — 
 The patriot king — Apparent strength of the Whigs — Their 
 real disunion — Sections of the Whigs — Overthrow of Pitt — 
 Character of George III. — Patronage used against ministers 
 — Fall of Newcastle — Ministry of Bute — Ministry of Grenville 
 — Disunion of the Whigs — Errors of Parliament — Ministries 
 of Rockingham and Grafton — Mistakes of the Court — Ministry 
 of North — Abuse of parliamentary privilege — The remedies : 
 purity and reform — Burke's view — Rockingham's ministry — 
 Reform of the civil list — Coalition of North and Fox — Fox's 
 India Bill— Defeat of the old Whig houses — Success of Pitt 
 — Recent influence of the crown — Dismissal of Lord Mel- 
 bourne ... ... ... ... ... ... 214 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Reform of Parliament. 
 
 Anomalies of representation — Influence of the crown in securing 
 efficient Parliaments — Difficulty of getting a Parliament : 1. 
 Counties; 2. Boroughs — Growing popularity of Parliament 
 — Seats a matter of competition — Efforts of the crown to 
 influence elections — Method of electing knights of the shire 
 — Franchise restricted to the 40^. freeholders — Irregularities 
 
XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 in the Borough franchise — Creation of new boroughs — Settle- 
 ment of the representation — Necessity for a redistribution 
 of seats — Oliver Cromwell's reforms — Return to the old plan 
 at the restoration — Sir P>ancis Dashwood's suggestion of 
 reform, 1745 — Chatham's proposals — Burke's attitude towards 
 reform — The younger Pitt — Postponement of reform — Society 
 of the " Friends of the People " — Buying of seats — A model 
 borough — The six acts — Union of the Whigs and Radicals 
 — The Lords refuse members to Leeds and Manchester — 
 The Tories refuse members to Birmingham — The Duke of 
 Wellington declares against reform — Passing of the great 
 Reform Bill — Its provisions — The franchise made symmetrical 
 — Extension of the franchise in 1867 — Possibility of future 
 extension 
 
 PAGE 
 
 231 
 
 CHAPTER XX, 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Changes worked in the Constitution — Anomalies of the Constitu 
 tion — The sovereign — His functions (1) Passive (2) Active : 
 1. The embodiment of the nation — Connected with people 
 through the nobility — Secures continuity in government ; 2. 
 Assists to choose statesmen — Knows all negotiations — - 
 Queen's letter to Lord Palmerston — The ministry — The 
 cabinet — Ministers, members of Parliament — Contrast with 
 the United States — Merits of the English plan — Harmony 
 between ministry and Parliament — The Opposition — English 
 interest in politics — Dangers of party strife — Qualities of an 
 English minister — Parliament, a reflection of the nation — 
 Ministry, a reflection of Parliament — Purity of English 
 political life ... ... ... ... ... ... 250 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DAWN OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 The most important feature in the English Constitution is 
 its growth. It was not devised by one man, or even by one 
 age; but has grown with the growth of the English nation, 
 changed with its wants, and adapted itself to the needs of 
 various times. And yet, while this change has been in 
 progress, the essence has remained the same. At all times 
 and in all places, the English have claimed the right to 
 govern themselves, to enact their own laws, to levy their 
 own taxes, and to superintend their own law courts. Some- 
 times these rights have been endangered, but again and 
 again they have been asserted, and at length secured ; till 
 the English race may now claim to be, both in fact and in 
 theory, as self-governing as their forefathers were in their 
 old homes by the Elbe. All our chief institutions can 
 be traced from time immemorial. Our sovereigns are 
 the lineal descendants of the ealdormen who led the West 
 Saxons to Britain, our courts of justice derive their origin 
 from the assembly of the wise men a^\the shire-moot, our 
 militia is the fyrd in another dress, our Parliament is the 
 ancient witenagemot. Two institutions alone, the standing 
 army and navy, are excrescences on the ancient constitu- 
 tion; but they have been called into being by the circum- 
 
THE ENGLISH IN GERMANY. 
 
 stance that, mainly due to the strengthening influence of 
 our free institutions, the English have developed from a 
 mere group of petty tribes into the rulers of a world-wide 
 empire. 
 
 In the first century after Christ our ancestors dwelt in 
 Germany along the banks of the Elbe. They were one of a 
 number of small German tribes, who lived by pasture and 
 the chase, and who managed to preserve their freedom 
 against the attacks of the Romans. The Germans were well 
 known for their vigour and manly character, and Tacitus, 
 the Roman historian of the time, was so much struck by 
 their virtues that he wrote for his countrymen an account of 
 their manners and institutions. It is from this book that we 
 gather the earliest glimpse of the English Constitution. It 
 was a very simple affair, much like the form of government 
 used by all savage but independent races. The business of 
 the tribe was managed by an assembly, to which gathered 
 the grown up tribesmen. It met under some spreading tree 
 or on the summit of a neighbouring mound. The members 
 came armed, and clashed their spears and shields in approval 
 as they listened to their favourite speakers. This little par- 
 liament talked over everything which concerned the tribe ; 
 in it treaties were drawn up and alliances made ; peace was 
 settled or war declared. Officers too were chosen, ealdormen 
 for peace, herzogen or duces for war. The ealdormen, whom 
 Tacitus calls principes or chiefs, had a good deal of power. 
 When the assembly was not sitting they acted as rulers of 
 their several districts ; when it was in session they acted as 
 a committee who prepared business for the assembly, and 
 even decided smaller matters, though the weightier were 
 always settled by the tribe. The ealdormen were chosen 
 because they were good rulers, the duces, or army leaders, 
 because they were good generals. They led the army in 
 
THE COMITATUS. 
 
 war, as the ealdormen ruled the nation in peace. The army 
 was simply the nation in arms, righting in order of families, 
 for in those days every man of full age was a warrior. Be- 
 sides electing officers and managing general business, the 
 assembly acted as a law court; in it criminals were tried 
 and disputes settled. Some tribes had kings, chosen from 
 their noble birth, but as it is known that those who came 
 over to Britain had no kings, we may leave them out of 
 account. 
 
 This is a picture of the simple government of our ances- 
 tors ; but they had one institution of great importance whicli 
 struck Tacitus as different from anything which he had ever 
 seen. This was the co?nitati<s, or companionhood, and as - 
 it afterwards grew to be an element of feudalism it requires 
 careful notice. 
 
 Among the Germans, the service of one man to another 
 was so far from being considered mean, that to be the servant 
 of a great man was thought to give honour. And so, it was 
 the natural ambition of the young men of the tribe to serve 
 the princeps,and the distinction between service and comrade- 
 ship was so slight that these youths were called indifferently 
 by the name gesith (companion) or thegen (servant) of 
 the princeps. They looked upon him as their lord or loaf- 
 giver. In peace they served him, in war they fought for 
 him. To be less brave than his thanes was disgraceful for 
 the lord, and a thane thought himself shamed if his valour 
 fell short of that of his leader. The old poems of the Eng- 
 lish tell of the sacred duty of revenging a fallen leader, or 
 the dishonour which fell on him who deserted his lord, and 
 of the glory which was the crown of him who fell by his 
 corpse. 
 
 This was the famous relationship of the comes (companion) 
 and the princeps, of the thane (thegen) and the lord. In 
 
THE MIGRATION TO BRITAIN. 
 
 token of it the lord gave to the thane a ring, and provided 
 him with a horse and with bread, while the thane gave in 
 return his service, and, if needful, his life. In this way the 
 young men were trained up by their leaders as, in after times, 
 the squire was by his knight. So far the relationship between 
 the lord and the thane was purely between man and man \ 
 but il is clear that if the lord were to provide the thane with 
 land, while the thane were to give back fealty and service, 
 we should have what was known at a later time as 
 feudalism. 
 
 Tacitus wrote in the beginning of the second century, but 
 little or no change was made in English institutions so long 
 as Germany was their home ; but, when the Romans left 
 Britain, the English bade good-bye to Germany, and began 
 the invasion of the island which has since been called by 
 their name. 
 
 Of the details of the invasion we know very little, nor do 
 they matter much. We can easily picture the scene in the 
 assembly. Such an ealdorman as Hengist or Cerdic would 
 rise up, and, painting to the imagination of his hearers the 
 fertile land beyond the sea, would cry, " Westward Ho ! " 
 and, followed first by his thanes and then by the tribe, would 
 bid farewell for ever to the sandy flats of Germany. Again 
 and again must the scene have been repeated, for at the end 
 of one hundred and fifty years the shores of the Elbe were 
 left almost unpeopled, while the emigrants had wrenched 
 from the Britons all the good soil of the south and east of 
 our island, and forced them to take refuge in the sterile 
 moors of Cornwall and Derbyshire, and the inaccessible 
 mountains of Wales and Strathclyde. 
 
 The conquered lands were parcelled out into a number of 
 small districts, such as Sussex, Wiltshire, Essex, and Norfolk, 
 inhabited by men of a single tribe, such as the Wilscetas, 
 
THE RISE OF KINGSHIP. 5 
 
 who had probably fought their way over together, and had 
 at last settled down in this particular position. These dis- 
 tricts again were subdivided into hundreds, the space which 
 would supply one hundred warriors to the host, or would 
 support one hundred families, small in the fertile east, and 
 larger towards the west, and townships, the settlement of 
 each little community. 
 
 The first change effected in the constitution by the migra- 
 tion was the introduction of monarchy. So far as is known 
 no leader of the invasion had the title of king. Hengist and 
 Horsa were called heretogas or duces ; Cerdic and Cynric 
 were ealdormcn. But the conquest itself changed the title 
 of the leader. He could no longer be a mere ealdorman, 
 he became a king. As the Israelites, when contending with 
 their enemies, demanded to have a king to be their leader, 
 so these little English tribes, in their new field of danger 
 and difficulty, wanted a ruler who could wield the force of 
 the tribe with greater effect than could be done by a leader 
 elected merely from time to time. They wanted a king to 
 deal with kings, a man to whom they could look up as the 
 representative of their race ; and who could fill the post 
 better than the leader who had just shown himself a true 
 descendant of Woden ? So the ealdorman became the king, 
 and his family the royal family, so that the hereditary cha- 
 racter of royalty was at once associated with the " prestige 
 of the successful leader, and the authority of the elected 
 magistrate." 
 
 After the conquest came a time of anarchy. There was 
 fighting on every side. Wars were waged not only against 
 the Britons, but against other tribes, and as a result of 
 natural selection the stronger kingdoms absorbed the weaker, 
 and the numerous tribal divisions were consolidated into 
 what is popularly known as the heptarchy. 
 
6 GROWTH OF THE HEPTARCHIC KINGDOMS. 
 
 This process brought with it a change in the method of 
 government. It was impossible that a large kingdom like 
 Wessex or Northumbria could be ruled on exactly the same 
 plan as might do well enough for Sussex, and hence we find 
 that the king of the greater kingdom is a much greater man 
 than the king of the lesser, and that the government of the 
 one is less popular than that of the other. When one 
 kingdom conquered another the smaller became a shire, 
 and though it kept its own assembly, a shire-moot which 
 transacted its special business, matters which related to the 
 whole kingdom were managed by the witenagemot, and the 
 king of the subject kingdom was replaced by an ealdorman. 
 In time, as other kingdoms were conquered, the new 
 kingdom became a collection of shires, each having its own 
 shire-moot and ealdorman. In each of the shire-moots the 
 interests of the king were looked after by the shirereeve or 
 sheriff. Below the shire the hundred had its hundredman 
 and hundred-moot, and the township its reeve and town- 
 moot. This was the system of government which was used 
 in the great kingdoms of the heptarchy, and the only trace 
 of national union is found after the introduction of Chris- 
 tianity in the Church Councils, where the clergy of England 
 met together, without reference to the kingdoms to which 
 they belonged. It was this union as Christians which gave 
 to the English the first notion of a political union, and its 
 first expression was in the recognition of the office of the 
 Bretwalda, or wide ruler, which was never held by an 
 heathen monarch. 
 
 The central institution is the witenagemot. Its relation 
 with the king on one side, with the people on the other, 
 marks the exact nature of the English monarchy. The 
 witenagemot, or meeting of the wise men, was a limited 
 assembly. It was not a folk-moot. That belonged to the 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE WITENAGEMOT. 7 
 
 shire, and was the same as the assembly of Tacitus : the 
 witan was the committee of the principes. It has been 
 argued that the witan was a degenerate form of the folk- 
 moot, which, in theory, included every freeman, but which in 
 practice was attended only by a few. On the other hand, an 
 appeal may be made to the name, which suggests its analogy 
 to the boule of Homer, and to the fact that the shire which 
 had absorbed the others had itself a shire-moot. The folk- 
 moot, then, was left to the shire ; the witan gathered round 
 the king. The witan was never a large body. As far as can 
 be ascertained, in no kingdom did it number more than, at 
 the outside, one hundred members, and often as few as thirty; 
 and though on some great occasions there were larger meet- 
 ings, they do not seem to have been strictly constitutional. 
 
 The following members were present : (1) the king, and, on 
 great occasions, his wife and family ; (2) the ealdormen ; (3) 
 the bishops, who took the place of the priests mentioned 
 by Tacitus ; (4) the king's thegens. These thanes were the 
 successors of the old thanes of the ealdormen j but when 
 the ealdorman in Germany became a king in the new island, 
 his thanes rose with him, became themselves nobles, and 
 rapidly acquired a distinction which overshadowed that of 
 the old eorls who, from some nobility in their birth, were 
 looked on as the superiors of the ceorls or simple freemen, 
 a distinction which after all does not seem to have amounted 
 to much more than that of gentle and simple. 
 
 The powers of the witan were very great. 
 
 I. They elected the king. Their choice, however, was 
 governed by several well-known rules. The new king had 
 always to be a member of the royal family, and it was under- 
 stood that, except in the case of incapacity from age or 
 absolute unfitness of character, the man who was nearest in 
 blood to the late king should be chosen as his successor. 
 
8 POWERS OF THE WITENA GEMOT. 
 
 When the choice had been made, it was submitted to the 
 people, on whose recognition the ceremony was completed 
 by coronation. 
 
 II. As the witan elected, so it also deposed the king. 
 Nor was this right one of name only, for the witan of 
 Northumberland deposed Alcred, and that of Wessex 
 Sigebert. 
 
 III. With the assistance of the king, the witan made or 
 rather stated the laws. Legislation in those days was not 
 very heavy. It confined itself to ascertaining the best 
 customs then in use, or at most aimed at republishing 
 these in the shape of a code. 
 
 IV. The witan acted as a court of justice both in criminal 
 and civil cases. For instance, the witan of Northumberland 
 tried Archbishop Wilfrid and expelled him from his see. It 
 also tried causes between powerful persons, whose cases 
 could hardly have been dealt with by the simple machinery 
 of the shire-moot. 
 
 V. In great questions of state we find the witan consulted, 
 as for instance, when it was proposed by Ethelbert to accept 
 Christianity. 
 
 VI. With the king, it appointed the chief officers of the 
 realm, the ealdormen and the bishops. 
 
 VII. The witan reserved the right of sanctioning the 
 king's grants of the folkland. This was undivided property 
 belonging to the state, which was constantly being granted 
 to private individuals who held it by a charter or book, and 
 it was, for that reason, known as bocland. 
 
 At the head of the whole state stands the king. The 
 name is connected with cyning or cyn, our word kin, and 
 has nothing to do with being a cunning man. The king is 
 the hereditary officer of the realm. His seat is the throne, 
 and he bears the insignia of royalty. On his election he is 
 
PREROGATIVES OF THE KING. 
 
 anointed and crowned. An oath is taken to him, and, if 
 he is murdered, not only is a very large wergild or blood 
 fine paid to his family, but a cynbot, or amends for a king, 
 is due to the nation. In addition to his private estates a 
 large revenue is secured to him. The demesne of the crown 
 with its palaces — not that a palace was a very splendid place 
 in those days — belongs to him. He has rights over the 
 folkland, and as he travels through the country his support 
 is provided by the owners of bocland. To him goes a share 
 of the fines levied in the law courts. Wrecks and treasure- 
 trove are his. Mines and salt-works belong to him, and 
 heriots or army gear (in theory, the arms of the deceased 
 warrior), are paid to him on the death of any of his thanes, 
 by the heir. It is to look after these rights that the king 
 appoints a sheriff in each shire. But there was one right 
 which was perhaps dearer than all the others, a right which 
 marked him out as a successor of the old dux, who had 
 led the emigration. To the king belonged the supreme 
 command in war. 
 
 These were the ancient rights of the king and the witan, 
 and from them the prerogatives of the present Sovereign 
 and her house of Parliament can be traced. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ENGLISH KINGSHIP BEFORE THE CONQUEST, AND 
 RISE OF FEUDALISM. 
 
 The name Heptarchy denotes a period, not a system of 
 government. At no time were there seven regular king- 
 doms in England ; the number constantly varied. Nor were 
 these kingdoms united together by any real constitutional 
 tie ; they did not form a confederation, and the only trace 
 of union is to be found in the name Bretwalda, or wide 
 ruler, which was given to the Christian king who happened 
 at the time to be pre-eminent. During the heptarchy a 
 never-ceasing struggle was going on between the kingdoms. 
 At first Kent took the lead. This was natural, for Kent 
 had been settled longest, had no fighting with the Britons, 
 and quickly gained a smattering of civilization from the 
 continent. Kent, however, never seems to have established 
 a recognized supremacy over its rivals ; the first to do this 
 was Northumbria. This great Anglian kingdom, well pro- 
 tected by the Humber and the North Sea, the Forth and the 
 Pennine range, rapidly became powerful ; and when it had 
 beaten the Scots at Dagsestan, and the Welsh at Chester, it 
 was far stronger than the others, and in 617, Edwin, its 
 king, subdued all England except Kent. The supremacy 
 of Northumbria lasted till 685, when the crushing defeat of 
 
UNION OF ENGLAND UNDER EGBERT. 1 1 
 
 Nectansmere was suffered at the hands of the northern Celts. 
 A period of disorder followed. Then Mercia, under Offa, 
 its king, came to the front, defeated the men of Kent and 
 Wessex, vigorously encroached upon the Welsh, established 
 an Archbishopric of its own at Lichfield, and kept the fore- 
 most place till the death of Offa, in 796. Anarchy ensued, 
 but in 825, Egbert, king of the West Saxons, beat the 
 Mercians at Ellandun, and within two years every one of 
 the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, Essex, East Anglia and Nor- 
 thumbria had submitted, and received him as the first 
 overlord of the whole English race. 
 
 The supremacy of Wessex, however, rested upon no more 
 stable foundations than that of Mercia or Northumbria, and 
 in all probability the dreary round of civil war would have 
 begun again, had not the subject kingdoms been ruined by 
 the invasions of the Danes. 
 
 About the end of the eighth century these pirates of the 
 north began to ravage the coast of England. The population 
 of Scandinavia was always pressing closely upon the scanty 
 means of subsistence afforded by its barren soil, and, pre- 
 ferring danger abroad to famine at home, its hardy sons, led 
 by their jarls or sea-kings, launched out into the deep, and 
 wandered forth to conquer England, Normandy, Russia, 
 Sicily, and Naples, and to menace Constantinople, on the 
 one hand from the Black Sea, on the other from the shores 
 of Macedonia. Their invasions of England divide them- 
 selves into three periods. First they came to pillage, second 
 to settle, and thirdly, led by their kings, to conquer. Before 
 them the under-kingdoms of Wessex fell fast, but when, in 
 871, the Northmen invaded Wessex itself, they met with a 
 stout resistance, and at length, after many changes of fortune, 
 made with King Alfred the peace of Chippenham, or Wed- 
 more, by which they agreed to leave Wessex to itself, and 
 
12 RISE OF THE GREAT EARLDOMS. 
 
 to accept as their portion of the island that part which lay 
 north of the Thames and to the east and north of Watling 
 Street, which ran from London to Chester very much along 
 the line of the London North Western Railway. Alfred 
 himself attempted nothing more than to check further 
 incursions ; but his son, Edward the Elder, attacked them 
 in their settlements, and conquered back all the country of 
 the Danes as far as the Forth. So great was his fame that 
 the Welsh of Cornwall, Wales, and Strathclyde, and also the 
 Scots of the country north of the Forth submitted to him, 
 and agreed to receive him as father and lord; so that 
 Edward was not only king of all the English speaking race, 
 but was overlord of the whole island. This supremacy was 
 maintained by his descendants, and it was not till long after- 
 wards that the notion of the possibility of Scotland being an 
 independent kingdom arose. 
 
 The difficulty, however, of ruling so large a kingdom was 
 great. Communication was difficult, and news travelled very 
 slowly, and it was out of the question for the king to keep 
 his eye on everything by travelling about as he had done 
 when his kingdom was smaller. Under these circumstances 
 Edgar and Dunstan hit upon a new plan. They divided the 
 kingdom into earldoms, founded something upon the lines 
 of the old kingdoms. In these the earl had an almost regal 
 authority, while the king was paramount over the whole, 
 and besides kept in his own hands the mother earldom of 
 Wessex. This plan had many disadvantages. Though it 
 made government easier in peaceful times, it kept alive the 
 old feeling of disunion ; and when, under Ethelred, the 
 kingdom was again attacked by the Danes, " no shire would 
 help other," and Ethelred the Unready was not the man to 
 overcome this feeling by the spell of his personal ascendancy, 
 so the kingdom was conquered in detail, and fell under 
 
INCREASE OF KING'S POWER. 1 3 
 
 a Danish dynasty. Canute kept up the system of Dunstan. 
 Indeed, as he was king of Norway and Denmark as well as 
 of England, he had still greater difficulty than Edgar in 
 keeping a grasp on the outlying districts ; he even gave up 
 the earldom of Wessex to Godwin, and from this time forward 
 we find the earls the real rulers of the land. They quarrelled 
 or combined among themselves, took up one policy or 
 another, and left to weak kings like Harthacnut or Edward 
 the Confessor no choice but to act as mediators between 
 them, a state of things which prepared the way for the 
 Norman Conquest. 
 
 While these changes were taking place the monarchy too 
 was changing. Between Egbert and Edgar the power of 
 the king grew, between Edgar and the Confessor it declined. 
 
 As the size of the kingdom increased, so did the power 
 and importance of the king. The monarch of the whole 
 English race was in the eyes of his subjects a much greater 
 man than the king of a petty province like Wessex or 
 Northumbria. The feeling of loyalty was stirred by the 
 early struggles with the Danes, and gathered round Alfred 
 and his successors as the saviours of their country. As 
 France in the fifteenth century was first really united under 
 the house of Valois by her struggles with the English ; so 
 England in the tenth century was united by her struggles 
 with the Northmen. The kings, too, were men of ex- 
 ceptional vigour, and worthy of their title. They were men 
 of whom the country might well be proud, and they might 
 even aspire to a higher title than king, and after the sub- 
 mission of the Welsh 'and Scots, a sovereign who ruled 
 supreme within the four seas had some claim to rank as an 
 emperor. 
 
 Other causes added to the majesty of the king. He was 
 the head of the law. The security of life and property was 
 
14 CAUSE OF DECLINE OF THE KING'S POWER. 
 
 under his care, and all crimes of violence were looked upon 
 as breaches of the public peace, of which the king was 
 guardian. All over the country his influence was felt, and 
 it became his practice to call up cases from the shire-moots 
 to be tried before the king and the witan. The public land 
 came more and more under his control, and finally grants 
 were made from it without asking the leave of the witan. 
 The old gentry, the eorls, were completely eclipsed by the 
 king's thanes, who increasing in importance with the king, 
 became more and more powerful members of the witan, 
 and represented the king's authority through the length and 
 breadth of the land. 
 
 The highest possible power under the old English system 
 was reached by Edgar. He was the real leader of his 
 people ; he originated his own policy, and carried the people 
 with him ; the fleet was under his charge j he granted 
 estates out of the folkland by his own authority, and he 
 called up suits from the shire-moot into his own court. Then 
 came the decline, and it was due to the growth of what was 
 to all practical purposes feudalism. 
 
 It is, or was, currently believed that feudalism was brought 
 into England by William the Conqueror. This is a mistake. 
 Though first identified as feudalism at the Conquest, the 
 system had really been springing up and growing for a long 
 time, and its roots may be found in the English institutions 
 ages before William the Norman set foot in the island. 
 
 Mediaeval France gives us a good picture of a feudal 
 kingdom. There we see a king surrounded by his great 
 dukes, who rule very large tracts of country, such as Brittany 
 or Normandy. Among these princes the king is simply 
 "primus inter pares," the first among his equals, though 
 they have sworn to him the oath of fealty. Below these are 
 ihe counts holding their lands from the dukes by the same 
 
CONTINENTAL FEUDALISM. 15 
 
 tie of fealty ; then came the lesser landowners, and finally 
 the villeins and serfs. The whole forms a huge pyramid, 
 whose apex is the king, whose base is the serf. Four ties 
 bind each class to that above it. First, mutual protection 
 and support. The lord protects his vassal, the vassal fights 
 for the lord, even against the king himself, and to do so is 
 thought no treason. Secondly, if the lord is called upon to 
 fight, his vassal is bound to follow him to war, and to pro- 
 vide for himself arms and food. Thirdly, the vassals are 
 suitors at the lord's court. He presides over the court in 
 person or by his deputy, but the vassals are bound to attend 
 and all cases either of crime or dispute are tried in it by the 
 vassals themselves. Fourthly, the outward sign of all this is 
 the holding of land, which goes back to the lord on the death 
 of the vassal, and is only received back by the new holder 
 on payment of a sum of money (relevium) for taking it up 
 again. Each duke or count is completely independent of 
 any other. He has no dealings with equals, only with 
 superiors or inferiors ; within his own bounds he is monarch 
 of all he surveys. In such a State the power of the king 
 must decrease before the power of the great feudal nobles. 
 They have everything on their side, residence on the spot, 
 military power, personal loyalty, and it is only by great 
 acuteness and ingenuity that the monarch can hold his own 
 at all. " In this system," says Mr. Stubbs, " the royal 
 power is reduced to a shadow. The shadow is still the 
 centre round which the complex system in spite of itself 
 revolves ; it is recognized by that system as its solitary safe- 
 guard against disruption and its witness of national identity." 
 This is the feudal system, and it had been developed in 
 England before the Conquest in some of its very worst 
 features. The whole change is typified by the change from 
 a personal to a territorial organization. In old times the 
 
1 6 GROWTH OF FEUDALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 State was a collection of free men, each of whom owned land 
 because he was free. In the new, the State is a territory, 
 and free men are free because they own land. 
 
 We have seen how in the earliest times there existed in 
 the comitatus a system by which the great men were con- 
 nected with the less by a tie of mutual assistance and 
 protection, which is one of the four sides of feudalism. And 
 we have seen in the practice of whole nations choosing the 
 sovereign of another as father and lord, a still further de- 
 velopment of the system of personal fealty. Again, it had 
 been ordered by Alfred that the landless man must have a 
 lord, and during the invasions of the Danes numbers of the 
 smaller landowners had been forced to put themselves under 
 the protection of the great men of their neighbourhood. 
 
 This brought in another side. For the lesser land- 
 owners, when they put themselves under the protection of 
 the great, surrendered their lands and received them back 
 to be held as under vassals. Moreover, it had long been 
 the practice for the king to grant land to be held from him 
 by his thanes, and in the same way the earls sublet land to 
 their thanes ; so, both from above and below, the practice 
 of holding land from a superior and ultimately from the king 
 was making rapid progress. 
 
 In the next place, the courts of law were coming under 
 the control of the great landowners. The court of the town- 
 ship became the court of the man to whom the township 
 belonged. In the case of land granted out of the folkland, 
 the rights of sac and soc, which practically meant jurisdiction 
 in civil and criminal cases, were constantly granted ; and in 
 the time of Canute, we are told that certain magnates called 
 landrica had jurisdiction over the smaller landowners. 
 
 There was also military service. The thanes were ex- 
 pected to fight for their lords as in times past. But, besides 
 
CANUTE'S EARLDOMS, \J 
 
 this ordinary practice, Cumberland was let out by Edmund, 
 to Malcolm, King of Scots, to be held on military tenure. 
 
 Thus we see that before the Conquest there existed in 
 England all the essential elements of feudalism. But on the 
 Continent the worst feature of feudalism was the power of 
 the dukes. This we have in England. Canute's earldoms 
 were more thoroughly in keeping with the practice of the 
 Continent than anything which is to be found after the Con- 
 quest. That of Mercia was a vast territory where the earl, 
 an old Mercian noble, united in his own person the power 
 of the great landowner and the official dignity of the 
 ealdorman. Against him the shirereeves and the bishops 
 had little power. Practically he was an independent prince. 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the evil effects of this system 
 on the history of the eleventh century. Its certain tendency 
 is to become hereditary, and independence must follow 
 unless the system is overthrown. The great dukes of France 
 and Germany were in the beginning the exact counterparts 
 of the earls of Edgar. Similar causes would have doubt- 
 less produced similar results ; the history of the earls of 
 Northumberland might have been the same as that of the 
 dukes of Bavaria, had not the natural growth of feudalism 
 been happily arrested by the Norman Conquest, and it is 
 due to William the Conqueror that the feudalism of England 
 did not lead us into the miseries which followed its growth 
 in Germany, in France, and in Scotland. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 REFORMS OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 
 
 The weakness of the old English system of government was 
 thoroughly shown during the reign of Edward the Confessor. 
 Struggles between the great earls fill up the story. The 
 family of Godwin in Wessex and Northumbria, the family 
 of Leofric in Mercia, strove with each other for supremacy, 
 and Edward himself played between them the pitiful part of 
 mediator. Such was the condition of things to which the 
 policy of Edgar and Dunstan had brought the great kingdom 
 of Edward the Elder. The king himself was only half a 
 representative of the English race. The son of Ethelred the 
 Unready and the Norman Emma, educated in Normandy, 
 speaking French better than English, disliking the rude 
 manners of his countrymen, it was little wonder that Edward 
 surrounded himself with a train of Normans. Foreigners 
 filled the court ; they held high office in Church and State ; 
 riches were heaped upon them, and the English found them- 
 selves despised in their own country. In this state of things 
 a national party was formed. At its head was the family of 
 Godwin, with whom the Confessor was connected by mar- 
 riage, and a vigorous struggle was made. For a time, the 
 patriots were worsted and had to leave the country ; soon, 
 however, they returned, and the Frenchmen fled to their 
 own land. 
 
TRAINING OF WILLIAM THE NORMAN. 1 9 
 
 The mischief, however, had been done. Not only had 
 the Normans spied out the nakedness of the land ; but their 
 duke, while on a visit to his cousin, had received from him 
 a promise which could be construed as giving the right of 
 succession. 
 
 Nor were the Normans averse to moving. Theirs had 
 been for a long time a life of emigration. Since Rollo of 
 the North had led his followers to Normandy, many of their 
 warriors had gone out as conquerors. In Sicily and Naples 
 their countrymen were even then winning for themselves 
 kingdoms. The conquest of England offered a glorious 
 prospect for William. To be the vassal of the French king 
 was not a very satisfactory position for a man of his energy, 
 and he burned to raise himself to independence. The Duke 
 of Normandy was one of the eight dukes and counts who 
 chose Hugh Capet, king of the French, in 987. He formed 
 part of the feudal hierarchy of France ; above him stood the 
 king, beside him the dukes, and below him his counts and 
 barons. He managed his duchy as a conquered kingdom. 
 His policy was the result of consultation with his great men, 
 but for the maintenance of his power he had to look in the 
 main to himself. Little recked his barons for the ducal 
 authority unless it was backed by an iron hand; at a 
 moment's notice they were ready to fight their duke or to 
 leave their country. Men of restless energy, they cared not 
 for local institutions, but for schemes of high policy; and 
 wherever they settled, they carried with them these same 
 characteristics. It was among men like these that William 
 had got his training. As a mere lad he had had to fight for 
 his power ; step by step he had won his way, shown himself 
 the better man, and now with a tight grip of the saddle, he 
 held the reins with a firm hand, knew his own mind, and 
 enforced his strong will throughout his duchy. It was just 
 
20 PRETEXTS FOR INVASION. 
 
 this firm central authority that was wanted to brace the 
 excellent local institutions of early England, and to break 
 down the growing feudalism which was rapidly bringing her 
 to anarchy. 
 
 Of the details of the Conquest it is needless to speak. 
 The crisis was brought about by the death of Edward. 
 When he was gone and no one of the old English line 
 remained but the lad Edgar Atheling, the witan, well know- 
 ing the dangers of the time, took as his successor, Harold, 
 head of the house of Godwin. 
 
 The accession of Harold roused William to action. To 
 be deprived of his hope of the accession was bad, but to be 
 ousted by Harold, the representative of the English house 
 which had been most deadly in its hostility to the Normans, 
 was more than he could bear. Besides, he had a personal 
 grudge against Harold, who had sworn to him as his man, 
 and though such an oath could not affect the decision of the 
 English witan, it was easy to call the choice a breach of faith. 
 Nor were other excuses wanting. England had never been 
 very submissive to the Pope ; it was not difficult to get his 
 sanction for the enterprise. At that moment her Primate, 
 Stigand, was in schism, for he had received his pallium from 
 the Antipope, and Harold himself had had to be crowned 
 by the Archbishop of York. Out of these materials it was 
 not difficult to put together a very plausible collection of 
 pretexts for an invasion ; nor was it very hard to get the 
 Normans to join, and at William's call a large army, made 
 up of Normans, Bretons (the representatives of the old 
 Celts), and a motley crew of adventurers from all parts of 
 Europe gathered under his banner. 
 
 Against these forces Harold made a brave resistance ; but 
 luck was against him. He had to deal with his brother 
 Tostig, the expelled Earl of Northumbria, and his ally, 
 
BATTLE OF SENLAC AND ELECTION OF WILLIAM. 21 
 
 Harold Hardrada of Norway, as well as with Duke William. 
 The old disunion broke out afresh. Though Harold had 
 helped Edwin and Morcar, of the family of Mercia, against 
 Tostig, they refused to help him against William. Harold, 
 moreover, fought on too advanced a position ; but in spite 
 of all he was within an ace of victory, and only yielded to 
 death and defeat after a resistance so splendid that few 
 Englishmen read the account of the battle without feeling as 
 if they too were fighting for their country. 
 
 The victory of Hastings only gave William command of 
 Wessex; but he soon extended his power. Marching to 
 Berkhampstead on the great road from London to the north 
 and west, he cut off that city from the rest of the island. 
 Isolated thus, it was soon forced to capitulate. The witan 
 reconsidered their decision to elect young Edgar king ; chose 
 William instead ; and the new king was duly crowned on 
 Christmas Day by the Archbishop of York. 
 
 William had now got exactly the position he wanted. He 
 was not merely a Norman duke who had conquered England 
 in fight, but he was its elected king, chosen in due form by 
 the witan, crowned by an English bishop. Had it been 
 otherwise, he would have been merely a conqueror, pledged 
 to reward his Norman followers with the spoils of the con- 
 quered race. Now he held exactly the same position as 
 Canute, or Edward the Confessor, or Harold : he was king, 
 not only of the Normans, but of the English. It is difficult 
 to overestimate the importance of this success. By it the 
 continuity of English history was secured, and the changes 
 which followed the conquest became modifications of the old 
 constitution instead of the introduction of a new one. 
 Armed with this authority as king of the English, William 
 sternly put down all attempts at rebellion. The struggle 
 was fierce and protracted ; but the English were disunited, 
 
22 ATTITUDE OF WILLIAM TOWARDS HIS FOLLOWERS. 
 
 without natural chiefs, for Edwin and Morcar remained 
 passive spectators of the struggle till it was too late, and no 
 great leader appeared who could match himself against the 
 Normans. In five years resistance was at an end. William 
 was then able to turn to the task of consolidating his n gw 
 power. 
 
 First of all he asserted his right to all the prerogatives of 
 his predecessors, exacted homage from the King of Scots, 
 and denied the claim of Gregory VII. for fealty, on the 
 ground that his predecessors had never paid homage to 
 former Popes. He then applied himself to internal affairs. 
 The position was one of great difficulty. On the one hand, 
 William was determined to rule as king of the English and 
 not of the Normans, on the other hand, it was absolutely 
 necessary to reward his followers, and at the same time to 
 do it in such a manner as not to put in jeopardy his own 
 power. The Normans naturally expected that William would 
 set up in England the feudal system as it was to be seen in 
 France ; but that was precisely what William was determined 
 not to do. He had been Duke of Normandy before he was 
 King of England, and he knew very well what that would 
 mean; and, while he retained the form of feudalism, he 
 determined to rob it of its spirit. 
 
 William the Conqueror was one of the most practical men 
 who ever lived. He did not aim at remodelling the govern- 
 ment according to any theory ; but he had a thorough know- 
 ledge of the difficulties he had to face, saw perfectly well what 
 should be done, and had strength and resolution to do it. 
 
 His first step was of great importance. He insisted that 
 he had been rightful king since the death of Edward, and 
 therefore that those who fought against him at the battle 
 of Hastings were traitors, and that those who had not come 
 to fight for him were guilty of the crime of non-attendance at 
 
ABOLITION OF THE GREAT EARLDOMS. 23 
 
 the fyrd or assembly of the militia. By this reasoning, 
 every landowner in the country was brought under his power. 
 The traitors forfeited their lands ; the rest were forced to pay 
 fyrdwite, the fine for absence from the fyrd ; but this might 
 be construed as the payment of a relief, the sum due from 
 the vassal on accession to his estate, that is, as an acknow- 
 ledgment of William's feudal superiority over the whole king- 
 dom. This was a great point gained. William was no\* 
 feudal lord of the land. He held in his own hands the folk 
 land which now came to be called the forest, and he also had 
 a mass of forfeited property, which was further augmented 
 after every abortive rebellion, with which to reward his 
 followers. 
 
 This he did with great caution. On the Continent the 
 duchies, in which the dukes reigned almost as independent 
 sovereigns, were the great danger of the crown. William 
 knew well what his relations had been with the King of 
 France, and he was determined to have no vassals of that 
 stamp in England. Accordingly he began by abolishing 
 the great earldoms of Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria and 
 East Anglia, and they never appeared again. When they 
 were gone the shire again became the unit of government ; 
 the sheriff became in most cases the next officer under the 
 king. Three exceptions, however, he made. Durham, 
 Cheshire and Kent were what are called counties palatine. 
 Each of them had an earl who held the whole county 
 from the king, and all the landowners of the county held 
 from the earl, and in these, then, the earl had the same 
 position as a French duke. But these earldoms were 
 retained for special purposes. Cheshire guarded the Welsh 
 border, Durham the Scottish, and Kent was the county most 
 liable to assault from the Continent ; in them, therefore, it 
 was desirable that there should be a strong commander on 
 
24 CAREFUL DISTRIBUTION OF FORFEITED EST A TES. 
 
 the spot. It was thought that the Welsh would afford 
 enough business to employ the Earl of Chester, so that county 
 was granted to a layman, Hugh the Wolf ; but Durham and 
 Kent were given to ecclesiastics who could not found families, 
 so there was no danger of their becoming hereditary. 
 Durham and Cheshire remain county palatines to the present 
 day ; but nothing more was heard of the county palatine of 
 Kent after the deprivation of its first earl Odo of Bayeux. 
 In giving away the other lands at his disposal, William took 
 care that the grants should not lie together, but should be 
 scattered over the country. For instance, Odo of Bayeux 
 had property in seventeen different counties, which utterly 
 crippled his military power, and the estates of other noble- 
 men were equally divided. Fourteen hundred manors were 
 kept by William in his own hands, and most of the towns and 
 fortresses. This was most important. Abroad the feudal 
 nobles built castles where and when they pleased ; every 
 crag was seized upon, and became a terror to the neighbour- 
 hood, a menace to the king. But William would have none 
 of this in England ; all existing fortresses were taken into the 
 king's hands, and placed under the charge of officers 
 appointed by him, and no noble was allowed on any pre- 
 tence to build a fortress — a prohibition, however, which 
 taxed all the energy of William and his sons to enforce. 
 
 From this splitting up of estates other results followed. 
 Abroad each duchy had its own peculiar set of laws, and 
 its own customs duties. In England there was one law for 
 the whole country; no county presumed to levy taxes on 
 goods going in or out, and the country therefore enjoyed 
 the benefits of free trade. Again, on the Continent, the 
 judicial system was almost entirely in the hands of the 
 feudal lords. But in England this was never the case. 
 Except in the counties palatine, few lords held enough pro- 
 
FEALTY EXACTED FROM EVERY LANDOWNER. 2$ 
 
 perty to enclose a whole hundred, much less a county, and 
 therefore his vassals had usually to settle their disputes 
 with other vassals at the hundred or county court. These 
 courts were protected by William and his sons. They 
 formed the great check on the nobility, who struggled hard 
 to get exemption for themselves and their vassals, but were 
 finally beaten by Henry II., when the assize of Clarendon 
 ordered that no franchise was to be free from the visitation 
 of the sheriff. 
 
 Another result was the breakdown of the military side of 
 feudalism. Abroad, where the lords held large tracts of 
 territory, it was easy enough for them to assemble their 
 vassals ; but it was a different matter when their estates 
 were scattered about in various counties. As a means of 
 collecting soldiers military service was little used ; the 
 kings preferred to rely upon the old English fyrd or militia, 
 while the barons found it impossible to collect their out- 
 lying tenants to fight against the king. The fyrd was em- 
 ployed regularly both by William and his sons ; for long 
 campaigns they hired mercenaries, but they rarely called for 
 the services of their feudal tenants. 
 
 But this was not the only check placed upon them. On 
 the Continent the vassal swore fealty to his immediate lord, 
 and not to the king ; thus Joinville, the friend of St. Louis 
 of France, refused to do fealty to him because he was the 
 man of the Count of Champagne. The effect of this was 
 that if the tenant followed his lord against the king, he was 
 only doing what was right. William put a stop to this by 
 insisting on every landowner, whosesoever vassal he might 
 be, taking an oath of allegiance to himself, and thus com- 
 pletely broke the neck of the feudal system. 
 
 These modifications of feudalism were of the utmost 
 importance, and were due directly to the policy of William. 
 
26 ENGLISH AND CONTINENTAL NOBILITY COMPARED. 
 
 But there are other points in which the nobles of England 
 differed from those of the Continent, which are of hardly 
 minor importance. 
 
 The great curse of Europe was private- war. It was a 
 check to all progress ; district after district was ravaged by 
 it ; and the Church was thought to have done a great ser- 
 vice when it succeeded in stopping it on every day in the 
 week except Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. In Eng- 
 land, with one great exception — the reign of Stephen — we 
 have never had at any time much private war. Traced to 
 its source, private war was due to two causes — first, the great 
 military power of the nobles ; secondly, the absence of 
 superior courts where they could settle their quarrels. In 
 England these difficulties did not exist. As we have seen, 
 the military power of the nobles was kept under due con- 
 trol, and, moreover, the existence of the hundred court, the 
 shire-moot, and the king's court, afforded to every one, from 
 the highest to the lowest, a chance of settling their disputes 
 without recourse to arms ; and, above all, in England the 
 king's peace was proclaimed, and any violation of it brought 
 down the vengeance of the crown. 
 
 Again, on the Continent, the nobles and clergy were for 
 the most part exempt from taxation. This was never the 
 case in England, though the clergy made a vigorous attempt 
 to gain it. Moreover, in England, as a man was a noble 
 because he held an office, the rank did not descend to all 
 his children ; so we have not in England a swarm of starving 
 nobility ; and, on the other hand, there is no bar between 
 the nobility and the rest of the nation, for the children of 
 the nobles are commoners, and any commoner may hope to 
 become a noble. 
 
 William also dealt with the clergy. This order was grow- 
 ing into immense importance, and his legislation with regard 
 
WILLIAM'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE CHURCH. 2J 
 
 to them had lasting results. Before the Conquest there had 
 been no legal difference between the clergy and the laity, 
 the bishop and ealdorman had sat together as presidents of 
 the shire-moot, in which both laity and clergy were tried. 
 William altered this. At his accession the bishops were 
 strongly English, and he was therefore anxious to reduce 
 their power ; and he wanted, moreover, now that the earls 
 were mostly gone, to prevent the new Norman bishops from 
 interfering with his sheriffs in the administration of the 
 counties ; so he removed the bishops from the county court, 
 and gave them a court of their own to try ecclesiastical 
 offenders, a change which at no distant time was attended 
 with very bad results. In other respects he held a tight 
 hold over them, and published four ordinances which formed 
 the basis of the relation between Church and State till the 
 Reformation. They were these. He had had an oppor- 
 tunity of seeing what difficulties had occurred through 
 disputed elections to the papacy, and he determined that 
 England should never be distracted on that score. He, 
 therefore, decreed that no Pope should be acknoiuledged nor 
 Papal legate nor letters be received in England without his 
 leave. Great troubles had been caused by the meeting of 
 ecclesiastical synods, and the enacting of canons contrary to 
 the wishes of sovereigns, so he laid down that no synod should 
 be called or enact anything without his leave. And, lastly, he 
 determined to take out of the papal hands the great weapon 
 of excommunication, so he ordered that without his leave no 
 baron or servant of his should be excommunicated. 
 
 To complete the whole, William determined to know 
 exactly how the land of his kingdom was divided between 
 himself, his laity, and his clergy ; and for that purpose he 
 sent round a commission to every county. First they went 
 to the county court : there they ascertained from the mag- 
 
28 STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE NOBILITY AND CROWN. 
 
 nates the general divisions of the county ; then to the 
 hundred, where they entered into more detail ; and, finally, to 
 each parish, where they learnt from the reeve, six villeins, 
 and the parish priest, the exact condition of the land, who 
 owned it now, and who had owned it in the days of the 
 Confessor ; its condition now, and its condition then in every 
 respect, and in what manner its condition might be improved. 
 The results were embodied in Domesday-book. 
 
 These measures of William were not carried out all at 
 once ; their introduction was gradual, and it must not be 
 supposed that they were popular. By no means. Directly 
 the Normans learnt the conditions under which William 
 expected them to live, some departed and some rebelled. 
 The first rebellion took place in 1074, and it showed exactly 
 at what the Normans were aiming. The conspirators were 
 Ralf Guader of Hereford, Rogery Breteuil, and Waltheof, 
 the son of Earl Siward, though the last had really little to 
 do with the actual outbreak. Their notion was to depose 
 William, and then one of the three was to be king, and the 
 other two earls, — doubtless after the continental fashion. But 
 William put them down. His allies were the clergy and the 
 English, who marched with alacrity against the nobles, whom 
 they had already begun to recognize as their foes. The 
 rebellion was crushed, and punishment followed ; but it was 
 only the first of a series. For one hundred years the struggle 
 between the king and the barons went on : its first outbreak 
 was in 1074, its last in 1174; and the barons were only 
 finally suppressed by the union of the king, the churchmen, 
 the towns and the people against the danger which threatened 
 the foundations of government and society. 
 
 For the result of this struggle we have to thank William 
 the Conqueror. Had he been one jot weaker, our history 
 might have been that of France. He had had to settle the 
 
LASTING INFLUENCE OF THE CONQUEROR. 29 
 
 immediate difficulties of the Conquest, and he had done it 
 well. His measures were of lasting benefit to the country ; 
 but he had hardly had time to develop the more elaborate 
 system of government which was required for so large a state, 
 and it was well for England that in his sons there were 
 found two men of great ability, one of whom held the nobility 
 in check during a most critical time, and the other developed 
 central institutions, which gave a keystone to the old Eng- 
 glish system of local self-government 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ENGLISH CONSTITUTION UNDER THE NORMAN 
 
 KINGS. 
 
 The system of William the Conqueror was carried on by his 
 sons. The policy of these three sovereigns was really con- 
 tinuous; each was affected by the times in which he lived, 
 by his own character, by that of the men with whom he had 
 to deal ; but in the main they pursued the same track with 
 the same object in view, to check the nobles and to centralize 
 the government. For this reason the Norman system was 
 not fully developed till the reign of Henry I., and it required 
 two generations to bring to perfection the system of govern- 
 ment founded on a union between the practice of Normandy 
 and the constitution of England. 
 
 William the Conqueror died at Rouen in 1087. On his 
 death-bed he gave to his son William a letter to Archbishop 
 Lanfranc, recommending him as king. He could do no 
 more than this, for the right of the witan to elect had not 
 yet been impaired. Accordingly a council of prelates and 
 barons was summoned, and to them William was proposed. 
 His election was secured by the influence of Lanfranc, and 
 by the support of his father's old friends, the Beaumonts. 
 On his election, William began a practice which was followed 
 by several of his successors : he granted a charter, or rather 
 made a promise to Lanfranc, that he would in everything 
 
THE BARONS. 31 
 
 observe justice, fairness, and mercy, and that he would 
 defend the Church, and on this promise he was crowned. 
 "William, therefore, held the throne on exactly the same 
 terms as his father — not as a conqueror or successor by right, 
 but solely as an elected monarch who had promised good 
 government in return for his election. 
 
 Like his father, William soon found it necessary to rely on 
 the English; for the barons, under Odo of Bayeux, and 
 Robert, Count of Mortain, rebelled and seized Rochester. But 
 William called together the trusty and valiant Englishmen, 
 promised them good laws, lower taxes, and free hunting, 
 and, declaring that any one who did not follow would be 
 branded with the name of nithing, led them against the 
 barons and put down the rebellion. During the remainder 
 of the reign the barons were chiefly occupied in the disputes 
 for the crown between William and Robert, which had little 
 bearing on the English constitution, until the call to the 
 Crusades happily relieved the country of the more adven- 
 turous of their number. The other important event in the 
 reign was the quarrel between William and Anselm, the suc- 
 cessor of Lanfranc. The quarrel, however, was a purely 
 personal one, for the arrangements of William the Conqueror 
 had settled for the present the relation between Church and 
 State. 
 
 Though no very striking events mark the reign of William 
 Rufus, its thirteen years were of first-rate importance. 
 William, though a thoroughly bad man, was in many ways a 
 good king. It is true that in his time the English were 
 subject to great oppression from the barons ; on the other 
 hand, the barons felt most strongly the hand of the 
 king. Under him they made no progress at all towards the 
 continental idea of feudalism. They were checked on every 
 side, not only by the king's reliance on the English, but by 
 
32 CHARTER OF HENRY I. 
 
 the determined rule which he and his minister Ranulf Flam- 
 bard maintained. The regulations of William the Conqueror 
 were thoroughly enforced; castles were kept in the king's 
 hands, and feudal dues were exacted with a severity unknown 
 on the Continent, a plan which made the king rich, while it 
 kept the barons poor. It was a stern and cruel time, but on 
 the whole the nation was a gainer by the reign. 
 
 It was fortunate that William had no direct heir to succeed 
 him. Another disputed election secured another royal act 
 of submission to the laws of the kingdom. Henry I. was 
 indeed, unanimously elected by the witan which, as the 
 chronicle says, happened to be present; but the existence 
 of his brother Robert forced him to do all he could to con- 
 ciliate his new subjects. Accordingly he began his reign by 
 three popular acts. He shut up Ranulf Flambard in prison ; 
 he married Maud, the daughter of the King of Scotland, and 
 niece of Edgar Atheling ; and he granted a charter. 
 
 This charter gives us a picture of the chief grievances of 
 the different classes, and is a most important contribution to 
 the history of the time. It states : 
 
 I. That Henry was crowned king by the common counsel 
 of the men of the whole realm of England. 
 
 II. That no exactions are to take place between the death 
 of one clergyman and the appointment of his successor. 
 
 III. That the barons are to redeem their lands by a legal 
 and just relief; and that the right of wardship and marriage 
 is not to be harshly used. 
 
 IV. That the barons are to act with equal fairness to then 
 men. 
 
 V. That wills bequeathing personal property may be 
 made ; and that fines are not to be ruinous. 
 
 VI. That the laws of King Edward are to be restored. 
 These provisions then distinctly assert that the king is an 
 
MARRIAGE AND QUARREL WITH ANSELM. 33 
 
 elected monarch. They do away with the great grievance 
 of the Church, the keeping of livings and bishoprics vacant, 
 while the king enjoyed their revenues. They make a first 
 step towards fixing the feudal dues, and securing the right of 
 transmitting personal property by will. The barons are to 
 do to their men as they would the king should do to them ; 
 and, finally, the standard of government is to be the system 
 of Edward the Confessor, i.e. the kingdom was to be ruled 
 according to English, not Norman, ideas. 
 
 By putting Ranulf Flambard in prison Henry attempted 
 to conciliate the barons, who hated men of low birth but 
 quick wit ; and by marrying Maud he not only conciliated 
 the English, but he also hoped to secure for his successors 
 the prestige of being the lineal descendants not only of 
 William the Norman, but also of Cerdic and Cynric. Anselm 
 was then recalled, and in the letter which was sent him, 
 Henry distinctly stated his position, for he called himself, 
 " Ego nutu dei, a cleris et a populo anglise electus." 
 
 On Anselm's return, Henry and he quarrelled on the sub- 
 ject of investitures. The question involved the relation of 
 the crown to the clergy. It was well worth a struggle, because 
 not only did the clergy hold a great part of the best culti- 
 vated land in England, but also, on the Continent, they 
 were making a hard struggle to become independent of lay 
 government altogether, by getting the elections of their 
 bishops into their own hands, and by refusing to do homage 
 for their estates. Abroad it cost much bloodshed, but in 
 England it was peaceably settled by the mutual good sense 
 of Henry and Anselm. The result was a compromise. 
 Hitherto bishops had been elected by the witan, or, as 
 it was called after the Conquest, the King's Court, and the 
 king had presented them with a ring and crozier. This the 
 Church resented, because it gave the idea that it was the 
 
34 DEFEAT OF ROBERT. 
 
 king's gift, and not the consecration, which made the bishop. 
 The king, therefore, gave up this empty ceremony on the 
 important concession, on the part of Anselm, that no one 
 who had been elected should be refused consecration on the 
 ground that he had done homage for his land to the king, 
 — precisely what Henry wanted to secure. 
 
 Like William Rufus, Henry had soon to deal with a 
 quarrel with the nobles. At their head was Robert of Belesme, 
 powerful alike in England and in Normandy ; but Henry, 
 like William, appealed to the English ; Robert was driven 
 into exile, and all England rejoiced, because as they said, 
 " Henry had now become a free king." 
 
 A few years later Henry vanquished his brother Robert 
 on the field of Tenchebrai and put him in prison, and from 
 that time forward was able to give his attention to the ad- 
 ministration of the kingdom, and to securing the throne for 
 his successor. The last is a point of importance, for Henry 
 made a distinct attempt to get his heir recognized before his 
 own death. It was an imitation of the French plan/ by which 
 the eldest son of the king was crowned before the death of 
 his father, a plan which avoided all chance of an interregnum, 
 and enabled each king to step at once into the position 
 which his father had won, and as for many generations the 
 French kings always had a son of full age to succeed them, 
 a great deal of the steady growth in power of those 
 monarchs may be traced to the practice. 
 
 It is now time to turn to the administration of government. 
 William the Conqueror had had plenty to do in organizing 
 his new kingdom ; William Rufus was a soldier and not a 
 statesman ; but Henry I. was a born administrator, and it is 
 under him that the Norman ideal reached perfection, and it 
 is then that we may best examine the system and compare 
 it with that which existed before the Conquest, 
 
POWER OF THE KING. 35 
 
 At the head of the State stood the king. Roughly speak- 
 ing the king was absolute, for there was no power which 
 could check him, and practically he could do pretty much 
 what he liked so long as he did not drive his subjects to 
 successful rebellion. Nothing can be more striking than the 
 difference between the position of Henry I. and that of 
 Edward the Confessor ; and this was partly due to his 
 personal character, but mainly to the changes introduced by 
 William the Conqueror. It may be traced in the first place 
 to the abolition of the great earldoms, and secondly to the 
 strength which the king derived from the English form of 
 feudalism. In theory the position of the king was exactly 
 the same as it had been before the Conquest, in practice he 
 had added to it the position of supreme feudal landowner. 
 In title, however, the king is still king of the English, and 
 he is so styled in all the documents of the time, just as 
 his English predecessors had been before him. This title 
 Henry had by election, but his marriage secured for his 
 successor a real descent from the old Saxon line. His 
 feudal position gave him a material advantage over the old 
 English kings ; he grew wealthy on the fines and dues of the 
 great lords ; he could compel them to follow him in war ; 
 while by keeping the fortresses in his own hands he pre- 
 vented their military strength from being used against him- 
 self. Under him, too, the witan had little power. It met 
 though it could not control ; it exacted promises, but it 
 could not secure their fulfilment The king, indeed, com- 
 bined in his own person the strength of both systems ; he 
 had all the prerogatives of the old English kings, he was also 
 supreme landowner and feudal lord. There was no consti- 
 tutional power which could control him, and he was there- 
 fore despotic, and but for two circumstances he might have 
 permanently changed the character of the English monarchy. 
 
36 THE CHIEF MINISTERS. 
 
 But by the lucky chance that the title of each of the Norman 
 kings rested on the election of the witan, and the fact that 
 it was necessary to play off the English against the Normans, 
 the forms of liberty were preserved, and it was only needful 
 to breathe life into the dry bones to restore again the con- 
 stitutional freedom which had been enjoyed before the 
 Conquest. 
 
 Round the king were grouped a body of officials. As 
 local government had been the strong point of the English, 
 so central government was that of the Normans, and, 
 therefore, we find that the king is surrounded by a number 
 of officers, whose titles are almost unknown before the 
 Conquest, but who now assist the king in the performance 
 of his duties, and who were in time to become the real 
 executive government. At their head stand the great 
 officers who are common to all feudal courts — the High 
 Steward, the Constable or Marshal, the Chamberlain, and 
 the Cupbearer. These offices conveyed great dignity, and 
 were usually held by great noblemen, who contrived to 
 make them hereditary in their families ; but no sooner did 
 an office become hereditary than its importance ceased, for 
 the English kings, while they made their crown hereditary, 
 rejected the idea of choosing their ministers by the same 
 rule. The real business was at once entrusted to some 
 subordinate, while the older office became a mere title, 
 connected only with the performance of some empty cere- 
 mony on occasions of state. 
 
 Of these subordinates the most important were the 
 Justiciar, the Chancellor, and the Treasurer, whose lineal 
 descendants are the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, and the First Lord of the Treasury. In Norman 
 times the most important was the Justiciar. 
 
 The office of Justiciar was called into existence by the 
 
THE JUSTICIAR. 2)7 
 
 needs of the times. The first office which at all corre- 
 sponded to that of the Norman justiciary was filled by Earl 
 Godwin. When Canute had to visit Denmark, he left 
 Godwin in charge of England; when William the Con- 
 queror visited Normandy, he left England under the care 
 of Odo of Bayeux and William Fitz-Osbern, to whom were 
 given the titles of Chief Justices. Godwin's office was 
 merely temporary, but the Norman kings spent a great deal 
 of time on the Continent, and so it was necessary to have 
 some officer to whom the chief power could be trusted in 
 their absence. William the Conqueror never felt strong 
 enough to give this power into the hands of one man, but 
 always divided it among two or three people who would act 
 as checks upon one another. William Rufus, however, was 
 able to appoint a single person, and this man was called the 
 Chief Justice. The centralizing tendency of the Normans 
 threw a great mass of business into the king's hands, so it 
 was found useful even, when the king was in England, to 
 have an officer who could represent him ; so under William 
 Rufus the office became permanent, and its occupant under- 
 took the general superintendence of the judicial and 
 financial affairs of the whole kingdom. It was far too high 
 a post to be held by a powerful noble, nor was a baron 
 likely to have the necessary administrative skill ; so insig- 
 nificant people were chosen, whose ability made them the 
 better officers, while their weakness made them the more 
 trusty servants. Almost invariably, too, a churchman, &s 
 better educated, and also as unable to found a legitimate 
 family, was chosen. Such men were Ranulf Flambard, 
 under Rufus, and Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, under Henry 
 I., and they may be compared to their contemporary, the 
 great minister of Louis VI. of France, Suger, Abbot of St. 
 Denis. Such men were naturally hated by the nobles, who 
 
38 7//E CHANCELLOR AND TREASURER. 
 
 5aw in them the greatest obstacles to their own power, and 
 who attacked them with the usual taunt of low birth, which 
 simply expressed the fact that high birth can rarely contend 
 on equal terms with talent. Next to the Chief Justice stood 
 the Chancellor. His duty was to keep the king's seal, and 
 as Edward the Confessor was the first king who had a seal, 
 he was the first to keep a chancellor. He acted as first 
 of the king's secretaries ; did what writing had to be done ; 
 and, as the seal was applied to grants and answers to 
 requests, the Chancellor naturally became the man to ex- 
 amine into these matters, so that his office steadily grew 
 in importance with the growth of the king's power; but 
 under the Norman kings his office ranked decidedly below 
 that of the Chief Justice. The Chancellor was usually a 
 clergyman, and often a bishop. 
 
 Then came the Treasurer. His duty was to look after 
 the king's revenue. The treasure was kept at Winchester, 
 the old capital of the West Saxons, and there the Treasurer 
 usually lived. He received all money due to the king, 
 inspected accounts, and acted as a sort of chancellor of the 
 exchequer, though the king did his spending for himself. 
 
 These three officials shared between them the hatred of 
 the barons (perhaps the Chancellor was the least unpopular 
 of the three), they had to trust to the protection of the king, 
 and, like Ranulf Flambard, ran the risk of being sacrificed 
 to popular fury if the storm ran dangerously high. 
 
 The officers of the king's court formed a regular body. 
 They sat in council, with the king, or in his absence the 
 Justiciar, as chairman, and transacted all the business that, 
 in theory, belonged to the king. When they were sitting 
 in this way they were called the king's court or Curia Regis. 
 It is not quite clear what was their theoretical position. 
 Either they were merely the king's officers assembled to 
 
THE CURIA REGIS. 39 
 
 give advice, or they were a permanent committee, to use 
 a modern term, of the national assembly in which they were 
 merged when it assembled in full force. Their practical 
 powers, however, were plain enough. When they were 
 sitting to decide questions which arose out of the revenue, 
 they were called the Court of Exchequer, either, we are 
 facetiously told, because the table round which they sat 
 was marked like a chess-board, or because the contest 
 between the treasurer, who received, and the sheriff, who 
 collected the taxes, was suggestive of a game of chess. At 
 this time the members who sat, the Justiciar, the Chancellor, 
 the Treasurer, the Constable, the Chamberlain, and the 
 King's Steward, and others nominated by the king, were 
 called barons of the exchequer, a title which has come 
 down to the present day. At other times the Curia dealt 
 with those matters which came under the king's cognizance, 
 (i) It was a place of final resort where appeals from the 
 shire-moot were tried ; (2) it was a place of primary resort 
 where quarrels between tenants-in-chief, that is, persons of 
 consequence who held their land directly from the crown, were 
 settled ; (3) it had power in some instances to call up cases 
 from the lower courts and try them in the first instance; 
 (4) it sometimes exercised criminal jurisdiction ; (5) Henry 
 I. sent down some of its members to sit in the shire-moot. 
 In fact it was a court of all work, but we can recognize in 
 its powers the functions which are now distributed among 
 all the divisions of the present High Court of Justice. 
 
 The Curia Regis followed the king. The sovereign was 
 always moving about from place to place. It was the only 
 way in which justice could be brought to the doors of the 
 subjects, or the king be informed of what was going on, 
 and he took his court with him; but on three occasions 
 each year he held a formal court, or, as the English called 
 
40 THE MAGNUM CONCILIUM. 
 
 it, wore his crown, " at Easter at Winchester, at Pentecost 
 at Westminster, at midwinter at Gloucester, and there came 
 unto him the rich men over all England, archbishops and 
 bishops, abbots and earls, thegns and knights." 
 
 This was the national assembly, the witenagemot of the 
 old English kings, only in a Norman dress. By the Normans 
 it was called the magnum concilium, or great council ; but 
 the Saxon chronicle still spoke of it as the witan, even in 
 the reign of Stephen. Its members were the same. The 
 archbishops, bishops, and abbots had sat in the witan since 
 the English kingdom had become Christian ; the earls of 
 the Norman kings had taken the place of the ealdormen of 
 the old days ; the knights were the king's thanes. It was, 
 however, a much more numerous body. The number of 
 abbeys was steadily increasing. The knights, who became 
 gradually identified with the tenants-in-chief, were very 
 numerous, and on some occasions the king even summoned 
 the whole body of landowners to attend, so that the council 
 of Salisbury, held by William the Conqueror after the com- 
 pilation of Domesday-book, which mustered 60,000 warriors, 
 resembled a great review rather than a deliberative council. 
 
 Nor at the best of times did their deliberations amount 
 to much. The assembly had ceased to be a check on the 
 king. The churchmen were, to all practical purposes, 
 nominated by him, and had, to a great extent, the same 
 interests. The earls, who became afterwards such a powerful 
 check, were now very few in number. William the Conqueror 
 only created three, William Rums three, Henry I. two; 
 while the knights or barons were not individually very 
 strong, nor was their attendance by any means regular, or 
 even probably expected. Still it was a very great point that 
 the form should be preserved. In theory no power was 
 lost. But though the witan still elected the king, taxes 
 
LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 4 1 
 
 were probably collected without more than a mere nominal 
 assent, and the king merely informs his bishops and barons 
 of his legislative enactments. The only effectual resistance 
 comes from the Church, and Anselm must receive credit 
 for having been the man to bear aloft the banner of con- 
 stitutional liberty in these dangerous times. 
 
 In local government little change followed the Conquest. 
 In spite of the efforts of the feudal landowners, the courts 
 of the shire and hundred were preserved. The nation still 
 assembled for battle in the fyrd. The freeholders were still 
 bound together in the tithing or the frank pledge to preserve 
 order and act as bailsmen for each other. The great 
 landowners were still responsible for their own men. 
 Though England was passing through a revolution, few 
 signs of it appear in the letter of the constitution. It is 
 at the centre, not at the extremities, t hnt ^nnge_jsjnost 
 active. . The system of Henry was an improvement on 
 anything that had existed under the old English kings ; it 
 had to deal with a far more difficult time, and that it was 
 practically successful is proved by the facts that Henry was 
 called the Lion of Justice; and that under Stephen men 
 called, not for the laws of Edward the Confessor, but for 
 the laws of Henry I. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 REFORMS OF HENRY II. 
 
 Nothing could have shown the practical wisdom of the 
 course adopted by William the Conqueror and his sons 
 better than the reign of Stephen. In every respect the 
 contrast was complete : a weak king in the place of a strong 
 one ; a disordered curia instead of a well-organized civil 
 service ; the well-curbed barons of Henry I. masters of the 
 situation ; the local courts neglected instead of encouraged ; 
 the people subject to every kind of injustice and extortion. 
 It was a time which might well be described by the chron- 
 icler as one " when every man did what was wrong in his 
 own eyes." 
 
 At Henry's death all his plans came to nothing. Though 
 he had carefully secured the homage of his subjects for his 
 daughter Matilda, the widow of the emperor, Henry V., 
 and now the wife of Geoffrey of Anjou, she was unable to 
 carry out his scheme. For many reasons she was unpopular. 
 To submit to the reign of a distaff was utterly distasteful to 
 the warriors of the time ; as the wife of Geoffrey, the hated 
 Angevin, she was regarded with the utmost suspicion by the 
 Normans ; and above all, she represented the steady and 
 irksome rule of the late king. Against these her one chance 
 of popularity with the native English, her descent from the 
 
CHARACTER OF STEPHEN. 43 
 
 ancient line, which, however, she shared with Stephen, if it 
 did not make her more obnoxious to the Normans, at any 
 rate was unable to secure her any advantage. On the other 
 hand, in rejecting her the barons saw the chance of getting 
 a king after their own heart. 
 
 Stephen of Blois, count of Mortain, grandson of William 
 the Conqueror, united in himself some of the best elements 
 of the feudal knight. Son of one of the most distinguished 
 of the leaders of the first Crusade, he was himself a real 
 soldier. Handsome in person, pleasing in address, generous 
 to a fault, he won the hearts of all who came near him. 
 Unhappily in his very virtues lay the seeds of his misfor- 
 tunes. The Norman kings had not been successful monarchs 
 because they were good warriors, though few could rival 
 them in the field, but because they were good administrators 
 and practical men of business. Even William Rufus had 
 had a keen eye to his own profit, and Henry I., fond of 
 pleasure though he was, delighted in the work of routine. 
 But this was where Stephen was utterly wanting ; he could 
 neither appreciate the conditions to which he owed his 
 throne, nor could he take the right steps to preserve it ; he 
 could only play the warrior, and he threw away in the 
 cabinet the successes which he won upon the field. 
 
 His reign was a series of mistakes. His predecessor had 
 secured his power by keeping on good terms with the 
 Church, by supporting his officials, particularly his chief 
 Justiciar, Roger of Salisbury and his relations, and by 
 keeping a tight hand over the unruly barons. Of all these 
 points Stephen was neglectful. He tried to keep the barons 
 in a good temper by grants of titles and of portions from 
 the crown lands ; but no sooner were his means of giving 
 exhausted than they turned against him, built castles on 
 their own estates, harried the neighbouring lands, and 
 
44 CIVIL WARS. 
 
 practically set up as independent princes after the type of 
 the robber knights of Germany. Instead of supporting his 
 officials, he attacked them, and threw Roger and his family 
 into prison, an act which alienated the clergy, though his 
 own brother Henry was Bishop of Winchester, and com- 
 pletely neutralized the grant of a charter which he had 
 made to them on his accession. 
 
 These mistakes were so serious that, in spite of a victory 
 at Northallerton, gained by his lieutenants over David, 
 King of Scotland, the most active of Matilda's supporters, 
 Stephen's power grew weak, and Matilda herself was en- 
 couraged to come to England under the care of her half- 
 brother, Robert of Gloucester. Civil war followed, and 
 England was plunged into terrible disorder. Sometimes the 
 empress triumphed, sometimes Stephen; but the hearts of 
 neither party were in the work, the nobles were fighting each 
 for his own hand, and misery of every kind filled the land 
 without the cause of either prevailing. At length hope 
 dawned in the person of young Henry, Matilda's son. The 
 death of Stephen's eldest son Eustace gave an opening for 
 compromise ; and finally, though Stephen had other children 
 living, Henry was recognized as his heir, and on his death 
 succeeded unopposed to the throne. 
 
 The reign of Stephen taught England what was meant by 
 feudalism unrestrained by a strong central power, and the 
 lesson was taken to heart. All the law abiding classes, the 
 clergy, the officials, the townspeople and the English, were 
 determined there should be no repetition of the scene, and 
 were resolute to back up young Henry in the measures he 
 might think necessary for the restoration of law and order, 
 and an excellent champion they had. 
 
 Henry II. well deserves to stand with William the Con- 
 queror and Edward L, as the three kings who more than all 
 
CHARACTER OF HENRY II. 45 
 
 the rest impressed their mark upon the form of the English 
 constitution. Both by nature and education, he was well 
 fitted for the task. 
 
 The new king was twenty-one years of age, and a model 
 of energy both in mind and body. In person, though small 
 and bow-legged, he was well knit, active, and thoroughly 
 sound. His short, curly hair forbad any notion of luxury, 
 and his sharp, piercing eye, which shot fire in his anger, 
 impressed all with his powers of observation and intel- 
 ligence. He was a great judge of character, and delighted 
 to match himself in argument with the sharpest intellects of 
 the day ; and it was said that " he was so subtle in his mind 
 that he would confound the Apostolic religion itself." Of 
 walking, riding, and talking, he was never tired. He was 
 rarely more than a day or two in the same place, and visited 
 every portion of his vast dominions time after time. In 
 his days the king's eye was everywhere, and when modern 
 facilities for communication did not exist, activity and 
 energy were two of the greatest qualifications of a good 
 ruler. To these natural advantages Henry added an ex- 
 cellent training. He had been born into the midst of great 
 events — English and Norman by his mother, an Angevin by 
 his father, educated in Scotland, ruler by inheritance or 
 by marriage of a larger share of modern France than the 
 king of the French himself, he was wedded to no country 
 nor to the prejudices of any one race; and was therefore 
 not likely to sacrifice the interests of the empire to those of 
 a particular part. Nor was he deficient in learning ; for he 
 had been well trained according to the ideas of the time, 
 and in ecclesiastical law especially he might have rivalled 
 his great descendant, Henry VIII. , to whom in more than 
 one respect he had a strong resemblance. 
 
 In England his policy was to govern as an English king, 
 
46 SUPPRESSION OF DISORDER. 
 
 to suppress the feudal barons, and to restore and develop 
 the administrative arrangements of his grandfather, Henry I. 
 To cany out his plans Henry had an excellent chance ; the 
 orderly classes, wearied with the horrors of the last reign, 
 were prepared to back up at all costs any king who would 
 keep order, and in spite of casual differences, we find 
 throughout the reign that the clergy, the officials, the towns, 
 and the lower classes steadily supported the king in his 
 struggle against the baronage. Taking advantage of this 
 feeling, Henry at once set to work to clear away the abuses 
 that had grown up under Stephen. He strengthened the 
 crown by resuming the royal estates with which both Stephen 
 and Matilda had bribed their adherents ; he demolished the 
 adulterine castles which the nobles had set up in defiance of 
 the law ; he put a stop to illegal coining and purified the 
 coinage; and, finally, he again put the administration of the 
 exchequer into the hands of the family of Roger of Salisbury. 
 These measures occupied him during the first few years 
 of his reign, and he then found himself drawn into a struggle 
 with the Church, the history of which has done much to 
 obscure the other important events of the reign. During 
 these years Henry's chief adviser was his chancellor, Thomas 
 a Becket. Becket was a man of great ability, an ecclesiastic, 
 and it seemed to Henry that he was just the man to help 
 him in carrying out a reform of the clergy. There were 
 many reasons why such a reform was needful. Since the 
 Conquest the clergy had rapidly increased, both in numbers 
 and influence, and, though Henry I. had secured the hold 
 of the crown over both the election of bishops and the 
 property of the Church, there were other matters in which 
 the Church was too independent. One of these was in 
 regard to appeals from the ecclesiastical courts of the king- 
 dom to Rome ; another was the trial of clerks accused of 
 
THE CLERICAL COURTS. 47 
 
 crime. Before the Conquest, the ecclesiastical courts of the 
 country had been insignificant, because the bishop had 
 always sat with the ealdorman as joint chairmen of the 
 shire-moot, and had taken cases in which the clergy were 
 engaged in the ordinary course of business ; but William 
 the Conqueror's order, by which he removed the bishops 
 from the shire-moots, had raised into prominence the bishop's 
 court, and had introduced a system of ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
 tion working side by side with the ordinary courts of the 
 land. This had fatal effects ; clerks claimed to have their 
 cases tried before the bishop, and as the Pope was the head 
 of the Church, appeals from the decisions of the ecclesi- 
 astical courts went to him and not to the king, so that there 
 seemed a real chance that the clergy would slip by degrees 
 completely out of the king's jurisdiction. Nor was it a 
 small matter in the interests of law and order that the clergy 
 should be tried in their own courts. " Ecclesiastic" at that 
 time was a very wide term, and included not only the 
 bishops, priests, and deacons, the regularly ordained ministers 
 of the Church, but a host of monks and acolytes and 
 hangers-on of every description, whose only claim to eccle- 
 siastical sanctity was that they wore the tonsure. Over 
 these men the courts of the Church had little control, for 
 they could not punish with death, but only with deprivation 
 of orders, whipping, or confinement in a monastery, which 
 were not likely to prove effectual deterrents. Hence the 
 evil grew, because bad men went into the Church as a means 
 to secure themselves from the results of their own misdeeds, 
 and when murder was a not unfrequent crime among the 
 clergy, it was needful that the system which made it possible 
 should be changed. No sooner, therefore, had a vacancy 
 occurred in the Archbishopric of Canterbury, than Henry 
 got his chancellor elected and proceeded to deal with the 
 
48 CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON. 
 
 question. As far as the punishment of clerks accused of 
 crime was concerned, there could be no serious question 
 that something ought to be done ; but Henry unfortunately 
 tried to reform the whole ecclesiastical system at once, and 
 so by attempting too much, raised against himself the feel- 
 ing which was growing among what may be called the high 
 church party, that the Church was not a mere human insti- 
 tution to be dealt with as the king and council chose, and 
 of this feeling Becket took full advantage to resist the king's 
 proposals. These were brought forward by Henry at the 
 Council of Clarendon. They professed to be merely a return 
 to the old customs of the realm, but as a matter of fact, 
 they included a good deal that was new. The chief pro- 
 visions were these, and they practically amounted to a com- 
 plete code for the regulation of the connection between 
 Church and State. 
 
 I. Disputes about advowsons and presentations are to be 
 tried by the king's courts. 
 
 II. Criminous clerks are to be tried by the king's courts, 
 unless the justice sends the case to the ecclesiastical courts, 
 and clerks thus convicted are to be punished as laymen. 
 
 III. No clergyman is to quit the realm without the con- 
 sent of the king. 
 
 IV. Appeals from ecclesiastical courts are to go to the 
 king, and unless he consents that they shall go further, are to 
 be terminated, by his order, in the court of the archbishop. 
 
 V. No tenant-in-chief or minister of the king is to be 
 excommunicated without the consent of the king. 
 
 VI. Clergymen are to hold their lands as tenants-in- 
 chief, and to perform all duties, and attend the king's court 
 with the other tenants-in-chief. 
 
 VII. Elections of archbishops, bishops, and abbots, are 
 to take place by order of the king in the king's chapel, and 
 
RESISTANCE OF BECKET. 49 
 
 the man elected is to do homage for his lands before he is 
 consecrated. 
 
 VIII. Sons of villeins are not to be consecrated without 
 the consent of their lords. 
 
 These regulations re-enacted the most important arrange- 
 ments of William the Conqueror and Henry L, and they 
 also dealt with the difficulty caused both in civil and 
 criminal cases by the separation made between the national 
 and ecclesiastical courts. Their spirit, however, was to 
 make the Church subordinate to the State, and as such they 
 were attacked by Becket, backed by all the force of the 
 Papacy. Henry insisted, and Becket left the country ; but 
 the absolute necessity for Henry's legislation was shown by 
 the complaints of the ecclesiastical chronicler who grumbled, 
 " then was seen the mournful spectacle of priests and 
 deacons who had committed murder, manslaughter, theft, 
 robbery, and other crimes, carried in carts before the king's 
 commissioners and punished just as if they had been ordi- 
 nary men." Had Henry succeeded in carrying out his 
 plan, the history of the relation between Church and State 
 in England might have been different, but he failed ; the 
 struggle was mixed up with other matters, and the murder 
 of Becket aroused so much ill feeling, that Henry had to 
 give way and allow the trials of clerks to take place in the 
 ecclesiastical courts, and not to interfere with appeals to 
 Rome. John's submission to the Pope subordinated for a 
 time the state to the Church, his granting freedom of elec- 
 tion gave the clergy, nominally at any rate, the right to 
 appoint their own officers ; under Henry III. the payment 
 of annates was secured by the Pope, and the constant 
 struggle to prevent interference on the part of the Pope 
 with the independence of the Church and the exercise 
 of preierment, which are marked by the series of statutes 
 
 E 
 
50 ASSIZE OF CLARENDON. 
 
 of praemunire and provisors, lasted until the Reformation 
 itself. 
 
 In his struggle against the nobility Henry was more suc- 
 cessful. His first effort was to reorganize the administration 
 of justice. It was noticed that in the old English institutions 
 the local courts were strong, while the central administration 
 was weak, while under the Normans the case was reversed. 
 Henry's great aim was to unite the two systems. The first 
 step in this direction had been made in 1131 by Henry I., 
 who had sent a commission or deputation of judges from 
 the king's court to sit in the shire-moots. This plan Henry 
 determined to revive and make permanent, so at a great 
 meeting at Clarendon, in n 66, he brought forward his new 
 scheme, embodied in what was called an assize. By this it 
 was arranged in the first place that two justices in itinere, or 
 justices-in-eyre, i.e. on their travels, should go through the 
 country and sit as chairmen of the shire-moots, something as 
 the ealdorman and bishop had formerly done, while their 
 decisions were to be carried out as before, by the sheriff. In 
 1 1 68 four justices were sent, and England was divided into 
 six regular circuits, which existed unchanged till recent times. 
 
 At the same time the method of administering justice was 
 improved. In former times criminals had been brought 
 before the court by men who represented the authority of 
 the shire; but Henry's assize arranged that four knights 
 representing the shire, with twelve men representing each 
 hundred, and four representing each township, should act as 
 a jury who should bring before the justices the notorious 
 malefactors from each township of each hundred in turn, 
 and that these should then be sent to the ordeal. If con- 
 demned, they were punished, but if not, it was thought that 
 characters so suspicious had better be out of the way, and 
 they were ordered to leave the country. This was the origin 
 
THE JURY SYSTEM. 51 
 
 ! 
 
 of the grand jury who present criminals to the judge as likely 
 to be guilty, and the actual guilt is determined by the ordeal 
 or judgment of God, from which there is no appeal. 
 
 Out of this rose a new institution. In 12 15 the Lateran 
 Council did away with the ordeal, and a substitute had to be 
 found. This was the little or petty jury, which was originally 
 composed of twelve witnesses who knew the facts ; but by 
 degrees, as it was found impossible always to get the first 
 twelve to agree, others were added, till twelve were agreed 
 one way or the other, and in time a distinction was made 
 between those who gave the verdict and those who gave 
 evidence, and the jury and the witnesses for the prosecution 
 took their present form. It was only at a much later date 
 that the accused was allowed to call witnesses for the defence. 
 
 The civil jury also arose in Henry II.'s reign. Before 
 the Conquest civil suits were decided by the whole body of 
 duly qualified freeholders who attended the court ; but the 
 Normans introduced the plan of trial by battle. This was 
 much disliked by the English and the townspeople, and one 
 of the first objects of the towns was to get rid of it. Henry, 
 however, by the grand assize, made it optional whether the 
 parties would have the case decided by battle or by a jury 
 of twelve men from the neighbourhood, who were supposed \ 
 to know the facts ; and this is the origin of the civil jury, ! ( 
 though trial by battle was not legally abolished till 18 19. 
 
 When Henry had carried out these reforms, he had prac- 
 tically put the administration of justice into the form from 
 which the present system has developed, and he had firmly 
 united the central with the local courts. In the central 
 courts, too, he introduced a change. Up to this time the 
 only committee of the king's court was the exchequer ; but 
 in 1 1 78 Henry formed a new committee, called the Court 
 of King's Bench, from which there was an appeal to the 
 
52 DEPRESSION OF THE BARONS. 
 
 king's court. This was the first of a series which split off 
 at later times — the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of 
 Chancery, the Court of Admiralty, all of which by degrees 
 became separated from the Curia Regis, which still, how- 
 ever, as the Privy Council, retained in theory all its old 
 functions, and they became more and more distinct, till in 
 our own time they have been united together to form the 
 High Court of Justice. 
 
 We have now reviewed Henry's dealings with the Church 
 and the law ; we must next see how he treated the barons. 
 The power of the great feudatories had been seriously cur- 
 tailed by the action of William the Conqueror ; they were 
 made still weaker by Henry II. It had been a great object 
 of the barons to secure for themselves the chief influence at 
 the local courts ; and while they preserved the same forms 
 as the ordinary courts, they had practically succeeded in 
 many instances in turning the hundred courts and town- 
 moots, which existed on their estates into feudal courts, of 
 their own. This practice Henry stopped by ordering his 
 justices-in-eyre to go into all liberties and franchises, and 
 allow no privileges to come between them and the criminals. 
 So from this time forward all parts of the kingdom were 
 thoroughly under the king's authority. 
 
 In another respect the barons suffered a still greater blow. 
 Under the Norman kings there were two military systems 
 side by side — the feudal array and the old English militia 
 or fyrd. William and his sons had employed first one and 
 then the other. William Rufus, on one occasion, summoned 
 the fyrd to join him in Normandy, but contented himself 
 by having their journey money collected from them on their 
 arrival at the coast, and sending them home penniless ; on 
 another, the fyrd had helped to win the battle of North- 
 allerton against the Scots, and it had done good service 
 
LAST REVOLT OF THE BARONS. S3 
 
 against the unruly barons. Henry II., however, introduced 
 a new plan. In 1159 he called upon the barons, instead of 
 following him to France, to pay, in commutation of their 
 feudal service, a sum called scutage or shield money, and 
 afterwards this became the regular practice. This plan 
 weakened the barons in two ways. It made them poor, 
 while it made the king rich ; and it allowed the feudal 
 system to fall into decay, while the king was able to hire 
 mercenaries on whom he could depend. 
 
 These reforms were naturally utterly distasteful to the 
 barons, and in 11 73 and 11 74, just one hundred years after 
 their first rising against William the Conqueror, the barons 
 joined in league with the kings of France and Scotland, the 
 Count of Flanders, and Henry's sons, and did their best to 
 overthrow Henry. Then it was that the king reaped the 
 benefit of his good government, for the great mass of the 
 nation, the Church (in spite of the momentary alienation 
 caused by the difficulties with Becket), the court officials, 
 the towns, and the English, threw themselves on Henry's 
 side, and helped him to put down the last effort of the 
 barons. Rapid vengeance followed. It was not enough to 
 deprive the barons of their military power, it must be 
 placed in loyal hands; and so in 1 181, by the Assize of 
 Arms, the old English militia was thoroughly revived and 
 reorganized, its weapons were settled, it was further regulated 
 by the Statute of Winchester in the time of Edward I., and 
 it became the main instrument of home defence till the rise 
 of the standing army. 
 
 It was not only by new enactments that Henry strength- 
 ened the constitution of the country. His practice did 
 much to develop its institutions. He regularly summoned 
 the Magnum Concilium or great council, the assembly which 
 included archbishops, bishops, and abbots, earls, barons 
 
54 SUCCESS OF HENRY 11. 
 
 and tenants-in-chief, and which was in the main a fair repre- 
 sentation of the nation at large. For as yet the towns were 
 not of much consequence, though they were rapidly becom- 
 ing so; and the firm rule of Henry II., the intercourse 
 with the Continent which followed his accession, were 
 rapidly bringing into importance the commercial classes, 
 whose earliest efforts at freedom brought with them the 
 need for a distinct representation. 
 
 Henry's reign, then, was on the whole a success. It is 
 true that his ecclesiastical legislation was a failure, and that 
 he probably left the Church more independent than he 
 found it ; on the other hand, his measures in respect of the 
 law courts and of the army were thoroughly successful. He 
 had reduced to a system and made legal the administration 
 of Henry I. He had profited by the memory of Stephen's 
 reign to thoroughly beat down the power of the old Con- 
 quest barons, as against the king and the nation. Under 
 him good order and security were obtained for peaceful 
 citizens, and he left the nation in a position to win from 
 his sons those rruarantees for individual freedom which had 
 been somewhat lost sight of in the struggle against baronial 
 lawlessness. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GREAT CHARTER AND THE RISE OF 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The accession of Richard I. marks an important moment 
 in the history of English government. Since the Conquest 
 our sympathy has been all for 'the king ; we have watched 
 him struggling against the lawless nobles, and every gain he 
 has made in power we have felt to be so much won in the 
 cause of good government. We are now coming to a 
 period when our sympathies will be the other way, for we 
 are going to examine a contest between the king and the 
 nation which has determined the form of the English con- 
 stitution. Hitherto the power of the king has been steadily 
 growing. Henry II. was in all essential points a despot. 
 The barons were the only people who had a chance of 
 controlling him, and their power was balanced by the 
 alliance of the Church and people with the king. Such an 
 alliance as this, however, could not last for long. Had 
 Henry II. been succeeded by kings as wise, as able, and as 
 well-intentioned as himself, the liberties of the subject 
 might have become mere forms, and England might have 
 become another France ; but happily for us, Richard I. and 
 John were men of a very different type, and their rule dis- 
 solved the alliance between the Church, the king and the 
 people, and arrayed nobles, clergy, and commons against 
 the overweening power of the monarchy. 
 
56 GROWTH OF THE TOWNS. 
 
 It was during the reign of Richard that the seeds of this 
 new alliance were sown. In some respects Richard was 
 not unlike Stephen. He was handsome and vigorous, able 
 in war, careless in administration, and his interests lay so 
 much more in France and in Palestine, than in England, that 
 he willingly trusted the affairs of the island to the hands of 
 subordinate ministers. But this had in itself an excellent 
 effect, for Henry II. had left behind him a set of officials 
 and financiers who were well able to manage the kingdom 
 so long as they had the royal support ; and the ten years of 
 Richard's reign were most valuable, as a time when the 
 system of Henry II. could get, as it were, set, and implant 
 itself firmly in the life of the country. 
 
 Other changes appeared. Henry II. had raised up a 
 new: class of nobility, he had ennobled many of his officials, 
 and had given them land in the north of England, and these 
 northern barons soon played a most important part. They 
 acted as a check on the old Conquest barons, by whom 
 they were disliked and despised; and their wealth and 
 power enabled them to act at times as arbiters of the fate 
 of the country. The towns, too, grew in importance, and\ 
 acquired a legal standing. For long after the Conquest most 
 of the towns were not legally distinguished from ordinary 
 villages, they still had their reeve, their taxes were col- 
 lected by the sheriff, and they were forced to attend the 
 hundred and county courts. So long as this was the case 
 they could have no great constitutional power ; but as they 
 increased in wealth their first investment was to buy from 
 the king municipal rights. The rights they aimed at getting, 
 were, for the most part, three in number. \ First, to have a 
 merchant^guild in which the chief traders of the town were 
 incorporated £- secondly, to be allowed to pay their taxes 
 direct to the king, and so to avoid the exactions of the 
 
RICHARD'S MINISTERS. 57 
 
 sheriff; ^third, to be excused attendance at the hundred and 
 county courts, and to have all suits, in which a townsman 
 was engaged, tried in their town court. These rights were 
 embodied in a charter, by which the town was incorporated 
 under a regular government, at the head of which was the 
 old town reeve or port reeve, who, after the accession of 
 Richard, often took the name of m ayor , a title borrowed 
 from the corporate towns of the Continent. Thesej&axteis - 
 were frequently granted by the Norman kings and Henry II., 
 but they were granted in profusion by Richard, whom neces- 
 sity drove to use every means of getting money. These 
 corporate towns formed a new element. They stood apart 
 from the rest of the country, for they had nothing to do 
 with the sheriff, had their own courts, and paid their taxes 
 directly to the king \ and it was this which gave them a dis- 
 tinct political standing, which was soon to receive a consti- 
 tutional recognition. 
 
 While Richard was away, the government was carried on 
 by his ministers. The first of these was William Long- 
 champ, who combined in his own person a variety of offices. 
 His unpopularity excited a rising, which caused his removal ; 
 but this event must be looked upon as a personal matter 
 rather than as an early assertion of the principle of minis- 
 terial responsibility. William Longchamp was succeeded 
 by Walter of Coutances, and he by Hubert Walter, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, who, with Geoffrey Fitz-Peter and 
 Queen Eleanor, widow of Henry II., practically carried on 
 the government till a chance arrow at the siege of Chaluz 
 removed the nominal sovereign. 
 
 The death of Richard left a disputed succession. Ac- 
 cording to modern ideas, Arthur of Brittany, the son of 
 Geoffrey, the next brother to Richard, was heir to the 
 throne ; but as had been the rule in old English times, the 
 
58 EFFECTS OF THE LOSS OF NORMANDY. 
 
 barons preferred the uncle of full age, and, after obtaining 
 a promise of good government, they chose John, the 
 youngest son of Henry II., to be king. 
 
 As far as low cunning was concerned, John was able 
 enough ; but he was quite devoid of principle, had a 
 reckless disregard for the feelings of others, and gained him- 
 self one enemy after another. Before he had reigned fifteen 
 years, he had lost Normandy, and most of the dominions of 
 his mother; he had alienated the Church, and he had 
 thoroughly disgusted not only the old feudal nobles, but the 
 new nobility of his father. 
 
 Each of these had an important bearing on constitutional 
 history. The loss of Normandy forced the old barons who 
 held lands on both sides of the Channel, to make up their 
 minds once for all to be Englishmen or Frenchmen, and, 
 whether they gave up one set of estates or the other, or 
 whether, as in the case of the Montforts, the eldest son had 
 the lands in France, and the younger those in England, the 
 English nobility from henceforth were Englishmen and not 
 foreigne rs, had to throw in their interests with the rest of 
 the nation, and seek an outlet for ambition in their own 
 country. 
 
 In another way, too, the loss of Normandy affected the 
 history. As the king and the nobles had now become 
 English in feelings and interests, a dislike of foreigners, as 
 such, sprung up, which had most important results, for on 
 the one side it intensified national fppling ; on the other it 
 chanced to afford the most obvious ground of discontent 
 with the king, who had a strong liking for his French sub- 
 jects, especially for the Poitevins, at the head of whom was 
 Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester. 
 
 John's quarrel with the Church did what the struggle be- 
 tween Henry and Becket could not effect. For a moment, 
 
QUARREL WITH THE CHURCH. 59 
 
 at any rate, it divided the interest of the Church from that 
 of the king, and arrayed the clergy on the side of the 
 people and nobles, who were ready to combine with the 
 northern barons in winning some security against arbitrary 
 power. It arose out of a disputed election to the Arch- 
 bishopric of Canterbury, and this gave an opportunity to the 
 Pope for interference in English affairs. He persuaded the 
 monks of Canterbury to chose Stephen Langton, an English- 
 man who held a prominent position at Rome, and as John 
 refused to receive him, the country was placed under an in- 
 terdict. This was used by John as an excuse for pillaging 
 the property of the Church, and the clergy naturally allied 
 with his enemies. 
 
 To enforce his decision and to punish John, Innocent III. 
 called in the aid of Philip Augustus of France, excommuni-j 
 cated and dethroned John, and authorized Philip to carry 
 the sentence into effect. Confronted by this danger, John 
 showed the greatest cunning. He determined to get rid of 
 one enemy by submission, of the other by force, so he 
 actually agreed to hold England as a fief of the Papal See;, 
 and to pay a tribute of one thousand marks a year. Hence- 
 forward, the Pope was his friend, even against the clergy, 
 and a naval victory over the French, for a time made John 
 secure. But the barons refused to help him to press his 
 success by an invasion of France ; they declined to accom- 
 pany him, first on the ground that John was exc ommun icated, 
 and, when that difficulty was removed, on the plea that they 
 were not bound to go by feudal law. This brought matters 
 to a crisis. The new Archbishop, Stephen Langton, threw 
 himself on the side of the barons, and gave them something 
 to demand by bringing to their notice the old charter of 
 Henry I. Matters were in this state when John's troops 
 received a crushing defeat at Bouvines, while fighting for his 
 
60 SECTIONS OF THE CHARTER. 
 
 nephew, Otto the Emperor, to whom he had looked to keep 
 Philip in check. On hearing of this battle, John, who was 
 in Poitou, returned to England, and again set to work to 
 divide his enemies. To do this he gave to the Church free^ 
 dom of election, and surrendered the great right for which] 
 Henry I. had struggled with Anselm. At the same time, to 
 place himself still more under the protection of the Church, 
 he took the Cross as a Crusader, and then demanded the- 
 oath of allegiance from all his subjects. In reply, the 
 barons summoned their vassals, and appealed to arms. 
 A few of the old servants of his father, and some per- 
 sonal friends, held by John to the last, but the mass of the 
 nation was against him, and John, finding resistance out of 
 the question, made up his mind to accept the demands of 
 the barons and to sign the Great Charter. 
 
 In the Great Charter we find a picture of the chief .diffi- 
 culties of the time, and the ideas of the barons as to the best 
 methods of dealing with them. Some of the provisions^are 
 of permanent, some only of temporary interest. They may 
 be divided roughly under sevenjyads : (i) The Cbjircn\; 
 (2) feudalism; (3) the constitution ; (4) justice; (5) general; 
 matters; (6) the forest and rivers ; (7) matters of temporary , 
 interest. Of these, the first four have a distinct constitutional 
 importance. (1) The old rights of the Church together 
 with the newly acquired right of free election were secured, 
 to the Church. This practically fixed the relation of Church' 
 and State till the Reformation. Had it been carried out in - 
 practice, the Church would, in the matter of appointing its' 
 officers, have been completely independent of the State { 
 but the Pope soon gained the real right of appointing, and' 
 he and the king presently arrived at a practical compromise, 
 by which the Pope appointed the man who was nominated 
 by the king. (2) The provisions which concerned feudalism 
 
THE GREAT COUNCIL. 6 1 
 
 were a development of those of Henry I.'s charter. Where 
 Henry I. had promised moderate reliefs and a just exercise 
 of the rights of wardship and marriage, the new charter laid 
 down definite rules ; but where Henry I. had thought it 
 needful to lay down the maxim that the barons should treat 
 their vassals as they expected him to treat themselves, the 
 barons of the charter inserted the same rule to secure the 
 i good-will of their new allies. (3) The most important 
 points touched taxation, the meeting of the great council, 
 and the carrying out of the provisions of the charter. Besides 
 the three regular feudal aids which could be collected either 
 to ransom the king from captivity, on the occasion of his 
 eldest son being made a knight, or on the first marriage of 
 his eldest daughter,; no other aids or taxes could be collected 
 except by the consent of the great council.! This rule laid 
 down the principle which had been followed in the grant of 
 the Danegeld by the witan, and which had never been con- 
 stitutionally laid aside, that the money of the subject could 
 not be taken out of his pocket without his own consent. 
 (4) A valuable safeguard against arbitrary power was secured 
 by the provision that no man was to be imprisoned, out-| 
 lawed, punished, or molested, but by the judgment of hisj 
 equals or by the law of the land. The existence of the 
 law courts as an institution separate from the king's council, 
 was further advanced by the arrangement that the Court of 
 Common Pleas, the court where what we now call civil cases 
 are tried in the highest resort, instead of following the king's 
 person, was to stay at a fixed place, i.e. at Westminster. 
 
 The great council, which was to grant taxes, was to be 
 summoned in the following manner. A separate writ was to 
 be sent to each of the archbishops, bishops and abbots, and 
 to each of the earls and greater barons, and a general writ 
 of ^amnions was to be sent to the lesser barons through the 
 
62 CARRYING OUT OF THE CHARTER. 
 
 sheriff, and was to be read by him in the county court. 
 Moreover, forty days' notice was to be given of the time of 
 L the meeting of the assembly, and of the cause of its summons. 
 Now this great council included the descendants of the old 
 members of the witejiagemot, the archbishops, bishops and 
 abbots, ealdormen and king's thegns. The king's thegns, 
 however, had by this time become so numerous, being 
 identified with the tenants-in-chief, as to be divided into two 
 classes, the greater and the lesser barons. 
 
 This assembly, however, was subject to two drawbacks. 
 I In the first place, the lesser barons were most unlikely Jo 
 j attend in person, and, if their opinion was wanted, some 
 • v arrangement would have to be found by which they could 
 give it through representatives; and secondly, the towns 
 Which were rapidly becoming most important from a taxing 
 ( jpoint of view, were not included at all. This did not, how- 
 ever, relieve them from taxation. Their goods were de- 
 manded by way of a tallage, which the king, as their feudal 
 superior, collected from them at his own will, and which 
 corresponded to the aid which was to be henceforth voted 
 only by the free will of the clergy and tenants-in-chief, an 
 arrangement which the towns were hardly likely to consider 
 as permanently satisfactory. 
 
 These were the most important provisions of the charter, 
 
 which affected the government, and they secured for the 
 
 /clergy and the tenants-in-chief freedom from arbitrary taxa- 
 
 [ tion, and provided for the meeting of an assembly. Lastly, 
 
 the provisions of the charter were to be carried out by a 
 
 committee, consisting of the chief members of the baronial 
 
 ( party and the Mayor of London. This is the first instance 
 
 of the plan of superseding the king's government by a 
 
 commission, but it was used again and again, and was a 
 
 most valuable means of educating the people in the method 
 
CHARACTER OF HENRY III. 63 
 
 of self-government, and a step towards securing a per- 
 manent control over the appointment of the king's council. 
 
 No sooner was the charter signed, than John was absolved 
 from his promise by his new ally, the Pope. On this the 
 barons again took up arms and called in John's nephew, the 
 son of Philip Augustus ; but the struggle was brought to an 
 abrupt conclusion by the sudden death of John. Round his 
 little son Henry the most influential members of the national 
 party rallied, for their quarrel was not with the crown but 
 with John, and the victory of Lincoln soon freed the king- 
 dom from the French. As Henry was only nine years old, 
 the government was carried on in his name. The chief 
 officers were William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who had 
 held by John to the last, though his eldest son had joined 
 the barons, Axchbishop Langton, and the papal legate, who 
 claimed a place as the representative of the feudal superior. 
 For a long time the council had plenty to do in securing 
 order and in curbing the pretensions of the legate ; but they 
 ruled on the whole well, and the assumption of the govern- 
 ment by Henry was a change for the worse. Henry united 
 with personal piety, the political faults of his father, including 
 his faithlessness. Moreover, he was weak and extravagant, 
 and could never be true even to his most faithful servants. 
 The twenty-six years of his personal rule, which lie between . 
 1232 and 1258, were mos£__disastrous. The clergy were^ 
 impoverished and weakened by the legalized exactions of the 
 papacy; the barons were infuriated by the honours and 
 riches given to the foreigners who swarmed around the court, 
 and the people and towns were crushed under a terrible *i 
 load of taxation. We may be surprised at this when we^ 
 know that the Great Charter was still in force. But when 
 it was renewed in 1 2 1 6, the important constitutional articles 
 of the taxation and the assembly were carefully omitted by the 
 
64 RISE OF SIMON DE MO NT FORT. 
 
 barons who had now come into power, and they had their 
 reward in the exactions of Henry III. 
 
 Against this misrule the country found a champion in 
 Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, whose elder brother, 
 on the separation between England and Normandy, had 
 chosen the county of Evreux. Strangely enough Simon de 
 Montfort was himself a foreigner in everything but feeling. 
 His earldom of Leicester, however, gave him a standing 
 among the English barons, and his marriage with the king's 
 sister gave him a prominent position at court, and on his 
 quarrel with the king he threw himself on the side of the 
 country. Several attempts were made to secure a hold over 
 the government. Twice the great council had demanded 
 control over the appointment of ministers, but at length, in 
 1258, just after De Montfort had quarrelled with the king 
 and his foreign favourites, Henry's enormous debts forced him 
 to call together at Oxfprd-an assembly which we may now 
 begin to call-a-P&rLiament, for the lesser barons were now, as 
 they had been in 1254, represented by knights of the shire. 
 This was the famous mad Parliament .of Oxford, and with 
 its meetings begins the story of the relation between the 
 Parliament and the king. Headed by De Montfort and the 
 Earl of Gloucester, the Parliament determined to again put 
 the government into commission, and drew urj the somewhat 
 complicated Provisions of Oxford, in accordance with which 
 a council of fifteen members was appointed to carry on the 
 government, and a temporary* committee of twenty-four was 
 to see to the reform of abuses. To look after the council, 
 Parliament itself was to meet three times a year. By this 
 plan Henry was completely shelved, and an attempt was 
 made to get him to give his sanction to the arrangement. 
 He complied ; but, imitating his father, obtained an absolu- 
 tion from the Pope, and on the failure of an attempt to 
 
REPRESENTATION. 6$ 
 
 submit the quarrel for arbitration to St. Louis, King of 
 France, war broke out and the king was defeated and 
 captured at the battle of Lewes. 
 
 De Montfort then summoned his great Parliament of 
 1265, to which there came not only knights of the shire, but 
 also representatives from cities and boroughs. 
 
 Representation was a plant of very slow growth. It is 
 possible to find indications of it long before it was applied 
 to Parliament. Before the Conquest we find the twelve i 
 legal men of the hundred, and the reeve and four men of 
 each township, who in a way represented the hundred and 
 township at the county court. After the Conquest, William 
 the Conqueror, in 1070, ordered that the laws of England 
 should be declared by twelve men of each shire. Domesday- 
 book was the result of the depositions of representative 
 villeins. The jury was another form of representation \ 
 matters of fact in civil cases were decided by the word of 
 twelve men who knew the case, and who stood for the whole 
 body of the suitors ; in criminal cases the jury of present- 
 ment created by the Assize of Clarendon was distinctly 
 representative. It was also used in matters of taxation :, 
 Richard I. ordered that the amount to be paid by each 
 person towards the Saladin tithe, a tax collected towards 
 a crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem, should be fixed by 
 four elected knights, and the king's interests in the county 
 ware looked after by four elected knights called coroners. 
 
 By the reign of John, then, the principle of representation 
 was in frequent use for many purposes, and it was then first 
 applied to national representation, for in 12 13, just. after 
 Archbishop Langton had produced the charter of Henry I., 
 the sheriffs were ordered to send four discreet men of each 
 shire to consult with the king at Oxford, Such being the 
 case, it was rather curious than otherwise that the plan was 
 
 F 
 

 66 COUNTIES AND TOWNS. 
 
 not used in the Great Charter to secure a due voice in the 
 assembly to the lesser barons ; but so it was, and it was not 
 till the year 1254 that two knights of the shire were sum-^ 
 moned to Parliament from each county, and we find the 
 same thing practised in the mad Parliament, j But this 
 summons of knights of the shire involved a wider issue than 
 the mere representation of the lesser barons. The only], 
 place where they could be elected was the county court, and' 
 to that court might come not only the greater and lesser^ 
 barons, but the tenants who did not hold by feudal tenure, • 
 the freemen and the under vassals of the tenants-in-chief, 
 and even the villeins ; and as there was no distinction of 
 persons, the election was made by the whole county, and 
 the knights of the shire were truly national representatives. 
 
 The towns, however, were still excluded, but their righ| | 
 to a separate system of taxation made it absolutely necessary 
 for a popular government like that of De Montfort to con- 
 sult them, and so we find the cities and towns sending their 
 representatives to the Parliament of 1265. 
 
 The only section of the nation who were still excluded 
 from direct representation, were the lowerxlej-gy. 
 
 For years the government of Simon de Montfort repre- 
 sented the ideal at which English statesmen aimed, a 
 Parliament thoroughly representing the nation and a ministry 
 nominated by Parliament. It would be too much to say 
 that pure patriotism was the only motive for thus trans- 
 ferring the power of the king to the nobility, or that a 
 regard for popular rights rather than the promptings of 
 temporary expediency made the barons call in the aid of the 
 counties and the towns. On the other hand it is remark- 
 able that all over Europe the thirteenth century was marked 
 by the rise of constitutional government. In England, at- 
 any rate, the change introduced no new principle except 
 
IMPORTANCE OF EARL SIMON. Cj 
 
 that of permitting persons to act through representatives. 
 The Parliament of Simon de Montfort was the legitimate 
 descendant of the witenagemot, the control which the 
 people had newly acquired oyer the executive government 
 was rather a revival of their old rights than the assertion of 
 a new claim. 
 
 Under Simon de Montfort, however, this system could not 
 last. Its weak point was that it was set up in defiance of 
 the will of the reigning sovereign, and the dissensions between 
 the barons were too much ingrained to be forgotten for 
 more than a moment. Quarrels soon broke out between 
 Simon de Montfort and the Earl of Gloucester, son of the 
 one mentioned above; Edward, Henry's eldest son, suc- 
 ceeded in escaping ; De Montfort was defeated and killed at 
 Evesham, and Henry was restored to power. 
 
 Simon, however, had not lived in vain. From his time 
 we hear no more of foreign favourites, the feudal sovereignty 
 of the Pope was practically forgotten, and he had given to 
 Englishmen a clear idea of what to aim at for the future, viz. 
 the regular meeting of a national assembly who should have 
 complete control over taxation, legislation, and the appoint- 
 ment of the chief officers of the kingdom. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PARLIAMENT UNDER THE FIRST EDWARDS. 
 
 With the accession of Edward I. we again reach a new 
 period in the history of Parliament. Under Simon de 
 Montfort, Parliament had been a casual institution. It had 
 only met at intervals, and the presence of the citizens and 
 burgesses had been due to incidental needs, and so little 
 appreciated was the necessity for their presence that thirty 
 years passed away before a complete Parliament again met 
 at Westminster. But though the towns were unrepresented, 
 the Parliament met regularly and had plenty to do. 
 
 The interest of Edward's campaigns in Scotland and 
 Wales has attracted attention from the domestic history of 
 his reign. This is not right, for Edward was great as an 
 organizer and legislator, and in many respects his reign forms 
 the complement of that of his great grandfather Henry II. 
 Like Henry, Edward was a man of orderly mind, indeed he 
 was almost too lawyer-like in his way of thinking, and clung 
 eagerly to the letter of the law where he thought he saw his 
 own advantage. But tenacious as he was of the royal pre- 
 rogative, he had a true eye for the interests of his country, 
 and he left his kingdom in every respect better than he 
 found it. 
 
 Hardly any point which Henry II. had treated was left 
 untouched by Edward. He secured a tighter hold over the 
 
STRUGGLE WITH THE CLERGY. 69 
 
 clergy. Since the time of Henry two new difficulties had 
 cropped up. The first was in the matter of land. For a 
 long time the clergy had held a very large share of the best 
 land in the country, and as they were not subject to the 
 rights of wardship, marriage and reliefs, they held it under 
 more favourable conditions than the laity. Under these 
 circumstances, besides the usual grants of land which the 
 pious made to the Church/ the profane had discovered that 
 by nominally giving up their lands to the Church, in reality 
 by receiving them back again as perpetual tenants, both they 
 and the Church made a good bargain, while the crown was 
 cheated of its dues, j Edward put a stop to this by the 
 Statute of Mortmain, which forbad the leaving or surrendering 
 of land to the Church. In the next place, in pursuance of 
 the papal plan of making the Church independent of the 
 State, Boniface VIII., the Pope, issued a bull, which forbad 
 the clergy to pay any taxes. Edward rejoined by the obvious 
 retort that if the clergy paid nothing for the maintenance of 
 the State they had no right to the advantages it gave them, 
 such as the law courts and protection for property, and put 
 them outside the law. This plan of carrying out the theory 
 to its logical conclusion soon brought the clergy to their 
 senses ; and though they could not disobey the Pope by 
 paying a tax, they agreed to make a present to the king 
 instead. This practice continued down to the Restoration, 
 and as a matter of fact the clergy in convocation usually 
 voted the king a larger grant than was paid by the laity. 
 
 Edward arranged that the justices-in-eyre should go 
 round the old circuits of Henry II. once a year, at first to 
 try criminal cases only, but afterwards civil cases also, and 
 this they have continued to do to the present time. Another 
 improvement was the creation of a new body of officials to 
 issist the sheriffs in keeping the peace in the country 
 
JO PARLIAMENT OF 1295. 
 
 districts. These were the conservators of the peace, who 
 have now become the justices of the peace, our unpaid local 
 magistracy. 
 
 To improve the defences of the country, Edward, by the J 
 Statute of Winchester, re-enacted the Assize of Arms of 
 Henry II., which organized the militia and regulated the 
 arms which must be kept by every man according to his 
 rank. 
 
 But the most important action of Edward concerned the 
 Parliament. [In 1295, met the first complete and model 
 Parliament of England. 
 
 There were present eight earls and forty-one barons, 
 making a total of forty-nine lay peers, two archbishops and 
 eighteen bishops, sixty-seven abbots and priors, all of which 
 classes had sat in the ancient witenagemot, and a repre- 
 sentative each for the new military orders of the Temple, of 
 St. John, and of Sempringham. Besides, to make the 
 representation of the clergy complete, each bishop and 
 archbishop was ordered to bring two members for the chapter 
 of his cathedral and two for the clergy of each archdeaconry 
 in his diocese. The clergy, however, as we saw above, soon 
 began to vote their grants in convocation, so these last 
 were unwilling to come, and down to the Reformation the 
 clergy were represented by the archbishops, bishops, abbots, 
 priors, and masters of orders. In 1295 these made a total of 
 ninety as compared to the forty-nine lay peers, whereas at 
 the present day there are four hundred and eighty-five lay 
 peers to twenty-six bishops and archbishops, a vast change. 
 Passing on we come to seventy-four members who repre- 
 sented in theory the lesser barons, but in practice the com- 
 monalty of thirty-seven counties, for Monmouth sent no 
 member as being Welsh, and Cheshire and Durham were 
 excluded as county palatines having assemblies of their own. 
 
POWERS OF PARLIAMENT. J\ 
 
 Next came two hundred and thirty-two members who repre- 
 sented the cities and boroughs, a very large number as 
 compared to the counties, who at the present time send two 
 hundred and eighty-three as against three hundred and 
 sixty-six. The members did not sit in two houses as at 
 present, but sometimes promiscuously, sometimes by orders. 
 
 The powers which this national assembly or Parliament 
 held were those which had been handed down from the old 
 witan. On the king's accession they received him by 
 swearing allegiance, and though the actual election of the 
 king had been in abeyance since the election of John, it was 
 revived again at the deposition of Edward II. The lords 
 and clergy were still the supreme law court of the land, 
 though the judges who acted as the representatives of the 
 king's ordinary council held the most prominent place. 
 Since the days of the Danegeld the right of Parliament to 
 grant taxes had never been denied in theory and had been 
 actually stated in the Great Charter. And lastly there was 
 no question that Parliament was the only legislative body in 
 the land. 
 
 It was not very long, however, before the right of Parlia- 
 ment to grant taxes was officially stated. Two years after 
 the meeting of the model Parliament of 1295, Edward was 
 at war with France, and proposed to go himself to Flanders, 
 while Earl Bohun of Hereford, the Constable, and Earl 
 Bigod of Norfolk, the Marshal, were to lead an expedition to 
 Guienne. Encouraged by the example of the clergy who 
 were just struggling against the payment of taxes, the earls 
 refused to go, on the ground that their tenures only bound 
 them to follow the king in person. Edward retorted 
 by seizing the wool of the merchants and calling out a 
 military levy of the whole kingdom. A considerable number 
 of nobles came to the levy, and these Edward induced to 
 
72 CONTROL OVER TAXATION. 
 
 grant an aid. But the earls then took their stand upon their 
 constitutional rights ; they forbad the collection of the aid, 
 and demanded a confirmation of the charters. It was a 
 terrible crisis. Wallace was up in arms in Scotland, and at 
 this moment won the battle of Cambuskenneth, while Philip 
 of France was ready for war. Edward was forced to go to 
 Flanders and leave his eldest son Edward, as Regent, with 
 orders to summon a Parliament and make the best terms 
 he could. Parliament met, and the Regent found that there 
 was nothing for it but to sign a confirmation of the charters, 
 in which it was moreover agreed that the recent exactions 
 were not to be made precedents, that a forced tax on wool 
 called the maletote was to be discontinued, and "that no aids, 
 taxes or prizes were to be taken but by the common assent 
 of the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the 
 ancient aids and prizes due and accustomed." This last 
 clause had special reference to the three aids which had 
 been excepted in the Great Charter, but it was obviously 
 capable of a good deal of stretching. Oddly enough, how- 
 ever, in the " de tallagio non concedendo n (about not grant- 
 ing a tallage), an unauthorized abstract of the confirmation, 
 this clause was omitted, and as the de tallagio and not the 
 confirmation was taken to be the law in Hampden's time, 
 the crown lawyers were deprived of a very valuable loop- 
 hole. The confirmation of the charters was accepted by 
 Edward himself at Ghent; and in 1 301, at the Parliament of 
 Lincoln, the charters were again finally confirmed, and a 
 subsequent Act in 1362, which forbad the merchants or any 
 other body to vote any tax on wool, completed the legisla- 
 tion on taxation till we reach the times of Richard III. 
 
 Parliament, in this way, secured its chief rights. Under 
 Edward I. it became not merely a disagreeable incident but 
 a regular part of the king's scheme of government. He 
 
CHARACTER OF EDWARD II. 73 
 
 took it into his confidence, employed it to pass extensive 
 legislative codes, such as the Statutes of Winchester and 
 Westminster, consulted it on matters of foreign and domestic 
 policy, and finally, though sorely against his will, granted 
 to it control over taxation. It was the great use which 
 was made of Parliament in this reign which made that 
 body so important. It backed up Edward's policy in Scot- 
 land and Wales, it supported him against the Pope, and 
 with the one exception of the temporary difficulty about 
 taxation, a right which it was hardly to be expected that 
 any sovereign would give up without a struggle, Edward and 
 the national assembly were on thoroughly good terms and 
 worked for the same ends. 
 
 It was very different under his successor, Edward II. 
 The new king was a man of no principle whatever. Good 
 looking and affable, with great power of attaching his 
 immediate friends to his person, Edward cared nothing 
 about his kingdom as a whole, was utterly untrustworthy, 
 and could never be relied upon to keep his word. More- 
 over, whatever Edward's personal character had been, the 
 situation would still have been full of difficulty. By getting 
 the control over taxation, Parliament had in reality gained 
 control over the policy of the crown. So long as it and the 
 king were in accord this had worked well enough, but the 
 slightest hitch was certain to cause trouble. The king must 
 control Parliament or Parliament must control the king; 
 there was no middle course. In this case the difficulty 
 took the form of a contest about favourites. To this word 
 an odious meaning has been given. It really includes 
 two ideas, first, that of a man whom the king employs as 
 his trusted servant and adviser ; secondly, that of a man 
 who is enriched by the king's favour. A man of the first 
 class, who was certain to arise unless the king was able to 
 
74 ROYAL FAVOURITES. 
 
 place complete confidence in his great nobles (who thought 
 that they ought to be his only advisers), and who always did 
 arise in every nation in Europe, was certain, however good 
 he might be, to be hated by the nobility ; while a man of 
 the second, was likely to be hated by both the nobility, who 
 envied his riches, and the people, who had to pay taxes to 
 make up for the king's gifts to the favourite. Piers Gave- 
 ston, the first favourite of Edward II., combined in his 
 own person the characteristics of both classes. He was 
 thoroughly able, he was in favour with the king to the 
 exclusion of the nobility, he was overwhelmed with riches 
 and honours, above all, he was a foreigner ; and to all these 
 atrocities he added a power of calling his enemies by such 
 telling nicknames that their possessors always felt their 
 sting. Against Gaveston the nobles found a champion in 
 Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. This nobleman is the repre- 
 sentative of a class. As the son of Edmund Crouchback, 
 the younger brother of Edward I., he was the head of a 
 junior branch of the royal family, and throughout the 
 Middle Ages, whether its representative was Thomas of 
 Lancaster, Henry of Hereford, Humfrey of Gloucester, or 
 Richard of York, the younger branch of the royal family 
 was at daggers drawn with the chief minister of the time. 
 Again and again the nobles insisted on the banishment of 
 Gaveston, and finally, in 1310, they took the government 
 into their own hands and set up a council called the Lords' 
 Ordainers, on the pattern of those which had been appointed 
 to enforce the Great Charter, and to carry out the Provisions 
 of Oxford. These Ordainers governed England for a year, 
 and their arrangements were ratified by Parliament. Again 
 Gaveston was recalled, but this time he fell into the hands 
 of the barons and was beheaded. For some years no 
 favourite appeared, and after Edward had been routed at 
 
DEPOSITION OF EDWARD II. 75 
 
 the battle of Bannockburn, he was obliged to appoint as 
 his chief officers, the nominees of Lancaster. In a few 
 years, however, two new favourites come upon the scene, 
 the Despensers, father and son. The Despensers were 
 Englishmen, and no objection could be made to them as 
 upstarts, for they were among the most wealthy and powerful 
 of the English nobility ; still they stood in the way of the 
 other nobles, and Lancaster headed a new combination 
 against them. The Despensers were banished ; but Edward, 
 taking advantage of a reaction in his favour, recalled them, 
 raised an army, beat Lancaster at Boroughbridge, and 
 executed him at Pontefract. A new combination was then 
 made. The queen deserted Edward, and allied herself to 
 Roger Mortimer, a member of Lancaster's party ; Edward 
 found himself deserted by the mass of the nation ; the 
 Despensers were seized and executed ; an attempt to 
 escape failed ; and finally Adam Orlton, Bishop of Hereford, 
 asked Parliament whether they would have father or son 
 for king. Parliament declared for young Edward, and, 
 in pursuance of feudal custom, the allegiance of the several 
 orders was withdrawn from Edward, the officers of state 
 broke their staves of office, and he ceased to reign, deposed 
 by the same right which had in old days got rid of Sigebert 
 of Wessex, and of Ethelred the Unready. 
 
 A great constitutional advance, however, was made 
 in the days of Edward II. After the fall of Lancaster, in 
 1322, it was enacted in Parliament, with a view to prevent- 
 ing combinations of the nobility, that " what concerns the 
 whole realm must be treated in a full Parliament," a principle 
 which gave the representatives of counties, cities, and 
 boroughs a full share of legislation. 
 
 jUnder Edward III. Parliament made great strides. This 
 is due mainly to the separation of Parliament into two 
 

 76 LORDS AND COMMONS. 
 
 houses, and to the necessities caused by the king's wars 
 with France. I 
 
 In the year 1332 the knights of the shire are first defi- 
 nitely recorded as sitting apart from the lords and the clergy, 
 and the next year they sat with the citizetis and burgesses 
 in a separate place. It is impossible to attach too much 
 importance to this fact. On the Continent the members 
 for the lower nobility sat with the nobles, while the clergy 
 and members for towns sat each in a separate chamber, 
 so that it was always possible to play off the different orders 
 against one another. In England this was impossible, for 
 not only did the nobles and clergy who came to Parliament 
 sit in one house, but also the members for the lower nobility, 
 as they were in theory, though practically elected in the 
 county court by universal suffrage, sat with the citizens and 
 burgesses, so that the orders were thoroughly mingled. 
 Moreover, as the representatives of counties and towns were 
 on an equal footing, the townsmen soon began to elect 
 country gentlemen as their representatives, and the union 
 between the counties and towns became still closer; and 
 besides all this, as the younger sons of nobles were not 
 nobles, they might sit in the House of Commons, and so not 
 only do we find the younger brothers and younger sons of 
 peers sitting in the Commons, but it was decided that even 
 the eldest sons of peers, who would one day sit in their own 
 right in the House of Lords, might be elected members of 
 the Commons, a result which made almost complete union 
 in feeling and interest between the Lords and the Commons. | 
 And yet again, as taxes soon came to be voted exclusively 
 by the Commons for the whole of the laity, the House of 
 Lords merely giving their assent to the grant, the chief 
 control over the government came to lie in the House of 
 Commons, and the Lords found that they could secure 
 
AIMS OF PARLIAMENT. 77 
 
 their own power best by gaining influence in the House 
 of Commons, which they did by getting their sons and 
 dependents chosen, and by winning wherever they could 
 control over the borough elections. / 
 
 /~The next great source of the power of Parliament, during 
 the reign of Edward III., was the war with France. To 
 make war the king must have money, and to do so the 
 Parliament must be kept in a good temper.- Accordingly 
 we find Edward consulting his Parliament on every occasion, 
 asking their advice, and submitting his plans to their 
 approval. On the other hand, the House of Commons, 
 which fifty years before had not even existed, meddled with 
 everything. Hardly any matter which they deal with at 
 the present time was untouched by them ; indeed, they 
 interfered too much, and their dealings with matters of 
 trade, finance and wages, did a great deal more harm than 
 good. Still, all this interference increased the importance 
 of Parliament and the consideration in which it was held 
 in the country. 
 
 The attention of Parliament was, however, directed 
 mainly to three points. They wished not only to vote the 
 taxes, but to control the expenditure; and they desired to 
 control the appointment of the king's ministers and to have 
 some means of punishing them if they did not keep the 
 law. . 
 
 The first chance of securing these occurred in 1341. In 
 that year the king was thoroughly discontented with the 
 administration, for though large taxes had been granted to 
 him, he was still short of supplies. So he suddenly came 
 back from Flanders, accused John Stratford, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, the Treasurer, of wasting his money, and ordered 
 him to appear before the Court of Exchequer. The lords, 
 however, insisted that a peer must be tried by his peers, 
 
78 CONCESSIONS OF EDWARD III. 
 
 and therefore backed up the Archbishop in his refusal to 
 appear before the Exchequer Court, and the right of a peer 
 to be tried by his peers was once for all granted. Mean- 
 while the Parliament had been making their advantage out 
 of Edward's difficulty, and had wrung from the king the 
 following concessions : — First, that the accounts should be 
 audited by auditors chosen in Parliament ; this gave them 
 complete control over both taxation and expenditure. 
 Second, that ministers were to be appointed by consul- 
 tation between the king and his lords, and that when named 
 they were to be sworn before Parliament to keep the law ; 
 this gave them control over the appointment of ministers, 
 and involved the idea of ministerial responsibility. Third, 
 that at the beginning of each Parliament ministers were to 
 resign their offices into the king's hands, and be compelled 
 to answer any complaints. Had these gains been per- 
 manent, Parliament would have got a full share in the 
 government of the country ; but they were not, for the very 
 same year Edward repudiated the concessions which he had 
 made. They were not, however, wasted, for they gave an 
 ideal at which to aim, and it was not long before they were 
 practically enforced. 
 
 For a time, however, Parliament gave its attention to 
 getting rid of the king's clerical advisers, partly because 
 they were not amenable to the law, and partly because there 
 was growing up in the country a strong dislike to the 
 clergy. In this effort Parliament for a time succeeded. In 
 1340, Robert Bourchier became the first lay chancellor, and 
 in 137 1, the clerical advisers, at the head of whom was the 
 excellent William of Wykeham, were dismissed, and a lay 
 administration under John of Gaunt took its place. But 
 this ministry in turn became unpopular, some of its members 
 were engaged in corrupt practices, some were too friendly 
 
IMPEACHMENT OF MINISTERS. 79 
 
 with Alice Perrers, the king's mistress, the war abroad took 
 a disastrous turn, so in 1376, a Parliament which acquired 
 the title of good, and which was lead by the Black Prince, 
 the Duke of Clarence, and William of Wykeham, attacked 
 John of Gaunt and his friends. For this attack they made 
 use of a new weapon, impeachment. In an impeachment 
 the House of Commons prosecute a man before the House 
 of Lords, who act both as jury and judges, give the verdict 
 and pronounce the sentence. In this way the Commons 
 proceeded against Lords Latimer and Neville, and Alice 
 Perrers, who were severely punished for mal-administration 
 and corruption. The discovery of this new weapon made 
 it practically possible to force ministers to keep the law, and 
 made them really responsible to Parliament, and its dis- 
 covery was the last step in Parliamentary progress which 
 was made under Edward III. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 POWERS OF MEDLEVAL PARLIAMENT AT THEIR 
 
 HEIGHT. 
 
 In the last chapter we followed the course of parliamentary 
 history during the reigns of the three Edwards. I During 
 this period, the power of the national assembly steadily 
 grew, Parliament began to sit regularly, was divided into 
 two houses, obtained control over taxation and expenditure, 
 impeached the king's ministers, secured a right to a full 
 share in legislation for the Commons, and indeed interfered 
 in every branch of government. ; To a casual observer it 
 might seem that the House of Commons, at the death of 
 Edward III., had secured a position which made it almost 
 the equal of that of the present day. In reality, however, 
 its power rested upon no secure foundation, but upon a 
 very nice balance between several opposing forces, and the 
 equilibrium was so unstable that a very slight shock was 
 sufficient to bring the whole edifice to the ground. 
 
 It was seen that the old nobles, who after the Conquest 
 had been defying the power of the crown and endeavour- 
 ing to set up a feudalism of their own, had been beaten by 
 the alliance of Henry II. with the clergy, the towns, and 
 the official nobility ; that the wickedness of John dissolved 
 this alliance, and forced the nobles to ally themselves with 
 the Church and the people, and, while they still preserved 
 
ALLIANCE BETWEEN' THE LORDS AND COMMONS. 8 I 
 
 their hostility to the crown, to appear as the champions 
 of the nation. This new alliance lasted nearly to the end 
 of the fourteenth century, and it was due to it that Par- 
 liament was forced into vigour, because it formed the 
 readiest weapon for the nobles to use against the king. 
 But it was the force of the nobles in the background which 
 compelled the king to yield to the demands of Parliament, 
 and, the support of the nobles once removed, the Commons 
 had no power of their own to stand alone. To break the 
 alliance between the nobles and the Commons, was naturally 
 the object of the king, and the first step towards this end 
 was taken by Edward III. 
 
 * From natural causes, however, the position of the nobles 
 had changed a great deal in the three hundred years which 
 had passed since the Conquest. In the first place, William 
 the Conqueror's plan of making the nobles weak by scatter- 
 ing their estates all over the country, had broken down, for 
 in process of time, by marriage and inheritance, a great many 
 rectifications of frontier had been effected, and the power 
 of the nobles was much more consolidated than it had been, 
 and also collected in fewer Jiands. Moreover, the nobles 
 had become more wealthy. \Up to 1347, England had been 
 for a long time an agricultural countryJbut the Black Death 
 killed so many labourers, that the landowners found it utterly 
 impossible, in spite of the assistance of Parliament, to keep 
 down wages at the old level, and equally impossible to bring 
 back again their emancipated labourers into the condition of 
 serfs. They, therefore, took to sheep farming, and, as they 
 found in Flanders a ready market for their wool, rapidly 
 grew rich. \ Again, since the institution of scutage the 
 feudal organization had fallen into decay, and for a time 
 the nobles grew weaker ; but it had been replaced by an 
 institution still more dangerous. Edward III. had got 
 
 6 
 
82 RISE OF RETAINERS. 
 
 troops for his French wars by giving authority to the nobles 
 to collect regiments of soldiers whom the king paid through 
 them, a plan which furnished him with an excellent army. 
 The nobles, however, when at home, found means by their 
 new wealth to keep the services of some of these men as 
 retainers, who practically formed a little standing army far 
 more dangerous than the old feudal levy, for they were 
 always ready at hand. These retainers were not feudal at 
 all. The feudal vassal held land from the lord on condition 
 of fighting for him ; the retainer wore the lord's livery on 
 the same condition, and as he was ready for service on a 
 moment's notice, was evidently very much more dangerous 
 to society. The castles, too, were grown both strong and 
 numerous, and were held for the most part by the nobility. 
 These several causes all acting together had produced a 
 small but very powerful band of wealthy nobles, and so 
 long as they were ranged on the side of Parliament, its 
 position was strong enough. But Edward III. devised a 
 scheme for bringing over the power of the nobles to the 
 side of the crown. He had a numerous family of sons, 
 and he proposed to provide for them by marrying them 
 to the heiresses of great nobles, just as the French kings 
 provided for their children by the grant of appanages. 
 
 In pursuance of this scheme Edward the Black Prince 
 married Joan of Kent, the heiress of the estates of Richard 
 of Cornwall, the brother of Henry III. ; Lionel Duke of 
 Clarence married the heiress of the De Burghs ; John of 
 Gaunt married Blanche, the daughter and heiress of Henry 
 Duke of Lancaster, and for his benefit Lancaster was made 
 a county palatine. Bohun Earl of Hereford left two 
 daughters, one of whom married Thomas of Gloucester, the 
 youngest son of Edward III. ; the other, Henry, son of 
 John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. Edmund Duke 
 
WEALTH OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. 83 
 
 of York was an exception, and married a daughter of Pedro 
 the Cruel. In this way Edward expected to win over ro 
 the interest of the crown a great share of the wealth and 
 power which had formerly been arrayed against it. For a 
 time, however, his plan was not completely successful, 
 because of the jealousy between the Black Prince and the 
 Duke of Clarence and John of Gaunt, and the reforms of 
 the good Parliament were carried by the support of the two 
 elder brothers. 
 
 On the death of Edward III. this jealousy was continued. 
 Richard II. had been brought much into notice during the 
 reign of his grandfather, and the same party which had 
 supported the good Parliament supported him, and secured 
 for the Parliament a strong hold over the administration, in 
 order to keep out John of Gaunt. As Richard was only 
 eleven years of age, a council was formed to carry on the 
 government ; and it is from the appointment of this council 
 that we can trace the continual growth of the power of that 
 great institution w r hich formed the executive government 
 under the Tudors. From this council John of Gaunt 
 and the king's uncles were excluded ; its members were 
 appointed by Parliament, their acts were controlled by 
 Parliament, which not only voted taxes for special purposes, 
 but also appointed officers of its own to receive them and 
 see that they were diverted into no other channel, and at 
 the same time, by frequent discussion, kept under its own 
 eye the acts of the council, and in this way Parliament 
 exercised greater power than it had ever before done. 
 
 Soon, however, it grew tired of its own council. One 
 of the most important ministers was Michael de la Pole 
 Earl of Suffolk, son of a merchant of Kingston-upon-Hull, 
 who had made himself useful by advancing money to 
 Edward III. for the French wars. Suffolk himself was an 
 
84 THE LORDS APPELLANT. 
 
 able man, and he was strongly of opinion that the nation 
 needed rest after her long wars, and was, therefore, in favour 
 of peace. This was contrary to the views of the nobles, who 
 were desirous of continuing the war which gave them riches, 
 power and excitement, and therefore made an attack 
 upon him. Richard, though a lad, refused to remove him 
 from the council, and the Commons, upon that, sent for 
 the Act for the deposition of Edward II. , and had it read 
 before them. This frightened Richard, and Suffolk was 
 removed, but it made the nobles his deadly enemies. The 
 king was also strongly swayed by another member of the 
 council, De Vere, a nobleman of the highest birth, who 
 could not for a moment be accused of being an upstart. 
 Against him and Suffolk a combination of nobles was 
 formed, consisting of the Duke of Gloucester, and the Earls 
 of Arundel, Derby, Nottingham, and Warwick. When 
 Suffolk was dismissed they got Parliament to appoint a new 
 council ; and when Richard took an opinion from the judges 
 that this council was illegal, they took up arms, defeated the 
 king's friends, and by execution and banishment thoroughly 
 broke up his party, and took the power into their own 
 hands. Shortly afterwards Richard came of age, dismissed 
 his advisers, and for a time ruled well ; but, determining to 
 crush the nobles, he won over Derby and Nottingham to 
 his side, secured a Parliament favourable to himself, attacked 
 the lords appellant with their own weapon, impeachment, 
 murdered Gloucester before trial, beheaded Arundel, banished 
 Warwick, and in his turn broke up the party of the lords 
 appellant. He then called a Parliament at Shrewsbury. 
 ■ No sooner were the nobles removed than the Commons 
 were powerless to resist the king. The Parliament of 
 Shrewsbury was forced to grant taxes for life, so giving up 
 its control over the purse, and to delegate its powers 
 
DEPOSITION OF RICHARD II. 85 
 
 into the hands of a committee of eighteen members who 
 were all king's friends, and at the same time to annul the 
 Acts of the Parliament which had condemned Suffolk and 
 De Vere. Thus in a moment, when the forces of the 
 nobles had gone, or were ranged at the king's side, the 
 power of Parliament vanished, its most important privileges 
 were given up, and it became thoroughly discredited. 
 
 The king used his new power in the most arbitrary 
 manner. He forced the parliamentary committee to deter- 
 mine cases and to enact laws, and made every tenant of 
 the crown swear to recognize the legality of its acts and to 
 oppose any attempt to alter or revoke them. He exacted 
 forced loans, sold pardons, put seventeen counties in out- 
 lawry, interfered with justice, and, by a manifest breach of 
 right, exiled at once the two remaining great nobles, Henry 
 of Derby, now Earl of Hereford, and Nottingham, Earl of 
 Norfolk. The result was a tremendous reaction. Richard 
 became thoroughly unpopular. The nobles were disgusted 
 with his high-handed and unjust conduct to themselves ; 
 the clergy disliked him because his court was a centre of 
 Lollardism, and because he had banished the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, Arundel's brother ; the people hated the new 
 taxes, and the oppressions to which they were exposed. 
 Taking advantage of this feeling, which united the kingdom 
 against Richard, as it had before been united against John, 
 Henry of Hereford, who had been deprived of the estates of 
 his father, John of Gaunt, by a flagrant breach of faith, put 
 himself at the head of the movement at a moment when 
 Richard was in Ireland, was joined by the whole nation, 
 and Richard came back only to find himself a prisoner. A 
 Parliament was summoned, which received a resignation 
 signed by Richard, and on the other hand drew up an 
 act of deposition which recited Richard's misdeeds, and 
 
S6 WEAKNESS OF THE COMMONS. 
 
 the throne was declared vacant. It was clearly in the 
 power of Lancaster to seize it by force, but he gave colour 
 to his claim by declaring that, as the descendant of Edmund 
 Crouchback, generally believed to be the younger brother of 
 Edward I., but whom he stated to be the elder brother, he 
 had abetter claim than the other descendants of Edward III. 
 To this plea no answer was forthcoming, and Richard passed 
 to the dungeon and to death, while Lancaster ascended 
 the throne as Henry IV. 
 
 The reign of Richard II. is very instructive. It shows us 
 in the first place that the House of Commons had as yet 
 no intrinsic power, but could be used at will by either king 
 or nobles as one or other was in the ascendant. Secondly, 
 that the nation was still ready to resist arbitrary govern- 
 ment so long as its natural leaders were prepared to show 
 the way, but that if the power of the nobles were overthrown 
 the nation would be helpless to resist the king ; and lastly, 
 that the arrangement of Edward III., while it strengthened 
 the royal family as against the country, had prepared the 
 way for a dynastic struggle, whenever, as had now happened, 
 a doubt was cast upon the claim of the actual occupant to 
 possess the throne. 
 
 In the reign of Richard II. Parliament was used first by 
 the king and then by the nobles ; Henry IV. used Parliament 
 as a check upon the nobles. His position from the first was 
 precarious ; for his title was bad, the combination which had 
 put him on the throne was too sudden to last, and it was 
 only by great skill that he could hope to keep his place. 
 Still he had advantages. The clergy were thoroughly 
 alienated from the Commons by the growth of Lollardism 
 and the consequent attack upon the property of the Church ; 
 he held in his own hands all the property of the crown 
 and the estates of the house of Lancaster, and had a large 
 
HENRY VI. AND THE PARLIAMENT. 87 
 
 band of retainers. His whole aim was to isolate the barons. 
 For this purpose he kept on good terms with the Church, 
 and burnt heretics at its desire ; for this, too, he fostered 
 the power of the Commons, i In appearance, at any rate, the 
 Commons were very strong under Henry IV. The king 
 changed his council in deference to their request ; he secured 
 their elections from the interference of the sheriff; he allowed 
 them to make a regular audit of the expenditure of the taxes ; 
 to them alone was secured the right to originate money 
 grants^ This policy made Henry's reign a success ; he kept 
 the barons in check and discomfited the Percies and Mow- 
 bray, the son of his old antagonist Norfolk, when they rose 
 against him ; he held the Church so firmly in awe that he 
 dared, in open day, to execute Scrope, Archbishop of York, 
 for treason, an act which two centuries before would have 
 set the whole kingdom in a blaze ; and he handed down his 
 kingdom in complete tranquillity to his son, Henry V. 
 
 Henry V.'s reign was remarkable, not for constitutional 
 progress, but for martial triumphs. ' Indeed, under him 
 Parliament began to lose power. The nobles were thoroughly 
 on Henry's side, for they loved war and eagerly gave up 
 domestic politics for foreign glory. The Commons were 
 roused by the same spirit, and generously devoted the effects 
 of the foreign priories to the support of the army. When 
 Henry returned from Agincourt they voted him a large tax 
 for life and so gave up the control of the purse, and it seemed 
 as though victory was to be paid for by yielding up con- 
 stitutional privilege. 
 
 With the accession of Henry VI. Parliament for a time 
 regained its power. A minority was always favourable to 
 constitutional rights, and no sooner was Henry V. dead, than 
 Parliament found courage to set aside his will, and to appoint 
 for the government of the country a council similar to that 
 
88 RISE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL. 
 
 of Richard II., of which Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 
 the king's uncle, was chairman. For twenty years this 
 council governed the country, and as from this time this 
 body steadily began to usurp the powers of Parliament, it 
 is worth while to examine the history of the Privy Council. 
 
 In the reign of Henry I. the Curia Regis, or ordinary 
 council, was a body at once legislative, executive and judicial. 
 In his reign the Court of Exchequer was formed from it as 
 a permanent committee ; under Henry II. the Court of 
 King's Bench split off; and under John and Edward I. the 
 Courts of Common Pleas and Chancery followed respectively. 
 Meanwhile the old legislative power had been resumed by 
 the national assembly or Parliament, so what remained to 
 the king's council ? The council was still composed of the 
 body of the king's chief officials with others whom the 
 king might call, and in theory there was nothing to show 
 that it had lost any of its powers since the reign of Henry I. 
 In practice, however, it constituted simply the council of the 
 king's chief advisers and officers, and the exercise of its other 
 powers was looked upon with extreme jealousy. It was this 
 council which was replaced by that appointed by the 
 Provisions of Oxford, or by the Lords Ordainers, and when 
 the king was weak, the council secured for itself a real share 
 in the government, when he was strong it became subordinate 
 to his wishes. The ministry of Richard II., however, gave 
 the council a much stronger position ; from his reign the first 
 minutes of the council which have come down to us date, 
 and from this time its importance steadily grew. At that time 
 it consisted of three bishops, nine peers, and seven com- 
 moners, and its members were regularly appointed for one 
 year. Richard neglected the business of state and allowed 
 things to fall into the hands of his council, and this was one 
 of the chief causes of its importance. 
 
FURTHER WEAKNESS OF PARLIAMENT. 89 
 
 Its members, again, were of a different class to the great 
 nobles, who did not care to stay always in London or to 
 follow the king. They were able men, but much under the 
 king's influence ; and the increase of their power was viewed 
 with dislike and distrust by the great nobles who, as a class, 
 could not for a moment vie with them in talent. Under 
 Henry IV. the council continued its sittings, and Henry, 
 Prince of Wales, for a time acted as its president, and when 
 he ascended the throne, it managed English affairs during 
 his absence in the wars ; but from 1422 to 1441 the council 
 really governed the country. By degrees the council was 
 able to usurp the functions of Parliament. The proclama- 
 tions of the king in council seriously interfered with the sole 
 right of the Parliament to legislate. For although a pro- 
 clamation was not supposed to enforce a new law, but only 
 to call attention to an old one, or to put in operation one 
 which was temporary in its application, the distinction was 
 not very carefully kept up. Again, the council still acted as 
 a court of appeal, and contrived to keep this right con- 
 currently with the exercise of a similar right by the House 
 of Lords. 
 
 ^As the council grew strong, Parliament grew weak. 
 It was rarely summoned, for the Commons had foolishly 
 granted to Henry VI. the tax of tonnage and poundage for 
 life, so that, so long as the expenses were not excessive, 
 there was no need to apply for more money. And when 
 Parliament met, it was not so powerful as before. \ In 1430 
 the right to vote in the county courts was restricted to the 
 forty shilling freeholders, fwhich gave the executive a largely 
 increased influence in the elections, and they also pushed 
 their influence in the borough elections in every possible 
 way. Edward III.'s plan had concentrated a great deal of 
 the power of the nobles in the hands of the royal family, who 
 
90 FALL OF THE NOBILITY. 
 
 acted together against the nation, so long as they did not 
 quarrel among themselves ; and the interest of the rest was 
 mainly taken up with the war in France, so that even before 
 the wars of the Roses broke out, Parliament had lost much 
 of its power. 
 
 /The wars of the Roses prevented it from regaining its 
 position by the assistance of the nobles. In these wars, which, 
 in their origin, were fought to gain the supremacy in the 
 council, in their end, to secure the throne for the house of 
 York, the high nobility were either killed off or impoverished, 
 so that the house of York, on their accession to the throne, 
 found themselves face to face with the people, without the in- 
 terposition of a high-spirited, powerful and turbulent nobility. 
 The Parliament, weakened before, and now deprived of its 
 natural leaders, was utterly unable to act as a check on the 
 crown, while the council, which had long been growing in 
 importance and efficiency, became a ready instrument of 
 government in the hands of an irresponsible sovereign. 
 
 The wars of the Roses and the consequent fall of the 
 nobility were no doubt the chief reasons for the rise of 
 the new despotism, but other causes worked in with them. 
 The fifteenth century was a transition period, when Europe 
 was passing from mediaeval into modern times ; feudalism 
 was coming to an end, and a new state of society was coming 
 in; a distinct advance in civilization was being made^ 
 people felt that the order and security for life and property 
 which had done well enough for crusaders and knights, were 
 not now sufficient for the requirements of the world; it 
 was again a question of securing law and order, at any cost 
 to individual liberty, and all classes were prepared to back 
 up any sovereign who would secure them from a repetition 
 of the wars of the Roses. It was this which made the 
 policy of Edward IV. and Henry VII. practically the same, 
 
STRONG GOVERNMENT WANTED. 91 
 
 for the conditions with which they had to deal were similar. 
 Each found a people intent on gaining wealth and bent on 
 getting the security needful for that end, a nobility which 
 was either ruined or capable only of a spasmodic effort at 
 self-assertion, a church thoroughly cowed by the Lollard 
 movement, and therefore fearful of offending the king, and 
 each saw in the Privy Council the ready instrument for 
 carrying out his designs and for destroying what remained 
 of independence. 
 
 /The rule of a king, uncontrolled by nobles or Parliament, 
 was a new feature in the history of our constitution, and this 
 fact has been brought into notice by the name of the New 
 Monarchy, which has been applied to the reign of the 
 Yorkist and Tudor sovereigns. From the accession of . 
 Edward IV. to the/defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, I 
 is a gap in our constitutional history; no progress was 
 made, and we have merely to trace the causes of this state 
 of things and the events which led to the fresh assertion 
 of constitutional principles. 
 
 / 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PARLIAMENT UNDER THE NEW MONARCHY. 
 
 In the last chapter we traced the causes of the rise of the 
 new monarchy in England, and saw that it was due in a 
 special manner to the destruction of the nobility in the 
 wars of the Roses, which deprived the people of their natural 
 leaders, and to the growth of the Privy Council, which pro- 
 vided the king with a serviceable instrument of government. 
 These causes, however, were special to England itself, but 
 of the new despotism we had no monopoly, for it was to be 
 seen all over Europe. In France, Louis XL, in Spain, 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, in Florence, the Medici, were all 
 aiming at the same result, and a movement so general must 
 have had causes deeper than those which appeared to pro- 
 duce the change in any particular country. 
 
 The movement was one side of that which is known as the 
 renaissance, or new birth, which changed the Europe of the 
 crusades into the Europe of modern times. It is associated 
 in our minds with the growth of art, with the Reformation, 
 with the discovery of the new world ; butjconstitutional his- 
 tory has most to do with the invention of gunpowder and the 
 rise of commercial prosperity. \ Before these two forces the 
 feudalism of mediaeval Europe melted away. Commerce 
 demanded a better security for its operations than was given 
 by the rude misrule of the feudal baron. Gunpowder gave 
 
MONARCHY STRENGTHENED BY WAR. 93 
 
 the means of penetrating his armour and levelling his castlej 
 It was no longer tolerable that nobles should have the 
 power to summon their vassals and begin a private war to 
 the utter destruction of peaceful business ; people demanded 
 that men should not always need to sow and reap with their 
 weapons beside them. It was this which caused a demand 
 for better order, even if it needed for a time the giving up 
 of some personal liberty. It was better to have a chance 
 of enjoying one's own in peace, than to hold to some rather 
 vague constitutional rights ; and so all over Europe we find 
 the people ready to back up any one who would put down 
 lawlessness, and ensure more peaceful times. The change, 
 however, took a different form according to the special 
 history of the country and the particular causes which gave 
 the impulse. War was the great agent for increasing the 
 royal powers. In England it was the wars of the Roses, 
 in France the struggles with the English, in Spain the 
 fightings with the Moors, which brought the king to the 
 front. In Germany and Italy there was no national war, 
 but there the Emperor was so weak that the towns took the 
 lead ; and though in Germany they had very imperfect suc- 
 cess and the robber knights held their own, in Italy, the 
 home of the renaissance, the towns succeeded in getting 
 rid of the nobles and in establishing a wonderful system of 
 balance of power, long before such a thing was thought 
 of in the west and north. But by the close of the fifteenth 
 century, this system had had its day, and the Medici at 
 Florence were taking the lead in destroying the old civic 
 liberties. 
 
 In France and Spain, too, the history of the movement 
 was different from that which is found in England. France, 
 as we saw, was a typical feudal monarchy. In each of the 
 provinces the counts or dukes had, side by side with the 
 
94 DESPOTISM IN FRANCE AND SPAIN. 
 
 king, been aiming at crushing the power of the lesser nobles 
 in his own district, and at supporting the rights of the 
 townsmen, so that when Charles VII. had roused national 
 patriotism against the English, and when Louis XL had 
 succeeded by good luck and good management in taking 
 the place in turn of the Duke of Burgundy, the Count of 
 Anjou and others, and when Charles VIII. had married 
 the heiress of Brittany, the kings of France found them- 
 selves suddenly raised from a position of great weakness, to 
 be the all but despotic sovereigns of a magnificent kingdom. 
 
 Modern Spain is made up, on the other hand, not of the 
 provinces of a feudal sovereignty like France, but of four 
 independent kingdoms, Navarre, Aragon, Castile, and 
 Leon, which were gradually united by marriage and con- 
 quest; while Portugal, though united for a time to Spain, 
 is at present independent. These kingdoms grew into 
 being, as Spain was gradually re-conquered bit by bit from 
 the Moors. Navarre was never subject to the Moors; 
 Aragon, Leon and Portugal were colonies pushed along the 
 coast; Castile was an outpost driven like a wedge into 
 the centre of the Peninsula. Leon and Castile were soon 
 united by marriage; Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella 
 of Castile by their marriage added the third kingdom ; and 
 the unscrupulous bad faith of Ferdinand made him pos- 
 sessor of Navarre. National feeling was kept up by 
 struggles against the Moors, which were brought to a suc- 
 cessful termination by Ferdinand's conquest of Granada, 
 and the fanaticism of the Spaniards was turned to useful 
 account for despotism, by the establishment by Ferdinand, 
 of the Spanish inquisition. At the close of the fifteenth 
 century Ferdinand of Spain, Henry VII. of England, 
 Louis XL of France were the three magi of the West. 
 
 In England the most obvious cause of the new despotism 
 
FALL OF THE NOBLES LN ENGLAND. 95 
 
 was the fall of the nobility. In the 31st year of Henry VI. 
 the House of Lords contained five dukes, twelve earls, three 
 viscounts and thirty-six barons, in all fifty-six lay peers. On 
 the accession of Edward IV. there were one duke, four earls, 
 one viscount, thirty-one barons, in all thirty-seven members. 
 At the accession of Henry VII. there were two dukes, nine 
 earls, two viscounts and sixteen barons, in all twenty-nine, 
 and clearly many of these titles were new creations. These 
 numbers speak volumes, and show, as was said by Mr. 
 Bagehot, that in the wars of the Roses " the high nobility 
 killed themselves out." But these figures alone do not fully 
 represent the weakness of the nobility. Those families which 
 had fought their way through, were wretchedly poor ; the 
 newly created nobles had little hold on the country, they 
 were merely the creatures of the king. The Tudors, more- 
 over, steadily aimed at keeping down the nobles. Henry 
 VII., as we saw, found only twenty-nine, Edward VI. found 
 forty-seven, while Mary left only forty-three. 
 
 Happily for England the fall of the nobility was not 
 accompanied, as it was abroad, by the rise of a standing 
 army. Henry VII. certainly possessed himself of a train of 
 artillery, which was of most material service in putting down 
 casual insurrections ; but a force such as that wielded by 
 Louis or Ferdinand was unknown in England till the days 
 of Oliver Cromwell. \This was due mainly to the freedom 
 from the danger of foreign invasions which England enjoyed. 
 Moreover, the comparative poverty of the English kings ... 
 deprived them of the luxury of a standing army. Powerful 
 as Henry VII. and Henry VIII. were, they were still in the 
 main, dependent on Parliament for supplies ; and insurrec- 
 tions such as that at Topcliffe under Henry VII., when the 
 country people arose and slew the Earl Percy, the king's 
 representative, and the resistance to the benevolence of 
 
g6 CHECKS ON THE CROWN. 
 
 1525, showed Henry VII. and Wolsey that the purses of 
 their subjects could not be trifled with with impunity, though 
 the extraordinary Acts by which on two occasions Parlia- 
 ment released Henry VIII. from the obligation of paying his 
 debts, showed how easily Parliament would bend to the 
 king's will. Still even if the king had little force to control, 
 there was no strong force to resist, and the physical checks 
 which had controlled the early Edwards and Henrys had 
 passed away. 
 
 The constitutional checks, however, remained unaltered. 
 These were five, and are stated by Hallam to be : — 
 
 I. "The king could levy no sort of new tax upon the 
 people, except by the grant of his Parliament, consisting as 
 well of bishops and mitred abbots or lords spiritual, and of 
 hereditary peers or temporal lords, who sat and voted pro- 
 miscuously in the same chamber, as of representatives from 
 the freeholders of each county, and from the burgesses of 
 many towns and less considerable places, forming the lower 
 or commons' house. 
 
 II. "The previous assent and authority of the same 
 assembly were necessary for every new law, whether of a 
 general or temporary nature. 
 
 III. " No man could be committed to prison, but by a 
 legal warrant specifying his offence ; and by an usage nearly 
 tantamount to constitutional right, he must be speedily 
 brought to trial by means of a regular sessions of gaol 
 delivery. 
 
 IV. " The fact of guilt or innocence on a criminal charge 
 was determined in a public court, and in the county where 
 the offence was alleged to have been committed, by a jury 
 of twelve men, from whose unanimous verdict no appeal 
 could be made. Civil rights, so far as they depended on 
 questions of fact, were subject to the same decision. 
 
POWERS OF THE CROWN. 97 
 
 V. " The officers and servants of the crown, violating the 
 personal liberty or other right of the subject, might be sued 
 in action for damages to be assessed by a jury, or, in some 
 cases, were liable to criminal process ; nor could they plead 
 any warrant or command in their justification, not even the 
 direct order of the king." 
 
 Of these the first and second were thoroughly established, 
 but the third, fourth, and fifth were much less valuable. They 
 were very difficult to enforce; and as time went on, the 
 Tudor and Stuart sovereigns found it more and more easy 
 to evade them, because they touched, as a rule, only 
 individual citizens ; while to enforce a tax or to alter a law 
 was likely to arouse the hostility and resistance of a class, if 
 not of the nation. 
 
 On the other hand, the constitution gave the sovereign 
 very great power. He practically appointed the sheriffs, and 
 that gave him a representative in each county. He appointed 
 the judges, and could displace them at any moment. More- 
 over, as the sheriffs named the jury, and the judges tried all 
 cases, this gave the king an immense advantage in the law 
 courts, and accounts at once for the fact that under both the 
 Tudors and the Stuarts the law courts were scenes of the 
 grossest injustice, wherever king and subject were the parties 
 in the case. Again, the king had a perfect right to appoint 
 as officers whom he would. The only way of getting rid of 
 them was by impeachment, and there is no instance of this 
 method being used between the impeachment of Suffolk, 
 just before the wars of the Roses, and that of Lord 
 Chancellor Bacon at the opening of the struggle between 
 the Stuarts and the Commons. The chief ministers were 
 the Chancellor and the Treasurer, for the Justiciar had long 
 before subsided into a mere law officer. \The Chancellor, 
 next to the king, was at the head of affairs. Usually some 
 
 H 
 

 98 THE CHANCELLOR AND TREASURER. 
 
 great churchman was appointed, for the sovereigns were most 
 careful to keep this office out of the hands of the nobility, 
 and in Cardinal Morton and Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VII. 
 and Henry VIII. found capable ministers who were willing I 
 to use their ability, solely to further the ends of the crown. I 
 Then came the Treasurer, usually a cleric, but as yet 
 decidedly inferior in importance to the Chancellor. 
 
 The Chancellor was at the head of the Court of Equity, 
 the judges at the head of the Courts of Common Law ; and 
 so, with the judicial and executive administrations thoroughly 
 under his control, there was really no check on the king 
 except the want of money. The king's revenue was derived 
 from grants of Parliament, crown lands, feudal dues, fines 
 and forfeitures levied in the law courts, and other rights such 
 as treasure-trove which he possessed as lord of the land. 
 Still, however, the revenue was by no means large, and an 
 attempt to increase it always formed part of the royal 
 policy. 
 
 The actual history of the reigns of Edward IV. and his 
 immediate successors is mainly concerned with the efforts 
 of the sovereigns to secure themselves on the throne, and to 
 strengthen the hold which they had over the country. 
 
 Edward IV.'s great difficulty was with Warwick. The 
 kingmaker was the last of the great feudal nobles ; he had 
 put Edward on the throne, but Edward had no intention of 
 submitting himself to his authority. To balance the power 
 of the earl, Edward supported the Woodvilles ; to sow dis- 
 sension in the royal family, Warwick supported Clarence 
 against Edward. For a time Warwick actually got Edward 
 into his power, but was forced to release him, and Warwick 
 and Clarence soon afterwards left the country and allied 
 themselves to Margaret, the exiled wife of Henry VI. By 
 her aid Edward was for a time dethroned ; but he returned, 
 
POLICY OF EDWARD IV. 99 
 
 and the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury crushed Warwick, 
 utterly put down the Lancastrians, and left Edward time to 
 consolidate his power. In practice, Edward was a believer 
 in the motto " Everything for the people, nothing by the 
 people." He laid himself out to be thoroughly popular, 
 mixed freely with his subjects, sat on the King's Bench him- 
 self, and did all he could to gain a character for kindness to 
 every one but a noble. He was on the road to complete 
 success, and had already made himself pretty well inde- 
 pendent of Parliament, which he had summoned only once 
 for eight years, when his early death for a time plunged the 
 kingdom into disorder. Three parties struggled for power : 
 the Woodvilles, the new nobles, headed by Hastings, the old 
 nobility, headed by Buckingham. Richard of Gloucester 
 played off these parties against one another and won the 
 crown, only, however, to cause a general combination of his 
 crushed antagonists and the ruin of his cause at Bosworth 
 field. 
 
 Henry VII. pursued the same policy as Edward IV. 
 His claim to the crown was more than doubtful, and it 
 required all his astuteness to keep what his sword had won. 
 He obtained from Parliament an act which declared that no 
 subject could be punished for service done for a king in 
 actual possession of the crown. To get a constitutional 
 acknowledgment of his title, he had a law passed by 
 Parliament which declared the succession to rest in him and 
 his heirs, and to get the sanction of the Church he obtained 
 from the Pope a bull to the same effect, and by a system of 
 matrimonial alliances he managed to put himself on an equal 
 footing with the other sovereigns of Europe, and to gloss 
 over the fact that his connection with the house of Lancaster 
 was derived from an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt, and 
 that he was merely the husband of the true heiress of the 
 
100 AIMS OF HENRY VII. 
 
 throne. Conspiracy after conspiracy was raised against him, 
 but through all his difficulties, he steadily kept his eye upon 
 three points: (i) to reduce the power of the nobility; 
 
 (2) to obtain a court of law independent of popular feeling ; 
 
 (3) to get a revenue independent of Parliament. 
 
 He crushed the nobles in three ways. First, he beheaded 
 them. Secondly, he impoverished them. Third, he de- 
 prived them of their retainers. The retainers had been the 
 great source of the troubles of the wars of the Roses, for 
 they had formed the armies which had fought the battles. 
 Henry's Parliament readily passed a law to forbid them, and 
 he himself enforced the law with rigour ; and by punishing 
 those nobles who infringed it, by enormous fines, he not 
 only struck terror, but also took out of the hands of the 
 transgressors the power of sinning again. Indirectly, too, 
 the power of the nobles was weakened. The statute of 
 fines which was originally intended to give a new security 
 of title, to owners who had acquired estates during the 
 late troubles, was, by somewhat irregular means, used by 
 the lawyers as a means of breaking the entail, by which 
 estates descended in unbroken succession from father to 
 son, and thus enabling impoverished landowners to sell 
 their estates. In this way large quantities of land passed 
 into the hands of new men, who had no hereditary influence 
 over their tenants, and who for a time at any rate devoted 
 their attention mainly to making the most out of their land 
 as a commercial speculation, and to building the comfort- 
 able houses, which have brought down to us the Tudor 
 style. 
 
 To attain his second object, Henry set up the court which 
 was afterwards known as the Court of Star Chamber. The 
 exact position of this court is obscure, but it was practically 
 a revival of the criminal jurisdiction of the Privy Council, 
 
THE COURT OF STAR CHAMBER. 10 1 
 
 and in the reign of Henry VIII. it became merged in that 
 body. The first object of the court was to keep in order 
 "stout gentlemen of the North of England," who were 
 inclined to defy the power of the sheriff in the county court ; 
 to check the sheriff himself if he showed symptoms of using 
 his power against the king, his master ; and generally to nip 
 rebellion in the bud. The court could not inflict death, but 
 only fines and imprisonment. Though created by the law, 
 it violated the constitution by acting without a jury, and it 
 contained the germ of great tyranny. At first, however, 
 there is little doubt that it effected great good, for it secured 
 peace and order, as no less powerful court could have done, 
 and a great deal of the credit for the ease with which 
 England passed through the stormy times of the Reforma- 
 tion is due to the Star Chamber. Sir Edward Coke said of 
 it, "It is the most honourable court, our Parliament ex- 
 cepted, that is in the Christian world. In the judges of the 
 same are the grandees of the realm : and they judge upon 
 confession or deposition or witness. This court doth keep 
 all England quiet." 
 
 The right of Parliament to control the purse had been 
 handed down from time immemorial, and had been stated 
 over and over again ; but it had been finally decided by 
 the Confirmatio Cartarum of Edward I. and the practice of 
 succeeding reigns. Edward IV., however, contrived to get 
 over the difficulty by asking his subjects for benevolences, 
 or voluntary gifts, which it was very difficult to refuse, and, 
 though this practice was forbidden by a law of Richard III., 
 it was revived by Henry VII. His chancellor, Cardinal 
 Morton, invented a form of argument which was capable of 
 universal application. If a man lived extravagantly it 
 showed, he said, that he had plenty to spare, if plainly, 
 that he must have saved, and this convenient dilemma 
 
102 MORTON'S FORK. 
 
 went by the name of Morton's fork. Besides this irregular 
 method, Henry used all the legal means in his power. He 
 got Parliament to grant him a revenue for life and large 
 sums on several occasions, all of which were exacted to the 
 uttermost farthing ; he collected the feudal dues to their 
 full amount; he confiscated the property of rebellious 
 barons, and he profited by the fines in the law courts. By 
 these means, though not popular, he contrived to grow rich. 
 The reigns of Edward IV. and Henry VII. mark a new 
 era. Singularly different in their manners and morals, 
 these two able men were alike in their aims. [Each of them 
 pursued steadily the design of replacing the fabric of feudal 
 monarchy by a despotism founded on the j cupidity of the 
 commercial classes,/ and so well did they succeed, both at 
 home and abroad, that few monarchs ever ascended a throne 
 with brighter prospects than their common descendant 
 Henry VIII. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PARLIAMENT UNDER HENRY VIII. 
 
 Between the accession of Henry VIII. and the defeat of 
 the Spanish Armada there is no continuous thread in the con- 
 stitutional history. We are unable to trace the development 
 of institutions ; but have to content ourselves with examin- 
 ing the government itself, and with watching the working of 
 those causes which were steadily making the House of Com- 
 mons a match for the monarchy. But during the first twenty 
 years of the reign of Henry VIII. the House of Commons 
 was at a very low ebb ; it was called at long intervals ; it 
 did very little when it met ; and it was not till the struggle 
 with the Papacy made Henry eager to gain the support 
 of the whole nation, that the national assembly came 
 again into prominence. \ It is very difficult, however, to 
 say at any given time how far the Parliament was sub- 
 servient and how far it was acting spontaneously in unison 
 with the king. So easy it is to represent the same action 
 in two different lights, that the reader is readily deceived. 
 It is certain, however, that at the accession of Henry, Par- 
 liament had little opportunity of having a will of its own. 
 
 Henry's position was exceedingly strong : only one noble 
 of the direct male line of the House of York was left — the 
 Earl of Suffolk, and he was in prison, and on the point of 
 
104 THOMAS WOLSEY. 
 
 execution. The higher nobility had been killed or im- 
 poverished by Henry VII., while the Court of Star Chamber 
 had secured the hold of the king over the people at large. 
 To all these advantages Henry succeeded, and to these he 
 added another, which his father never had — great personal 
 popularity. He was young, good-looking, strong, an adept 
 at all martial feats and at all manly exercises, and wherever 
 he went he exercised a fascination which won him alike the 
 hearts of men and women. Parliament readily granted the 
 young monarch supplies, and by marrying his late brother's 
 wife, Katharine of Aragon, he secured himself the advan- 
 tage of the Spanish alliance, which comprehended the chief 
 states of Europe who were opposed to France. Soon after 
 his accession he secured for himself a most excellent 
 minister in the person of Wolsey. 
 
 Thomas Wolsey was one of the ablest ministers who ever 
 served a king. He was a churchman, sprung from the 
 ranks of the people, but endowed with all the riches of 
 learning ; very clever, very ambitious, and a thorough friend 
 to Henry. His policy followed two distinct lines; (i) to 
 increase the power of the crown, (2) to reform the power of 
 the Church. In the former he merely carried on the policy 
 of Henry VII. ; but in the latter, he was obliged to deal 
 with a wholly new set of circumstances. He lived at the 
 time when Luther was setting on foot the Reformation in 
 Germany. Though we know this movement as the Refor- 
 mation, it was only one of a series. Again and again parties 
 of reform had at moments of decay sprung up in the Church. 
 The monks of Clugny in the eleventh century, the Fran- 
 ciscans and Dominicans in the thirteenth, had equally been 
 reformers in their way, but they differed from those of the 
 sixteenth century in this, that in their case the Popes had 
 set themselves at the head of the movement and had 
 
THE REFORMATION. 105 
 
 adopted it, and by doing so had prevented the danger of 
 a schism. Had the Pope of Luther's time treated him as 
 Innocent III. treated the Franciscans, the course of history 
 might have been changed, but Leo X. had nothing of 
 Innocent III. or of Gregory VII. in his character, and so 
 he was incapable of acting as they had done. Now, it is to 
 the credit of Wolsey that he seems to have distinctly seen 
 the danger, and, had he been elected Pope, he might 
 possibly have played the part of the German Popes of the 
 eleventh century, and raised the Pontiff from being a mere 
 Italian Prince to be the true head of Latin Christianity. 
 Throughout his life, Wolsey distinctly recognized the neces- 
 sity of a reformation, and it was an ambition which was 
 something more than a wish for mere personal aggrandize- 
 ment, which urged him to try for the Papacy. The abuses 
 of the clergy had raised the Lollards in England, and 
 though the Lollards had failed, the notion of reform was 
 not extinct, and Henry VII. had gone so far as to get a 
 bull from the Pope giving him authority to inspect the 
 monasteries. This plan Wolsey proposed to carry out, and 
 to couple the extinction of the useless monasteries with the 
 erection of schools and colleges, which should supply the 
 demands of the new learning. To give himself the neces- 
 sary authority for this, Wolsey, with the king's consent, got 
 from the Pope the appointment of papal legate. This had 
 a most important effect on subsequent events; for as Wolsey 
 was both chancellor and papal legate he combined in his 
 own person the highest civil and ecclesiastical power; so 
 that when, after the Reformation, Cromwell became both 
 chancellor and vicar-general, though he derived his autho- 
 rity from the king and not from the Pope, as far as the 
 people were concerned, no change was made in ecclesiastical 
 authority, 
 
106 EXACTIONS OF THE COURT. 
 
 In home policy, Wolsey' s attention was chiefly devoted to 
 supplying money for the king's expenses. Henry VIII. 
 required a larger income than Henry VII., for his court was 
 more extravagant, and by attempting an energetic foreign 
 policy he involved himself in numerous wars. To supply 
 his deficiencies, Wolsey resorted to grants of Parliament, to 
 benevolences, and to forced loans. As a rule he met with 
 little difficulty in getting what he wanted, but on two 
 notable occasions he met with resistance, and was forced 
 to be satisfied with defeat. In the year 1523, Wolsey, 
 though not a member of the Commons' House, demanded 
 in person a grant of ^400,000 ; but mainly by the boldness 
 of Sir Thomas More he was obliged to withdraw while the 
 question was discussed ; and even then, after a debate of 
 fifteen or sixteen days, a smaller sum only was granted, and 
 that was spread over a period of four years. Again, in 1525, 
 Henry attempted systematically to collect a forced loan 
 over the whole kingdom, but his officers everywhere met 
 with resistance, and he was obliged to give up the attempt. 
 On the other hand, Parliament twice absolved the king 
 from his debts, and even ordered that those who had in- 
 advertently been paid, should refund the money, but this 
 proceeding was regarded as altogether exceptional. 
 
 The fall of Wolsey coincided with the first appearance of 
 symptoms of a revival of parliamentary activity. The Par- 
 liament which met at his fall sat for no less than seven 
 sessions, did an immense amount of work, and gained a 
 great prominence in the eyes of the nation. From that 
 time the House of Commons has never gone back, but has 
 steadily won its way to its present position. 
 
 The gain was due in the main to three causes, all of which 
 grew more or less directly out of the Reformation. 
 
 The first of these was the longer time during which Par- 
 
THE REFORMING PARLIAMENT. loy 
 
 liament sat. Up to 1529 the Parliament had usually been 
 hurriedly summoned, voted the supplies which were needed, 
 or passed any special law which was thought necessary, and 
 then been dissolved at once. It had been a casual as- 
 sembly called together to despatch special business. But 
 the Parliament of 1529, which was merely prorogued from 
 time to time, and was not dissolved till 1536, had time to 
 acquire a corporate character and feeling, and with these 
 the self-respect of the members and their importance in the 
 eyes of the nation steadily increased. The second was 
 the prominence given to Parliament by Henry's struggle 
 with the Pope, and by the difficulties which arose as to the 
 succession. No Parliament of modern times effected more 
 in seven years than the Parliament which met in 1529. It 
 passed a series of Acts which completely separated England 
 from Rome; it reformed the English clergy; it settled and 
 unsettled the succession to the throne ; and it interfered in 
 many other departments of social and political life. Little 
 as Henry VIII. was controlled by his Parliament, by using 
 it as he did, he polished up a rusty tool which formed a 
 dangerous weapon in the hands of a less skilful craftsman. 
 The third cause was the fall of the monasteries, which had 
 an immense constitutional importance. When Henry VIII. 
 came to the throne the House of Lords was made up of 
 eighty-four peers. Of these thirty-six were lay, the rest, 
 including twenty-one archbishops and bishops, twenty-six 
 abbots and priors, and the master of the Knights of St. 
 John, were spiritual peers, and numbered forty-eight; so 
 that the spiritual peers were in a majority of twelve. At 
 the accession of Edward VI. there were forty-seven lay peers 
 and only twenty-seven spiritual peers, so that the numbers 
 were more than reversed. This was due to the disappear- 
 ance of all the spiritual peers but the archbishops and 
 
108 DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 
 
 bishops. The result of this change was to thoroughly alter 
 the character of the House. Up to this time the spiritual 
 peers, all of whom were nominated more or less directly by 
 the king, had, since the accession of the house of Lancaster, 
 been thoroughly at his disposal ; and the fact that he had 
 induced the House of Lords to pass the reforming statutes, 
 shows his power. But when the spiritual peers were reduced 
 to a minority, the nobles were in a position to act with 
 greater freedom. For a time the crown, through the newly 
 appointed peers, was able to hold its own, but symptoms of 
 resistance seem to have appeared in the Lords earlier than 
 in the Commons, for in the reign of Mary an important 
 statute against heretics passed the Commons, but was 
 thrown out by the Lords. 
 
 But, besides this constitutional change, the Reformation 
 narrowly escaped from completely changing the attitude 
 of the king to Parliament itself. 'The dissolution of the 
 monasteries and the transference of their property to the 
 crown gave the English sovereign the best chance he ever 
 had of making himself independent of parliamentary con- 
 trol, by securing to himself an immense and permanent 
 income. With the wealth of the monks in his hands the 
 king need no longer have come to Parliament to ask for 
 supplies. \ Oddly enough this was looked upon by the 
 common people as the great good which was to come from 
 the dissolution ; they fondly imagined that there would be 
 no more taxes, and sore was their disappointment when 
 they found that the tax-gatherer called perhaps more fre- 
 quently than before. But in the long run it was a good 
 thing for England that such was the case. Had the chance 
 come to Louis XI. or even to Henry VII., the wealth would 
 have been carefully secured, but Henry VIII. allowed it 
 to be dissipated partly in presents to his friends, partly in 
 
POPULARITY OF HENRY VI WS MEASURES. IOQ 
 
 grants to enemies, and partly by huge thefts made by 
 the sequestrators of the property. The Reformation gained 
 what the king lost : these grants secured the upper classes 
 for the Reformation, and the forty thousand families who in 
 the reign of Mary are said to have been interested in the 
 abbey lands, formed the strongest barrier between England 
 and Rome. Henry's action succeeded in identifying the 
 whole nation with the cause of separation from Rome ; he 
 acted not as a Protestant but as an Englishman ; and when 
 he sent to death on one hurdle a Protestant and a Catholic, 
 the one for denying transubstantiation, the other for denying 
 the royal supremacy, he probably exactly represented the 
 views of the ordinary Englishman of his day. Under these 
 circumstances the Parliament, which on the whole repre- 
 sented the nation fairly enough, was thoroughly prepared 
 to back him up in the policy which he thought necessary for 
 success, and was therefore ready to grant him privileges 
 which it would have denied to a less popular sovereign. 
 
 In the first place, it passed an Act giving to his pro- 
 clamations the force of law. In form this was a sur- 
 render of right, but in fact it was an assertion that a 
 proclamation of the king had not the force of law without 
 the authority of Parliament, and as the Act ceased to 
 operate at Henry's death, it left the constitutional question 
 more certain than before. Secondly, Parliament allowed 
 Henry to leave the crown by will. This was a much more 
 startling concession, but practically it made little difference 
 in subsequent events, and it certainly was much better that 
 such an arrangement should be sanctioned by Act of Par- 
 liament, than that it should be usurped by the king's own 
 authority. In spite of this apparent giving up of a right, 
 the Parliament of Henry VIII. again and again was called 
 upon to settle the question of the legitimacy of Henry's 
 
IIO THE COUNCIL UNDER EDWARD VI. 
 
 children, so that the right of Parliament to regulate the 
 succession was not likely to fall out of use from want of 
 exercise. 
 
 On the whole then the reign of Henry VIII. was a 
 critical time in the history of Parliament. Though the 
 Houses had not much control over the administration of 
 the king, they were for various causes growing in import- 
 ance ; by the continual exercise of their functions, they 
 prevented them from falling into decay, while the measures 
 they passed were preparing them for a period of greater 
 independence under sovereigns of a less iron will than that 
 of Henry VIII. 
 
 With the accession of Edward VI. the interest turns 
 from the Parliament to the council. The minority of 
 Edward VI., like those of Richard II. and Henry VI., was 
 a period of great importance in the history of the Privy 
 Council. It had now become a regular organized body, 
 whose members were named the Lords of the Council, and 
 held in their hands the administration of the State. These 
 were appointed by the sovereign without any regard to the 
 wishes of Parliament, and the council of Edward VI. was 
 nominated by the will of Henry VIIL, who had arranged 
 for his son's minority, just as Henry V. had, without par- 
 liamentary sanction, attempted to do for that of Henry VI. 
 The council consisted of forty members of whom twenty- 
 two were commoners, in itself a very striking circumstance. 
 For business purposes it was divided into three committees ; 
 (i) for calling in forfeits, (2) the committee of State, which 
 answers in a certain degree to the present cabinet, who 
 dealt with the higher matters of policy, (3) the committee 
 for the defence of the country. To each committee was 
 attached a secretary who was rapidly becoming important. 
 It is a matter of everyday experience that the permanent 
 
THE COURT OF STAR CHAMBER. 1 1 1 
 
 secretary of any body always tends to become of more 
 importance than the more honourable members. He is 
 always there, and knows what has been done before, so that 
 he is a centre of information ; and if he has any brains at 
 all, he must become a person of the first consequence. 
 It is by this simple process that the three secretaries of the 
 Privy Council, have as Secretaries of State far outstripped 
 the great lords of the council, until the great lords them- 
 selves have become glad to take the place of those who 
 were nominally their inferiors. The increase in the power 
 of the Tudor kings made the council a great deal more 
 powerful than it had been when it appeared before. It 
 wielded all the new power of the crown. In former councils 
 the majority of the members had been nobles or prelates 
 who were themselves powerful, but after the Reformation, 
 few prelates appear, and the chief power fell into the hands 
 of commoners or new men who had been lately ennobled. 
 The council had several sub-committees. One for Wales, 
 sat at Ludlow, and had under its jurisdiction Wales and the 
 March counties ; another, the council of the north, was 
 established at York, after the Pilgrimage of Grace, and 
 looked after the six northern counties. 
 
 By the year 1526 the old Court of Star Chamber created 
 by Henry VII., had become merged in the general body 
 of the council, which thus sat as a court of criminal juris- 
 diction and was able itself to punish those who infringed 
 its numerous proclamations. These trials were carried on 
 without a jury \ the accused was not always confronted with 
 the witnesses ; he was himself examined upon oath, forced 
 to criminate himself, and was often subjected to torture. 
 Death could not be inflicted, but imprisonment was, and 
 in those days imprisonment usually meant confinement in 
 some noisome dungeon from which it was a mercy if you 
 
112 CREATION OF ROTTEN BOROUGHS. 
 
 came out alive. Whipping was frequently practised, and 
 exposure in the pillory, branding or rowing in the galleys. 
 There was no manner of question with which the Star 
 Chamber did not interfere under Edward and Mary, and 
 Elizabeth added to the powers of the Privy Council a fresh 
 function by the creation of the Court of High Commission. 
 This court played in ecclesiastical matters the part taken 
 by the Star Chamber in civil affairs. It embodied in itself 
 the powers which were supposed to be vested in the queen 
 by the Act of Supremacy, and was constituted as a court 
 by Act of Parliament in 1584. Its procedure was the 
 same as that used by the Star Chamber, and it exercised 
 despotic power over the clergy. When it was in working 
 order, the control of the council over the nation was 
 complete, and we need not wonder that in the Litany of 
 the Church of England, the Lords of the Council are men- 
 tioned while Parliament was omitted. 
 
 Meanwhile the House of Commons was becoming steadily 
 stronger. The addition of members for Wales under 
 Henry VIII. had made it a better representative of the 
 nation, and its activity under Edward VI. and Mary, and 
 during the early jrears of Elizabeth, contributed to keep up 
 its importance. \But the first thing which shows the strength 
 of Parliament was the wholesale creation of rotten boroughs. 
 These boroughs were mere villages under the influence of the 
 crown or of some noblemen in the court interest, who practi- 
 cally nominated the members. \ Cornwall was best repre- 
 sented, and that was because the stannary or tin courts there 
 gave an effectual weapon for enforcing obedience to the 
 royal will. But what would have been the good of this 
 elaborate machinery if the House of Commons had been so 
 subservient as it is often represented to have been ? No ! 
 it was just because Parliament was becoming refractory, 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE GENTRY. f I 3 
 
 because the court bills could not always be passed, that it 
 was necessary to create new votes, and so the creation of 
 rotten boroughs was the first compliment paid by the 
 sovereign to the rising importance of Parliament, as the 
 gunpowder plot was the first paid by the people. In 
 the time of Henry VIII. sixteen boroughs were created, 
 under Edward VI. twelve, under Mary eight, and by Eliza- 
 beth thirty, most of which were thoroughly rotten, but added 
 two members each to the court party. 
 
 This increase in the power of Parliament was due partly 
 to the special causes mentioned above, but almost as much 
 to the great change which was passing over the whole 
 t nation. The centre of gravity of political power was falling, 
 j Formerly the nobility, but now the country gentry, were 
 \ coming to be the most powerful body in the kingdom. The 
 loss of retainers had broken the military power of the nobles ; 
 but the revolution in agriculture, which under the Tudors 
 changed England from an agricultural to a sheep farming 
 country, had immensely increased the wealth of the gentry, 
 and as they did not, like the nobles, flock to London to 
 spend their incomes, they became thoroughly well-to-do; 
 and so we find that at the time of the civil war it was not so 
 much the great nobles as the gentry, like Hampden and 
 Cromwell, who put armies in the field and decided the fate 
 of the kingdom. With this, too, came a spirit of independ- 
 ence and self-assertion. Men who had changed faiths and 
 settled successions no longer looked upon themselves as the 
 mere accessories of government, they aspired to play a 
 nobler part ; and so the obsequious Parliament of Henry VII. 
 became the murmuring Parliament of Mary, the grumbling 
 Parliament of Elizabeth, and the rebellious Parliament of 
 Charles I. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 REVIVAL OF PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY, 
 
 The strange absence of rebellion under the Tudors is 
 worthy of notice. Two great risings only were made against 
 the reform policy, the Pilgrimage of Grace, and the rebellion 
 of the Nevilles and Percies in 1569. In each of these we 
 have a rising of the type common under the Plantagenets 
 where the great nobles raised the whole country side against 
 the policy of the government, and specially protested against 
 the place taken by villein and upstart men to the exclusion 
 of the ancient nobles of the realm. The other rebellions 
 such as those of Ket and Wyatt were for special causes, 
 while that in Devonshire had no noble leader. This, how- 
 ever, shows on the whole both the popularity of the govern- 
 ment and also the ease with which rebellion was suppressed, 
 one part of the country being always ready to help to put 
 down a rising in another, for the king could always rely on 
 the goodwill of the majority of his subjects. 
 
 The same causes which had secured the popularity of 
 Henry VIII. secured also that of his daughter Elizabeth. 
 Her manners were as winning as his; she had the same 
 happy knack of saying the right thing; and while her hand 
 was heavy enough on a recalcitrant noble, the tradesman 
 and the peasant always felt that he had a good friend at 
 
ELIZABETH AND HER PARLIAMENT. 1 1 5 
 
 court. Besides this, Elizabeth was most astute. Difficult 
 as was the course she had to steer, she always contrived to 
 keep clear of offending any important political body. She 
 was economical even to a fault, and so, as the crown lands 
 were much more extensive than at present, she avoided 
 levying heavy taxes ; she increased her revenue by enforcing 
 the feudal dues, which fell most heavily on the great ; and, 
 as her foreign policy was generally popular, the nation, up 
 to 1588, was prepared to overlook her trifling infringements 
 of the constitution. 
 
 But at the same time the power of Parliament was grow- 
 ing; wealth was steadily spreading among its members, as 
 was natural from the distribution of the well cultivated 
 abbey lands, and the application of pasturage in the less 
 fertile districts ; and Parliament was strong enough to resist, 
 long before it saw fit to use its strength. But Elizabeth 
 herself knew well enough that the power to resist was there 
 and she acted accordingly. On two points in particular the 
 difference in view which existed between the queen and 
 Parliament was apparent. These were the questions of the 
 queen's marriage and the nomination of her successor. In 
 each of these Elizabeth probably was able to see the whole 
 question more distinctly than her subjects could. She per- 
 ceived clearly that though marriage in the abstract was 
 desirable enough, in the concrete it was sure to make her 
 position more difficult. Various persons were proposed ; but 
 they were all more or less out of the question. She could not 
 marry Philip of Spain without a dispensation from the Pope, 
 and to have accepted that would have inferred her own 
 illegitimacy ; for if the Pope could grant a dispensation to 
 a man to marry his deceased wife's sister, he could also 
 grant a dispensation to a woman to marry her deceased 
 husband's brother. It was almost as difficult for her to take 
 
Il6 NOMINATION OF AN HEIR, 
 
 a Frenchman or a member of the House of Austria, for they 
 were Catholics; Protestant German princes were not so 
 common as they are at present, and to have married a 
 subject would have exposed her to endless jealousy, and 
 besides would have lowered her position as compared to 
 Mary Queen of Scots. However, it was quite impossible 
 to explain all this to Parliament, and so the subject was 
 always a matter of quarrel. 
 
 If she would not marry, Parliament thought that the queen 
 might at any rate name a successor ; but the queen steadily 
 refused to do anything of the kind. At Elizabeth's accession, 
 the great mass of her subjects had been born and bred 
 before the new doctrines of the Reformation had come in ; 
 they were, therefore, thorough Catholics in religion, though 
 they had no love for the Pope. It could not, however, be 
 expected that they would look with pleasure on the religious 
 reforms which Elizabeth was carrying out; but they were 
 cheered by the hope that Mary of Scotland, a devoted 
 Catholic, would probably succeed to the throne. On the 
 other hand the Protestants looked on Mary with horror, and 
 hoped that something would turn up to prevent her suc- 
 cession ; so to have declared Mary heir on the one hand, or 
 one of the Suffolk family on the other, would have alienated 
 a large body of the nation, and this Elizabeth never would 
 do. At the end of her reign it was just as bad. Elizabeth 
 wished to maintain the Church of England; but to have 
 declared James of Scotland her heir would at that time have 
 given a great impetus to the English Presbyterian movement 
 which Elizabeth detested. Besides this, as^time went on, 
 Elizabeth became more and more averse to the mention of 
 the subject, she knew well enough that an heir to the throne 
 might make himself very dangerous to herself, and so she 
 steadily turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of her subjects. 
 
THE PURITANS. W] 
 
 This policy, however, Parliament never would understand, 
 and in 1566 and 1571 it opposed the queen's wishes on the 
 subject. In the first of these years, the Commons spoke up 
 boldly, and declared that the queen ought to marry or else to 
 name a successor. No sovereign, said the lords, but one who 
 was hateful to her subjects could be afraid of her successor. 
 Elizabeth ordered the peers who spoke thus to be banished 
 from her presence, and told the Commons to refrain from 
 further speech upon the subject. Peter Wentworth asked 
 if this order were not illegal. A debate of four days took 
 place and then the Queen gave way/ 
 
 In 157 1 a struggle took place on the subject of Puritanism. 
 Puritanism is rather a vague term. The nucleus of the 
 Puritans were the Protestant clergy who left the Church in 
 1564 on the attempt of the high commission court to enforce 
 the Act of Uniformity, but there were numbers of people 
 inside the Church who were desirous of carrying out the 
 principles of the Reformation to their logical conclusion, 
 and who therefore, while remaining in the Church, were 
 anxious to bring its principles and practice into closer con- 
 formity with their views. This party was very strong in the 
 Commons, and again and again they tried to press their views 
 on the court. In 1571 the Queen was thoroughly annoyed 
 by this, and forbad Strickland, who had spoken strongly on 
 the subject, to attend Parliament. This flagrant violation of 
 the right of freedom of speech was not allowed to pass 
 without notice. Peter Wentworth drew the attention of 
 Parliament to the subject, and especially to the order of the 
 queen forbidding Parliament to impeach Mary Queen of 
 Scots, saying, " None is without fault, no, not even our 
 gracious queen." Finally, Wentworth was imprisoned by 
 the House, but released by the queen, and afterwards took a 
 leading part in ecclesiastical questions. These instances are 
 
Il8 AHMAD A A TURNING POINT. 
 
 sufficient to show that the House of Commons even during 
 the earlier years of Elizabeth was not so servile a body 
 as is sometimes supposed. Still the queen did not mince 
 matters in her addresses to the House, and they were often 
 warned not to meddle with matters that were too high for 
 them. 
 
 The execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587, and the 
 defeat of the Spanish Armada in the following year, removed 
 the great danger which had hung over England since the 
 accession of Elizabeth j and England, no longer breathlessly 
 anxious for her very existence, was able to turn herself again 
 to the securing of her constitutional freedom. The effort to 
 do this lasted from 1588 to 1688, exactly" one hundred 
 years, and during that time the old liberties which had been 
 won for a brief time under the Plantagenets, were regained, 
 and such a stamp put upon them that they have never since 
 been seriously infringed. This struggle for liberty forms the 
 most exciting period of our constitutional history, and the 
 opening struggle was ushered in by the cannon of the Armada. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that had James I. been a 
 different character no struggle would have taken place. The 
 contest had begun before his arrival, and his character, 
 though it shaped the channel, had nothing to do with the 
 incoming of the tide. It was while good Queen Bess still 
 lived that Parliament began to murmur, and the first 
 rustling of the coming storm was heard. As Elizabeth grew 
 older her popularity declined. The war caused the levying 
 of heavier taxes ; the disasters in Ireland, the weary dragging 
 out of the war with Spain, the fall of the popular Essex, 
 cooled the enthusiasm of the nation, and the feeling of dis- 
 content showed itself, as was likely, in open rebellion on the 
 part of the Parliament. J The great grievances were the con- 
 ditions of the Puritans and the weight of the monopolies. 
 
THE MONOPOLIES. II 9 
 
 The queen was determined to enforce her ideas of a state 
 religion on the nation, so there was constant friction between 
 the Court of High Commission and the low church or Puritan 
 party. These difficulties were often before the notice of 
 Parliament, and the Commons acquired the habit of looking 
 upon themselves as the champions of the discontented 
 reformers. / But the quarrel about the monopolies has gained 
 greater prominence, and has been handed down as the first 
 open revolt of the Parliament against the court. These 
 monopolies were granted to individuals either as court 
 favourites or in return for a money payment, and gave the 
 sole right of selling some article. The monopolists were 
 able to sell at what price they thought they could make the 
 largest profit, and the difference between this price and the 
 market price which would have been fixed by free competition 
 was an indirect tax on the consumers of the article. To the 
 court they were a great source of revenue, and included salt, 
 coal, leather, Latin grammars and other things. % "Is not 
 bread among the number?" asked an angry commoner. 
 The question of the legality of these monopolies was raised 
 in Parliament. At first the Commons proceeded by way of 
 petition, but no notice being taken of their request, a bill was 
 brought into the Parliament of 160 1 to declare the monopo- 
 lies illegal. For four days the courtiers made all the re- 
 sistance in their power ; but Elizabeth, finding that success 
 was hopeless, gave way with a good grace, and sent word to 
 the House that they should all be discontinued, and, though 
 the promise was never literally carried out, the Commons, 
 who had won a great constitutional battle, were for the time 
 satisfied with their success. 
 
 Two other facts show the growing antagonism of the 
 Commons to the court. In the course of her reign Elizabeth 
 created sixty-two new boroughs, most of them rotten, and 
 
120 FEUDAL IDEA OF KINGSHIP. 
 
 she also did all in her power to influence the course of 
 elections at other places in favour of the court candidates. 
 If such was the attitude of Parliament and the court during 
 the reign of good Queen Bess, it was only likely that open 
 war would break out between Parliament and James I. 
 
 The struggle of which we have just traced the beginning 
 was influenced on the death of Elizabeth by two new 
 departures, (i) The more exact definition of the position of 
 the Sovereign \ (2) the change from the Tudors to the 
 Stuarts. The notion of kingship in Europe was modified 
 by the events of the sixteenth century ; the idea of the 
 feudal sovereign was replaced by those of a personal 
 monarch and its opposite, the constitutional king. These 
 ideas were in conflict ; and as they were at the bottom of 
 the struggle between the Stuarts and their Parliaments, it is 
 well to inquire closely into their meaning. In mediaeval 
 times the whole theory of the organization of government 
 and society was founded on the feudal system. It was a 
 vast pyramid at the foot of which stood the serf, at the 
 head the emperor. Europe still regarded itself as a part of 
 the Roman empire, of which the emperor and the Pope 
 represented the chief temporal and spiritual authorities. 
 Under the emperor, stood the kings and their subjects; 
 under the Pope, the archbishops and their clergy. This was 
 the ideal; but it was not altogether recognized in its 
 entirety. England always claimed to be independent of the 
 empire, a sort of little empire in itself, and when Sigismund 
 the emperor paid a visit to Henry V. it was expressly stipu- 
 lated that he came as a visitor, and not as claiming any 
 authority over the island. But at the close of the Middle 
 Ages this theory was broken down by the logic of facts. 
 The emperors lost their hold on Italy, and even on Ger- 
 many, and became mere German princes, who were more- 
 
PERSONAL MONARCHY. 121 
 
 over constantly out at the elbows and inspired no manner 
 of respect; and though Charles V. gained a great name, 
 his influence was due far more to his Spanish and Nether- 
 landish subjects than to his rank as emperor. From another 
 point of view the Reformation broke up the ecclesiastical 
 side of the empire. England, Scotland, a great part of Ger- 
 many, and Holland utterly threw over the papacy, and in 
 thi£ new state of things a fresh theory had to be discovered. 
 { From the king's standpoint the view taken up was, that 
 sovereigns owed their authority to divine right, and held 
 their crowns from God himself without any interposition of 
 the power of the emperor. This view made the sovereign 
 owner of all his dominions in a sense unknown in feudal 
 times, and enabled him to exchange, cede, or buy territory 
 in a way that was never thought of by the feudal monarchs. 
 His relation to the law was also changed. In old times the 
 king was just as much bound by the customs of the realm 
 as any of his subjects ; but the sovereigns of the seventeenth 
 century began to set up the theory that the laws of the land 
 were subject to the wishes of the king, and that the privi- 
 leges of the subject were the grant of the monarch, and 
 could be revoked at his pleasure. The chief advocates of 
 this theory were the students of the Roman law, which had 
 always looked on the emperor as its supreme authority, and 
 their views of the king's power were summed up as follows 
 in " CowelPs Interpreter," a book published in 1610. In 
 his definition of king, Cowell says : " He is above the law 
 by his absolute power, and though for the better and equal 
 course in making laws, he do admit the Three Estates into 
 Council, yet this in divers learned men's opinion is not 
 of constraint, but of his own benignity, or by reason of the 
 promise made upon oath at the time of his coronation." 
 On the other hand a diametrically opposite view of the 
 
122 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 
 
 king's position had grown out of the Reformation. The 
 central ideas of the Reformation were the right of private 
 judgment and the doctrine of justification by faith. These 
 theories left no place for the mediation of the priest, or 
 the interposition of authority, and therefore carried with 
 them the tenet that all men were equal before God ; and if 
 before God, much more, therefore, before men. By them 
 the self-respect of men was increased, and an impulse given 
 to political as well as religious independence. Looking at 
 the theory of the king's power from this standpoint, it 
 became clear that the king must have received his authority 
 from the people, who had agreed for the sake of protection 
 and better government to give up some of their rights to 
 one man, who in return was bound to obey the laws. But 
 this theory again was capable of two interpretations, or 
 rather developments. Hobbes thought that the people, 
 having once set up a king, had for ever given up their 
 rights, and had no power to revoke them. On the other 
 hand, Locke was of opinion that, if the king broke the 
 fundamental contract, which must some time or other have 
 been made, by violating the laws of the land, then the 
 people might depose and punish the kin&J^ These views 
 were, of course, not enunciated in form at the accession of 
 James I., but they were in the air, in men's minds, and the 
 course of the quarrel turned in a great measure on which of 
 the two was adopted. 
 
 The question of the exact constitutional position of the 
 English sovereign had never given much trouble to Henry 
 VIII. or Elizabeth. So long as they had the reality of 
 power, they did not care to investigate the basis upon which 
 it rested, and gave themselves over to keep their realm in 
 good order, and to secure themselves from the encroach- 
 ments of the Pope like matter-of-fact English people as they 
 
CHARACTER OF JAMES I. 1 23 
 
 were. To keep clear of the Pope was, however, of the 
 highest importance, and with regard to him they would 
 have defined their position, if asked, to have been that of 
 an absolute monarch, that is, one who was over all causes 
 and all cases within their dominions supreme, and sub- 
 ject to no interference from any outside power, such as 
 Pope or emperor. No Tudor would have claimed to be 
 above the law. If it stood in their way, and the deed 
 could be done quietly, they had no scruple about violating 
 it, but they never thought of claiming to do so as a right. 
 
 In all these points James I. was utterly different. He 
 was a pedantic student of political philosophy, and therefore 
 was more careful of the theory of his position than of the 
 maintenance of its dignity. He took the word absolute as 
 meaning unrestrained by his subjects, and finally claimed 
 as a right to be above the law. Such pretensions in a man 
 of true kingly dignity would have been very trying, but in 
 James I. they were absurd. The dignified aspect and 
 kingly mien, which the Tudors had accustomed Englishmen 
 to look for in a king, were ill calculated to fit the nation to 
 reverence a slovenly glutton whose tongue was too large 
 for his mouth ; and the scholastic verbosity of James, his 
 trickiness and meanness, disgusted a race who thought 
 silence was golden, and reckoned a man by his deeds and 
 not by his professions. Clever, undoubtedly, James was, a 
 great deal cleverer, and even more far-sighted than many of 
 his subjects, but disgusted as the nation was by his outward 
 appearance and manners, these qualities went for very little, 
 except perhaps with Sir Francis Bacon and the bench of 
 bishops. 
 
 Until the death of Elizabeth very little was known in 
 England of James I. The impression which he made on 
 his arrival was not favourable. His train was filled with 
 
124 ELEMENTS OF CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOM. 
 
 needy Scots, who looked upon England as a land flowing 
 with milk and honey. At Newark he caused a man who 
 was caught picking pockets in the crowd to be hung on the 
 spot without trial; and when a number of Puritan clergy 
 presented a petition for some alterations in the Prayer-book 
 and ceremonies of the Church, ten of their leaders were 
 thrown into prison. By the time the new sovereign reached 
 London, his subjects were well assured that if their liberties 
 were to be secured they must be up and doing, and the 
 struggle for constitutional freedom begun in real earnest. 
 
 To secure constitutional freedom it is necessary for the 
 nation to have control directly or indirectly over the legis- 
 lative or the making of laws, the executive or the carrying 
 on of the nation's business, the judicial or the punishment 
 of offenders, and the trial of cases between man and man. 
 At this time, as we have seen, Parliament had secured the 
 sole right of making laws, but this right was continually 
 being encroached upon by the free use of proclamations by 
 the king and council. It had no control over the appoint- 
 ment of the king's ministers — from the chancellor or trea- 
 surer to the sheriffs and magistrates — that is, over the 
 executive. And in regard to the law courts the rights of 
 the subjects were to a great extent illusory. 
 
 The courts of the kingdom could be divided into two 
 branches, the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, 
 and the ordinary courts of the land. Over the first of these 
 the nation had no control ; the judges were appointed by 
 the king, and they acted without juries. In the ordinary 
 courts where juries were employed it might seem that the 
 rights of the subject were secured, but this was far from 
 being the case. In the first place the king appointed and 
 dismissed the judges solely at his own pleasure, so that they 
 were completely under his thumb. Then, as the king in- 
 
PARLIAMENT OPTIONAL, 1 25 
 
 directly appointed the sheriffs, and the sheriff named the 
 jury, there was sure to be, to say the least of it, a strong 
 bias in the king's favour ; and finally a man accused of a 
 criminal offence was not furnished with a copy of the indict- 
 ment before the day of trial, or a list of the witnesses 
 against him ; nor was he allowed to examine witnesses for 
 the defence upon oath. What wonder was it that under 
 the Stuarts the law courts, which should have been the 
 protection of the subject, became merely the instruments of 
 his oppression ? 
 
 Against this array of power the only hope of the subject 
 lay in the Parliament. Insurrection was utterly useless, 
 and if Parliament could not hold its own there was no hope 
 left for the nation. But there was no law to compel the 
 king to summon a Parliament. So long as he could pay 
 his way without additional taxes, or so long as he could get 
 money in some way without the grant by Parliament, there 
 was every probability that he would not summon one ; and 
 we owe it to the bad management of the Stuarts that they 
 were compelled by their extravagance and thriftlessness to 
 come as often as they did, face to face with the national 
 assembly. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PARLIAMENT UNDER JAMES I. 
 
 During the reign of James I. Parliament was occupied in 
 reasserting its privileges. The first act of James was a 
 violation of the privileges of the Commons. He issued a 
 proclamation in which he announced that it was his good 
 pleasure that no one who held extreme views on religion or 
 had been outlawed, was to be elected a member. This was 
 a gross violation of freedom of election. Happily the county 
 of Buckingham elected a gentleman of the name of Goodwin, 
 an outlaw, so the action was not allowed to pass without 
 question. According to the practice which had been used 
 for a long time, the returns of the elections were sent not to 
 the House of Commons but to the Court of Chancery. 
 This court, in accordance with the king's unconstitutional 
 proclamation, quashed the election of Goodwin, and ordered 
 a second election to be held, in which another gentleman, 
 named Fortescue, was chosen. To this the Commons 
 demurred, insisted that the returns should go to them and 
 not to the Court of Chancery, and James, finding them firm, 
 yielded. A compromise was found, by which the elections 
 of both Goodwin and Fortescue were set aside and a new 
 member was chosen. From this time the right was never 
 again disputed, and all questions which arose out of elections 
 were referred to the Commons and to the Commons only 
 
FREEDOM FROM ARREST. 12? 
 
 for decision. This beginning augured well for the further 
 success of the Commons. To have secured control over 
 their own elections gave them a firm basis on which to 
 stand, and deprived the king of an excellent opening for 
 getting rid of obnoxious members. 
 
 The next point was to secure the freedom of members' 
 persons. The freedom of members of Parliament from 
 arrest was very old. There was a law as old as the days of 
 King Ethelbert that no man should hinder the members 
 of the witan when summoned by the king, and this privilege 
 had gradually developed till it was recognized that a member 
 of Parliament could not be imprisoned at the suit of any 
 private person or for any crime except treason, felony, or 
 breach of the peace. To enforce this privilege was, however, 
 more difficult. It had been violated several times by the 
 Tudors and was in danger of falling into disuse. Happily 
 the first Parliament of James I. insisted upon its rights, and 
 in the case of a member named Shirley they vindicated the 
 right of their members not to be arrested for debt. 
 
 Armed with these two privileges, of control over their own 
 election and freedom from arrest, the Commons became 
 very strong, and at once took a much higher position, in 
 spite of all James' theories, than they had held under the 
 Tudors. They became the recognized champions of the 
 nation against the court, and also of the Puritans against 
 the high churchmen and Catholics, a fact which was attested 
 by the coupling of Parliament and king by the authors of 
 the gunpowder plot 
 
 During the earlier years of James a series of skirmishes 
 took place between him and the Commons in which both 
 sides practised the use of their weapons and gained confi- 
 dence in themselves. Among these disputes was one about 
 the union between England and Scotland. James was 
 
128 THE CATHOLICS. 
 
 desirous of seeing this done at once, but Parliament refused 
 to do more than abolish the old border laws, and could not 
 be persuaded to do what James wanted, with regard to the 
 naturalization of his Scottish subjects. Again, Cecil, James' 
 chief minister, wished to get rid of the old feudal dues, which 
 were becoming most irksome in the new state of society, 
 and offered to compromise the annoying rights of wardship, 
 marriage, reliefs and so on for a fixed land tax of ^200,000 
 a year. After a great deal of bargaining, the Commons 
 agreed to this, but happening to go down for a recess the 
 members changed their minds and refused to complete the 
 contract, and the scheme fell to the ground. The plan was 
 allowed to drop, and nothing more was effected till 1660. 
 Again, the Commons were continually putting pressure on 
 the king to enforce the severe laws against the Roman 
 Catholics; the king on the other hand, who in this re- 
 spect was more tolerant than his subjects, was constantly 
 trying to find some means of uniting the Catholics to the 
 English Church, and so was desirous of avoiding anything 
 which would embitter the feelings of the two parties. In 
 this way constant friction was kept up, and the Parliament, 
 acting on their motto, " That the prerogatives of princes may 
 easily and do grow, the privileges of subjects are at a stand- 
 still, and they may be maintained, but if lost are never 
 regained," did all in their power to hold their ground. 
 
 But Parliament was not the only body which suffered in 
 its privileges ; the rights of subjects were also attacked. The 
 purse of the nation was no longer inviolable. / The consti- 
 tutional right of the national assembly alone to grant taxes 
 rested upon immemorial usage \ the kings had never been 
 able to establish any regular practice to the contrary ; their 
 attempts to do so had been regularly resisted, and finally the 
 rights of the nation in this respect had been laid down in 
 
 
 
INCREASED CUSTOMS. 1 29 
 
 the most positive and explicit manner in the confirmation of 
 the charters of Edward I. For a time the kings had en- 
 deavoured in a spasmodic manner to get an irregular 
 revenue in violation of this document, but these efforts 
 ceased with Richard II., and from his time till the accession 
 of Mary no attempt had been made to enforce a regular tax, 
 though benevolences and forced loans, which did not differ 
 materially in practice, had been sometimes exacted. Mary, 
 however, levied a small customs duty without the consent of 
 Parliament, and Elizabeth had raised a tax on sweet oils. 
 These violations, however, though serious enough, were not 
 systematic, and it was reserved for James I. to lay siege in 
 regular form to the purses of his people. Tonnage and 
 poundage, i.e. a tax of one shilling and sixpence to three 
 shillings per ton on liquors, and of threepence to sixpence 
 a pound on dry goods, imported or exported, had according 
 to custom been granted to James I. for life, by his first 
 Parliament. James proceeded to increase the tax by about 
 five per cent, and in some cases by more. For instance, 
 James was no smoker, and to try and put a stop to the 
 objectionable practice he raised the tax on tobacco to six 
 shillings and eightpence a pound. This rise in the customs 
 duties was felt very much by the merchants, and one Bates, 
 who traded with Turkey, refused to pay, and in 1608 he was 
 brought before the Court of Exchequer to answer for his 
 conduct. Now the question of customs duties had always 
 been held to differ somewhat from that of other taxes. 
 Trade, since it arose out of our relation to foreign countries, 
 was supposed to have something to do with foreign affairs, 
 which were under the king's own management, and so the 
 control over customs had been the last to be won, and was 
 now the first to be disputed. The judges who sat in the 
 Exchequer Court being appointed by the king, were, there- 
 
 K 
 
13O VIEWS OF THE LAWYERS. 
 
 fore, in his interest, and decided that the king's power is 
 double, ordinary and absolute, that the absolute power 
 is used by the king in respect of foreign affairs, and that, as 
 customs arise out of foreign commerce, the king may regulate 
 them as he pleases. This decided the question in the king's 
 favour, and the judges also declared that "a law passed in 
 one king's reign did not bind his successor," a theory which 
 was subversive of all parliamentary power and made 
 James I., if he chose to be so, as despotic as William the 
 Conqueror. Delighted with this decision, James issued a 
 book of rates containing a completely new and increased 
 scale of customs, and insisted upon their being paid. 
 
 This decision spread the greatest alarm throughout all 
 classes, and the Parliament which sat in 1610 reflected the 
 feelings of the nation. The gentry were fearful that their 
 lands would be taxed, while the common law lawyers looked 
 with horror upon a decision which set precedent at defiance. 
 The lawyers were always divided into two parties — the 
 common law lawyers, whose system of law rested upon 
 precedent and ancient prescription, were stoutly in favour 
 of parliamentary tradition and privilege, while on the other 
 hand the Chancery lawyers, who got their ideas from the 
 maxims of the Roman law, were inclined to value the 
 decisions of the crown to the exclusion of the traditions of 
 the court, and to introduce into English courts of justice 
 the Roman theory that " that is law which pleases the 
 king." This quarrel between the lawyers was at this time 
 embittered by a direct struggle between the common law 
 courts and the Court of Chancery as to who should try cases 
 which arose out of trusts, and so we find that, as a rule,fthe 
 Chancery lawyers, headed by Sir Francis Bacon, favoured the 
 king, the common law lawyers, headed by Sir Edward Coke, 
 favoured the Parliament. I Under these circumstances the 
 
JAMES 1 FAVOURITES. 131 
 
 lawyers of the Commons met the decision of the judges in 
 Bates' case by a demand that the precedents of the House 
 should be searched, and they had no difficulty in getting 
 together a formidable array of instances in which the right of 
 taxation had been allowed to lie wholly in the Houses of 
 Parliament, and especially in the House of Commons. This 
 evidence, however, was not received with favour by the 
 Upper House and was by it rejected. Meanwhile the 
 bargaining about the commutation of feudal dues had proved 
 a failure and Parliament was dissolved. 
 
 There is a marked contrast between the first and second 
 halves of James' reign. So long as Cecil, Lord Salisbury, 
 lived, the traditions of Elizabeth's time were fairly maintained ; 
 but after his death in 161 2, an event which almost coincided 
 with the death of James' eldest son, Prince Henry, James 
 fell into the hands of favourites, such as Carr and Villiers, 
 the traditions of State were less regarded, and the rights of 
 subjects were invaded with greater recklessness than before. 
 In the first part, Parliament was summoned regularly, got 
 through a good deal of business, and passed many important 
 regulations ; in the second, James aimed at doing without 
 Parliament as much as possible, and at carrying on the govern- 
 ment by a series of proclamations, all more or less in violation 
 of the principles of the constitution. Puritans were con- 
 stantly imprisoned without trial. Arabella Stuart, for no 
 crime at all except that she was the king's cousin, was shut 
 up in prison with her husband, and after his escape pined 
 away and died. Taxes were collected according to the book 
 of rates, merchants were irritated, and all classes felt a want 
 of security which was fatal to contentment. Meanwhile it 
 must not be forgotten that James was doing his best in many 
 ways to promote the good of his subjects. He gave great 
 attention to the draining of the fens, and to the improvement 
 
132 THE ADDLED PARLIAMENT. 
 
 of inland communication, and he was carrying out an 
 extensive scheme for the colonization of Ireland. 
 
 These things, however, "cost money, and in 1614 James, 
 after an interval of four years, determined to summon another 
 Parliament. In order that it might be more amenable to his 
 views than its predecessor, he entered upon a wholesale 
 scheme of corruption and intimidation, in itself a great com- 
 pliment to the power and independence of Parliament, and 
 allowed certain persons, who called themselves "under- 
 takers," to undertake the business of getting together, by 
 hook or by crook, a House of Commons whose views would 
 agree with the court. Unfortunately this excellent plan got 
 wind, the electors were by no means pleased at this arrange- 
 ment to " take them in and do for them," and, in defiance of 
 the undertakers, chose candidates who were opposed to the 
 court, consequently the members came up to Westminster 
 in no mood to be cajoled. It was in vain that James made 
 them a soothing and complimentary speech, they refused to 
 be pacified, and in spite of all the courtiers could do, the 
 Commons attacked the whole policy of the government 
 and especially the book of rates. In dismay James demanded 
 instant supplies, and threatened instant dissolution if they 
 were not granted. In return, the Commons stormed at the 
 court, and, within two months of its meeting, Parliament was 
 dissolved before it had passed a single measure or voted a 
 single penny of supply. It was known afterwards by the 
 name of the Addled Parliament. At the dissolution several 
 members were imprisoned, which certainly amounted indi- 
 rectly to a violation of the right of freedom of speech, though, 
 as the victims had ceased to be members of Parliament at 
 the dissolution, it was very difficult to offer resistance, 
 especially as an appeal for habeas corpus was sure to be 
 decided by the judges in the king's favour. 
 
UNPOPULARITY OF THE COURT. 1 33 
 
 From 1614 to 1621 no Parliament met, and the court 
 pursued its way unchecked, and James was able to develop 
 his theory of governing the country as an absolute sovereign. 
 Unfortunately for the Stuarts, James did not by any means 
 adopt the right means to make his system popular by the 
 goodness of its results. Instead of choosing the ministers so 
 as to show that he was anxious above all things to get the 
 best men as his advisers, he allowed power to fall into the 
 hands of unworthy favourites, and instead of vigorously 
 carrying out, both at home and abroad, the policy which the 
 nation desired, he looked coldly on the Puritans at home 
 and appeared to be truckling to Spain abroad. Meanwhile 
 he dismissed Sir Edward Coke, the Chief Justice, from his 
 place, raised Sir Francis Bacon to be Lord Chancellor, 
 and gave free swing to the Courts of Star Chamber and High 
 Commission, from which he is said to have derived a revenue 
 of ;£i 33,000 a year. All confidence was lost in the govern- 
 ment and in the law courts, and a vigorous opposition was 
 organized in the country. Of the party of resistance Coke, 
 spurred by his disgust at the king and his jealousy of Bacon, 
 took the lead, and it was clear to all observant men that 
 James would find his next Parliament even more refractory 
 than the last. | It was at this time that the leaders of the 
 Long Parliament were growing up ; Cromwell was an under- 
 graduate at Cambridge ; Pym and Hampden were young 
 men ; Wentworth and Eliot were as yet on the same side ; 
 Milton was at school ; all of them were learning from James 
 the lesson of what government without a Parliament was 
 likely to become. 
 
 Meanwhile it was becoming more and more necessary that 
 James should call a Parliament His revenue was not up to 
 his expenditure. His court was more expensive than that 
 of Elizabeth, as was likely enough, since he had a family to 
 
134 PARLIAMENT OF 162 1. 
 
 support ; but it was also more luxurious and more debauched, 
 while it had none of the attractive majesty with which the 
 Tudors had charmed their subjects. Under Carr the ex- 
 penses were trebled, and the new favourite Villiers, Duke 
 of Buckingham, did not let them fall. On the other hand 
 James' aversion to enforce the fines levied on the Catholics for 
 not attending church, deprived him of a profitable source of 
 revenue, while his reckless grants to his favourites seriously 
 diminished the value of the crown lands. Pressed by his 
 necessities, James determined to appeal to his subjects, and 
 the year 1621 seemed specially favourable for the purpose. 
 War had just broken out between the Protestants and Catho- 
 lics, and as James was allied to the former through the popular 
 marriage which Cecil had negotiated between their leader 
 Frederick of the Palatinate and the English princess 
 Elizabeth, he thought that something might be made out of 
 the eagerness of his subjects to join in the strife. So, in 
 spite of the king's well-known dislike to bloodshed, war was 
 spoken of, and the idea was mooted of sending a regular 
 English expedition to fight for the princess, and to provide 
 funds for this purpose Parliament was summoned. 
 
 On their assembly James made them a most courteous 
 speech, alluded slightly to his former errors which he imputed 
 to ignorance, said that in a former Parliament he had been 
 misled by " certain beasts called undertakers," and hoped 
 they would vote supplies readily. The Commons, however, 
 refused to fall into the snare, and made it plain that before 
 the nation's money was voted the nation's wrongs ought to 
 be redressed, and they had not to look far to find a plentiful 
 crop of abuses. 
 
 In order to raise money, James, in addition to increased 
 customs, had resorted to the sale of offices, and his new 
 favourite Buckingham had originally come into notice by 
 
IMPEACHMENT OF BACON. 1 35 
 
 buying the office of cupbearer. He had also created the 
 new title of baronet, which he had sold for ^iooo, and 
 had even resorted to the sale of monopolies. It was 
 on the holders of the last that the anger of the Commons 
 first fell. But they did not mean to stop here, they deter- 
 mined to attack the government itself, and by way of show- 
 ing their detestation of the conduct of the courts of law 
 they made choice of Lord Chancellor Bacon as their victim. 
 For their weapon the Commons went back to their 
 armoury and brought out of it an instrument which had not 
 been used since 1450. But it brought with it an ill omen 
 for the court, for impeachment had last been used against 
 Suffolk, the hated minister of Henry VI. 
 /Lord Chancellor Bacon, Sir Giles Mompesson, and other 
 monopolists were impeached before the House of Lords, the 
 former for bribery, the latter for the monopolies they held ; 
 and so well in accord were the two Houses, that a tremend- 
 ously severe punishment was inflicted, and the accused 
 were almost ruined by their sentence. Bacon, though con- 
 demned for bribery, was a thorough scape-goat for the court. 
 He had probably done no more than others, and even Shake- 
 speare, in the Merchant of Venice, plainly regards the 
 receipt of presents by the judge as nothing out of the 
 common, but as he himself said " he had been the justest 
 judge in England this fifty years; and this had been the 
 justest censure in Parliament this two hundred years." The 
 king remitted a part of Bacon's sentence, but the moral 
 effect was the same, and ministers had again discovered 
 that there was a power in England which the greatest ministers 
 of the crown could not defy with impunity. Parliament 
 then granted two subsidies. A subsidy was a tax of four 
 shillings in the pound on all revenue gained from land, 
 and a property tax of two shillings and eightpence in the 
 
136 FREEDOM OF SPEECH. 
 
 pound upon the actual value of goods. A subsidy therefore 
 fell upon the landed gentry and the owners of personal pro- 
 perty, while tonnage and poundage fell upon the merchants, 
 and indirectly through them on the nation, in the form of 
 an increased price for foreign produce, and at the same time 
 decreased the export trade of the country by raising the 
 price of English goods in foreign countries ; but in those 
 days such matters were little considered. A recess of five 
 months followed, and on their return the Commons again 
 petitioned the king against the increase of Catholicism, and 
 begged that Prince Charles might marry some Protestant 
 lady. This interference with state mysteries disgusted James 
 even more than the impeachment of his ministers. He 
 ordered them to desist from such impertinence, and they in 
 return drew up a protest to the effect " that their liberties 
 and privileges were the undoubted right of the subjects of 
 England : the State, the defence of the realm, the Church, 
 the laws and grievances were proper matters for them to 
 debate : members have liberty of speech, and freedom from 
 all imprisonment for speaking on any matters touching 
 Parliament business." Upon this the king sent for the 
 journals of the House. " Set seats for the ambassadors, " was 
 his remark when the deputation from the Commons was 
 announced, and he tore the protest out of the volume of the 
 journals with his own hand. Parliament was at once dis- 
 solved, and Coke, Pym, Seldenand two others were imprisoned. 
 When Parliament was gone James felt free again to follow 
 his own course ; he dealt lightly with the Catholics, and 
 entered into negotiations with Spain for a marriage between 
 Prince Charles and the Infanta. Great was the excitement 
 at this in England ; it was said that the churches had never 
 been so crowded before, as they now were by the multitudes 
 who flocked to pray for the failure of the scheme, and great 
 
GAINS OF PARLIAMENT. 1 37 
 
 was the joy when the news came that Buckingham had 
 broken off the negotiations in disgust, and that England was 
 saved. For a time Buckingham was the most popular man 
 in the kingdom, and James took advantage of this turn of 
 affairs to summon another Parliament. It met in high glee, 
 and readily voted supplies for the popular war against 
 Spain ; but in other matters its spirit was the same as that 
 of its predecessors, for it passed a resolution which, finally 
 as was hoped, declared monopolies to be illegal, though 
 some special patents, such as that for smelting iron with 
 pitcoal, were excepted ; it again used the weapon impeach- 
 ment, and condemned Middlesex the Lord Treasurer for 
 bribery, and at this crisis James died. 
 
 In view of the pitched battle between king and Parliament 
 which occupied the reign of Charles I. , the results of the 
 skirmishes under James I. were most important. James had 
 attacked the rights of his subjects by interfering with freedom 
 of election and the right of members of Parliament to be 
 exempt from arrest, and by infringing the right of freedom of 
 speech and discussion ; he had attacked the liberties of his 
 people in general by the excessive use of proclamations, and 
 by the collection and altering of taxes unauthorized by 
 Parliament. Parliament in return had secured control over 
 their own elections and freedom from arrest for their 
 members, they had protested against the improper use of 
 proclamations and the illegal levying of taxes, they had 
 placed on record their right to free discussion, they had 
 straitened James' means of doing without a Parliament by 
 cutting off the revenue gained from monopolies ; and finally, 
 by reviving impeachments, they had provided a ready weapon 
 with which to attack those officers of State who might, even 
 in deference to the wishes of the prince, think fit to violate 
 the liberties of their country. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 EARLY PARLIAMENTS OF CHARLES I. 
 
 There is a great contrast between James I. and Charles 1. 
 Where one was strong the other was weak, and where one 
 was weak the other was strong. James disgusted the nation 
 by his ungainly gluttony; Charles impressed all by his 
 kingliness and moderation. On the other hand the father 
 was well informed, and skilled in political theory and pre- 
 cedent, the son was no scholar and knew little of the theory 
 of politics. James cared a great deal for constitutional 
 positions, but was ready to give way on practical points; 
 Charles fought only for matters of practice and detail. The 
 father knew how to tell the strength of the opposition, and 
 was ready to yield with grace ; Charles never could estimate 
 the force against him, and he had a large measure of what 
 is known as firmness in a king, but in others by the name 
 of obstinacy. His was just the character to bring matters 
 to a crisis, and so the leaders of the opposition felt. " The 
 king in his own nature is very stiff," said Sir Ferdinand 
 Fairfax. He was just twenty-five years of age, and had had 
 little experience except of getting his own way. But over 
 and above these faults Charles had one which more than 
 all of them led to his ruin. He was not a man of his word, 
 and he quickly taught his subjects that it was useless to 
 
SHORTLIVED POPULARITY OF CHARLES. 1 39 
 
 make a compact with a man who regarded no oath as 
 binding so long as it was made with a mental reservation, 
 and the knowledge of this peculiarity lost Charles his head. 
 
 James, no doubt, was in many ways both a pedant and 
 a fool, but in others he was superior to the statesmen around 
 him. He wished for peace, though he perhaps did not take 
 the right means to get it. He was opinionated towards 
 Parliament, but so was Queen Elizabeth. Like her, he 
 knew how to give way, and could throw over part of the 
 cargo to save the rest, and his death, by putting the helm 
 into the raw hands of Charles and Buckingham, undoubtedly 
 diminished the chances of weathering the storm. Quarrels 
 arose, not on general questions but on narrow points, such 
 as the levying of ship money and the command of the army, 
 and so made compromise less easy, while the absence of 
 any general political theory made Charles less able to argue 
 the merits of the struggle in which he found himself 
 engaged. 
 
 At his father's death Charles was himself popular and 
 engaged in a popular policy ; but before his first Parliament 
 met the feeling in his favour had a good deal subsided. 
 Suspicion was thrown on the honesty of his conduct in 
 Spain, and on the truth of the narrative which he and 
 Buckingham had given to the nation. His marriage con- 
 tract with Henrietta Maria of France was found to be in 
 most points as favourable to the Catholics as that which had 
 been broken off with Spain. It was seen that in ecclesiastical 
 matters he was likely to be guided by Laud, Bishop of Bath 
 and Wells, the most active of the high church party ; and 
 as being more energetic and enterprising than James L, his 
 movements were viewed with greater suspicion. Accordingly 
 when Parliament met, although war was on the point of 
 breaking out with Spain, supplies were dealt out very 
 
140 TONNAGE AND POUNDAGE. 
 
 sparingly, only two subsidies were granted ; and tonnage and 
 poundage, which were usually granted to the king for life, 
 were only offered to Charles for one year, an offer which he 
 scornfully declined. Other matters for quarrel arose. Dr. 
 Montague, who had been censured by the Commons, was 
 petted by the court ; customs duties, in spite of the rejection 
 of tonnage and poundage, were levied as before; and the 
 nation was horrified to hear that eight ships which had been 
 lent to the French for the war, were being used against the 
 Huguenots at Rochelle. Under these circumstances Parlia- 
 ment, when it met, after an adjournment, at Oxford, refused 
 to grant any more supplies and was forthwith dissolved. 
 
 The most obvious way to the heart of the nation was to 
 rouse its enthusiasm by a victory over Spain ; but under 
 Charles the attempt proved a failure, and the ships which 
 should have brought victory from Cadiz, brought nothing 
 better than fever, and still further disgusted the nation with 
 the incompetency of their rulers. The resources of the 
 court were, however, exhausted, and it was absolutely ne- 
 cessary to appeal to Parliament. But in doing so, Charles 
 violated the spirit of the constitution by pricking for the 
 office of sheriff his most active opponents, each in his own 
 county ; while a writ was withheld from the Earl of Bristol, 
 who, as ambassador at Madrid at the time of Charles' visit, 
 might have had a very awkward story to tell. On the 2nd 
 of February Charles was crowned, but his popularity was 
 now gone, and on the 6th his second Parliament met. It at 
 once complained of the increase of popery, the collection 
 of tonnage and poundage, and the release of Dr. Montague, 
 the Arminian preacher. The Commons then appointed 
 three committees; (1) for grievances; (2) for the state of 
 the kingdom ; and (3) for religion. Religion, throughout 
 the whole reign, was a sore stumbling-block in the way of 
 
LAUD'S CHURCH POLICY. 141 
 
 any real accord between Charles and his people. Charles 
 was a member of the Church of England, thoroughly 
 attached to the Protestant cause as he understood it, but 
 utterly out of sympathy with the majority of his subjects. 
 They were for the most part Puritans, or at any rate the 
 most active members of the Commons belonged to that 
 party, and they were desirous of introducing reforms which 
 were most objectionable to Charles and his clerical advisers. 
 It was not even as if Charles wished to stop still and to 
 remain where he was. No, he was desirous with Laud's 
 assistance, of introducing into the ceremonial of the Church 
 a higher degree of decency and order ; in fact, for the time 
 he lived he was a ritualist. The reforms aimed at do not 
 seem very alarming to us. He wished to restore the 
 communion table from the centre to the east end of the 
 church, and to make the communicants kneel when they 
 received the bread and wine; but they raised a fierce storm 
 in the minds of eager Puritans, who wished on the other 
 hand to do away with the ring in marriage, the cross in 
 baptism, and the surplice ; and it was plain that, if the two 
 parties pulled in opposite ways with such vigour, the cord 
 which connected them must soon break asunder. Charles 
 and Laud were accused of popery, and the irritation was 
 extreme. Meanwhile politicians were furious at the ill 
 success of Charles' policy, and the failure of the Spanish 
 expedition, and the Commons were ready to impeach 
 Buckingham as the cause of all this disgrace. While this 
 was going on in the Commons the Lords were disgusted 
 at the way in which the king had withheld a writ of summons 
 to Parliament from the Earl of Bristol. By constitutional 
 theory, every peer is of right the adviser of his sovereign, 
 and the peers were quite justified in refusing to proceed to 
 business until the earl's writ was sent. Under these cir- 
 
142 ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 cumstances Charles found it impossible to agree with the 
 Parliament without sacrificing Buckingham ; this he would 
 never do, so dissolved his second Parliament, and by that 
 act added still further to the distrust with which he was 
 regarded by all classes of his subjects. 
 
 During the next year, 1627, no Parliament sat, and the 
 king's subjects had a taste of arbitrary power. Tonnage 
 and poundage were of course collected just as though they 
 had been granted by Parliament ; but money was also raised 
 by forced loans and benevolences. Naturally resistance 
 was made, and five gentlemen who refused to pay were 
 thrown into prison. To appeal to the judges of the land 
 for redress was the next step, and the five gentlemen 
 applied to the Court of King's Bench for a writ of habeas 
 corpus ; but, as in Bates' case, the judges preferred the 
 pleasure of the king to the rights of their fellow-subjects, 
 and the writ was refused. It was now plain that neither 
 in purse nor person was an Englishman free from the 
 tyranny of his sovereign, and all men looked to Parliament 
 to redress so frightful a violation of the English con- 
 stitution. Happily for England, Charles was again forced 
 by his necessities to summon a Parliament. The vague- 
 ness of his foreign policy had led him into a war with 
 France, so that Charles was now opposed to the two 
 great Catholic powers, and ought to have been popular ; but 
 the utter incapacity which characterized the administration 
 of his affairs, and the disgust caused by his disregard of the 
 liberties of his subjects had set all classes against him. 
 
 The elections for the Parliament of 1628 took place 
 amidst the greatest excitement. Everywhere the constitu- 
 encies were thoroughly roused, and patriot leaders were 
 returned in all places not under court influence. Many 
 great men were in Parliament for the first time. Oliver 
 
THE PETITION OF RIGHT. 1 43 
 
 Cromwell and John Hampden were there ; and there, too, 
 were the old leaders, Sir John Eliot, Sir Thomas Wentworth, 
 and John Pym. All were thoroughly clear that the king's 
 attack upon the rights of his people must be put a stop to, 
 and, in the words of Wentworth, that " such a stamp must 
 be put upon the liberties of the country that no future 
 tyrant should dare to invade them." The Commons at 
 once set to work, and in the Petition of Right, they drew 
 up four articles which they hoped would put a stop to the 
 most crying evils of the time. I. " That no freeman should 
 be required to give any gift, benevolence, loan or tax without 
 common consent by Act of Parliament." Secured as this 
 right had been by immemorial usage, by Magna Charta, and 
 the Confirmatio Cartarum, Charles I. had taught his subjects 
 that it was needful to lay down the good law again. II. 
 " That no freeman should be imprisoned or detained con- 
 trary to the law of the land." This, too, was a fundamental 
 axiom, and had been laid down by Magna Charta, but 
 Charles I. had been careful to show that in his reign it must 
 be again enacted. III. " That soldiers and mariners should 
 not be billeted in private houses." This referred to a new 
 form of punishment or compulsion recently devised by the 
 court. When gentlemen refused to pay forced loans, soldiers 
 and sailors were quartered on them either till they paid or 
 were sufficiently punished. IV. " Commissions to punish 
 soldiers or sailors by martial law were to be revoked, and 
 no more issued." This was drawing the tiger's teeth. Except 
 for fighting the enemy abroad, for which service men vol- 
 unteered, or for repelling invasion at home, for which each 
 man went to the front as in duty bound, the law of England 
 did not recognize an army, still less an army impressed by 
 the king for the purpose of compelling his subjects to submit 
 tamely to his attacks upon their liberties ; and it was not till 
 
144 MURDER OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 many years after this that Parliament conceived it necessary 
 that England should follow the example of the continental 
 nations, and possess an army of professional soldiers, com- 
 pelled to turn to the right-about or the left-about at the 
 word of their officers, under pain of punishment under the 
 Mutiny Act. Brought face to face with these demands 
 Charles writhed. He would promise anything, just anything, 
 except not to break the law of the land. But the Commons 
 had now committed themselves, and were obliged to get 
 their petitions made law. To put pressure upon Charles, 
 Eliot again proposed to impeach Buckingham, and at last 
 the king yielded and gave his consent to the petition. Over- 
 joyed with their victory, Parliament granted five subsidies, a 
 liberal supply, and were then prorogued for a recess. 
 
 In their absence two events of first-rate consequence 
 happened. Wentworth went over to the king's side, and 
 Buckingham was assassinated. The defection of Went- 
 worth was most important, it deprived the nation of a 
 vigorous leader and gave Charles a most valuable adviser 
 and agent. To many it was a great surprise; but both 
 general and personal influences had for some time been 
 working for this end. It was a time of political discussion. 
 The relative position of Parliament and king was much in 
 debate, and on this point Wentworth and the patriot leaders 
 totally disagreed. The question amounted to this, whether 
 the affairs of the nation could be best managed by a small 
 executive appointed by the king or by the hands of Par- 
 liament itself. It is this question which is at the root of 
 all discussion as to the method of government in a free 
 country ; whether in fact the ministry should be appointed 
 directly by the head of the State as in the United States, 
 directly by Parliament, or indirectly by Parliament as is the 
 case in England. Now in the reign of Charles I. this 
 
SECESSION OF WENTWORTIL 1 45 
 
 question was beginning to attract attention as it had done 
 before in the times of Edward III. and Henry IV. The 
 nation was ruled by Buckingham, whose person and policy 
 were alike distasteful, but of whom they had no chance 
 of getting rid constitutionally except by impeachment, and 
 even that could be barred by the prorogation and dissolu* 
 tion of Parliament. This brought into strong relief the evil 
 of sole appointment by the king. The alternative to the 
 men of that day, seemed appointment of ministers by Par- 
 liament. But was Parliament, on the other hand, better 
 fitted to exercise the trust ? Was it sufficiently wise, well 
 informed and judicial to take the king's place ? Could it 
 do the nation's business efficiently ? Eliot thought it could, 
 Wentworth that it could not. This was the point at issue. 
 For the law of the land as such, Wentworth had no con- 
 tempt ; he saw that neither king nor Parliament could gain 
 by setting it at defiance, and therefore he was thoroughly 
 prepared to put a stop to such gross breaches of the con- 
 stitution as were provided against by the Petition of Right. 
 But with Eliot's idea that the House of Commons should 
 assume the executive as well as the legislative power he had 
 no sympathy ; and he thought the notion that a mixed body 
 like the House of Commons should pry into all the secrets 
 of State, and take upon itself to examine into every detail 
 of government, utterly absurd. But it was not only general 
 political theory which moved Wentworth. He was a strong, 
 competent man; he hated being in the second rank; he 
 had quarrelled with his neighbours, the Saviles, in York- 
 shire ; and all these motives acting together impelled him 
 to go over to the king's side and see if he could not carry 
 out his own idea that a strong executive acting under the 
 direction of the king was able to give the country a better 
 government than the ill-directed and spasmodic efforts of 
 
146 CHARLES' POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 the Parliamentary leaders. It was for reasons such as these 
 that Wentworth joined the king. 
 
 Hardly had he done so when Buckingham, who might 
 have been a most serious rival, was removed by Felton's 
 dagger, and the way was left open to Wentworth to carry out 
 his scheme. He became president of the council of the 
 north, and at once prepared to take up his residence in 
 York, and show what a vigorous and uncompromising 
 executive could do for the country. From this moment, 
 Eliot, who recognized in Wentworth the foe of his political 
 creed, became his deadly enemy, and turned on him all 
 the fire with which he had attacked the old-favourite 
 Buckingham. 
 
 Meanwhile Charles had been using his opportunity of 
 showing the nation how far he could be trusted to keep 
 his promises. In accepting the declaration of right he had 
 solemnly agreed not to collect any tax which had not been 
 voted by Parliament, f He was now wringing tonnage and 
 poundage from the merchants, precisely as if the Petition of 
 Right had never been heard of. j 
 
 His was certainly a hard case. He had involved himself 
 in war; he had an extravagant court, and a spendthrift 
 queen, and yet he could not even take a few hundred 
 pounds out of the purses of his subjects without ill-natured 
 people grumbling that he was breaking the law. 
 
 The Commons, however, did not take this view of the 
 matter, and no sooner had they met than they broke out 
 into indignant remonstrances against the collection of 
 tonnage and poundage. Great was the fury of the court. 
 The deadlock was complete. No supplies could be granted, 
 and while king and Parliament were at open strife govern- 
 ment could hardly go on. Under these circumstances, 
 Charles determined to prorogue and dissolve the Houses; 
 
DEATH OF SIR JOHN ELIOT. 1 47 
 
 but before he did so, a memorable scene was enacted. 
 The speaker was held in his chair, while resolutions were 
 passed by acclamation, that he is a traitor who attempts 
 any change in religion, that he is a traitor who levies any 
 tax not voted by Parliament, and that he too is a traitor 
 who pays the same ; and with this declaration on its lips, 
 the third Parliament of Charles I. passed away. In anger 
 Charles at once imprisoned Sir John Eliot and other 
 patriots. Eliot became the martyr of the constitution. 
 Unable to obtain from the judges a writ of habeas corpus, 
 unable to get assistance from Parliament, Eliot and his 
 fellows were condemned for riot, to imprisonment and fine. 
 One by one the rest compounded, but Eliot held on. His 
 health broke down, and he begged that, but to recruit his 
 strength, he might be allowed to visit his native county. 
 Charles denied his request, Eliot died in the tower; and 
 Charles had even the miserable satisfaction of refusing 
 to his relatives the poor pleasure of burying his body by 
 the side of his ancestors. The king himself wrote on their 
 petition : " Let Sir John Eliot's body be buried in the ***- 
 church of the parish where he died ; " and that was the 
 chapel of the tower. 
 
 This brings us to the end of the first part of the reign 
 of Charles I. He had now determined to have no more 
 to do with Parliaments but to rule his kingdom by his own 
 despotic power. The time which Charles had chosen for 
 this new departure was singularly inopportune. Parliament 
 at that moment occupied in all probability a greater space 
 in the eyes of the nation than it had ever before done. 
 Within four years there had been three general elections 
 accompanied by greater excitement than any that had 
 occurred before. The office of member had been sought 
 by the best of the land, and the ablest men in England had 
 
148 DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 shown themselves eager for the honour of representing even 
 the smallest boroughs. It was not a moment when Par- 
 liament had ceased to be of use, when its work had been 
 accomplished, and when it might sink like the French 
 estates, from uselessness into formality, from formality to 
 imperceptible decay, and so vanish out of mind. No ! 
 Charles I. tried to cut off the English Parliament in its 
 early manhood, when it was still rejoicing in its strength, 
 and he endeavoured to make his subjects forget its ex- 
 istence at the very moment when they were most conscious 
 of its worth. It was always thus with Charles. If ever 
 a thing could be made worse by being done at the wrong 
 time, he chose that moment for doing it; and his choice 
 of a time to declare his intention of doing without Par- 
 liament for the future, was one of the worst mistakes of a 
 singularly hapless reign. 
 
 %&**■ 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE REBELLION AND ITS CAUSES. 
 
 (Be 
 
 Between 1625 and 1629 Charles had three Parliaments ; 
 ybetween 1629 and 1640 he had no Parliament at all. 
 During that period he ruled with the assistance of a small 
 body of advisers, and made no effort to take into his confi- 
 dence the body of the nation. It is not to be supposed that 
 in doing this Charles was actuated by any other motive than 
 a desire to do his best for his people. He was thoroughly 
 desirous to advance their interests, but he had seen that 
 Parliament interfered with his notion of what was wanted, 
 and he was determined to show that, both in politics and in 
 religion, he knew better what was good for his people than 
 they did themselves. It was the old story of " everything 
 for the people and nothing by the people," and it brought 
 about the usual results. In political matters the king's chief 
 adviser was Wentworth, afterwards Lord Strafford ; in 
 ecclesiastical, Laud, Bishop of London, and afterwards 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, and those three set about carry- 
 ing into practical effect the maxim above quoted, which 
 they called among themselves by the name of " Thorough." 
 It was clear from the first that the great difficulty would 
 be about money matters. The income of all English kings 
 was derived from two sources — their own rights and parlia- 
 
150 FINANCIAL REFORM. 
 
 mentary grants, and from the latter Charles had cut himself 
 off ; and therefore, if he was to keep within the law, he must 
 live on his own property alone,. * This property was made 
 up from various sources : there were the crown lands, the 
 feudal dues, fines in the courts of justice, forfeiture of lands 
 and goods of offenders, first-fruits and tenths from the clergy, 
 and the fines paid for not attending church by the Roman 
 Catholics. These made up his legal revenue, and out of it 
 he had to pay for the whole administration of government, 
 for at this time the king was expected to pay out of his 
 income not only his personal expenses but also those of the 
 navy, the salaries of the ambassadors and the judges, and 
 the other officers of State. These expenses were almost 
 enough to absorb the revenue ; and clearly, if Charles was to 
 live upon his income, he would have to be very economical 
 indeed. In this matter Wentworth was Charles' chief 
 adviser, and he pointed out that the king's first aim must be 
 to expand his revenue as much as possible, while at the 
 same time he cut down his expenses. War clearly was too 
 expensive a luxury to be indulged in, so peace was made 
 with France and Spain; meanwhile Wentworth examined 
 the means of increasing the revenue. It is one of Adam 
 Smith's five maxims of taxation that as much as possible of 
 the money that leaves the pocket of the subject, should find 
 its way to the purse of the king. Wentworth found that this 
 rule had been grossly neglected, and that the king was 
 swindled by his officers in every direction. He at once set 
 about remedying the evil, and in his own district, the north, 
 he soon succeeded in raising the revenue to four or five 
 times its former amount, without taking a penny more out 
 of the pockets of the people, merely by insisting on the 
 honesty of the king's officers. By doing so, Wentworth 
 conferred a great public benefit ; but when he turned to the 
 
EXTRAVAGANCE OF HENRIETTA. I 5 I 
 
 work of enforcing economy at court, he found his task much 
 more difficult. The great obstacle in the way of improve- 
 ment was the queen, Henrietta Maria, who had been 
 accustomed to the gaiety and extravagance of the French 
 court, and was incapable of appreciating the necessity for 
 economy. "She cared for nothing but balls and fetes, with- 
 out thinking for a moment where the money to pay for them 
 was to come from." It was in vain that Charles endeavoured 
 to make her understand his position ; she would do nothing 
 to help him, and indeed, when the king, by Wentworth's 
 advice, had wisely refused some extravagant gift to a 
 courtier, she took a positive pleasure in granting it herself, 
 and then wheedling consent out of the weak-minded Charles. 
 Wentworth's efforts in this direction mainly resulted in 
 provoking the enmity of the queen, and he soon withdrew to 
 Ireland, where he determined to show Charles what a 
 splendid thing absolute power might be made in the hands 
 of an able man. When he was gone, things at court went 
 from bad to worse ; Charles' own tastes, though artistic, were 
 expensive, and, hurried on by his wife, he allowed the cost 
 of the court to swell to three or four times its amount under 
 James I., that is, to about ten times its cost under Queen 
 Elizabeth ; while pensions and offices were constantly be- 
 stowed upon court favourites, which permanently decreased 
 the royal revenue. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it was quite out of the question 
 for Charles to live upon his ordinary income. From the 
 beginning he had collected tonnage and poundage, and the 
 passing of the Petition of Right had made no difference in 
 this respect; but after 1628 the payment of tonnage and 
 poundage was viewed with much greater disgust by his 
 subjects, and Charles was soon obliged to have recourse to 
 the servility of the judges in order to coerce his subjects 
 
152 THE MERCHANTS. 
 
 into submission. In 1628, just after the passing of the 
 Petition of Right, Robert Chambers, a London merchant, 
 refused to pay the illegal customs. He was summoned 
 before the Court of Exchequer, where he had the temerity to 
 declare, that there was no country in Europe where the 
 merchants received so little encouragement as they did in 
 England ; it was as bad as living under a " Turkish tyranny." 
 For these words, he was brought before the Court of Star 
 Chamber on the charge of trying to " make people believe 
 that Charles' happy government was a Turkish tyranny," 
 fined ^2000 and sent to the Tower, where, as he refused 
 either to pay or to apologize, he was kept till released by the 
 Long Parliament. Other merchants thought better to pay. 
 But the collection of tonnage and poundage did not suffice 
 to supply Henrietta's wants, and Charles was obliged to 
 look round for further sources of revenue ; and he next 
 turned to monopolies. We might be tempted to think that 
 monopolies had been sufficiently declared illegal under 
 Elizabeth and James I., but Charles' Attorney-General, Noy, 
 whose chief claim to ability consisted in holding that to be 
 law which other people thought to be illegal, was of opinion 
 that though it was forbidden to grant a monopoly to one 
 person, there was nothing to prevent him granting one to 
 two, and so the sole right of selling various articles, was 
 granted to companies of individuals, who paid Charles a 
 Jarge sum on the spot and a royalty on the amount sold. 
 Monopolies were granted to companies, who were given the 
 ' sole right of making soap, starch, gunpowder, and other 
 articles ; and it seemed as if in time every article of common 
 use would be absorbed by one company or another. In 
 this way the traders and merchants were thoroughly annoyed, 
 and the feeling of discontent was spread far and wide through 
 the land. 
 
THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. I 53 
 
 ~Xs_ 
 
 I It was one of the maxims of Charle$ VJ that you should 
 never irritate two powerful classes at once ; that if you had ^ 
 to do anything which displeased the nobility, you must keep 
 the merchants in a good temper, and so on. The mer- 
 chants of England were now thoroughly irritated, and 
 Charles, in defiance of the maxim, proceeded to tread upon 
 the toes of the nobility. He did this by a new effort to 
 gain money. At the Conquest, the old folk-land was, as 
 we have seen, annexed by the king, under the name of 
 forest. This had been a large source of revenue to the 
 Plantagenets, but it had dwindled away, partly in grants to 
 the courtiers, and partly in encroachments made by the 
 neighbouring proprietors, at times when the crown had 
 been inobservant of its rights, or unable to enforce them. 
 In this way, large tracts of forest land had been lost, and 
 Rockingham Forest, which had formerly been sixty miles 
 across, was now reduced to six. Suddenly the king deter- 
 mined to reassert his rights, and Lord Holland was sent on 
 a tour through England to reclaim for the crown all land 
 within the old boundaries, to which its present holders could 
 not show a legal title, and to fine those landowners who 
 were found to have trespassed on the royal domain. In 
 this way, Rockingham Forest was restored to its former 
 dimensions ; in Essex alone ^300,000 was made by fines 
 and forfeitures, and the Earl of Essex was nearly ruined. 
 Dire was the distress caused to the nobility, and the anti- 
 court feeling of many noble houses in the civil war can be 
 traced to the restoration of the forests. 
 
 The next to suffer were the country gentry. By an old 
 law, owners of land worth ,£20 a year, that is, about ^200 
 a year at the present time, were to be knighted. This 
 practice had fallen into disuse, and Charles took advantage 
 of the circumstance to send an inquisition into the country. 
 
154 THE COMMONALTY. 
 
 and to fine those gentlemen who had not complied with the 
 obsolete law, and so another class was arrayed against him. 
 Even the poor did not escape. A statute of Queen Eliza- 
 beth had ordered every cottage to have four acres of land 
 attached to it, and numerous proclamations had been issued 
 to forbid the building of additional houses in London. 
 Neither of these had been enforced, but Charles sent a 
 commission for twenty miles round London to inquire into 
 the matter; the poor were "mightily vexed," and one 
 builder was fined ^1000 and ordered to pull down forty 
 new houses which he had erected, on pain of paying the 
 like sum. Innkeepers were ordered to pay a new tax on 
 wine, and when they refused were forced into compliance 
 by a prohibition to cook any meat. The result was that in 
 one way or another, beer, wine, taverns, tobacco, soap, and 
 numerous other articles were all taxed, and thus Charles 
 raised his revenue from ^500,000 to ;£ 800,000. 
 
 Still his income was not sufficient, for his expenses had 
 increased. The large sums that were spent on court festi- 
 vities had left little for the ordinary payments of govern- 
 ment ; salaries had been allowed to fall into arrears, and 
 the navy had been totally neglected. In consequence the 
 coast swarmed with pirates and smugglers, and commerce 
 and the revenue alike suffered. To remedy this Charles 
 determined to increase the navy, and it seemed an excellent 
 opportunity to increase his income at the same time. To 
 furnish themselves with a navy in times of war, the English 
 kings had always been in the habit of collecting money 
 from sea-board counties and towns, and there is some 
 evidence to show that a tax for this purpose had sometimes 
 been collected from inland counties. For instance, in 994 
 Ethelred had taxed all his land by hides, and 310 hides had 
 had to furnish one ship ; and again, Elfric, Archbishop of 
 
SHIP MONEY COLLECTED. 155 
 
 Canterbury, had left to the people of Wiltshire, his native 
 county, one ship, which could only have been an object 
 of curiosity to them, if they, in their turn, had not had 
 to furnish a ship to the king. Still the writs that were sent 
 out by Noy were carefully drawn up and addressed to sea- 
 board counties only, and the tax was collected without 
 much difficulty ; and it was not till after Noy's death that 
 more reckless advisers persuaded Charles to make the 
 whole kingdom pay. As a matter of equity this was not 
 at all unfair, for the welfare of the navy was a subject of 
 interest to all ; but it aroused the deepest indignation when 
 it was seen that under cover of providing for his navy, \ 
 Charles was really establishing a precedent for making ( 
 himself completely independent of Parliament. Still Charles 
 had the opinion of the judges in his favour, and it was a 
 bold act of John Hampden to refuse to pay the tax of 
 twenty shillings levied upon his estate. The matter was 
 brought for trial, and it was felt that the future of English 
 liberty depended upon the issue. The case was carefully 
 argued ; precedents were brought forward on both sides, 
 but Hampden's lawyers had no difficulty in producing a 
 series of evidence to show that taxation by the king without 
 the consent of Parliament, under any pretext whatever was 
 illegal ; and they rested their cause upon the three great 
 safeguards of the subject, Magna Carta, the De tallagio w 
 non concedendo, and the Petition of Right. But it was . 
 useless to prove what was the law of the land, when the! 
 judges decided that the king was above all law; and out 
 of the twelve judges, two voted for Hampden, one decided 
 against the king on technical grounds, the other nine gave 
 their decision in the king's favour. This settled the question 
 as far as the law was concerned ; but it did not make the 
 collection of ship money any easier, for it was a very 
 
156 THE COURT OF STAR-CHAMBER. 
 
 different thing to pay money when you seemed to be doing 
 a favour to the king, and to have it dragged out of your 
 pocket, whether you liked it or no ; and so people grumbled 
 the more and wondered when Parliament would meet again. 
 
 Meanwhile the Star Chamber and High Commission 
 Courts had all they could do, to keep down the spirit of 
 disaffection both in Church and State. Leighton, a clergy- 
 man who had written a book on bishops in general, which 
 was by no means complimentary to the order, was brought 
 before the Court of Star Chamber by Laud. He was con- 
 demned to be imprisoned for life, besides the minor punish- 
 ments of having to pay^io,ooo, stand in the pillory and 
 have his ears slit. Prynne, a barrister, wrote a very dry but 
 learned work on the immorality of stage plays, which, as 
 the queen had just acted in a masque, was most irritating 
 to the court, and the author was condemned to the same 
 punishment as Leighton. Bastwick and Burton, who had 
 also written against the bishops, and who were regarded by 
 the court as the mouthpieces of the rising tide of Presby- 
 terianism, were also severely punished, but so great was the 
 popularity of the prisoners that when they were removed 
 from London, one hundred thousand men are said to have 
 lined the roads to show sympathy with their cause. 
 
 Clearly the spirit of resistance was being thoroughly 
 roused, and though Charles and his advisers were rejoicing 
 in the result of the ship money trial, abler men saw that 
 should circumstances force the king to call a Parliament, he 
 would meet with such a storm as had never been felt in 
 England. 
 
 Happily for England such a necessity did arise. The 
 king's attempt to force the English Prayer-book on the 
 Scots, roused that nation to resistance ; war broke out, and 
 the king's slender finances, which had barely sufficed for 
 
THE SHORT PARLIAMENT. I 57 
 
 the ordinary expenses of the court, proved totally inade- 
 quate to meet this new strain, and he was obliged to appeal 
 to his Parliament. 
 
 After an absence of eleven years Parliament again found 
 itself at Westminster. Charles had chosen a very good 
 pretext for assembling the Commons. We were actually at 
 war with the Scots, and it seemed improbable that the 
 Commons would desert the king in such a crisis. This 
 feeling had its effect, and it seemed as if national sentiment 
 would get the better of the desire for liberty. John Pym, 
 however, in a celebrated speech, recalled the Commons to a 
 sense of the importance of the crisis in domestic politics, 
 and implied that, in his opinion, the liberties of England 
 were to be preferred by Englishmen, to the vain glory of 
 putting down rebellion in a sister kingdom, which had risen 
 for the purpose of securing objects not less dear to English- 
 men than to themselves. Charles was most anxious to get 
 the Commons to grant money ; they, on the other hand, 
 were equally desirous of making clear their opinion that 
 ship money was illegal, and though they had no special 
 objection to the war against the Scots, they felt that the 
 security of their own liberties was to be preferred. As time 
 went on, this feeling, which was fanned by Pym, increased ; 
 probably the king only anticipated a refusal when he dis- 
 solved Parliament before it had granted him supply. But 
 this conduct irritated Parliament by its seeming contempt, 
 and the failure of the Short Parliament of 1640, only paved 
 the way for a more stubborn conflict in the Long. At the 
 very moment of the dissolution, Charles showed his con- 
 tempt for the forms of the constitution. He kept convoca- 
 tion sitting after Parliament was dissolved, until it had 
 passed some new canons and voted a supply, by which 
 means he identified his cause still more closely with that of 
 
158 THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the bishops, and so prepared the way for the ruin of both. 
 This conduct caused a riot, and the bishops were maltreated, 
 many persons were arrested, and Charles wrote with his own 
 hand to the Governor of the Tower to order one of them, 
 John Archer, to be racked, and to be examined " before 
 torture, in torture, and after torture," a letter which needs no 
 comment. 
 
 The dissolution, however, only put off the evil day ; the 
 English were beaten in the field, for they had no heart in 
 the war ; the treasury was exhausted, and even Strafford saw 
 that, dangerous as a Parliament was likely to be to him, its 
 meeting was inevitable, and with a heavy heart Charles sent 
 out the writs which summoned the Long Parliament to meet 
 on the 3rd of November, 1640. 
 
 From a constitutional point of view, the years we have 
 just considered showed four things. (1) That the king's 
 ordinary income would not suffice for his wants without 
 additional taxes. (2) That the Courts of Star Chamber 
 and High Commission were undermining the rights of Eng- 
 lishmen to be tried by their peers, and therefore were at 
 variance with the spirit of the constitution. (3) That no 
 faith could be placed in the judges, so long as they could be 
 dismissed at the king's pleasure; and (4) that the only 
 remedy for these and similar evils lay in the frequent 
 meetings of Parliament. 
 
 The Long Parliament at its meeting gave its attention to 
 three points, the punishment of the guilty, the reparation of 
 injustice, and the prevention of such crimes for the future. 
 The impeachment and attainder of Strafford, though of the__ 
 utmost importance in political history, introduced no new 
 principle into the constitution. The revival of impeachment 
 in the case of Lord Chancellor Bacon had a greater con- 
 stitutional significance. The impeachment of Lord Strafford 
 
TRIAL OF STRAFFORD, 1 59 
 
 only showed, that Parliament once assembled, the haughtiest 
 minister of the crown was not safe from its attacks. Strafford 
 had deliberately set himself to show the country that de- 
 spotic power could and would give the people a better 
 government than they could get for themselves. In Ireland 
 he had succeeded in securing prosperity, if not content ; 
 but in England the system had failed, because Charles and 
 his advisers had not succeeded in gaining enthusiasm by 
 their success, which is the only price for which a high-spirited 
 nation is willing to sell its liberty. Strafford, however, re- 
 presented the system in the eyes of the nation, and his 
 execution proclaimed the fact that, successful or unsuc- 
 cessful, England preferred constitutional government to any 
 other form of rule. 
 
 But how was the nation to secure itself against similar 
 schemes for the future ? It was plain that it was only the 
 uncertainty when Parliament would meet, which had en- 
 couraged Laud and Strafford to carry on their plans, un- 
 heedful of its displeasure, and that only regular sittings of 
 Parliament could secure the nation from similar attempts. 
 But how were these regular sittings to be secured ? At 
 present the plan of voting all taxes for one year only, forces 
 the sovereign and his ministers to come back annually to 
 
 r Parliament for supplies ; but Charles I. had shown Parliament 
 that with the law courts at his feet, he had the means of 
 forcing his subjects to pay money which Parliament had 
 never granted, and therefore they were obliged to find some 
 direct method of compulsion. They did this by means of 
 the Triennial Act. This Act imposed a direct limitation 
 upon the prerogative of the crown, and it shows therefore 
 that Charles had taught his subjects, that the old theory that 
 the constitution was perfect, and that only its abuse had to 
 be provided against, which had been the basis of all legis- 
 
160 THE TRIENNIAL ACT. 
 
 lation in the Middle Ages, was no longer tenable ; and it 
 shows what an impression the fear of " Thorough " had made, 
 that such a notion should have been taken up by the Long 
 Parliament, composed, as its members for the most part 
 were, of country gentlemen, the most conservative class in 
 any country. The Act made Parliament compulsory on the 
 king, whereas it had previously been his prerogative to 
 summon it or dissolve it just as he chose. It was enacted 
 that Parliament was ipso facto dissolved at the end of 
 three years from its election, unless it were then actually 
 sitting, and then at its next prorogation. This was to 
 prevent the king from summoning a Parliament and then 
 adjourning it from time to time, so as to keep within the 
 letter of the law, without allowing it to meet at all. In the 
 next place a Parliament must be summoned within three 
 years of the dissolution of the last, and if the king failed to 
 move, the writs were to be sent out by the House of Lords, 
 and in their default by the sheriffs, and if they refused to act, 
 the people were to meet themselves and choose represen- 
 tatives. And to prevent an immediate dissolution, Parlia- 
 ment was not to be dissolved for fifty days after its meeting. 
 This was one of those beautiful pieces of paper legis- 
 lation, so useful in theory, so useless in practice, with which 
 the creators of constitutions have often amused themselves. 
 Was it likely for a moment that any king who had made 
 up his mind that he would not have a Parliament, would 
 allow one to assemble on such terms as these? Charles II. 
 said he would not, and he was probably a very good judge 
 of the case. A Bill which had much more important con- 
 sequences, was one which was passed without any reference 
 to theory whatever. For the very practical purpose of en- 
 abling the government to borrow money with greater security, 
 a short Act was passed, which ordered that Parliament should 
 
FALL OF THE COURT OF STAR CHAMBER. \6l 
 
 not be dissolved without its own consent, and on this Act 
 the legal position of Parliament during the whole course of 
 the war rested. 
 
 The next thing to be done was to reform the law courts, 
 and for this purpose an act was passed which abolished in 
 toto, the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, 
 and with them their sub-committees, the council of the 
 north, and the council of Wales. With them fell the whole 
 system of the criminal jurisdiction of the Privy Council 
 with all its iniquities, and from the day when the Star 
 Chamber ceased to sit the use of torture became unknown 
 in England. It had first appeared in the reign of Edward 
 IV., and the period through which it endured is that during 
 which the power of Parliament had been subordinate to 
 that of the king. 
 
 Another Act declared that for the future judges should 
 hold their offices, not at the king's pleasure but quamdiu se 
 bene gesserint, that is, on their good behaviour, which it was 
 hoped would make them independent of court influence. 
 Finally a series of statutes were passed against ship money, 
 distraint of knighthood, and illegal customs duties, and the 
 extent of the royal forests was fixed at what it had been 
 before the late enlargement. 
 
 As a reaction against the policy of Laud, which had 
 attempted to restore to the clergy the political position 
 which they had held in the Middle Ages, an Act was passed 
 which expelled them from the House of Lords, and this Act, 
 with one exception, brings to a close the constitutional labours 
 of the Long Parliament, which had now reformed the chief 
 abuses in Church and State and secured, as it thought, the 
 frequent meeting of Parliament. 
 
 With the events which brought about the struggle between 
 the king and the Parliament, such as the rebellion in Ireland, 
 
 M 
 
1 62 THE MILTTTA BILL. 
 
 the Grand Remonstrance, or the attempt to seize the five 
 members, we have not much to do, save only to remark 
 that the last was a distinct attack upon the privileges of 
 Parliament, but the Militia Bill, upon which the war actually 
 arose, involved a point of the highest constitutional import- 
 ance. It arose out of the necessity of sending troops to 
 crush the rebellion in Ireland, and the use which Strafford 
 had proposed to make of the army had shown the danger 
 of entrusting Charles with a military force. Under these 
 circumstances Parliament conceived the idea of taking the 
 command of the forces of the kingdom into its own hands, 
 and the Militia Bill was the result. It was a distinct 
 encroachment on the prerogative, for from time immemorial 
 the king had always been the leader of the host, and it 
 shows how utterly Charles' attempt to seize the five members 
 had aroused the distrust of his subjects that anything of the 
 kind should have been thought of for a moment. 
 
 Till the reign of Edward VI. the county militia had 
 always been led by the sheriff, while the fortresses had 
 always been entrusted to governors appointed by the king ; 
 but in that reign lord lieutenants of the county had been 
 appointed, who took into their hands the military part 
 of the sheriff's duties, and appointed the officers of the 
 militia. Parliament now proposed to take to itself the 
 appointment of lord lieutenants, and through them of the 
 officers of the militia, and also to appoint the governors 
 of fortresses, a tremendous encroachment on the king's 
 power, to which Charles refused his consent, and on which 
 hostilities broke out. This question of the command of 
 the army formed, with the religious question, the chief 
 points in all the negotiations between the king and Parlia- 
 ment ; and the difficulty of settling matters so complicated, 
 ultimately brought about the quarrel between the army and 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 1 63 
 
 the Parliament which led to Pride's Purge and the king's 
 death. With the events of the war we have nothing to do, 
 and the growth of the English constitution may be con- 
 sidered to be in abeyance, between the outbreak of war and 
 the restoration of Charles II. ; but the various constitutions 
 which were devised after the king's death are worthy of 
 study, not because they were permanent, but because they 
 show what were the ideas of the ablest Englishmen of the 
 time on the subject of political theory. 
 
 Between 1649 and 1660 the country was attempting to 
 discover some form of government, which, avoiding the name 
 of king, should still give them the advantages which they 
 had had at the best times of the old monarchy. From 
 1649 to 1653 an attempt was made at a pure republic; 
 between 1653, and July, 1659, at a republic headed by a 
 single person ; and during the short interval that remained, 
 a pure republic was again tried. With the first and last 
 of these, we have, strictly speaking, nothing to do, as they 
 were each in turn set completely aside, the one for a 
 Protectorate, under Oliver Cromwell, the other for the old 
 monarchy, under Charles II. 
 
 /immediately after the king's death, a resolution was 
 passed in the Commons that the House of Lords was " use- 
 less, dangerous, and ought to be abolished ; " and the next 
 day it was voted that government by a king or single person 
 is " unnecessary, burdensome and dangerous, and ought to 
 be abolished." Having thus got rid of the House of Lords 
 and the king, the Commons took the government com- 
 pletely into their own hands, and as they saw that it was 
 ludicrous for so large a body to undertake the management 
 of details, they elected a council of State to act as an 
 executive. This council governed England for four years, 
 and under their auspices Ireland and Scotland were sub- 
 
1 64 THE PROTECTORATE. 
 
 dued, and war made with the Dutch. It was not 
 satisfactory, because the House had ceased to represent 
 the most influential part of the nation, whose wants were 
 expressed by the army. As it refused to dissolve itself, 
 unless the seats of the present members were secured, and 
 a veto granted to them on the new elections, they were 
 expelled by Cromwell, acting on behalf of the army. A 
 new council was set up, composed of nine army men and 
 four civilians, who proceeded to collect another assembly 
 composed of men chosen by them from lists sent up by 
 the independent ministers. This assembly, which is often 
 known by the name of Barebone's Parliament, plunged 
 recklessly along the path of reform, abolished Church 
 patronage and tithes, did away with the Court of Chancery, 
 appointed a committee, on which not a single lawyer sat, 
 to reform the law, and overwhelmed themselves, with the 
 best intentions, under such a heap of odium from "harassed 
 interests," that they were very glad indeed to give up again 
 their power into the hands of Cromwell, and disperse to their 
 homes. 
 
 Disgusted with the failure of their ideal republic, the 
 officers invited Cromwell to take upon himself the office 
 of Lord Protector, and a new constitution was formed on 
 the basis of the old monarchy. By the " Instrument of 
 Government" the functions of government were to be 
 threefold, and were to be divided between the Protector, the 
 council of State and the Parliament. The Protector was to 
 be the head of the State, he was to be general by sea and 
 land. With the aid of his council he was to decide questions 
 of war and peace, and he was to act in ordinary matters with 
 their advice. Vacancies in the council were to be filled up, 
 by the Protector's nomination, from a list of six persons pre- 
 sented by Parliament. Parliament was to be held at least 
 
THE INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT. 1 65 
 
 once in three years, and might not be dissolved till it had sat 
 five months ; in it lay the sole right of legislation and taxa- 
 tion, but the protector was allowed to suspend the coming 
 into operation of any act for twenty days. The great objects 
 in this constitution, were to concentrate the government in 
 the hands of a strong executive which should be in accord 
 with the head of the State and with the Parliament, and 
 at the same time, by placing legislation and taxation solely 
 in the hands of Parliament, to give that body a thorough 
 control over the policy of the government Parliament 
 itself was reformed and made imperial by the addition of 
 members from Ireland and Scotland. Many rotten boroughs 
 were abolished, and large towns such as Birmingham, Man- 
 chester, and Leeds, were enfranchised. The scheme, which 
 was perhaps too artificial, never received a fair trial. It was 
 regarded with disgust by the royalists and republicans, and 
 after a stormy session, during which about a hundred 
 members were excluded for persisting in debating the ques- 
 tion of government by a single person, which was the very 
 essence of the constitution, Cromwell took advantage of 
 the expiration of five lunar months to dissolve the 
 Parliament. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that Cromwell was at all 
 desirous of wielding absolute power. Again and again he 
 attempted, at the risk of arousing dissensions which he 
 could not heal, to get a Parliament which would work with 
 him as a constitutional ruler, but it was impossible for him 
 to succeed. When once a government by a pure republic 
 had failed and constitutional government was to be again 
 tried, the nation would have preferred that it should be 
 tried by the Stuarts, and any freely elected Parliament 
 would certainly have declared for a restoration. Cromwell's 
 only hope then lay in the extreme parliamentarians, but 
 
1 66 THE PETITION AND ADVICE. 
 
 at least half of them were strongly in favour of a republic, 
 pure and simple, and it was only the fact that the opinions 
 of the rest of the nation received force by being the 
 opinions of the army, that enabled Cromwell to hold his 
 own at all. 
 
 His next attempt at parliamentary government occurred 
 in 1656 ; but royalists were excluded from voting, and above 
 ninety republicans and presbyterians were not allowed 
 to take their seats. This Parliament made a still further 
 attempt to restore the old form of government. By the 
 Humble Petition and Advice Cromwell was to take the 
 title of king, he was to be allowed to name his successor, 
 and he was to have supreme command of the forces 
 by sea and land. The members of the council and the 
 chief officers were to be nominated or removed with the 
 consent of Parliament. Parliament was to consist of two 
 Houses and meet at least once every three years. Taxation 
 was to be wholly in the hands of Parliament, but it was 
 understood that the new king was to have the same right 
 as his predecessors in respect of refusing his consent to the 
 laws. • The part of the plan which related to the name 
 king had to be dropped in deference to the wishes of the 
 army, but the rest passed, and practically restored the old 
 English constitution in an amended form. Its great supe- 
 riority over the constitution established by the Instrument 
 of Government lay in the much greater elasticity which was 
 given to the method of nominating the council, which 
 would pretty certainly have resulted in a short time in the 
 establishment of party government with a regular cabinet, 
 nominated in accordance with the wishes of the majority 
 of the Commons. It was also a great point to have got 
 rid of the vexatious plan of allowing the Protector to 
 postpone a law for such a small period as twenty days; 
 
FAILURE OF CROMWELL'S PLAN. l6j 
 
 and the addition of a House of Lords might in theory have 
 been expected to give greater stability to the constitution. 
 The plan, however, had to contend with the insuperable 
 objection, that it was the attempt of a minority to enforce 
 their will upon the majority of the nation ; and as the 
 omission of the title king deprived its supporters of the 
 protection which they would have got from the statute of 
 Henry VII. , which secured from prosecution persons who 
 had acted under a de facto king, it was received with no 
 enthusiasm. In practice it was soon found that jealousy 
 arose between the House of Commons and the new House of 
 Lords. The dissolution of this Parliament in 1 65 8 , brought to 
 a close Cromwell's last attempt at parliamentary government, 
 and his death the same year prevented him from making 
 another experiment. Still, though these attempts were a 
 failure, they served to educate the nation in political theory, 
 and the tenacity with which, at the Restoration, the nation 
 as a whole clung to the essential reforms of the Long 
 Parliament, and steadily pursued the attempt to bring the 
 policy of the officers of the crown into accord with the 
 wishes of Parliament, may be in some measure imputed 
 to the abortive attempts at constitution making, which had 
 been made by Cromwell and his friends. 
 
 At Cromwell's death the discordant elements in the 
 nation broke out ; Richard Cromwell, though excellently 
 suited to make a constitutional monarch, had no talent for 
 acting as constitutional sovereign of a third part of the 
 nation in defiance of the wishes of the other two ; he pleased 
 neither the saints nor the army, he could not stand by him- 
 self, so he quietly stepped aside, and allowed the combatants 
 to settle the question without his intervention in the contest 
 The matter was soon decided. The army was divided 
 against itself; the stronger portion brought back the Long 
 
1 68 THE RESTORATION. 
 
 Parliament, including those members who had been expelled 
 by Pride's Purge, in 1648, and the Long Parliament dis- 
 solving itself, declared for a convention, and the convention 
 declared for the king. Charles II. returned, hampered by 
 no constitutional compacts, and it remained to be seen 
 whether he, like the Bourbons, had learnt nothing and for- 
 gotten nothing, and whether the nation would sit contentedly 
 down and allow Charles, if he saw fit, to go back to the prin- 
 ciples of " Thorough," to re-establish ship-money, Courts 
 of Star Chamber and High Commission, and suspend for 
 ever the sitting of Parliament. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE RESTORATION PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Eager royalists must have been very much disappointed 
 with the reign of Charles II. He was no more able to 
 bring back the days of Charles I. than the days of William 
 the Conqueror ; and he, if not they, realized that the 
 England to which he had been restored was a new England, 
 and that the monarchy which he had regained was a new 
 monarchy. Even the Convention Parliament never thought 
 for a moment of giving up the right of taxation, it scouted 
 the notion of a revival of Star Chamber and Court of High 
 Commission, and it at once proceeded to limit the king's 
 power by fetters much stronger, if less tangible, than any 
 which had bound his predecessors. In fact, with the acces- 
 sion of Charles II., we come to an entirely new period in 
 the English constitution. We go back indeed to the state 
 of things under Henry IV., but with this important difference, 
 that whereas the Commons of Henry IV. were strong because 
 they were backed by the great nobles, the Commons of 
 Charles II. were irresistible because they were backed by 
 the people. 
 
 Parliament in this reign secured the power of controlling 
 the king's policy through its control of the purse, and for 
 the next forty years the great question at issue was, how was 
 
 <, 
 
I JO POWER OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 a mode of living to be found for these opposing forces? 
 Monarchy was accepted by the nation as the best form of 
 government ; the monarch had had to accept Parliament as 
 the only method of getting supplies; but were these two 
 perpetually to remain at variance ? Were the views of the 
 king's ministers perpetually to be thwarted by Parliament ? 
 Clearly not, and therefore, either the king must find some 
 way of getting Parliaments elected which would do what he 
 wanted, or he must choose ministers who would do what 
 Parliament desired. Which must it be? Charles II. 
 struggled hard and even successfully against his fate ; 
 James II. refused to accept the alternative at all, and lost 
 his crown, and it was reserved for William III. to adopt the 
 system of party government by which he chose his ministers 
 from that party which possessed a majority in the House 
 of Commons. Of the means by which Parliament secured 
 its control, of the growth of the Cabinet, and of the rise of 
 party government, we shall have to treat in the following 
 pages. 
 
 We must first examine the method by which Parliament 
 obtained control over the king. One of the first questions 
 which occupied the attention of the Convention Parliament 
 was that of the king's revenue, the great bone of contention 
 between the kings and the Commons. The king at this 
 time had to provide for his court, fleet, ambassadors, judges, 
 and other expenses ; and as it was of the highest importance 
 to the nation that these things should be done well, it was 
 clearly not their interest to stint the king, and it was merely 
 their fear that money giants would be used against the 
 interest of the nation that had made them appear niggardly 
 in their votes. It was hoped that these difficulties had now 
 been removed, and the Commons therefore were desirous 
 of giving to the king a suitable and prudent revenue, and 
 
FEUDAL TENURES ABOLISHED. \Jl 
 
 for that purpose appointed a committee to inquire into the 
 matter. This committee found that the average revenue of 
 Charles I. from 1627 to 1641 had been ^900,000, of which 
 ^"200,000 was illegal ; they had also to consider that the 
 value of money had decreased during the last twenty years, 
 and also that Charles I. had been notoriously pressed for 
 money. They determined, therefore, to give Charles II. a 
 total revenue of ;£i, 200,000. The king's revenue had 
 formerly been made up of a great many miscellaneous items, 
 among the chief of which were the feudal dues. These dues 
 had for a long time been very irksome, and the determined 
 attempt to get rid of them under James I. had only just 
 failed; they had been in abeyance during the common- 
 wealth, and the Convention Parliament determined to 
 simplify the king's revenue, and at the same time to shift 
 from their own shoulders a heavy burden, by commuting the 
 tax. Accordingly they passed an Act by which " all tenures 
 of estates of inheritance in the hands of private persons 
 (except copyhold tenures) were turned into free and common 
 socage, and the same were for ever discharged from homage, 
 wardship, values, and forfeitures of marriage, and other 
 charges, incidents, and tenure by knight's service, and from 
 aids for marrying the lord's daughter, or for making his son 
 a knight." If the Commons had borne in mind the example 
 of the Great Charter they would have extended the same 
 boon to their copyhold tenants, but they did not, they still 
 continued to collect from them the heriots and dues from 
 which they had relieved themselves. Nor did their injustice 
 stay here. /The feudal dues ought in fairness to have been 
 commutea for a tax on land, but the landowning lawgivers 
 commuted them for an hereditary excise on beer, by which 
 excellent method, they shifted their own burden to the 
 shoulders of the nation, and gave an illustration of the fact 
 
172 A STANDING ARMY. 
 
 that injustice and oppression are not wholly the monopoly 
 of kings. At the same time the old rights of purveyance 
 were got rid of, which as far as it went was a boon to the 
 nation, and the further deficiency in the revenue was made 
 up by a grant of tonnage and poundage for life. In this 
 way the king's ordinary revenue was settled, leaving extra- 
 ordinary expenses to be provided for by special grants. 
 
 The next question considered was the defence of the 
 kingdom. Of course the Militia Bill which had never actually 
 become law, as it was declared by the Commons to have 
 been passed without the consent of the king fell to the 
 ground, and so the appointment of lord-lieutenants and the 
 command of the fortresses was again assumed by the king. 
 But the progress of the time seemed to have rendered some 
 more systematic defence than the old militia necessary, and 
 England had to conform to the practice of the Continent 
 in keeping a standing army. Such an army, and a first- 
 rate one too, was in existence, but it was an object of 
 dislike to all parties; to the royalists, as the memorial of 
 Naseby and Worcester, to the Presbyterians as the instrument 
 of Pride's Purge and of Oliver's rule ; and was regarded with 
 dread by the Commons as the possible means of future oppres- 
 sion. It was resolved to disband it, but at the same time to 
 preserve the nucleus of a standing army by keeping two, and 
 finally several, regiments of Monk's loyal soldiers, amounting 
 to five thousand men, who were called Life Guards. To 
 increase the size of this army became the object of the king, 
 to reduce it that of the Commons, and the amount of 
 military expenditure has been a bone of contention from 
 that day to this. 
 
 These changes were made by the Convention Parliament, 
 but they were confirmed by the Royalist Parliament of 1661, 
 and this Parliament moreover laid down certain rules and 
 
THE CORPORATION ACT. 1 73 
 
 passed some regulations which were important as defining 
 the position of the king and Parliament, and which were 
 conceived for the most part in a thoroughly royalist spirit. 
 First of all they asserted, that no legislative power resides in 
 either or both Houses of Parliament without the king, and 
 that the sole command of the militia and of all forces by 
 sea and land had been and always was the undoubted right 
 of the crown. Next, that tumultuous meetings for petitions 
 (unless approved by the Council of London) were forbidden. 
 In 1664 the king sent to ask that the wonderful clauses 
 which were contained in the Triennial Bill of 1641, might 
 be done away with. It was now time for the Parliament, 
 according to the Triennial Act, to be dissolved, and Charles 
 had no wish to lose so loyal a Parliament ; the members on 
 their side were equally glad to escape the vicissitudes of a 
 general election, and readily entered into the plan. Ac- 
 cordingly the Triennial Act was repealed, though with 
 singular inconsistency a clause was inserted in the Bill, that 
 Parliament ought not to be intermitted for more than three 
 years. In 1661 the first attempt was made to prevent by 
 law the election of members unfavourable to the court. By 
 the Corporation Act, all holders of municipal office were 
 compelled to renounce the covenant and to take the sacra- 
 ment according to the English form. This was a blow at 
 the influence of the Presbyterians, who were strongest in the 
 little corporations, and who sent to Parliament members 
 who represented their views. 
 
 Another change introduced what at one time would have 
 been considered a revolution. In the year 1663 convoca- 
 tion, which had hitherto clung to the right of the clergy to 
 vote their own taxes, granted a subsidy for the last time, and 
 as now the special rights of the clergy to criminal jurisdiction 
 had disappeared, no further distinction remained to mark 
 
174 RISE 0F THE COUNTRY PARTY. 
 
 off this great body from the rest of the nation, except a 
 somewhat anomalous rule which forbids a clergyman to sit 
 in the House of Commons. 
 
 In spite of the strong royalist feeling which had been 
 shown by Charles' first Parliament at its election, an oppo- 
 sition soon sprung up, and the Commons soon found them- 
 selves engaged in putting upon Charles restrictions of the 
 strongest kind, attacking his policy, and forcing him to 
 change his ministers. The rise of this opposition was due to 
 many causes, but most of all to the strong inherent love of 
 freedom and desire to manage their own affairs which had 
 ever been the characteristic of Englishmen. At the very 
 eve of the restoration, Harrison, the regicide, had said, 
 "Well, let the king come in, and let him call together a 
 Parliament of as loyal men as may be, but so long as they 
 be men of estate, within twelve years they will all be Parlia- 
 ment men." And so it had turned out. Charles II. had 
 been by no means everything that the cavalier fancy had 
 painted him. He was idle and vicious, and deeply shocked 
 the sense of propriety which had been the indirect out- 
 come of Puritan teaching. His extravagance impaired 
 the resources of the State ; but the difference between his 
 position and that of his father was shown in the means each 
 adopted to supply the deficiency. Charles I. dissolved Par- 
 liament and collected ship money. Charles II., who dared 
 not have exacted a penny without the grant of Parliament, 
 was obliged to rely on French assistance. But not only this, 
 with Charles II. Parliament was absolutely necessary, and 
 he, therefore, instead of coercing it, was obliged to take 
 means to keep it in a good temper. For Charles II. was no 
 fool ; without half the learning of James I. he had a far 
 keener eye for politics, as brave as his father, he had more 
 subtlety and less obstinacy ; and he had brought back from 
 
APPROPRIATION OF SUPPLIES. 175 
 
 his travels one settled determination, and that was, never to 
 set out again. Accordingly, between Charles and the 
 Parliament a good-humoured contest was going on all the 
 time. Charles did not mean to fight, he was prepared at 
 any moment to throw over his ministers and even his brother 
 if necessary ; but he knew that to yield an inch was often to 
 gain an ell, and with his thumb carefully feeling the pulse 
 of the nation, he steadily pursued his plans, and at the close 
 of his reign he found himself more popular and practically 
 more absolute, than any member of his family who ever 
 occupied the throne of England. At first, however, the gain 
 was all on the side of the Parliament. 
 
 It was a great day when the system of appropriation of 
 supplies was reintroduced. Not since the days of Richard II. 
 had Parliament voted supplies for special purposes j since 
 that time votes had taken the form of tonnage and poundage, 
 or subsidies, by which method the king got a large sum of 
 money which he applied as he chose. This plan, however, 
 was far from satisfactory. It was out of the question that any 
 real check could be kept upon a king's extravagance, nor had 
 Parliament any security that the money which they designed 
 for a special purpose would be spent for that object. In 
 1665, however, Parliament, in voting the sum of ;£i, 250,000. 
 declared that the money was to be applied only to the war 
 with the Dutch. This was opposed by Charles' chief 
 minister, Clarendon, who thought that if a thing had not 
 been done in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there was no 
 reason for doing it now ; but Charles was in favour of it, as 
 he thought supplies would be granted with more liberality, 
 and as the plan was found to work well, it was repeated, and 
 soon became the rule. This was obviously an enormous 
 gain, it made the control over the purse far more strict, 
 and the Commons followed it up, by insisting upon making 
 
176 FALL OF CLARENDON. 
 
 inquiry as to how the money thus voted had been spent, 
 and as the result of the inquiry, the treasurer of the navy 
 was dismissed from his post. 
 
 The next step was to establish a control over the appoint- 
 ment of the king's ministers. This the Commons never 
 succeeded in doing; but, during the reign of Charles II., 
 minister after minister was forced from the service of the 
 crown, either by direct vote or by his position being rendered 
 untenable. This system was most harassing. It reminds 
 one of the old days, when Gaveston or Suffolk was expelled 
 and murdered by the barons ; it was wholly subversive of 
 any regular policy, for the king did not consent to allow his 
 plans to be regulated by his ministers, and while he threw 
 over servant after servant, still insisted on steering the ship 
 in the teeth of the gale. The first to fall was Clarendon. 
 He had been the faithful servant both of Charles and his 
 father, and was devoted to the interests of the monarchy ; 
 but he was old-fashioned, and while he disgusted the Com- 
 mons by his stretches of prerogative, he annoyed the king 
 by his attachment to decency. In consequence he had few 
 friends, and when his wars turned out unlucky, and when 
 London was ravaged by the plague and desolated by the 
 fire, it was felt by all that Clarendon was the right person to 
 be sacrificed, so he was dismissed by the king, impeached 
 by the Commons, and fled to the Continent, where he died 
 in exile. 
 
 The next attempt to stand between the king and the 
 Parliament was made by the Cabal. The word cabal has 
 derived from the actions of these ministers an odious signifi- 
 cation, and it is popularly believed that the word itself was 
 coined from the initials of the names of Clifford, Arlington, 
 Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale. This, however, is not 
 the case, as the word cabal was in use before these members 
 
GERMS OF CABINET GOVERNMENT. 1 77 
 
 were thought of; and it is possible that, had the word not 
 been rendered hateful by this ministry of Charles II., we 
 might at the present day have been calling our body of 
 chief ministers, not the Cabinet, but the Cabal. The word 
 cabal originally signified a secret or intrigue ; but it was 
 given to those confidential persons with whom matters of 
 State were discussed. It was the first germ of the present 
 system of government by a cabinet, and therefore deserves 
 careful consideration. During the times of the Tudors and 
 those of the first two Stuarts, the most important permanent 
 body in the kingdom was the Privy Council ; to it all the 
 high officials belonged, in it all important matters of 
 State were discussed, and by its members, sitting in Star 
 Chamber or in Court of High Commission, all the most 
 important political and ecclesiastical offences, with the ex- 
 ception of treason, were tried. But no body in the realm 
 was more changed by the events of the great rebellion than 
 the Privy Council. By one blow the Courts of Star Chamber 
 and High Commission were abolished ; by another, the 
 assumed right of imprisonment by order of the Privy Council 
 was done away, and nothing remained to the Council except 
 its capacity of giving advice to the king on political matters 
 when asked, and a rather vague function of acting as a Court 
 of Appeal in ecclesiastical matters, which it derived from 
 the time when in the absence of the Great Council it was 
 the general court of appeal for all matters both civil and 
 ecclesiastical. But though the Privy Council had thus lost 
 a great deal of its ancient glory, it had still within it the 
 germs of a system which has since developed into a form of 
 government which has been imitated all over the world, 
 and which was destined to solve the question, in what way 
 the rights of the Parliament and the rights of the king could 
 
 be made to work for the good of the nation, 
 
 N 
 
178 THE PRIVY COUNCIL. 
 
 The members of the Privy Council were nominated by 
 the king, and could be dismissed by him at pleasure. They 
 were bound by an oath not to divulge secrets committed to 
 their charge ; for the most important secrets of State often 
 came within their knowledge. The members, however, 
 were numerous, too numerous, in fact, to be all taken into 
 confidence. Nor were they all trained in State affairs. 
 Some were great noblemen who had no taste for detail, 
 others were officials of the court, others were bishops and 
 clergy; only a few had the aptitude for business and the 
 knowledge of State affairs which could make them efficient 
 servants of the king. To these few alone the king's con- 
 fidence was given ; and they alone were summoned when 
 the most important matters were to be discussed. They 
 became, in fact, a council within a council, and were known 
 by the name of the Cabal. 
 
 It was a distinct advance in the method of government 
 when this body of ministers came to be recognized ; for on 
 the one hand there was greater security against sudden 
 changes of policy now that several ministers had to be con- 
 sulted; on the other hand, the known position of these 
 persons prevented the king and his real advisers from shel- 
 tering themselves behind the general body of the Privy 
 Council. The advantages of the scheme, however, were 
 not at first recognized. The members of the present Cabal 
 were unscrupulous; none of them had the confidence of 
 the nation, only two of them had the real confidence of the 
 king. Hence their policy inclined this way and that, and 
 though the nation hardly knew the extent of the evil, the 
 first result of the introduction of the Cabal was to enable 
 Charles to make a secret treaty with Louis XIV., which it 
 was hoped might have led to the ascendency of Catholicism 
 and the degradation of liberty. 
 
THE ARMY QUESTIOA. 1 79 
 
 For Charles hoped by the aid of Louis to make himself 
 the possessor of a larger standing army than that with which 
 he had been entrusted by his subjects. He saw perfectly 
 clearly that this was the only way by which he could succeed 
 in regaining the ground which Parliament had won, and he 
 knew that in France and Spain the rise of standing armies 
 had ever been coincident with the fall of popular institutions. 
 But Charles had entered into the race too late. There is 
 a point up to which parliamentary institutions are so weak 
 that the possession of an organized force by the king is able 
 to overthrow them ; but that point once gained, Parliament 
 can bid defiance to the sovereign's efforts to obtain such 
 a force against their will, and can even, if necessary, allow 
 him with safety to wield such a force, as in an earlier stage 
 of their growth would have been fatal to themselves. 
 Happily for England this point had been reached before 
 Charles began his attempt, and Parliament had effectually 
 secured their right, of limiting the king's income. His only 
 chance then was to gain an income from elsewhere, and in 
 his extremity he turned to the king of France. But Louis' 
 grants, though liberal, were intermittent, and were hampered 
 by conditions which Charles knew better than to try and 
 fulfil ; the nation was thoroughly aware of its danger, it 
 looked with almost nervous jealousy at any of Charles' 
 attempts to increase his already too dangerous force ; and 
 it showed again and again that it decidedly preferred that 
 England should be imperfectly defended than that its de- 
 fence should be entrusted to its present king. 
 
 Meanwhile the nation was still further disgusted, and the 
 vigilance of Parliament still further increased, by the com- 
 mission which had been appointed to inquire into the way 
 in which the money voted for the Dutch war had been spent. 
 For it had been found that while ,£5,590*000 had been voted 
 
l80 THE CABAL, 
 
 for the war, the charge for the war was in reality only 
 ^3,200,000, that ^2,300,000 had been spent in what 
 might be called sundries, and that a debt of ^900,000 
 remained. The court was furiously attacked, and Charles 
 made a desperate effort to get rid of Parliament by pro- 
 roguing it first for a year, and finally for twenty-one months. 
 During this time the court was sore put to it to pay its way. 
 In order to get a little more money, notice was given to the 
 king's creditors that the principal of debts due in 1672 was 
 not going to be paid, but that the creditors would only 
 receive the interest, which amounted to a declaration of 
 national bankruptcy, and produced the greatest consterna- 
 tion among capitalists. But in spite of all his efforts, 
 Charles found it was impossible to go on without a Parlia- 
 ment, and in 1673 tnat niost disagreeable body was again 
 at Westminster and attacking the court as furiously as ever. 
 The connection with France, the disgraceful financial trans- 
 actions, and the approaches towards Catholicism, gave a 
 plentiful crop of grievances. 
 
 The violence of the storm fell mainly on the Catholic 
 members of the Cabal. For Charles, in his eagerness to do 
 something to deserve the subsidies of Louis, had ventured 
 upon a course which brought into prominence an entirely 
 new grievance. Hitherto the assumed power of the king to 
 suspend laws had hardly been heard of. Until the Reforma- 
 tion English law had been singularly free from statutes made 
 by one body of the nation for the purpose of fixing disabilities 
 on another. The customs of the country were such as all 
 honest men would maintain, and as it was the interest of no 
 king to alter ; while the Parliamentary statutes were devoted 
 either to enforcing these or to reasserting against the king 
 the principles of the constitution. It was clearly no object 
 of the king to interfere with the former j to interfere with the 
 
THE DISPENSING POWER. l8l 
 
 latter was to bring down upon himself the anger of his people, 
 and perhaps to lose his throne. But when, after the Refor- 
 mation, laws began to be made in the interests of the 
 Church for the purpose of inflicting disabilities on Roman 
 Catholics and Nonconformists, it became a question how 
 far the king had the right of exempting individuals or 
 societies from the operation of these laws. For it might be 
 argued with great show of right that this did come within 
 his prerogative. No one doubted that the king could 
 pardon a criminal. Could he not, therefore, before trial 
 absolve a man from the consequences of his acts ? And if 
 he could permit one man to break the law, why should he 
 not exempt a whole class from its operations? Hence 
 arose the struggle for the suspending power which Charles, 
 under the advice of the Cabal, had first used on a large scale, 
 when he at one swoop, by his declaration of indulgence, 
 suspended the operation of no less than thirty statutes 
 against the Roman Catholics. Had the use of the weapon 
 been introduced with greater circumspection, it might have 
 escaped unnoticed, but this wholesale application roused 
 Parliament at once, and it not only compelled Charles to 
 withdraw the declaration, but also it determined to rid 
 itself of Catholic advisers who could be capable of aiding 
 him in such an outrageous course. For this purpose it 
 passed the Test Act, which excluded from office all persons 
 who would not take the sacrament according to the rites 
 of the Church of England, and make a declaration against 
 transubstantiation. This Act broke up the Cabal ministry, 
 and Buckingham and Shaftesbury, its two ablest members, 
 joined the opposition. 
 
 Danby was the next minister. He resumed Clarendon's 
 policy, and tried to secure the king's power by passing a 
 bill which made all statesmen declare on oath that they 
 
1 82 DANBY. 
 
 considered resistance to the king unlawful, and that they 
 would make no alteration in Church and State, but the 
 bill was thrown out in the Commons. Meanwhile the 
 Commons were steadily pursuing their principle of appro- 
 priating the supplies, and in 1677 they ordered a subsidy 
 which had been voted for the use of the navy to be paid 
 into the hands of their own receivers. Danby's power did 
 not last long. Having been involved, though unwillingly, 
 in some scandalous arrangements with France, he, in his 
 turn, was impeached by the Commons, and committed to 
 the Tower, and thus three ministries, all of which had been 
 devoted to the crown, had fallen through the vote of the 
 House of Commons. It was rendered plainer than ever, 
 that either the king must get his Parliament to agree with 
 him, or that he must give way to it, unless some third 
 scheme could be discovered by which some body could be 
 interposed between king and Parliament, which on the one 
 hand could control the king, and on the other should not be 
 obnoxious to Parliament. 
 
 Such a scheme was Temple's, and it is interesting, because 
 it has been one of the very few attempts at paper constitu- 
 tions which have been tried in England. His idea was, to 
 make the Privy Council a real check on the king. It was to 
 consist of thirty members representing the law, the Church 
 and the government. Half were to be ex-offlcio members, 
 influential, disinterested ; half were to be named by the 
 king. In order that the members might be men of substance, 
 the annual incomes of the whole were not to amount to a less 
 sum than ^300,000 a year, which was a little less than that 
 of the Commons. This plan looked excellent on paper, 
 but in practice it was a failure, for the members were far too 
 heterogeneous to agree; the number was too large for 
 secrecy, and when Temple himself agreed to submit the 
 
TEMPLE'S SCHEME. 1 83 
 
 most important business to an inner circle of the council, he 
 practically acknowledged the failure of his plan. In this 
 way the middle course was shown to be impossible, and 
 hence the problem was again reduced to the dilemma above 
 stated 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FINAL STRUGGLE BETWEEN KING AND 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 A crisis was brought about in the history of king and Par- 
 liament by the impeachment of Danby. Hitherto Charles had 
 borne with his Parliament, because he thought it the most 
 loyal he could get. But when it again impeached his first 
 minister, he lost patience and determined to run the risk of 
 a general election. The new Parliament was no better than 
 the last. Besides impeaching Danby, it tried to exclude the 
 Duke of York from the throne, and was in its turn dissolved. 
 At the moment of doing so, Charles gave his consent to the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, which again asserted the principle that 
 any unconvicted prisoner, unless accused of treason or felony, 
 might call upon the Lord Chancellor or any judge, under 
 penalty of a fine of ^500, to issue a writ of habeas corpus 
 to the gaoler ordering him under penalty of a fine of ^100 
 to bring up the body of the prisoner within not more than 
 twenty days, and that the judge on his appearance should 
 release him on bail. In the case of treason or felony, if 
 a prisoner was not tried in the next term or next sessions of 
 gaol delivery after his commitment, he could on prayer to 
 the court be released on bail, unless it appeared that the 
 crown's witnesses could not be produced at that time. This 
 Act contained no new principle, but it gave greater facility 
 for the assertion of an ancient right, and henceforth the 
 
THE EXCLUSION BILL. 1 85 
 
 crown ceased to be able to imprison its enemies in defiance 
 of the principles of the security of the person. 
 
 Charles' attempt to improve his position by an election 
 failed ; again he dissolved Parliament, but its successor only 
 continued its course, and again an election occurred. Two 
 years the struggle raged ; thrice the king exercised his 
 prerogative of dissolving Parliament ; once the Commons 
 exercised theirs of refusing supplies ; once the Exclusion 
 Bill passed the Commons, only to be rejected by the Lords. 
 At length the violence of the Commons defeated their own 
 object, Charles found that the nation was with him, and 
 having secured a permanent income from Louis XIV. he 
 dissolved the Oxford Parliament and determined to dispense 
 with the services of Parliament until one could be elected 
 which was more to his mind. Of this he had some hopes, 
 for the struggle had shown that there was a party in the king- 
 dom upon whom the king, so long as he was moderate, could 
 rely, and the violence of the Commons, who had acted on 
 the principle of excluding James, not for what he had done, 
 but for what he might do, had frightened many men 
 of moderate views, and caused a reaction in Charles' 
 favour. This reaction took the form of the rise of a new 
 party, and from henceforth the country party, as the opposi- 
 tion was called, took the name of Whigs, and the court 
 party, which yet contained many men who were not cour- 
 tiers, took the name of Tories. 
 
 The rise of organized parties in Parliament is the most 
 important event which has taken place since the Restoration ; 
 it has given us the only conditions on which it seems possible 
 that constitutional government can be worked, and happily, 
 at their first rise, the principles they followed, though 
 roughly distinguishable, were so vague, that almost every 
 man was able to range himself under the banner of one or 
 
lS6 RISE OF PARTIES. 
 
 the other,, so that at the very moment when party govern- 
 ment was coming into existence, we were saved from a 
 conflict between small cliques, which might have rendered 
 its working impossible. Generally speaking, the Tories were 
 those who thought that, granted that England was to be 
 governed by king and Parliament, greater advantage was 
 likely to be gained by laying stress upon the prerogative of 
 the king than upon the rights of Parliament, and as in 
 ecclesiastical matters, men who thought thus, were almost 
 invariably Churchmen, they adopted as their watchword, 
 " King and Church." The Whigs, on the other hand, were 
 those who thought that the safety of the country lay in 
 giving prominence to the powers of Parliament, and they 
 were not too careful to preserve the ancient prerogative of 
 the crown, when they thought that its exercise was at 
 variance with the interest of the subject. The Exclusion 
 Bill was not the first question on which Parliament had been 
 divided on the lines of these two parties. In 1641, when 
 Pym, finding that a reaction in the king's favour had taken 
 place during the autumn recess, brought forward his Grand 
 Remonstrance, which was practically a statement of the 
 Parliament's whole case against the king, and when this 
 Remonstrance was carried against the court by eleven votes, 
 the members who voted on either side were the men who at 
 the Exclusion Bill would have called themselves Whigs or 
 Tories. The names Whig and Tory are practically meaning- 
 less. Tory was the name given to a Catholic marauder of 
 the North of Ireland, Whig to a Cameronian covenanter of 
 the West of Scotland, and they were supposed to have some 
 connection with the Catholic tendencies of the Tories and 
 the Nonconformist alliances of the Whigs, but the names 
 were soon adopted by the parties themselves, and all sense 
 of their original signification was lost 
 
WHIGS AND TORIES. 1 87 
 
 The struggles between the courtiers and the opposition 
 under Charles II. had gradually produced a line of demarca- 
 tion between the two parties, which was made perfectly 
 clear by the Exclusion Bill, and Charles, recognizing in the 
 Tories his true friends, at once saw that his only plan of 
 securing a friendly Parliament was to do all he could to 
 strengthen that party in the House. 
 
 Parties to some extent drew their forces from different 
 classes of society. As had been the case in the civil war, the 
 nobility were about evenly divided ; there were nobles who 
 were Whig, and nobles who were Tory, and some of the 
 greatest families of the land, such as the Russells and the 
 Cavendishes, were among the strongest supporters of parlia- 
 mentary rights. In this, England had an enormous advan- 
 tage over other countries'; her nobility have never looked 
 at things from a purely class point of view, and it will be a ' 
 very bad thing for England if ever she loses this distinction. 
 The ranks of the nobility gradually faded into those of the 
 country gentry. Here we find a similar division, but not so 
 even, for the gentry, who had little to do with London, and, 
 living as they did in the country, were not generally so well 
 informed or so personally interested in politics, and who, 
 moreover, often saw their interest, bound up with that of the 
 Church, which was supposed to be threatened by the Whigs, 
 were in a greater proportion Tories. Numbers of men were 
 still alive who had fought for Charles I., for a man who was 
 thirty at the battle of Edgehill would only be seventy now, 
 and these men naturally rallied round the king, when they 
 thought his prerogative was in danger. On the other hand 
 the country gentry, though their views on politics were Tory, 
 were most zealous Churchmen, far more zealous than the 
 nobility, and the slightest breath of toleration for Roman 
 Catholics or of the introduction of popery, was enough to 
 
1 88 BOROUGHS WHIG. 
 
 drive them all into the camp of the Whigs. In all parts of 
 the country, however, almost in every parish, there were 
 men, often of great wealth and influence, who from family 
 tradition, personal grievance, or jealousy of some neighbour- 
 ing squire were Whigs, and who served to keep alight the 
 flame of Whiggism in their own district. As contrasted, how- 
 ever, with the Tory gentry, the great mass of the Whig party 
 came from the cities and boroughs. It was in the small 
 manufacturing towns that the Puritans had been strong, 
 and it was their connection with these, which were often 
 strongly nonconformist, which gave a flavour of dissent to 
 the Whig party. For although by the Corporation Act the 
 courtiers had hoped to clear the constituencies of dissenters, 
 the Act had not proved a complete success; for the dis- 
 tinction between a nonconformist and a low churchman was 
 so slight, that many dissenters had no objection to taking 
 the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of 
 England, in order to qualify themselves for office' ; and as 
 in most boroughs the franchise was entirely in the hands of 
 the corporations, or at any rate in those of a very small 
 body of leading citizens, the constituencies, if they did not 
 return nonconformists, at any rate sent Whigs. 
 
 To remodel the corporations and make them Tory, was 
 therefore Charles' object. This was an excellent plan, for 
 as the corporations were mostly self-elective, if they were 
 once made Tory they would remain Tory, and, though the 
 townspeople would be represented by members who held 
 views diametrically opposite to their own, this new reinforce- 
 ment would make the Tory ranks outnumber those of the 
 Whigs, and give Charles the compliant Parliament to which 
 he looked forward as the only remedy for his troubles. 
 
 The corporate towns held their privileges by virtue of 
 charters which had been granted at one time or another by 
 
REMODELLING OF TILE CORPORATIONS. 1 89 
 
 the sovereign, and many of them bore a very ancient date. 
 By these, certain privileges, including the right of self-govern- 
 ment, were granted to the burgesses, who purchased the 
 charter either by the payment of a sum of money or by the 
 execution of certain duties. Many of these duties had been 
 quite neglected, and few towns could be found, which had 
 not, in one way or another, infringed some article of their 
 charter. What was easier than to call in the charter, to find 
 the flaw, to forfeit the privileges of the present corporation, 
 and to return the charter with a new list of aldermen, and a 
 new mayor named from the Tory party ? This was what 
 Charles did, and during the last three years of his reign, 
 while living upon the income granted by the king of France, 
 he was engaged in remodelling the constituencies and 
 providing for the election of a Tory Parliament. 
 
 This plan was very wise ; it showed that Charles II. had 
 not only thoroughly appreciated the fact that he could not 
 resist the will of the Parliament, which had been shown in 
 the fall of successive ministers and the overthrow of his 
 plans for toleration, but also that he had seen that the only 
 road out of the difficulty was to get a Parliament which, 
 while it nominally represented the nation, should really be 
 elected in deference to the wishes of the king, and that 
 moreover he had hit upon the right method of attaining 
 such a result. At the close of his reign Charles II. was 
 in a stronger position than he had ever been since the 
 Restoration, and it was unfortunate for the Stuart dynasty, 
 that he died before he was able to thoroughly reap, in a 
 compliant Parliament, the fruits of his own astuteness. 
 
 James II. was a very different man to his brother ; he 
 was to Charles II. what Charles I. had been to James I. 
 With a higher sense of duty, he was utterly wanting in tact ; 
 and while he enjoyed the details of the administration, he 
 
190 MISTAKES OF JAMES II. 
 
 was unable to appreciate the higher points of statesman- 
 ship. The calm which had followed the dissolution of the 
 last Parliament had completely misled James; he thought 
 that the nation had got over its fit of dislike to a popish 
 sovereign, and perhaps he gave too much weight to a decree 
 which had been passed by the Tory University of Oxford, 
 condemning the doctrine that resistance to a king is under 
 certain circumstances lawful. Nor is it impossible that a 
 more able man than James might have misread the signs of 
 the times. James' declaration that he would observe the 
 laws and protect the Church, was received in good faith, 
 and, in spite of the fact that he continued to collect customs 
 duties which had only been voted for his brother's life, his 
 accession was not received with any general manifestations 
 of alarm. His first Parliament was the first which had 
 been elected by the new corporations, and its composition 
 showed the success of Charles' plan, for out of all the members, 
 James himself said that there were not more than fifty whom 
 he would have wished to change. They readily granted 
 him the same income as his brother, with the addition of a 
 tax on sugar and tobacco ; and as he had Louis XIV. to fall 
 back upon, he was not ill-provided. James was still further 
 elated by the easy defeat of the rebellions of Argyll and 
 Monmouth, and he was forthwith led to enter upon a course 
 which ranged against him, as has been well said, " not only 
 those classes who had fought against his father, but those 
 who had fought for him." The story of his mistakes is well 
 known ; how he used his dispensing power to give Roman 
 Catholics not only toleration, but even ascendancy in the 
 kingdom; how he turned out experienced officials merely 
 because they were Protestants ; how he set up a new Court 
 of High Commission, and attacked the Universities of Oxford 
 and Cambridge ; how the nonconformists refused to join 
 
IMPORTANCE OF THE STANDING ARMY. 191 
 
 him in his attacks upon the Church ; how even the Church 
 was driven to give up her doctrine of passive resistance by 
 the prosecution of the seven bishops ; and how the nation 
 was finally driven to despair by the birth of a prince who 
 would be educated as a Roman Catholic, and who supplanted 
 the popular Princess Mary. Within three years from his 
 succession, James had succeeded in arraying the whole 
 nation against him. 
 
 In the time of Edward II., of Richard II., or even of 
 Henry VIII., this would have been equivalent to his de- 
 position, for in those times the nation could at a week's 
 notice have marched upon London an overwhelming force 
 to which the king could have nothing to oppose but his own 
 personal adherents. Now, however, times had changed ; 
 the retention of those five thousand men at the Restoration 
 had given the king a trained force, against which untrained 
 levies, however valiant, could oppose no effectual resistance, 
 and it was absolutely necessary that if the nation was to 
 have a fair chance of declaring its will, some force should 
 be found which should balance the thirteen thousand men, 
 whom James had established on Hounslow Heath. Such a 
 force was found in the army of William of Orange, who 
 came over to give the nation an opportunity of declaring 
 their will in a free Parliament. Happily no battle was fought. 
 Deserted by their leaders, and disheartened by their un- 
 popularity, James' soldiers struck no blow in his defence, 
 and James sought refuge in flight. A convention was sum- 
 moned, which, taking into account the double flight of 
 James, declared in a somewhat wordy document that "King 
 James II. having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of 
 the kingdom by breaking the original contract between king 
 and people, and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked 
 persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and having 
 
192 ELECTION OF WILLIAM AND MARY. 
 
 withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, had abdicated the 
 government, and that the crown had thereby become 
 vacant." 
 
 Many schemes were proposed for filling up the vacancy ; 
 but finally the throne was offered to and accepted by William 
 of Orange, the son of James' sister, and Mary his wife, 
 James' daughter, and so not only was James himself removed 
 from the throne, but also his lately born son, whom the 
 majority believed to be supposititious, was excluded from the 
 succession. But the convention did more than merely 
 transfer the crown from one member of the royal family 
 to another ; they reasserted in the most positive terms the 
 chief points upon which the constitution rested, and the 
 way in which they had been violated by the late king. 
 For this purpose they drew up the Bill of Rights, whose 
 chief declarations were : — 
 
 " Whereas the late King James II., by the assistance of 
 diverse evil counsellors, judges and ministers employed by 
 him, did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant 
 religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom : — 
 
 I. "By assuming and exercising a power of dispensing 
 with and suspending laws, without consent of Parliament. 
 
 II. " By issuing and causing to be executed a commission 
 under the great seal for erecting a court, called the Court of 
 Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes. 
 
 III. " By levying money for and to the use of the crown, 
 by pretence of prerogative, for other time, and in other 
 manner than the same was granted by Parliament. 
 
 IV. " By raising and keeping a standing army within this 
 kingdom in time of peace, without consent of Parliament, 
 and quartering soldiers contrary to law. 
 
 V. "By violating the freedom of election of members to 
 serve in Parliament. 
 
THE BILL OF RIGHTS. 1 93 
 
 " All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known 
 laws and statutes, and freedom of this realm." 
 
 The Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons 
 declare : — 
 
 I. " That the pretended power of suspending of laws, or 
 the execution of laws by regal authority, without consent of 
 Parliament, is illegal. 
 
 II. " That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, 
 or the execution of laws by regal authority, as it hath been 
 assumed and exercised of late, is illegal. 
 
 III. " That the commission for erecting the late Court of 
 Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes, and all other 
 commissions and courts of like nature, are illegal and 
 pernicious. 
 
 IV. " That levying money for or to the use of the crown 
 by pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for 
 longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be 
 granted, is illegal. 
 
 V. "That the raising or keeping a standing army within 
 the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of 
 Parliament, is against law. 
 
 VI. " That the election of members of Parliament ought 
 to be free. 
 
 VII. " That the freedom of speech and debates or pro- 
 ceedings in Parliament, ought not to be impeached or 
 questioned in any court or place out of Parliament. 
 
 VIII. "That the redress of all grievances, and for the 
 amending, strengthening and preserving of laws, government 
 ought to be held frequently." 
 
 In this document the crown was settled on William and 
 Mary for life, then on Mary's children, and in their default 
 on the Princess Anne of Denmark and her children ; and in 
 their default on the children of William by any other wife \ 
 
 o 
 
194 BILL CURIOUSLY RETICENT. 
 
 and at the same time it was enacted that no papist, or 
 protestant who married a papist, could inherit or possess 
 the crown. 
 
 Here we find again laid down the old principles of English 
 government, no changes in the law or levying of taxation 
 without the consent of Parliament, the freedom of election, 
 freedom of speech and frequency of meeting of that body, 
 and there is added to these the statement, that without 
 consent of Parliament no sovereign may keep an army in 
 time of peace. That is all; but that in 1688 a standing 
 army should still be an anomaly in England marks the dif- 
 ference between the history of freedom in England and on 
 the Continent. 
 
 In the tone of the Bill of Rights there is something very 
 remarkable. It is merely an assertion of fact, such and such 
 things are illegal, such and such things are beyond the com- 
 petence of the king, but there are no proper restrictions on 
 his power, such as that Parliament should meet at fixed 
 times, or that the king's ministers should be chosen with the 
 consent of Parliament, such as are to be found under the 
 Plantagenets. It is simply stated that Parliament is to be 
 held frequently and the appointment of ministers is never 
 mentioned at all. This is very strange ; but it is very sig- 
 nificant. At the very moment when Parliament gained its 
 final victory over the crown, no notice seems to be taken of 
 the very points which seem of most importance, which were, 
 indeed, the very pledges of victory. It was very English to 
 do this. There is no bluster or flourish of trumpets ; but the 
 reality of victory is there, and the settlement was all the 
 more permanent because its exact terms were left unstated. 
 On the surface, the Revolution of 1688 appeared only 
 to have transferred^ the crown from James II. to his eldest 
 daughter and her husband, and to have again laid down 
 
REALITY OF THE REVOLUTION. 195 
 
 the time-honoured principles on which government had 
 for ages been supposed to have been conducted ; but in 
 reality it meant much more than this, and it was just because 
 the men who carried out the change, though unenthusiastic, 
 were eminently practical, that they contented themselves 
 with the minimum of disturbance, but did what they had to 
 do so as to make it thoroughly effectual. For the Revolution 
 of 1688 was a real revolution, though it introduced no new 
 principle, since it provided what was wanting before, a 
 practical way of carrying into effect the principle which 
 had all along been acknowledged. But this revolution 
 could never have been carried out so effectually, if it 
 had not, in outward appearance, somewhat diverted the 
 minds of the nation from the real issue. To the many, 
 the revolution meant the expulsion of James II. and his 
 male descendants from the throne ; to the few, it meant, 
 besides this, the substitution of the Parliament for the King 
 as the really supreme power in the country. The first of 
 these changes absorbed all interest, the second was hardly 
 noticed at all. 
 
 That the whole nation, Whigs and Tories, should have 
 joined in withstanding James was in itself very remarkable. 
 That the Whigs should resist the king when he broke the 
 law was natural enough ; but that zealous Tories and still 
 more zealous churchmen, men who had preached Sunday 
 after Sunday the doctrine of non-resistance, should have 
 joined the movement, was a tremendous shock to the con- 
 science of the nation. It reduced the High Tory theory to 
 an absurdity, and ever afterwards discredited their position. 
 But so powerful was the force of previous habit, that so soon 
 as the actual pressure of James' ill conduct was removed, 
 many of his opponents returned to his side, and of the 
 clergy a very large number chose to give up their preferments 
 
196 NEW PRINCIPLES NOT INTRODUCED. 
 
 rather than to acknowledge his successor, who was merely 
 the creation of Parliament and was not the king by divine 
 right. 
 
 Meantime, while the eyes of the nation were fixed on the 
 struggle in Ireland, or on the bitter strife between Whigs 
 and Tories on minor points, Parliament was engaged in 
 carrying out the practical part of the revolution. 
 
 The first essential was to make the control over the purse 
 real, permanent, and effectual. To do this they carried a 
 step further the principle of appropriating the supplies. 
 Constant troubles had arisen, because the king had been 
 expected to supply, out of his revenue, not only the expendi- 
 ture of the court but a large number of other expenses, which 
 rendered it extremely difficult to trace extravagance or dis- 
 honesty to its source. To get over this, William's Parlia- 
 ment appropriated a certain proportion of the revenue to the 
 expenses of the court and government, and for the rest they 
 began the plan of having estimates laid before them of the 
 probable expenditure, and forbidding the Lords of the 
 Treasury, under heavy penalties, to divert the sums voted 
 for one purpose, to another. But even with these restrictions 
 an important safeguard would have been omitted had not 
 Parliament rigidly adhered to the plan of voting all taxes, 
 with the exception of the hereditary excise, for a limited 
 period, which soon became one year. In this way the con- 
 trol of Parliament over expenditure became absolute, not 
 by reason of the statement of its right being any stronger 
 than it had been under former kings ; but because it had at 
 length been discovered how to apply the right in practice in 
 such a way as to make it really effective. 
 
 And this brought with it an almost more important result. 
 We have seen how king after king had tried to evade calling 
 Parliament, and how the enactments under the Plantagenets, 
 
OLD PRINCIPLES MADE EFFECTIVE. 1 97 
 
 and the Triennial bill under the StuartSjJiad alike been 
 ineffective to secure its regular meeting. jThis difficulty at 
 once vanished ; for no sooner were supplies granted, not for 
 life but for one year, than the whole fabric of government f\A 
 would have melted away, had not Parliament been summoned 
 year by year to Westminster to renew the grants, j Instead 
 of the old difficulty a new one was introduced, "rhe Long 
 Parliament had passed a triennial Act mainly to force the 
 king to summon Parliament every three years ; William III.'s 
 Parliament passed their Triennial Act mainly to prevent the 
 king, when he got a Parliament to his mind, from keeping 
 it permanently, as Charles II. had done, instead of appealing 
 to the people in a fresh election. 
 
 But by another arrangement, made under William III., 
 an additional safeguard for the meeting of Parliament was 
 provided. It has been shown that by the Bill of Rights, the 
 sovereign was forbidden to keep a standing army during the 
 time of peace without the consent of Parliament. The mem- 
 bers, however, were not so illogical as to deprive their country 
 of a defence which the progress of time and the practice of 
 foreign nations rendered necessary. But in allowing the king 
 to have a standing army, they took great care that it should 
 never be used against the liberties of the country. For in 
 passing a Mutiny Act which permitted the king, on account 
 of the special dangers of the time, to enroll soldiers and to 
 maintain discipline by martial law, they limited its operation 
 to one year, and so, if the Parliament did not meet, not only 
 would the revenue of the crown come to an end, but its 
 army would melt away. 
 
 In this way Parliament secured a most effective control 
 over the expenditure and military establishments of the 
 country. It yet remained for them to secure a similar control 
 over the law courts. Though the removal of the Courts of 
 
198 PURIFICATION OF THE LAW COURTS. 
 
 Star Chamber and High Commission had got rid of two 
 great engines of oppression, the ordinary law courts of the 
 country had under the later Stuarts, and indeed in earlier 
 times, been, when cases in which the crown was a party had 
 been tried, scenes of gross injustice. This was due to three 
 causes — (1) the unfair appointment of jurymen ; (2) the un- 
 fairness of the procedure of the court to the accused ; (3) 
 the partiality of the judges, who were appointed or re- 
 moved by the king's pleasure. All these points had been 
 brought into question at various times ; but they were for 
 the most part removed under William III. (1) In the Bill 
 of Rights it was enacted "that jurors ought to be duly 
 impanelled and returned, and jurors which pass upon men 
 in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders." (2) By 
 the Treasons Act of William III. it was ordered that the 
 accused should have, five days before his trial, a list of the 
 witnesses and a copy of the indictment, and be allowed to 
 examine his own witnesses upon oath. (3) In the Act of 
 Settlement which arranged that, as Anne's children were all 
 dead, the succession should pass from her to the Electress 
 Sophia, it was enacted that the judges should hold their 
 offices for life, be paid fixed salaries, and should only be 
 removable on the petition of both Houses of Parliament. 
 It is almost impossible to exaggerate the effect on the work- 
 ing of the constitution, which was made in consequence of 
 the effectual control which Parliament now exercised over 
 every part of the administration, but the consideration of 
 that change must be left to a subsequent chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 RISE OF PARTY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Before William III. had been many years on the throne, 
 he realized that the recent changes had placed the policy 
 of the government absolutely at the mercy of the House of 
 Commons. This was the great revolution which had fol- 
 lowed the acquisition by that body of complete control 
 over the purse. Even when that control was imperfect, the 
 Commons under Charles II. had been able to render the 
 position of ministry after ministry untenable; but when 
 they had reduced the control to a system, and had so 
 arranged that at the end of each year the revenue should 
 cease and the army disband, unless the king could pre- 
 vail upon Parliament to vote fresh supplies and to renew the 
 Mutiny Act, it was utterly out of the question for the king 
 to act long in defiance of the majority, and the necessary 
 corollary followed that the king must make up his mind to 
 give up his free choice and shape his policy according to the 
 wishes of that party which could command a majority in 
 the Commons, whether that party were Whig or Tory. 
 Such, however, was by no means William's intention at his 
 accession. He wished to be the king not of a party but of 
 the whole nation, and he was far too able a man to sit 
 down quietly and allow his policy to be fixed for him. 
 
200 WILLIAMS PLAN. 
 
 Accordingly, the first years of his reign witnessed a tre- 
 mendous struggle on the king's part to stave off the logical 
 consequence of the revolution which he had been the 
 chief means of bringing about. 
 
 William's intention was to form a mixed government, 
 partly because it only seemed right that he should be able, 
 without respect of party, to employ the best talent he could 
 find, and partly because as both parties had joined in the 
 revolution, he hoped by employment in his service to keep 
 the leaders of both true to his allegiance. This plan was 
 strictly in accord with the traditions of the constitution, 
 which regarded the ministers as the king's servants, solely 
 appointed by him, and indeed acting in his place. There 
 was no idea of the ministers forming in any way a corporate 
 or united body ; each was separately appointed by the 
 king and was removable by him at his good pleasure. From 
 the opposite point of view, the Commons regarded the 
 ministers singly, and had no notion that an attack upon 
 one in any way jeopardized the position of another. But 
 before the new state of things, this theory was found un- 
 tenable. Do what he might, William discovered that when 
 the majority of the Commons were Tory it was impossible 
 for his Whig ministers to get their wants supplied, or when 
 Whigs were in the majority for Tory ministers to hold their 
 own ; and little by little the conviction was forced upon 
 him that ministers must be chosen exclusively from one 
 party, and that party must be the one which had a majority 
 in the House of Commons. This was party government. 
 
 The credit of having first put the doctrine into words is 
 due to the elder Sunderland, the astute but unscrupulous 
 minister of James II. In 1693 he advised William, as the 
 only way out of his difficulties, to form a united Whig 
 ministry. To do this, however, required time. To dismiss 
 
SUNDERLAND'S PLAN. 201 
 
 the Tories wholesale would have flung them into the arms 
 of James, so the change was gradually brought about, and 
 it was not till 1697 that the ministry, on the retirement of 
 Godolphin, became wholly Whig. A change in the temper 
 of the House of Commons again affected its character. 
 The Tories were still very strong in the House. An attempt 
 of the Whigs to undo the mischief done by Charles II.'s 
 forfeiture of the charters had been frustrated in consequence 
 of their vindictive zeal against those who had benefited by 
 the change ; and hence the Tory corporations, who owed 
 their existence to the injustice of Charles, still continued to 
 return members of their own party. These men were, of 
 course, hostile to the government, and they found many 
 malcontent Whigs who under pretence of fearing a new 
 despotism inveighed against William's standing army. This 
 coalition proceeded to interfere in every department of 
 State. They forced the reduction of the army ; they sent 
 home the Dutch guards ; they attacked William's grants to 
 his friends ; and what is most important from our point of 
 view, they forced William to call some members of the Tory 
 party into his ministry. Encouraged by this success, they 
 impeached the leading Whigs, but they had overshot their 
 mark ; the recognition of the son of James II. by Louis XIV. 
 caused a reaction in William's favour, and a second time 
 William entrusted his counsels to a wholly Whig admini- 
 stration. 
 
 Still the lesson was not learnt. Marlborough tried to 
 work with a mixed ministry ; but he failed just as William 
 had done ; and, Tory as he was, he found it necessary to 
 change his colleagues for Whigs, for that party alone could 
 maintain a majority. From his time the principle was fixed 
 not by choice but by necessity, and it became an axiom of 
 English politics that the party which has a majority of the 
 
202 CROWN INFLUENCE IN THE COMMONS. 
 
 House of Commons should be that from which the sove- 
 reign chooses his ministers. 
 
 When the question had been settled, two others imme- 
 diately succeeded it, one theoretical, one practical. First, 
 were ministers to be members of Parliament ? Secondly, 
 how were majorities to be kept together? and these two 
 questions were to a certain extent the same. 
 
 Now that it was clear that the policy of the day was 
 determined by the majority in the Commons, the com- 
 position of that majority became a question of paramount 
 importance. The views of the House were determined in 
 two ways, first by the influence brought to bear upon the 
 electors ; secondly, by the influence brought to bear upon 
 the members. In the first of these, the crown had dis- 
 tinctly got the start. Since the time of Edward VI. it had 
 steadily created rotten boroughs as long as new boroughs 
 were created, and in other constituencies, which were not so 
 distinctly rotten, the crown used its influence, by the gift 
 of places and emoluments, by intimidation and by direct 
 bribery, to influence the votes of the electors. But this 
 was not a game in which the crown had a monopoly. It 
 had a formidable rival in the wealthy nobles and gentry, 
 who did all they could, and often very successfully, to 
 establish their influence over the boroughs in their 
 immediate neighbourhood. In this way Sir Robert 
 Walpole became the recognized owner of three boroughs, 
 many others did the like; and in time it came to be 
 thoroughly recognized that some boroughs were free, others 
 were under the influence of the crown or of some in- 
 dividual, and others were absolutely in the gift of crown 
 or commoner just as much as if they had been livings. 
 This state of things made the organization of a party a 
 work of high art. The crown or the ministers influenced 
 
PREVALENCE OF BRIBERY. 203 
 
 the borough mongers, and the borough mongers mani- 
 pulated the boroughs, till from the highest to the lowest, an 
 election was looked upon as a time for the universal granting 
 of favours, the satisfying of the rich, the bribing of the 
 poor, and the intimidation of the weak. 
 
 But corruption did not end when the election was over. 
 Members who were elected by corruption were in their turn 
 corrupt, and, having won their seats by bribery, were pre- 
 pared to sell their votes to the highest bidder. It is a 
 melancholy idea that just when Parliament had secured 
 control over the affairs of the nation, it should immediately 
 have become unworthy of the trust. But it is not far to 
 go for a reason. Before the Restoration there was little or 
 no bribery, for there were no organized parties, and the 
 members were for the most part engaged in struggling with 
 the king for rights which were far too valuable to be parted 
 with for a bribe. Fancy Charles I. trying to bribe the 
 Long Parliament to submit to ship money ! But no sooner 
 was the main battle won, and parties had begun to form 
 themselves in lines, which though distinct enough had a sort 
 of neutral ground between them, and struggles took place 
 about matters which did not directly affect the pockets or 
 persons of the members, than there appeared a numerous 
 class of persons who were willing to vote one way or 
 another for a consideration. It is no great wonder. 
 Human nature is very much alike ; and when members saw 
 that owing to the secrecy with which parliamentary pro- 
 ceedings were conducted, and the distance they were from 
 their constituencies, their friends at home would know 
 nothing of what they did, the " means to do ill deeds " had 
 its natural results, and ill deeds were done. 
 
 The chief offender in the matter of bribery was the crown. 
 It had at its disposal endless sources of influence. The 
 
204 PLACES USED AS BRIBES. 
 
 delicate minded nobleman might be raised a step in the 
 peerage ; the country gentleman might be made a baronet, 
 his brother a bishop or his son an officer in the army, and 
 with coarser natures there was a supply of money from the 
 king's private purse which could outbid any individual. 
 In this matter Whigs and Tories when in office were on 
 an equal footing of iniquity. Danby, a Tory, has the 
 credit of beginning, but the system was carried on by 
 William III.'s Whigs, and the greatest organizer of the 
 system, Walpole, was a Whig too. To deal with a grievance 
 so intangible, and in which so many were involved, was too 
 hard a task for the Commons of William III. ; but there 
 was one special method of influence which they viewed with 
 great jealousy, and which they thought they saw their way to 
 remedy. 
 
 This was that species of bribery by which the court sought 
 permanently to attach to its service members of the House 
 of Commons by investing them with some office under 
 government, which might or might not involve duties, but 
 which invariably brought with it a salary. The number of 
 such places, large in the time of Henry VIII. , was steadily 
 increasing, as government became more complicated. As 
 its sphere became more extended, this source of influence 
 steadily increased, and the Commons felt that unless some 
 check were put upon the practice, the ministry of the day 
 would have at its back a whole army of minor officials, all 
 holding seats in the House given them by the influence of 
 the crown, and permanently attached to the fortunes of the 
 ministry by the receipt of a salary which would be forfeited 
 if their support was withdrawn. 
 
 To check the growth of the evil, on the creation of a new 
 Board of Revenue in 1694, the members were disabled from 
 sitting in the House of Commons, and in 1699 the dis- 
 
PROPOSED EXCLUSION- OF PLACEMEN. 20 5 
 
 ability was extended to the commissioners and some other 
 officers of excise; but the Act of Settlement of 1701 gave 
 the Commons an opportunity of getting rid of the evil at 
 one sweep, and they introduced a clause which after the 
 death of Queen Anne, was, on the accession of the Princess 
 Sophia or her heir, to absolutely forbid any individual who 
 held any office civil or military under the crown to sit in 
 the House of Commons. This clause would no doubt have 
 been thoroughly effectual for curing the evil against which 
 it was aimed, but it is one of the truest maxims of legis- 
 lation that for one result of a law which is foreseen, there 
 are at least two which are unexpected, and the Commons 
 hardly thought that had their law been enforced it would 
 have done away with one of the most advantageous features 
 of the English constitution. It is very curious to notice 
 how rarely contemporaries see the result of what is passing 
 under their own eyes. At the very moment when the 
 Commons under Henry IV. were showing how effectually 
 the king was controlled by having to appeal to Parliament 
 for money, they were doing their best to persuade him to 
 deprive them of the check by confiscating the property of 
 the Church ; the prospect of no more taxes, a relief which 
 would have deprived them of their sole remaining power, 
 was the main inducement held out to the Commons of 
 Henry VIII. to allow the dissolution of the monasteries ; 
 and now at the very moment when party government was 
 being established, and a modus vivendi had been discovered 
 for king and Parliament, the Commons were passing a rule 
 which would have resulted in a permanent deadlock between 
 the two. 
 
 In attempting, however, to make a complete separation 
 between the legislative and executive functions of govern- 
 ment, the Commons were only carrying into effect a theory 
 
206 NEED FOR THE PRESENCE OF MINISTERS, 
 
 of the English constitution which was destined to be received 
 as the truth for many years to come. When, on the separa- 
 tion of the United States, American statesmen were framing 
 a constitution, they conceived that they were best imitating 
 the English constitution, when they created, on the one hand, 
 a president answering to the English king, only elective, and 
 gave him the right of appointing what ministers he chose, 
 and, on the other, a representative assembly which could 
 only get rid of the president and his ministers by the process 
 of impeachment. The result is constant friction : the 
 ministers cannot explain to the House what they want, the 
 House cannot ask questions of the minister himself. It is a 
 matter of letter writing, and of all means to promote mis- 
 understanding letter writing is the worst. Again, both in 
 asking for taxes or for laws, the ministers, in not being able 
 to explain their views, are at an enormous disadvantage. 
 The whole method of government is different, and were it 
 not for the extreme simplicity of the United States politics, 
 the results of the plan would have been most disastrous. 
 
 Now this is exactly the system that the exclusion of 
 Placemen Clause in the Act of Settlement would have in- 
 troduced into England. And worse, for in America at any 
 rate, the president and the House of Representatives, at all 
 events at the moment of election, may be supposed to re- 
 present the views of the nation; but here, the king being 
 hereditary, there would not be the slightest guarantee that 
 his views would agree with those of his Parliament, and right 
 or wrong the ministers he appointed would have no chance 
 of actually in person persuading Parliament to support them. 
 Imagine for a moment the position of Pitt or Walpole 
 outside the House of Commons. It is true that if the king's 
 ministers chanced to be peers they might sit in the Lords ; 
 but the House of Commons was becoming more dominant 
 
SETTLEMENT OF THE PLACEMEN QUESTLON. 207 
 
 day by day, and to persuade the House of Lords was very 
 different to persuading the representatives of the nation. 
 All these considerations, however, concern points of practical 
 working, and led away by the notion that in an ideal State 
 the legislative, the executive and judicial functions should 
 be separate, the Commons acted according to what they 
 thought was best, and rigidly excluded all placemen from 
 the House. Happily, however, the Act of Settlement was 
 not to come into effect till Anne's death, and as her reign 
 went on, it began to dawn upon the House what a revolution 
 would be caused by the absolute expulsion from their body 
 of those members who held office under the crown. When 
 brought face to face with such a possibility, the Commons 
 changed their minds, and in 1706 a Bill was brought in to 
 modify the Placemen Clause in the Act of Settlement. Recog- 
 nizing the advantage of allowing the ministers of the crown to 
 sit in the Commons' House, they at the same time attempted 
 to provide means, on the one hand, to give the electors a 
 chance of refusing to re-elect them if they disapproved of the 
 appointment, and, on the other, of preventing the multiplica- 
 tion of offices by which the crown could extend its influence 
 among members of the House. 
 
 To do this they enacted : (1) That if any member of the 
 House of Commons accepts any office of profit under the 
 crown, except a commission in the army, he shall be deemed 
 to have vacated his seat, and a new election shall take place, 
 at which he is eligible for re-election ; and (2) that no 
 person holding an office created since October, 1705, shall be 
 either elected or re-elected a member of the House. Lastly, 
 to check bribery, they excluded from the House any person 
 who held a pension during the pleasure of the crown. These 
 enactments were only passed after considerable controversy 
 with the House of Lords, and had the Commons been left 
 
2C3 THE UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION 
 
 to themselves, they would have still further limited the 
 number of officials who might hold seats in the House. 
 
 The passing of this Act marks the final settlement of the 
 lines on which the English constitution was to rest. From 
 this time forward it was an understood thing that the govern- 
 ment of England was to be carried on by ministers capable 
 of sitting in either Houses of Parliament, appointed nomi- 
 nally by the king's will, but practically always chosen from 
 that party which was capable of commanding a majority in 
 the House of Commons. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that government had 
 taken its final form. Party government as we find it in 
 1708 was but a very rough and ready institution compared 
 with party government as we find it now. In law, the 
 functions of the king, ministers and Parliament are much 
 the same now as they were then, but how different is the 
 reality. It is the growth of the unwritten constitution and 
 the changes which have taken place in the real position, 
 functions and constitution of the sovereign, the ministry and 
 Parliament, that we have mainly to deal with in the remainder 
 of the work. 
 
 The consolidation of party government was immensely 
 helped by the personal character of the four sovereigns who 
 follow the revolution, William III., Anne, George I,, and 
 George II. William III. was by nature the last man in the 
 world to play the role of a constitutional sovereign. It is 
 not often that the sovereign of a constitutional kingdom 
 finds himself to be a head and shoulders greater and wiser 
 than any of his ministers ; but it is hardly too much to say 
 that it was so with William III. Yet it was this king who 
 had the tact to see that he must give way to the wishes of 
 his Parliament, and that if he could not get the House to go 
 his way, he must go with it, and choose ministers who would 
 
ANNE AND GEORGE 1. 209 
 
 be acceptable to its majority. Compared with William III., 
 Anne was thoroughly fitted for her post. She was perfectly 
 willing to surrender her will to her favourite minister, but 
 the question was, would that minister be acceptable to Parlia- 
 ment ? Happily for England the man in whom she first 
 reposed her confidence was Marlborough. That great man 
 commanded the confidence of the nation, but even he found 
 it needful to gradually change the character of his ministry, 
 in order to make it accord with the views of the majority of 
 the Commons. Again the tide turned, and both Anne and 
 the nation gave their confidence to the Tories ; but whether 
 Marlborough, or Harley and St. John, were in power, it was 
 the ministry and not the queen who guided the destinies of 
 the country. Again, at Anne's death, though a king again 
 reigned, the same principle was followed. It has been the 
 fashion to scoff at George I. and his son because they took 
 little interest in English politics, and so long as Hanover 
 formed the first interest in foreign politics, left home affairs in 
 the hands of their ministers. Is it not a little hard to abuse 
 our king for a fault from which we have gained ? Supposing 
 the first Georges had tried to play the part of William III., 
 how would Parliamentary government have fared ? Even 
 as it was, Walpole had a sufficiently hard part to play. He 
 had to fight a strong opposition in the Commons in front, 
 while he guarded against the court intrigue in the rear. For 
 it was still regarded as an axiom that the support of the king 
 was the chief prop of the minister, and though the ministry 
 could practically only be chosen from the leading party, the 
 individual ministers were distinctly the choice of the king. 
 Besides, the condition of parties under George I. and 
 George II. was most curious. At his accession, George I. 
 had made no attempt to imitate William III.'s effort to 
 employ both parties, but had given his confidence exclusively 
 
 p 
 
210 CHANGES IN THE CABINET. 
 
 to the Whigs, and by so doing had driven almost all the 
 Tories to become Jacobites. For years there was hardly 
 any opposition on the part of the Tories in Parliament ; but 
 there was an opposition for all that, for Walpole's greed of 
 power drove all rivals from his side, and they, in revenge, 
 formed an opposition, and waged an intestine war with the 
 members of their own party. Happily the feud between the 
 reigning sovereign and the Prince of Wales, which charac- 
 terized the reigns of the first three Georges, gave the mal- 
 contents a rallying point and prevented them from going 
 over wholly to the enemy. At length Walpole fell ; but his 
 fall made no difference in the constitutional position of the 
 king. George II. reigned, but he did not govern; and 
 Pelham, Newcastle and Pitt were the real sovereigns of the 
 country. 
 
 Meanwhile the character of the ministry itself was chang- 
 ing. We saw that originally the Cabinet was composed of 
 those members of the Privy Council to whom the king's 
 special confidence was given. As a rule but not invariably 
 they held some office under the crown. But it did not 
 follow that all officials were members of the Cabinet or even 
 of the Privy Council; nor even was the Cabinet always 
 composed of holders of the same offices. By degrees, 
 however, certain customs sprang up. First, the holders of 
 certain offices came to be regarded as the government ; 
 second, the most important members of the government 
 attained a certain recognized position as members of the 
 Cabinet; and, thirdly, the holder of a particular office 
 became recognized as the head of both cabinet and govern- 
 ment. This office was that of first Lord of the Treasury. 
 Ever since the Norman Conquest some minister has been 
 recognized as in some way the king's chief adviser. First, it 
 was the Lord Chief Justice ; then it was the Lord Chan- 
 
THE PREMIER. 211 
 
 cellor, who remained most prominent under the Plantagenets. 
 Under the Tudors it was sometimes the Chancellor, then the 
 Treasurer : Wolsey was Chancellor, Burleigh was Treasurer. 
 Under the Stuarts the Chancellor again came to the front, and 
 Lord Chancellor Clarendon was the last great Chancellor. 
 After his fall the minister who presided over the public purse 
 was the most important, and Lord Treasurer Danby was dis- 
 tinctly the leading minister of his day. It is curious to note 
 how justice, law, finance, became in turn the most important 
 things in the country. The care of the purse was, however, 
 too responsible a work to be often entrusted to one person, 
 and as early as the reign of James I. the office had been put 
 in commission. This was often done under Charles I. and 
 Charles II., and since the fall of Danby in 1679, li nas been 
 the invariable rule, the commissioners being called Lords of 
 the Treasury and their chairman being styled First Lord. It" 
 was not long, however, before the First Lord acquired all the 
 importance that was formerly possessed by the Treasure^ 
 For a time his pre-eminence was disputed by the Secretaries 
 of State, but he finally triumphed, and since the time of 
 Walpole, the First Lord of the Treasury has invariably been 
 the head of the government, a fact which is recognized by 
 the popular title, unknown to law, of Premier. 
 
 While this was going on another change of great im- 
 portance was progressing. The government was acquiring 
 a corporate character. The process by which it did this 
 was very slow. Originally the king's ministers were com- 
 pletely independent of one another. Each was appointed 
 or dismissed solely with reference to the conduct of his own 
 office; but by degrees, mainly because the ministry was 
 more and more composed of members who thought alike, 
 a feeling of solidarite grew up, and it came to be under- 
 stood that ministers stood by one another, and that an 
 
212 THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 
 
 attack upon one was an attack upon all. During the reigns 
 of George I. and George II. this could hardly be regarded 
 as more than a tendency ; there were numerous instances of 
 ministers voting against their fellows, and even in the reign 
 of George III., Lord Thurlow never considered himself 
 bound either to support a measure or to resign, because his 
 colleagues were agreed upon it. 
 
 Meanwhile the new importance which the House of 
 
 Commons had gained, resulted in differences between it 
 
 and the Hereditary House. At the accession of Anne the 
 
 lay peers numbered 162. A majority of these were Whigs, 
 
 and no sooner did the election of 17 10 return a Tory 
 
 majority in the Commons than the two Houses were at a 
 
 dead lock. To get over the difficulty, Harley used the 
 
 prerogative of the crown by persuading Anne to create 
 
 twelve new Tory Peers, who forthwith altered the balance 
 
 of parties. But this summary process was not relished by 
 
 the Lords, and in 1 7 e 9 they made a determined effort to 
 
 prevent a repetition of the insult. With this view they 
 
 passed a bill which ordered that the House of Lords, which 
 
 then numbered 178, should never be raised to a higher 
 
 number than 184. Had this bill passed it would have had 
 
 two most important results. It would have completely taken 
 
 it out of the power of the minister of the day to make the 
 
 Lords give way to the House of Commons, when the views 
 
 of the two differed, that is to say the Hereditary and not 
 
 the elective chamber, would have had the dominant voice 
 
 in all affairs. Secondly, the rule that had always obtained 
 
 in England, that no bar existed to prevent a commoner from 
 
 rising to the peerage, would have been done away with, and 
 
 the Lords would have become an exclusive body. Happily 
 
 for us the Commons fully appreciated the danger to their 
 
 own prospects, and that made them save the constitution as 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 21 3 
 
 well, and thus the leading voice in the State was preserved 
 to the representatives of the people. 
 
 But this expression "representatives of the people," 
 brings us to a new inquiry. The House of Commons was 
 the leading power in the nation. It and not the king deter- 
 mined the policy of the State. But did the House of 
 Commons represent the nation, and if not, whom did it 
 represent ? 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE CROWN. 
 
 It is very doubtful whether the English nobility ever exer- 
 cised such a decisive influence over the politics of the 
 country for so long a period as they did from the accession 
 of George I. to the acceptance of the premiership by William 
 Pitt. No doubt there were many times when the nobles 
 upset the government, as under Henry III. or Richard II., 
 but they had never before swayed the destinies of the 
 country as they did between 17 14 and 1783. It was dis- 
 tinctly the period when the government approached nearer 
 to an oligarchy than at any time before or since. Never 
 before had the nobles found themselves unopposed. In 
 the Middle Ages they had to struggle with the king ; in later 
 years they have tried at times to resist the people ; but at 
 no other time have they met with two successive kings who 
 allowed them to consolidate their power, or a people who 
 have been so content to defer to their wishes. The natural 
 rule in political history seems to be that monarchy, when 
 useless or iniquitous, is succeeded by oligarchy, and oli- 
 garchy in its turn by democracy. It was so at Rome — it 
 was so in many places in Greece; and England, constL 
 tutional as she was, was not destined to form an exception 
 to the rule. The revolution of 1688 was essentially aris- 
 tocratic. The men who signed the invitation to William 
 
CHANGES IN POLITICAL POWER. 21$ 
 
 represented the oldest families in England; it was the 
 influence of the nobles, working through the House of 
 Commons, which forced William to adopt party government; 
 and the nobility were too shrewd to hand over, unasked, the 
 power which they had thus attained. With the exception 
 of a very few struggles, such as that about the Aylesbury 
 petition, which affected the position of the House of Lords 
 as a law court, or that about the Peerage Bill, which affected 
 the chance of the commoners becoming peers, the relations 
 between the two Houses were, as a rule, most friendly ; and 
 after the collapse of the Tories on the accession of George I., 
 there was hardly any serious political difference at all, 
 though Walpole might be stronger in one House than the 
 other. 
 
 Nor was it at all surprising that this should be the 
 case. Political power always tends to gravitate into the 
 hands of the most powerful, and in the eighteenth century 
 the Whig nobles were, without doubt, the most powerful 
 class in the kingdom. In point of wealth none could com- 
 pare with them. They had broad acres which yielded 
 regular rents ; their earliest rivals, the wealthy nabobs from 
 India, were as yet very rare ; while the millionaire manu- 
 facturer was unknown. Now, the nobility are not as a 
 class the wealthiest subjects, manufacturers vie with them 
 in individual wealth, and far outnumber them collectively. 
 Nor was there in those days an inclination to rivalry 
 between nobility and wealth. It was one of the strongest 
 bulwarks of the Hanoverian throne that there was the 
 closest alliance between the titled Whigs and the wealthy 
 merchants of the city, and one of the first symptoms of the 
 fall of the nobles was the rupture between the House of 
 Commons and the corporation of London. In political 
 intelligence, too, the nobility were far in advance of the rest 
 
2l6 INFLUENCE OF THE NOBILITY. 
 
 of the nation. They were the only class who constantly 
 visited the metropolis, and London was then, infinitely more 
 than now, the centre of the kingdom. 
 
 If to do what you like without any one to gainsay you, is to 
 be an absolute ruler, the nobility, as a whole, were far more 
 the absolute rulers of England than any king had ever been. 
 They ruled the king, for they kept all confidential offices 
 about the court for themselves, their wives, or their families. 
 They directed the policy of the country, for they reserved 
 to themselves all the most influential places in the ministry. 
 Pitt only forced himself into the charmed circle by the 
 strength of his personal character, and Burke, the champion 
 of the Whigs, was never admitted into the Cabinet at all. 
 They ruled the House of Commons; for there were few 
 counties where a Tory had a chance, and none where a 
 man unconnected with the aristocracy was likely to be 
 elected, while of the boroughs a large proportion were in 
 the gift, to all practical purposes, of one nobleman or 
 another. They ruled society ; for the word of a nobleman 
 was law, and the manners of the nobility gave the tone. 
 They ruled literature, for no writer could hope to live by 
 the sale of his works, and the Whig nobility alone could 
 pay for the luxury of being praised. They had no rivals in 
 the Universities, for Oxford and Cambridge were asleep; 
 nor in the clergy, who were given over either to hoping for 
 preferment, or to making life pleasant ; nor in the gentry, 
 who were too much of the Squire Western stamp to wish to 
 trouble themselves as long as they were let alone ; while the 
 common people, rarely able to read, coarse in their plea- 
 sures and ideas, and as yet thoroughly loyal to the powers 
 that be, as represented by the great men of the county, 
 took no interest in politics if they had no vote, and if they 
 had, looked on an election as a time of unlimited beer. 
 
VIEWS OF GEORGE III. 217 
 
 In a nation such as this, and the English nation of the first 
 half of the eighteenth century is not a nice subject for con- 
 templation, the nobility reigned supreme. But theirs was, 
 on the whole, a beneficent despotism. They secured the 
 persons and pockets of the subject by the revolution of 1688, 
 and his creed by the Toleration Act of 1689, and the 
 repeal of the occasional Conformity and Schism Acts in 
 1 7 18. Besides this they kept England out of great wars, 
 and enabled her to recruit herself after the efforts of William 
 and Anne. But it was inevitable that a waking up should 
 take place, and presently the nobility found themselves 
 attacked on both sides, by the people, who demanded a 
 better representation in the Commons ; by the king, who 
 demanded to have a larger share in the government of the 
 country. 
 
 George III. ascended the throne with the distinct intention 
 of upsetting the system of party government which had been 
 consolidated during the two preceding reigns. The maxim 
 of constitutional rule is that " the king reigns but does not 
 govern," while George from infancy had been brought up 
 on the advice, " George, be king." His was one of those 
 natures which rarely forget any idea which has been im- 
 pressed upon them in youth, and to the day when his 
 malady finally disabled him for public affairs, George never 
 for a moment forgot his motto. Nor was he without 
 advisers of weight who thought that in doing his best to 
 overthrow party, he was doing a good deed for his country. 
 Two classes of people were desirous of seeing its overthrow, 
 the Tories and the discontented Whigs. 
 
 The accession of George III. coincided with a very 
 remarkable revival of the Tories. Since 1745 the Jacobites, 
 as a real living party, had ceased to exist. The men who 
 remembered a Stuart on the throne were becoming fewer 
 
218 HOSTILITY TO PARTY. 
 
 and fewer, the discrepancy between a party who supported 
 the Church of England and a leader who was a member of 
 the Church of Rome, became more marked ; the failure 
 of the rising of '45 showed the hopelessness of the cause, 
 and the great mass of the Jacobites thought better of it 
 and came over to the winning side. But though they aban- 
 doned their prince, they brought their principles with them, 
 and were prepared to support a king who, within certain 
 limits, claimed that he should not be entirely kept in lead- 
 ing strings by his own nobility. Their views were enir 
 bodied in a book called " The Patriot King," written by 
 St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, the great leader of the Tories 
 and Jacobites. This book advanced the plausible theory 
 that the king should look upon himself as above party, 
 and should choose as his ministers the best and ablest men 
 in the kingdom, quite apart from their political creed. This 
 was an excellent theory, but it had been tried by a very able 
 man, William III., and was found not to work in practice. 
 Unfortunately for the Whig nobles they had allowed a little 
 rent to be made in their armour. Carefully as they had 
 kept anything like Toryism out of the king's court, they 
 had been either inadvertent or weak enough, to allow the 
 education of Prince George to be undertaken by Tories, and 
 only awoke too late to the consequences of their mistake. 
 From his tutors George learned to look on party as faction, 
 and on the power of the Whig lords as the great obstacle in 
 the way of his playing the noble part of a patriot king. One 
 of the chief of his advisers was Lord Bute, who was 
 thoroughly imbued with these ideas, and saw a way of turn- 
 ing them to account for the purposes of his own ambition. 
 With these notions as his creed, and with Bute as his ally, 
 George set about the task of attacking the Whig strong- 
 hold. 
 
DISUNION OF THE WHIGS. 2ig 
 
 It was by no means an easy business. Fifty years of 
 office had secured to the Whigs all the approaches to their 
 citadel. Every office in the gift of the crown was in Whig 
 hands, from the secretaryships of State to the collector- 
 ships of excise. In the House of Peers the Whigs ruled 
 supreme, and they were masters of the House of Commons. 
 A momentary source of rupture had been removed, when 
 Pitt, the great commoner, was admitted to the Cabinet, and 
 the government in power, which rested upon the talents 
 of Pitt and the corruption of Newcastle, was as strong and 
 popular as a government well could be. An opening, how- 
 ever, was given to the king by the dissensions between the 
 Whig nobles themselves. Prosperity had destroyed the 
 union of the Whigs. Though apparently strong they were 
 in reality but weak. A close examination of their ranks 
 brought to light gaps between which the king might hope to 
 penetrate ; and within a short time the gaps widened under 
 his attacks, and the Whig party distinctly divided itself into 
 several sections, who followed the lead of their own chiefs. 
 These factions were afterwards known by the names of 
 Rockinghams, Chathams, Grenvilles, and Bedfords. 
 
 The first thing to be done was to break the strong admini- 
 stration which the king found in power. This was managed 
 before George had been king a year. Pitt, the great 
 commoner, who had forced himself through the phalanx of 
 nobles, and who as Secretary of State had won popularity by 
 his wonderful successes against the French, wished to declare 
 war against Spain. As events showed, Pitt was right, but 
 the king opposed him at the time, and Pitt resigned. 
 
 Against Newcastle a different weapon was used. As we 
 have seen, the Whig magnates had consolidated their power 
 by an elaborate system of patronage. The growth of the 
 army, the rise of the colonies, the increase in the revenue 
 
220 CHARACTER OF GEORGE III. 
 
 and the civil establishments, had placed in the hands of the 
 crown a vast number of appointments which were used for 
 political purposes. Technically these appointments were in 
 the gift of the crown ; practically they had been used by the 
 minister of the day to strengthen his party and to reward his 
 followers. But how if the king insisted upon exercising his 
 own right, and turning what had formerly been the support 
 of the ministry into a weapon against it ? This was what 
 George did ; and he did it with all his might. Few men 
 could compete with George III. in aptitude for routine. As 
 a clerk he would have been invaluable. He loved business, 
 and is said to have had quite a passion for signing his name. 
 But he had other qualities which raised him above being a 
 mere clerk. He had an excellent memory, and was a 
 shrewd judge of character. No one could remember better 
 than the king how members had voted, or could tell more 
 correctly the influence which always swayed the election at 
 a particular borough ; and these qualities made him a first- 
 rate electioneering agent, while his knowledge of the character 
 of public men enabled him to play off one against the other. 
 Armed in this way, George set himself to undermine the 
 Whig influence. 
 
 Of this weapon Newcastle was a master. He knew the 
 price of every member to a nicety, and what was the form 
 of currency in which each man's bribe was to be tendered. 
 But in George III. he had his match. George worked with 
 a will, and he soon showed Newcastle that he meant for 
 the future to bestow for his own ends what the law said 
 was his to give. And he used his powers well. Before 
 long George had a body of men called " the king's 
 friends," who held themselves aloof from party, and voted 
 as the king told them. The command of this flying squadron 
 gave the king immense power. If he chose to support 
 
MINISTRY OF LORD BUTE. 221 
 
 ministers, their majority was overwhelming, but it was more 
 than likely that he would choose to put them into a minority. 
 In a short time government was made impossible because 
 the king's friends constantly voted against the king's 
 ministers. George's object was not to get a strong admini- 
 stration, but to find a minister who would do his will, and 
 minister after minister either gave up in disgust or was 
 outvoted by the king's friends. Ministers were changed 
 again and again. Newcastle resigned because he found 
 that the king was disposing of the crown patronage without 
 consulting the ministers, and as he said piteously, " How is 
 one to speak to members when one does not know who has 
 received a gratification ? " 
 
 Then Lord Bute, the king's old tutor, became Premier. 
 He made peace with France, which, although probably 
 right, was thoroughly unpopular. In support of ministers 
 the king made extraordinary efforts. Henry Fox undertook 
 to manage the business, and by the grossest means a court 
 victory was won. The king's friends to a man supported 
 the peace, and it was made plain that if any member wanted 
 anything for himself or his family, he had better join him- 
 self to their number. At first it was a hard fight till it was 
 clear that Fox would carry the day, and then at last the 
 peace was approved by 319 to 65. Then came the punish- 
 ment of the vanquished. Newcastle himself, Grafton, and 
 Rockingham were deprived of their lord-lieutenancies ; the 
 Duke of Devonshire resigned his, but did not save his name 
 from being struck off the Privy Council. Nor did the pro- 
 scription rest here ; the wrath of the king against the Whigs 
 reached even the humbler servants of the crown, and a 
 sweep was made of the government offices, which would 
 have rivalled that made by an American democrat on 
 succeeding a republican president. By this means George 
 
222 CHANGES OF MINISTRY. 
 
 made it clear that he, and not the ministers of the day, was 
 the fount of emolument and the controller of the pension 
 list, and that swift vengeance pursued any luckless wight 
 who dared to vote according to his old principles in 
 defiance of the new power. Meanwhile Bute, frightened at 
 his unpopularity, resigned, and the king promoted George 
 Grenville, another member of the administration, to be 
 premier, but expected him to act as the puppet of himself 
 and Bute. As Lord Chesterfield said, " The public still 
 looked at Lord Bute through the curtain, which indeed was 
 very transparent." 
 
 Now the only chance to put a stop to this state of 
 things was for the Whigs to make up their differences, and 
 oppose a steady front to the king's friends and the Tories. 
 Had they done this they might have forced the king to 
 accept them as a body, but they did not, and so allowed 
 themselves to be discredited in turn. Meanwhile, under the 
 guidance of the king, Parliament was falling into great diffi- 
 culties, and was beginning to show the vices of an oligar- 
 chical government. In defiance of the spirit of the principle 
 that no one ought to be compelled to pay taxes which have 
 not been voted by himself or his representative, they were 
 trying to extract taxes from the American colonists, and 
 they had committed themselves to a contest with Wilkes, 
 in which they found themselves opposed to the law courts 
 of the country. 
 
 Meantime the Whigs were utterly at variance. George 
 would have been glad enough to get them to unite in his 
 service if he could have done so, and made overture 
 after overture to Pitt, but Pitt refused to help Grenville. 
 Then Bedford and his friends joined the ministry, but a 
 quarrel arose between George and Grenville, who was dis- 
 missed, and another attempt at a united Whig ministry was 
 
MISTAKES OF THE COURT. 223 
 
 made, but failed. Then George called in Rockingham and 
 his section, on the whole the purest of the Whigs, and they 
 made an effort to undo some of the mischief which had 
 been done. But they were too weak. Unassisted by the 
 other Whigs, hated by the king's friends, and embarrassed 
 by the king himself, who made little secresy of his dislike, 
 they fell, before they had been in office a year. Then a 
 mixed government was formed, with Grafton, a weak member 
 of the Rockingham administration at its head, and supported 
 by Pitt, who now took the title of Earl of Chatham, and his 
 friends. Chatham soon fell ill, and Grafton, under the king's 
 influence, was left to do what he liked. The attempt to tax 
 the colonies, which had been given up by Rockingham, was 
 again renewed, and the Commons, in defiance of the prin- 
 ciple that " elections of members to Parliament ought to be 
 free," as stated in the Bill of Rights, engaged in an attempt 
 to prevent the electors of Middlesex from being represented 
 by their chosen candidate, John Wilkes. Four times Wilkes 
 was elected, and three times he was declared incapable of 
 sitting. The fourth time the Commons went still further, 
 and declared Colonel Luttrell, his opponent, who had only 
 got 296 votes to Wilkes' 1143, to be duly elected. Shortly 
 afterwards, Grafton, worn out by the satirical letters of 
 Junius, and utterly disgusted with his position, resigned. 
 Again the Whigs lost an opportunity of uniting, and Lord 
 North, a Tory, the ablest and most pliant of Grafton's col- 
 leagues, consented to call himself First Lord of the Treasury 
 and to act as the king's agent at the head of a group of 
 minor officials. 
 
 Lord North's ministry lasted from 1770 to 1782, and 
 made itself memorable by losing the American colonies. 
 Selfish as the nobles might have been, they had never done 
 anything equal to this, and the last ministry of George II. 
 
224 ABUSE OF PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE. 
 
 was well remembered as the glorious administration of Pitt. 
 Had George III. been a really able man like William III. it 
 is possible that the success of his administration might have 
 blinded the nation ; but the utter failure of his policy allowed 
 men's eyes free scope to see the iniquity of the system by 
 which his power had been obtained. But it was clear that 
 to remedy the evil something more must be done, 
 beside preventing the king from being able to maintain any 
 ministry he liked. That was only half the battle. The 
 House of Commons must be brought into accord with the 
 wishes of the nation, and the force of public opinion must 
 be made to bear upon its members. The prosecution of 
 Wilkes had begun to open men's minds to the fact that 
 parliamentary privileges were not an end but a means. Par- 
 liament was no more a sacred institution than royalty, and 
 if it abused its power, there was a force beyond and above 
 it, which had helped Parliament to reform the prerogative, 
 and was prepared, if needful, to apply the same process to 
 privilege. 
 
 Now the chief privileges of Parliament were, as we have 
 seen before, control over their own elections, freedom 
 from arrest, and freedom of speech. But if the right to 
 control their own elections was used to keep out members 
 duly elected by the people ; if the right of freedom from 
 arrest was used to save the members from paying their just 
 debts, or was extended to their servants and dependents, 
 and even their rabbits, to the injury of their fellow-subjects ; 
 and if freedom of speech was interpreted as the right of 
 using their privilege to prevent the nation from knowing 
 what was done by its representatives, then these privileges 
 had outlived their time and had been turned into abuses. 
 And there was no doubt that this was the case. The treat- 
 ment of Wilkes, the notorious abuse of freedom from arrest, 
 
ACTION OF THE KING'S FRIENDS. 22 5 
 
 the strenuous attempts of Parliament to prevent their debates 
 from being published, all showed that Parliament, which was 
 in former times the bulwark of the people against the 
 sovereign, had in the moment of victory forgotten its obli- 
 gations, and mistaken the object of its own existence. 
 To put a stop to these evils two parties arose ; the watchword 
 of one was the abolition of influence ; the cry of the other 
 was reform. 
 
 The movement for the abolition of influence was made 
 by the Rockingham section of the Whig party, and its chief 
 apostle was Burke ; the first suggestion of reform came from 
 Lord Chatham and his friends. 
 
 In his pamphlet on the causes of the present discontents, 
 published in 1770, Burke showed clearly enough the cause 
 of the disorder. The king's friends voted against the king's 
 ministers, and made government impossible. The king's 
 friends were kept together by the king's influence, and there- 
 fore the influence of the crown was the point of attack. 
 The facts of the case were notorious, and had been so for 
 years ; but so long as the influence of the crown could be 
 used by the Whig leaders in the interests of their own party 
 there did not seem to be much harm in it. It was quite a 
 different thing, however, now that their own weapon had got 
 into the king's hands, and was being used against themselves. 
 As Horace Walpole tells us, " Everybody ran to court and 
 voted for whatever the crown wanted." At first, however, 
 the party made little way; but by degrees public opinion 
 began to be aroused. Gray, the poet, writing at Cambridge, 
 said that he could remember nothing like the rapid changes 
 of government, and the fluctuations in policy, since the 
 early years of Charles I. The virulent letters of Junius 
 overwhelmed the ministry with scorn. The publication of 
 debates, which after a violent struggle with Parliament, was 
 
 Q 
 
226 ROCKINGHAM'S REFORMS. 
 
 finally yielded to the printers in 177 1, threw light on the 
 proceedings of the Houses, and helped to form public 
 opinion. Still more the disastrous results in America roused 
 popular indignation, and by degrees Burke and his friends 
 found themselves supported by popular opinion. In 1780, 
 backed by a large petition from the freeholders of Yorkshire, 
 they won their first Parliamentary triumph, for in that year 
 Dunning's motion, "that the power of the crown has in- 
 creased, is increasing and ought to be diminished," was 
 carried by 233 to 215. This was something; but when the 
 descent was made from generals to particulars, and Burke 
 brought in his Bill for economical reform, which recited the 
 offices which ought to be abolished, the friends of abuse 
 rallied in force, and defeated the measure by 233 to 190. 
 The next year North resigned, and Rockingham, at the head 
 of the most united Whig ministry of the reign came into 
 power. They did not expect to stay in long, but they de- 
 termined before they fell " to strike a good stout blow " at 
 the king's influence both in and out of Parliament. To do 
 this they took in hand the king's civil list, and divided it 
 into eight classes, abolished an immense number of useless 
 offices, such as that of king's turnspit, whose occupant had a 
 seat in the House of Commons, abolished secret pensions, 
 and curtailed the expenses of the court to such an extent, 
 that without the least interfering with the comfort or splen- 
 dour of the royal family, they diminished its expenditure by 
 ^72,000 a year. A frequent form of influence was that of 
 granting government contracts to members of the House of 
 Commons, and to stop this, no contractor was to be allowed for 
 the future to sit in the House of Commons. Another source 
 of corruption was the influence of the crown at elections. 
 This was exercised in the most open way through the revenue 
 officers, who numbered no less than 11,500 electors, and 
 
COALITION OF FOX AND NORTH. 227 
 
 could turn the scale in seventy boroughs. These were all 
 forbidden to vote. These were splendid reforms, and they 
 had their effect. The influence of the crown was most 
 seriously curtailed, and henceforth the coarser forms of 
 bribery were practically excluded from the Parliament. 
 
 It might have been expected that upon this the Whigs 
 would have assumed their old influence. Such, however, 
 was not the case. They fell mainly in consequence of 
 their own dissensions. Rockingham's reforms were hardly 
 passed when he died, and the promotion of Lord Shelburne, 
 a member of the Chatham Whigs, to the lead, roused all the 
 old enmity between the sections. Charles James Fox and 
 Burke, who had been the chief support and ornament of 
 Rockingham's ministry, refused to act with Shelburne, and 
 actually entered into an alliance with Lord North to over- 
 throw their old friends, and succeeded in doing so. Fox 
 and Burke, who had formerly denounced Lord North as a 
 political monster of the most horrible kind, were now seen 
 joined with him in denouncing a minister who was pledged to 
 their own principles, and who was negotiating a peace of 
 which they had been the most strenuous advocates. They 
 succeeded and came into power, but in doing so they utterly 
 robbed their party of any respect which it had in the eyes of 
 the people. The utter unscrupulousness of the Whig chiefs 
 disgusted their most vigorous supporters, and it was seen, 
 that could the king but play his cards well, he might win by 
 popularity a victory more signal and more lasting than any 
 he had gained by corruption. 
 
 But Fox and North saw it too, and attempted, now that 
 the king had by their means been deprived of his influence, 
 to get into their hands a source of patronage which should 
 make them for many years more powerful than either the 
 king or the people. The East India Company, a body 
 
228 DEFEAT OF FOX'S INDIA BILL. 
 
 which had now become the ruler of a great empire, had 
 long been in need of reform ; but the coalition saw that 
 while apparently reforming it, they could establish in their 
 own hands a most formidable engine of corruption. The 
 Company had for its own purposes gained great Parlia- 
 mentary power, and by means of its vast patronage had 
 tremendous influence. The plan of the coalition was to 
 transfer the authority of the company to a body of seven 
 commissioners to be nominated by Parliament (i.e. by their 
 own majority) for four years, and afterwards to be named 
 by the crown. In this way they hoped to have for four 
 years unbounded power over Parliament, and at the end of 
 the time to force the king to appoint their own friends. 
 
 It was an excellent scheme ; but both the king and the 
 nation saw the game. It was the most barefaced attempt 
 of the majority to defy the king and the country ; but it 
 was very difficult to defeat, for the coalition had an over- 
 whelming majority in the Commons. But George III. was 
 not a man to stick at a trifle, especially when his influence 
 was at stake, and this time he was fighting the nation's 
 battle as well. In defiance of the forms of the constitution, 
 he sent a message through Lord Temple to the members of 
 the House of Lords to say, " that whoever voted (in the 
 Lords) for the India Bill was not only not his friend, but 
 would be considered by him as an enemy." The Lords 
 threw out the Bill, and the coalition ministry was dismissed. 
 
 The story of the next few months is well known. How 
 George III. called on young William Pitt, the son of the 
 great commoner, to come to his rescue ; how Pitt bravely 
 struggled from December to March against an overwhelming 
 majority in Parliament, and against the greatest speakers of 
 the day ; how the nation gradually woke to the fact that 
 Pitt was fighting their battle, and how George III. became 
 
RECENT INFLUENCE OF CROWN. 229 
 
 popular for the first time in his reign ; how member after 
 member came over to the winning side, and how, finally, 
 the king dissolved the Parliament ; how one hundred and 
 sixty of the supporters of the coalition lost their seats, and 
 Pitt found himself supported by a majority more united and 
 more compact than that which had supported any former 
 minister of the reign, and more honest than that which had 
 followed the lead of Walpole. 
 
 But the victory meant more than the triumph of the king, 
 — it meant the complete overthrow of the system of govern- 
 ment by the nominees of the great Whig Houses, and the 
 end of the personal government of the king. For George 
 did not attempt to interfere with Pitt as he had interfered 
 with Lord North. In Pitt, young as he was, he found a 
 minister whose views in the main coincided with his own, 
 and who was gifted with as strong a will. Still there were 
 numerous indications that the snake was scotched, but not 
 killed, and that George's notion of his own rights differed 
 in no way from what it had been in the days of Bute and 
 North. Though the royal influence had been much im- 
 paired by Lord Rockingham's Act, it was still assumed 
 on all hands that the good-will of the king was the strongest 
 support of the ministry. In 1788, when George was for a 
 time insane, it was taken as an axiom that the Prince of 
 Wales, if he became regent, could and would turn out Pitt 
 and put in the king's friends. In 1802, Pitt, though still 
 popular with the country, was forced to resign because he 
 differed with George III. on the question of Catholic 
 emancipation. In 181 1 the Prince Regent was again ex- 
 pected to change the ministry. In 1822 Brougham, in 
 making a motion that " the influence of the crown is de- 
 structive of the independence of Parliament," could still 
 assert that it had largely increased since Dunning's motion 
 
230 DISMISSAL OF LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 in 1780. Even so late as 1834, William IV. dismissed the 
 first ministry of Lord Melbourne, while they still commanded 
 a majority in Parliament. But this is the last instance of 
 such action, and we must now go back to trace the means 
 by which the House of Commons was made to be a more 
 faithful representation of the people who were supposed to 
 send them. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 REFORM OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Haphazard is a word almost too feeble to describe the 
 method, or absence of method, by which the English 
 House of Commons gradually assumed the form which it 
 exhibited in the days of George III. The return of 
 members, the selection of boroughs, the distribution of the 
 franchise, were all equally anomalous. Yorkshire and Rut- 
 land alike returned two members each ; old Sarum, where 
 not a vestige of a house was to be seen, sent two repre- 
 sentatives, while Birmingham, whose vast area of thriving 
 workshops and forges was densely crowded with human 
 beings, sent no members at all ; at Preston every house- 
 holder had a vote, and at the election of 1830, 7122 
 persons actually polled ; at London the largest number 
 recorded was at the election of 1826, and only amounted 
 to 8631. But if the result was anomalous, its history is 
 perhaps still more surprising. Any one who now sees the 
 eagerness of towns to send members, and the anxiety of 
 gentlemen to get seats, and is led to imagine by this that 
 the same eagerness had been shown in former times, and 
 that a desire to have a share in the national assembly, 
 either personally or through your representative, had always 
 been one of the characteristics of Englishmen, and that to 
 this patriotic feeling was due the great success of parlia- 
 
232 ANOMALIES IN THE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 mentary institutions in England for so long a time, would 
 be sadly mistaken, and would be picturing to himself a 
 condition of things, the exact reverse of what was the case. 
 For it is hardly too much to say that during a long period 
 Parliament was kept together and made to represent the 
 country, not by the energy, but in spite of the supineness, 
 of a large proportion of the people of England. For a long 
 time it was the king who insisted that members should 
 come to Parliament, because it was of more importance to 
 him than to any one else, that Parliament should really 
 represent the nation. For the Plantagenets looked at Par- 
 liament not as an end but as a means. They knew very 
 well that to collect taxes without its consent meant rebel- 
 lion, and possibly deposition and death, and they wanted 
 Parliament to represent the nation, so that its votes might 
 be binding on their subjects. They knew, too, that by an 
 unwritten law they were forced to shape their policy more 
 or less in accordance with what their people wanted, and 
 their only chance in those days of finding out what their 
 subjects thought, was by having a Parliament which really 
 represented the nation. It was not enough to have only 
 the nobles and the clergy, it was needful also to have the 
 knights of the shire and the burgesses, and so the kings 
 were forced as it were by the instinct of self-preservation to 
 get a Parliament which would really represent England. 
 But to do this the sovereigns had to struggle with a mass 
 of inertness. 
 
 The advantage of representation was by no means realized 
 at once ; it was only by slow degrees that it was thought 
 any privilege. The members hated going; the electors 
 hated paying their wages. Most amusing stories are told 
 of the difficulties which the sheriff encountered in sending 
 his contingent to Parliament. He was ordered by his writ 
 
UNWILLINGNESS OF MEMBERS. 233 
 
 to send two knights of the shire and two members for each 
 city and borough within his county. The county usually 
 elected members readily enough, though on one occasion 
 the sheriff of Northumberland excused himself on the 
 ground that all his knights were wanted at home; the real 
 difficulty here was to get the members to go. And no wonder. 
 It was no light thing to leave your home and estate and all 
 your duties, which were numerous enough for a knight of 
 the fourteenth century, to take care of themselves ; to travel 
 to London over what would seem to us almost unexplored 
 wastes, rendered dangerous by bands of robbers ; and when 
 you got there to find yourself in a strange place, among 
 people you did not know, and in an assembly where you 
 were insignificant, and all this for no special glory and for 
 the munificent recompense of four shillings a day. To 
 bring the knights to London was as hard as to bring a 
 prisoner to the assizes, and finally sureties had to be sworn 
 for their appearance just as though they were to be tried for 
 their lives. That Yorkshire sent only two members, was 
 hardly thought a matter of grievance when it was considered 
 that eight shillings a day, divided among all Yorkshire, was 
 much less than had to be paid by the gentlemen of Rutland 
 or Derbyshire. 
 
 But the sheriffs found it hard work to get members from 
 the boroughs at all. The excuses sent up were as numerous 
 as those offered to Cowper's parson on tithing day. Bad 
 times formed a ready plea to the sheriff to induce him to 
 keep back the writ, and if he sent it, some boroughs found 
 that it might be more honoured in the breach than the 
 observance. Torrington, in Devonshire, actually got a 
 charter of exemption on the ground that it had never 
 sent burgesses before 1348, whereas it can be proved 
 that representatives had been sent nine times previously. 
 
234 GROWING POPULARITY OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Richard II. exempted Colchester for five years on the 
 ground that it had lately been put to much expense in 
 repairing its fortifications. To put a stop to these irregu- 
 larities, Richard II. had an Act passed which fined the 
 sheriff for omitting to send due returns, and members for 
 neglecting their duty. This Act did not have much effect, 
 as is shown by the very short lists of members present in 
 Parliament; but meantime Parliament was becoming more 
 important, and with its importance the readiness to serve in 
 it increased. Under the Lancasters, as we have seen, 
 Parliament had a very important position; during the minority 
 of Henry VI. it had a large control over the government, and 
 when, during the wars of the Roses, it overturned dynas- 
 ties and attainted whole factions, to be a member became 
 an honourable distinction. The first instance of competition 
 for seats is noted in a statute of Henry V., which forbad 
 towns to send members who were not of the number of 
 their own residents ; but this statute was of no avail to 
 check the tendency of the times, and as seats in Parliament 
 became more valuable, the members of the county families 
 began to compete for them, and as is shown by the Paston 
 letters, boroughs were in great request among the gentry in 
 the time of Edward IV, and the Rolls of Parliament show 
 that in that reign a few burgesses of the rank of esquire had 
 begun to sit for towns. No sooner was this the case, than 
 two results followed, (i) The king began to do his utmost 
 to influence elections in his own favour, and (2) the members 
 who were eager to serve, agreed to give up their pay, and 
 by degrees this practice died out ; payments became very rare 
 under Henry VIII., but instances are to be found at a much 
 later period. Meanwhile the sovereign and the nobility and 
 gentry had been contending for influence in the boroughs, 
 and the growth of this influence was very much assisted 
 
COUNTY ELECTIONS. 235 
 
 by the changes that had taken place in the method of 
 election. 
 
 The writ for the election of the knights of the shire was 
 addressed to the sheriff, and in the earliest times the election 
 took place in the county court, the old shire-moot, of which 
 the sheriff had since the Conquest acted as chairman. The 
 reading of the writ was followed by the election of the 
 knights which took place in open court. Though in theory 
 the knights appear to have represented the lesser barons, 
 there seems to have been no exclusive right to vote, and all 
 who were present might take their share, though no doubt 
 the great men had the chief influence ; but the sheriffs did 
 not by any means have it all their own way, and when 
 Richard II. ordered that no one was to be elected " without 
 the approbation of the king and his council," they were 
 obliged to declare that the commons "would maintain 
 their ancient privilege of electing their own representatives." 
 But this casual method of election led to disturbances, and 
 in 1430 a statute was passed which declared that since 
 elections of knights of the shires had of late " been made by 
 very great, outrageous, and excessive number of people " 
 who were for the most part of " small substance and of no 
 value," the franchise is for the future to be restricted to 
 freeholders to the value of forty shillings. This is the origin 
 of the forty shilling freeholders who continued to be the sole 
 electors in the counties till 1832. 
 
 In the boroughs there never seems to have been anything 
 like a uniform plan. The franchise appears to have been 
 distributed to each place on the plan of the survival of the 
 fittest. In some places the corporation ; in others the 
 holders of property within the borough by burgage tenure ; 
 in another the general body of the townspeople formed the 
 electorate. The smaller these bodies were the better was 
 
236 BOROUGH FRANCHISE. 
 
 the chance of outside influence prevailing, and in many 
 places the right to nominate members fell practically into 
 the hands of the nobility, the gentry, or the crown, while 
 under the Tudors the sovereign steadily pursued the 
 plan of creating rotten boroughs in order that they might be 
 under its influence. A natural reaction against this, caused 
 the members to become exceedingly jealous of the creation 
 of new boroughs, and the practice gradually ceased ; so that 
 while Elizabeth created thirty boroughs, James I. only 
 created thirteen including Oxford and Cambridge Universi- 
 ties, Charles I. nine, and Charles II. only brought in Durham 
 a county palatine, with its capital, and created one new 
 borough, Newark. In the reign of James I. a revision was 
 made of the boroughs and, with the exceptions above, the 
 places to be represented were regarded from that time as 
 fixed. 
 
 Now this notion of the representation being fixed, soon 
 produced bad results. So long as the kings had the power 
 of increasing the number of boroughs, a way of making the 
 franchise keep pace with the changes in wealth and popula- 
 tion was at any rate provided. But now the system began to 
 get wrong at both ends. Boroughs which had representatives, 
 became decayed and ought no longer to have sent members ; 
 whereas towns grew up which were thriving and prosperous 
 and ought to have had members, but were kept unrepresented. 
 The evil rapidly got worse, for whereas when parliamentary 
 institutions had been growing, the south and east of the 
 country were far in advance of the rest in wealth and 
 population, a movement was beginning which, owing to the 
 rise of manufactures, has steadily been transferring the 
 wealth and industry of the country to the north and west, 
 and has not yet ceased to operate ; and so rapid was its 
 action that in a very short time, Birmingham, Manchester, 
 
CROMWELL'S REFORM. 2$? 
 
 and Leeds, which after London, Bristol, and Norwich, stood 
 as the most important centres of trade and industry, were un- 
 represented in Parliament. But the jealousy of the nobility 
 and gentry who had the chief influence in Parliament, and 
 who feared to have the members in the small boroughs 
 exchanged for members for large towns, in which they had 
 no influence, joined with the apathy of the towns themselves 
 allowed the system to become firmly settled. The first who 
 dealt with the question was Oliver Cromwell, and in two of 
 his Parliaments, not only did he give members to the counties 
 in proportion to their population, so that Yorkshire had 
 twelve and Essex thirteen members, but he also gave 
 members to Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, and other 
 rising towns, and disfranchised a number of rotten boroughs. 
 But the change was not popular, either with Parliament or 
 the country ; the Convention Parliament was elected on the 
 old principle, and so were the succeeding Parliaments. Nor 
 was the plan so bad as it might have seemed. The members 
 of the Commons, though elected in all possible ways, and 
 representing all manner of places, did as a whole represent 
 the English feeling of the day, and though perhaps a more 
 popularly elected body might have had something to say to 
 the plan of exchanging the feudal dues paid by the gentry, 
 for an excise on the beer drunk by the people, still, on the 
 whole, Parliament did very well, so long as it felt that it was 
 fighting the battle of the nation against the king. 
 
 But no sooner was the victory won, and Parliament found 
 itself master of the situation, than it began to think of 
 itself first and the nation second ; and, as we have seen, the 
 privileges and powers which had served as a defence against 
 the king, were now turned by Parliament into a weapon 
 against the nation. Still it must be again said the Com- 
 mons of the early eighteenth century, corrupt as they were, 
 
238 SIR FRANCIS D AS ff WOOD'S MOTION. 
 
 deserved well of their country. Like Henry VIII. and the 
 Tudors, they brought the nation through a most difficult 
 time ; showed themselves in many respects wiser and more 
 tolerant than the bulk of the nation ; and it was certainly 
 not till after the fall of the Jacobites that any very serious 
 fault can be found with the working of the system, so long as 
 one makes no demand for symmetry and order, but only 
 argues from results. 
 
 But with the accession of George III. came a change 
 which in some respects corresponds to the revival of par- 
 liamentary activity on the fall of the Spanish Armada ; the 
 difficulties which Pitt had had to deal with in his rise to 
 the front, the notorious influence of the Whig lords, the 
 prevalence of bribery, and the unsatisfactory working of the 
 government under George III., led many to think that some 
 change was necessary. Of these, one section, as we saw, 
 headed by Burke, contended for the abolition of the king's 
 influence ; the other, headed by Lord Chatham, looked 
 forward to parliamentary reform. 
 
 The first proposal of Reform was made, however, in the 
 reign of George II. In 1745, during the actual progress of 
 the rebellion, Sir Francis Dashwood moved as an amend- 
 ment to the address, " That, for the firmer establishment of 
 his Majesty's throne, on the solid basis of his people's 
 affections, it should be our speedy care to frame such bills 
 as may effectually secure to his Majesty's subjects the 
 perpetual enjoyment of their undoubted right to be freely 
 and fairly represented in Parliament, frequently chosen, and 
 exempted from undue influence of every kind." This 
 proposition, which was true enough in the abstract, appears 
 at this moment to have been shelved, on the easy plea that 
 it was inopportune to raise the question at this crisis, and 
 Pitt himself took a leading part in resisting the motion. The 
 
CHATHAM'S PROPOSALS. 239 
 
 question accordingly dropped, and it was not till 1770 that 
 Chatham, himself, in the course of a debate on another 
 matter, made a casual allusion to the expediency of giving 
 an additional member to every county. This was the first 
 proposition to do anything ; but Chatham was known to enter- 
 tain very strong views on the subject, and in 1766 he 
 had denounced the system of borough representation as the 
 " rotten part of the constitution." " If it does not drop," said 
 he, "it must be amputated." In 1770, however, Chatham 
 had made up his mind that it was impossible to get rid of 
 the boroughs, rotten as they were, and his idea was to " infuse 
 such a portion of new health into the constitution as may 
 enable it to support the most inveterate diseases." Chat- 
 ham's suggestion came to nothing ; but the subject was now 
 fairly raised, and though it hardly came " within the range of 
 practical politics," a series of motions were brought forward, 
 and public opinion began to be aroused. Various events 
 brought the matter forward. The contest between the 
 English Parliament and the colonies, suggested the reflec- 
 tion that a large portion of the English nation were no more 
 represented in Parliament than the colonies themselves ; 
 the struggle with Wilkes exhibited the Commons trying to 
 trample upon the rights of constituencies ; the determination 
 of the Commons to prevent their debates from being 
 reported, suggested that there was something the members 
 wished to conceal ; and the rise to importance of news- 
 papers both in London and the provinces, helped to 
 direct upon the proceedings of Parliament an amount of 
 public attention and curiosity, to which the members had 
 hitherto been wholly unaccustomed. 
 
 Several motions were introduced. In 1776 John Wilkes 
 brought forward a motion for parliamentary reform which 
 was lost in the Commons without a division ; in 1780, 
 
24O THE YOUNGER PITT. 
 
 at the very moment when the mob collected by Lord 
 George Gordon was besieging the House of Commons, the 
 Duke of Richmond was descanting to the Lords on the ad- 
 vantages of manhood suffrage and annual Parliaments, but 
 his motion met the same fate as that of Wilkes. The 
 attention of Parliament was directed to the question of 
 royal influence, which affected itself, and till that was 
 cleared away, there was no chance for a reform which 
 merely affected the nation. Indeed, the advocates for 
 economical reform were by no means in favour of the 
 reform of Parliament. Their leader, Burke, was most 
 deeply embued with the notion of the extraordinary beauty 
 and sacredness of the British constitution as he found it, 
 and no idea of tampering with the existing House of 
 Commons, ever formed part of his political programme. 
 But when the Rockingham ministry had dealt their great 
 blow at influence, Reform came to the front, and in the 
 hands of young William Pitt, the leader in the Commons of 
 Lord Shelburne's section, who were supposed to follow the 
 principles of the great Chatham, it seemed to have every 
 chance of becoming the question of the day. 
 
 In 1782, directly the great scheme of economical reform 
 had been carried, and the proceedings against Wilkes had 
 been expunged, young Pitt brought forward his motion to 
 inquire into the state of parliamentary representation, and 
 it was only thrown out by 161 to 141, the closest division 
 on reform till 1831. Again, in 1783, when the Coalition 
 were in power, Pitt brought forward his resolution, but it was 
 now thrown out by 293 to 149. This year Pitt came into 
 power himself, and it might have seemed likely that he 
 would be able to carry his plan into practical execution. 
 But this was not the case. Pitt in office was in some 
 respects a different man to Pitt out ; and the increase in the 
 
POSTPONEMENT OF REFORM. 24 1 
 
 support given to the bill was not commensurate with what 
 it would have been had the crown influence which still 
 remained, been thrown into the scale. Pitt's scheme, how- 
 ever, was well considered, and certainly did not neglect 
 existing interests. The money value of rotten boroughs 
 was very considerable, and was reckoned in thousands of 
 pounds, and the rush of rich East Indian merchants into 
 the market had still further raised the price, so that in 1775 
 the representation of Gatton had been sold for ,£75,000. 
 Of this Pitt took account, and in proposing to disfranchise 
 thirty-six rotten boroughs, he also proposed to compensate 
 their owners. The seventy-two seats which he would thus 
 gain, he intended to give to the counties and to London. 
 The bill, however, was thrown out by 248 to 174, and Pitt 
 retired from the contest. 
 
 From this time reform languished. There were many 
 reasons for this. Pitt's government was thoroughly popular, 
 and his administration excellent ; and as the desire to 
 get rid of an unpopular ministry and of a bad system 
 of government was removed, the pressure from the people 
 outside ceased to operate, and it was too much to expect 
 that Parliament, out of a pure desire for a symmetrical 
 system of government, would have been willing to interfere 
 so largely with its own comfort, or even that Pitt should 
 have been desirous of uprooting a system which had such 
 an obvious advantage in securing him a steady majority. 
 If Pitt did not stir, there was no one else to move in the 
 matter, so the years between 1785 and 1792 were allowed 
 to slip by without anything serious being done. Then 
 came the French revolution, an event which while it 
 encouraged the sanguine advocates of reform, utterly hor- 
 rified the nation as a whole, threw into the opposite scale 
 all who were timid, or who had any interest which seemed 
 
 R 
 
242 SOCIETY OF THE FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 to be threatened, and supplied ready the answer to all 
 suggestions of improvement, " Look at France, she tried 
 to reform, and see the result." It was useless to point out 
 that the problem in each country was different. Burke, 
 who was never a reformer of Parliament, was now leading a 
 crusade against all reformation, and even if the leader 
 escaped being carried away by his own enthusiasm, his 
 followers comprehended every species of reform, however 
 innocent, in one wild howl of denunciation. What might 
 have been the result had the Commons quietly taken in 
 hand the work of rooting out abuses bit by bit, gradually 
 eliminating those boroughs which were notoriously rotten 
 and transferring their seats to unrepresented towns, it is 
 impossible to say ; the experiment never was fairly tried, 
 and it is one of the prices we pay for the French revolu- 
 tion that such was the case. 
 
 It was by no means that reform ceased to be necessary. 
 Ample evidence showed its need. In 1792 a society called 
 the Friends of the People, was formed for the purpose of collect- 
 ing statistics on the subject, and in May, 1793, Mr. Grey, who 
 had already made one unsuccessful motion on the subject, 
 presented to the Commons a petition of the society, in which 
 they demonstrated that the representation was in great need 
 of reform. They showed (1) that the majority of the House 
 was elected by 15,000 electors, only -%\^ part of the adult 
 males of the kingdom ; (2) that Cornwall returned more 
 members, county and borough, than Yorkshire, Middlesex 
 and Rutland together ; (3) that Cornwall sent more borough 
 members than Yorkshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Mid- 
 dlesex, Worcestershire and Somersetshire united ; (4) that 
 eighty-four individuals did of their own authority send 157 
 members to Parliament, that seventy other individuals 
 practically nominated 150 more, so that 154 persons returned 
 
BUYING OF SEATS. 243 
 
 311 members, a majority of the whole House, which then 
 numbered 558. Besides these points the petition com- 
 plained of the irregularities of the franchise. The whole 
 document, which is very instructive, can be found at the 
 close of Molesworth's " History of the Reform Bill of 1832." 
 On this petition, Mr. Grey founded a motion, which, being 
 opposed by both Burke and Pitt, was thrown out by 232 to 
 41 ; and another effort, in 1797, was rejected by 256 to 
 91. For fifteen years the question was allowed to drop. It 
 was again revived in 1809 by the Radical member Sir 
 Francis Burdett, but he only found fifteen supporters. In 
 1 8 10 Mr. Brand succeeded in getting 115 followers, which 
 shows that the terrors of the French revolution were a little 
 subsiding; but in 18 12 his motion was rejected by 215 to 
 88, and it was not till the wars with Napoleon were closed 
 by the victory of Waterloo, and the nation which had so long 
 had its attention engrossed with foreign politics, was able to 
 give some heed to its own affairs, that the question became 
 again prominent. 
 
 That the evil was less, certainly formed no part of the 
 reason why the question was in abeyance. Though bribery in 
 the House of Commons itself had ceased with the American 
 war, boroughs were bought and sold with unblushing effron- 
 tery. Lord Palmerston tells us that he and a friend were 
 lucky in getting seats for ^1500 each for a short time, 
 when the cost of a session was ^5000 ; and he explains 
 that in the general election of 1806, Lord Grenville and his 
 colleagues did a good stroke of business by buying up seats 
 in advance, for a small sum and some piece of patronage, 
 and then when the election came on and prices went up, 
 reselling the seat at some ^5000, and applying their gains 
 to securing other constituencies, so that they managed to 
 gain a large amount of support without spending the 
 
244 <* MODEL BOROUGH. 
 
 public money. Seats were regularly bought and sold ; and 
 an auctioneer selling a property to which a seat was attached, 
 neatly described this additional source of profit as an " ele- 
 gant contingency." Meantime the elections at the rotten 
 boroughs often afforded amusing scenes. 
 
 Gatton was a model borough. It possessed two members 
 and three electors. The latter were Sir Mark Wood, his 
 son, and his butler, Jennings. In the election of 1812, 
 Gatton was represented by Sir Mark himself and Mr. Con- 
 greve, the inventor of the Congreve Rocket. In 181 6 
 Congreve resigned, and it seemed good to Sir Mark to 
 nominate for the vacancy his son Mark, who happened to 
 be away, and it was expected that Jennings would second 
 him as a matter of course. But the butler flatly refused, 
 and proposed himself. Here was a dilemma ! To get over 
 the difficulty, Sir Mark was forced to second the butler, who 
 was prevailed on to second the son, while Sir Mark alone 
 voted, and so the Marks, father and son, went up to Parlia- 
 ment as the representatives of themselves and their butler. 
 
 But this seemed no laughing matter to our grandfathers. 
 After Waterloo came one of the most terrible times in our 
 history. Country gentlemen, manufacturers, merchants, 
 farmers, artisans, and labourers alike felt the pinch of want ; 
 from all over the country the dire story of distress and 
 crime reached the ears of Parliament, and though the 
 government in power felt that the crisis would be adequately 
 met by the famous six Acts, the country determined to go 
 to the root of the matter, and as a first step on the road, to 
 insist on the reform of Parliament. 
 
 Two parties supported the demand. The old Whigs with 
 Lord Grey, the Mr. Grey of 1792, at their head, were 
 desirous of carrying out a careful, well considered plan, 
 which should lop off the rotten boroughs, and transfer their 
 
WHIGS AND RADICALS. 245 
 
 votes to large towns and counties, making as little alteration 
 as might be, in what seemed to be the advantages of the 
 existing system ; while the Radicals, led by Burdett, Cob- 
 bettj and Hunt, were in favour of a tremendous scheme for 
 universal suffrage, electoral districts, the ballot, and annual 
 Parliaments. 
 
 Burdett led the attack on the position, but met with little 
 success, for in Parliament itself the Radicals were a ridi- 
 culous minority ; and it was not till in 181 9, when Lord John 
 Russell, a member of a noble house which for centuries 
 had been on the side of the people, came forward as the 
 representative of the Whig scheme, that the siege began in 
 regular form. After the rejection of several abstract pro- 
 posals in favour of reform, Lord John proposed in 1820, 
 that in accordance with the ancient practice of relieving 
 decayed places from sending members, and transferring them 
 to populous places, boroughs which were notoriously corrupt 
 should cease to send members, who should be transferred 
 to large towns, and he moved that henceforth Grampound, 
 a most corrupt place, should cease to send members. The 
 motion fell through, owing to the king's death ; but next 
 year it was renewed, with the rider that the members taken 
 from Grampound should be given to Leeds. This passed 
 the Commons, and was then sent up to the Lords. 
 
 With the Lords, then, rested the question whether the 
 seats should gradually be transferred to large towns as occa- 
 sion required, or whether they should declare their opinion 
 that the large seats of industry were unfit to send repre- 
 sentatives. To the Lords, however, the question hardly 
 appeared in that light. At that moment 124 seats in the 
 House of Commons were practically in the gift of members 
 of the House of Lords, and the question seemed to be, 
 shall we give the seats from Grampound to a town where 
 
246 THE LORDS AND TOWNS. 
 
 we have no influence, or to a county, and so establish a 
 precedent for transferring seats to districts where some of 
 our members are sure to have a preponderating, or at any 
 rate a considerable influence ? The Lords decided for the 
 latter, and henceforth the members of the Upper House 
 were regarded as the declared antagonists of the large 
 towns. But it is easy to understand their fears. The 
 country was seething with suppressed indignation ; Thistle- 
 wood and his gang had just been detected ; ministers were 
 terribly unpopular ; the French revolution seemed on the 
 verge of repetition; to yield a step seemed but to open 
 the floodgates of revolution, and the peers were determined 
 that they, at any rate, would not be responsible for the ruin 
 of their country. 
 
 The Lords gave the two seats, not to Leeds, but to the 
 county of York. 
 
 Again, in 1828, the Sibylline books were again offered, but 
 the Lords decided as before, and rejected a bill for giving 
 the representatives of Penryn to Manchester; while the 
 supporters of the Duke of Wellington's ministry, in spite of 
 the resignation of Mr. Huskisson, Lord Palmerston, and the 
 Canningites, defeated a bill for giving the members of East 
 Retford to Birmingham. In this way the Tories had de- 
 clared in turn against giving the franchise to Manchester, 
 Birmingham, and Leeds, the three largest unrepresented 
 boroughs in the kingdom. 
 
 Meanwhile the question of Catholic emancipation, the 
 rival of reform, was being settled ; and while this was being 
 done the Whigs, finding their efforts useless, were gradually 
 drifting into an alliance with the Radicals, and preparing 
 themselves to support a measure which, in its comprehen- 
 siveness, its destructiveness, and its attempt at symmetrical 
 reconstruction, was foreign to anything they would have 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 247 
 
 advocated themselves. Still they might have hesitated a 
 long time, before aristocrats like Lord Grey and Lord John 
 Russell would have marched shoulder to shoulder with 
 Cobbett and orator Hunt, when a declaration of the Duke 
 of Wellington precipitated the crisis. 
 
 In his place in the House of Lords, speaking with all the 
 authority of Prime Minister of England, the duke gave it 
 as his solemn opinion, "That the country possesses a legis- 
 lature which answers all the good purposes of legislation, 
 and this to a greater degree than any legislature ever has in 
 any country whatever;" and he added, " that he was not 
 prepared to bring forward any measure of reform, but that 
 he would always feel it his duty to resist such a measure 
 when proposed by others." 
 
 Such a statement as this, made at a moment when men's 
 hopes were elated by the accession of the popular Wil- 
 liam IV., had the effect of uniting all sections of reformers, 
 and precipitated the pitched battle between the reformers 
 and the country on one side, and the Tories and the House 
 of Lords on the other. 
 
 It is needless to enter into the details of the struggle 
 which Mr. Molesworth has so graphically told. How, in 
 spite of government influence and corrupt patronage, the 
 reformers, carried on by part of the wave of revolutionary 
 feeling which was hurling Charles X. from the throne of 
 France, suddenly found themselves, after the election of 
 1830, a majority of the House of Commons ; how the king 
 called Lord Grey and made him the chief of a reform 
 ministry; how the bill passed the second reading by a 
 majority of one, and was practically lost in committee; how 
 Parliament was dissolved by the king in person, and again 
 the reformers carried the day ; how the bill was carried in 
 the Commons by 109 ; and how it was rejected by the 
 
248 THE FIRST REFORM BILL. 
 
 Lords by 41. How a third reform bill passed the Commons, 
 and again was wrecked in the Lords; how the ministry 
 resigned and the Duke of Wellington failed to form a 
 ministry ; and how, finally, a fourth reform bill was sent up, 
 and the Lords, finding themselves certain to be defeated by 
 a fresh creation of Peers, retired from the contest and 
 allowed the bill to pass. All this is matter of narrative, and 
 we have here to deal with results. 
 
 Very different, indeed, was the action of the Reform Bill 
 of 1832, to the gradual process for the extinction of cor- 
 ruption and influence which had been advocated by the 
 Whigs. Instead of a House in which, although the landed 
 gentry and the peers had undue preponderance, all classes 
 were more or less represented, the House of Commons 
 emerged as a body in which, while great influence was still 
 left to the peers and the landowners, some influences were 
 altogether excluded, while an altogether new predominance 
 was given to the middle classes. For, if under the old plan 
 many members were nominated by individuals, there was 
 Preston, where universal suffrage prevailed ; and, if many 
 boroughs were corrupt or venal, in others the patron exer- 
 cised his right with discrimination and foresight. All this 
 was swept away. Fifty-five rotten boroughs were totally 
 disfranchised, thirty-two were deprived of a member each, 
 and these seats were divided among the counties and popu- 
 lous towns. Twenty-two boroughs and cities were to return 
 two members each, nineteen were to have one each ; and by 
 dividing some counties, and giving three members to others, 
 and allotting one member to the Isle of Wight, the rest, 
 amounting to one hundred and forty-three seats, were 
 disposed of. 
 
 In the matter of the franchise, in the counties, copyholders 
 and leaseholders for years, and tenants-at-will paying ^50 
 
INTRODUCTION OF SYMMETRY. 249 
 
 a year were added to the forty shilling freeholders. These 
 changes, except in their extent, were such as any reform 
 must have aimed at ; but the arrangements for voting in the 
 boroughs introduced a new principle. 
 
 With the exception of rights reserved to the freemen, the 
 franchise in towns was reduced, whatever it had been before, 
 to the dead level of the ^10 householder, and as the lowest 
 class is always the most numerous, the determining force in 
 each constituency passed into the hands of the lower middle 
 classes. 
 
 For this plan there is much to be said on both sides, but 
 the principle of symmetry once introduced, it was impossible 
 to draw the line, and after a period of rest, a new agitation 
 was made for the further extension of the electorate to the 
 working classes. This was finally done in 1867, when house- 
 hold suffrage was established, and a fresh distribution of 
 seats was carried out on similar principles to those of 1832. 
 Nor is the tendency yet played out, and the latest develop- 
 ment of the idea of symmetry, is the movement in favour of 
 household suffrage in the counties. 
 
 At this point, the story of the legislative measures by 
 which the relation of the Parliament to the people have been 
 determined, has been brought to its close, and it only remains 
 to examine the result and to see what in actual working, are 
 the powers of the sovereign, the cabinet, and the Parliament, 
 and the several relations which bind them together as the 
 government of the country. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 To give in one short chapter an exhaustive account of the 
 working of the English constitution is out of the question. 
 Space would not permit, nor has the author any pretence to 
 that knowledge of modern politics, which would be absolutely 
 indispensable for the purpose. But as some sort of summary 
 is needful, an attempt will be made to give in broad outline 
 a sketch of the results which have been attained by the gradual 
 process of evolution, which has been related in the pre- 
 ceding chapters. 
 
 In one sentence, the process we have seen at work has 
 been this. While the prerogatives of the sovereign have 
 remained in theory almost unchanged, his active functions 
 have been gradually divided among a number of ministers, 
 who now by the principle of ministerial responsibility, exer- 
 cise their powers in accordance with the wishes of the 
 majority of the nation. 
 
 The result of this change has been to give us, by a process 
 of gradual growth, without revolution and with no severance 
 of continuity, a constitution which unites monarchical stead- 
 iness with republican freedom, and which combines such a 
 number of practical advantages, as no other nation, by the 
 
THE SOVEREIGN. 25 I 
 
 most ingenious system of constitution making, has been 
 able to secure. Its strength lies in its very anomaly. 
 Montesquieu declared that it was essential to the well-being 
 of every state that the legislative, executive, and judicial 
 functions should be absolutely separate. In England they 
 are, to all appearances, hopelessly entangled. By one enact- 
 ment, Parliament has forbidden the sovereign to keep a 
 standing army in time of peace; by another it annually 
 allows such an army, and votes money for its support. In 
 law, the sovereign may declare war, make treaties, appoint 
 and dismiss his own officers j in fact, he may do nothing 
 without the advice of his ministers, who are responsible to 
 Parliament, even if they carry out his most absolute com- 
 mands. And yet, while the sovereign, in the exercise of 
 prerogative, is thus confined, the monarchy is an essential part 
 of the system, and performs well, functions which no other 
 nation has contrived to get done in so satisfactory a manner. 
 
 And how is this ? Because without altering the theoretical 
 position of the sovereign, we have allowed the functions of 
 royalty to divide into two sections, one performed by the 
 monarch himself, the other by his ministers, so that we retain 
 all the advantages of the one, while we avoid the dangers of 
 the other. It would be too much to call these functions 
 active and passive, because it is impossible to draw the line 
 between the two ; but in the main, the functions which have 
 been left to the sovereign are those which appertain to mere 
 existence ; those which are performed by deputy are those 
 which are vigorous and active. 
 
 By simply existing, the sovereign performs many of the 
 functions which were attached of old to the English kings. 
 A monarch like ours, descended from a glorious line of 
 ancestors, stretching back without break to the founders of 
 the West Saxon line, appeals to the loyalty and historic in- 
 
252 THE NOBILITY. 
 
 stincts of an ancient people. His throne is the symbol of the 
 unity of the race ; he is the living embodiment of the nation, 
 round whom its history gathers, and on whom, as a personal 
 object, the feeling of patriotism, so vague in a large state, 
 can concentrate itself in the form of loyalty. The height 
 which the sovereign occupies is extreme ; but the descent is 
 broken by the existence round the throne of the nobility. 
 The nobles depend for honour either on ancient lineage or 
 recent merit ; on the one hand they approach the crown, on 
 the other they touch society ; and as the nobility in England 
 have never been a distinct caste, they serve as a link in the 
 chain which binds the palace to the cottage. With the 
 sovereign, they share many of the functions which belong to 
 the existence of a monarchy, and of a nobility which depends 
 neither on political power nor on commercial success ; and 
 in a country like ours, where both political and commercial 
 ambition run very high, it is a great advantage that these 
 should be balanced by the existence of honours which neither 
 votes nor money can purchase. Again, so long as they 
 command respect, the nobility help to teach respect for the 
 crown, and happily our nobility have, as an order, been free 
 from the vices, which abroad have often secured so evil a 
 name for the aristocracy. 
 
 But leaving aside these points, are there any more practical 
 reasons to follow ? In the first place, the theory that govern- 
 ment rests in the crown, enables us with ease to pass from 
 one minister to another. It disguises the fact that at a 
 general election we are really choosing our rulers, and its 
 continuity saves us from the trouble of having a series of 
 presidential elections. It is quite enough to have every 
 now and then a general election ; we have no wish for a 
 presidential election as well. 
 
 Again, the sovereign may exercise very important functions 
 
RIGHTS OF A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCH. 253 
 
 at the birth or death of a ministry. He may have to choose 
 between two very equally balanced claims of statesmen on 
 the same side of the House ; or may exercise considerable 
 influence in the filling up the minor places in the ministry, 
 a power which, however, has a tendency to decrease. At 
 the close of a ministry it is conceivable that, in the case 
 where the majority of the House of Commons held the same 
 views as the House of Lords, so that there was no way of 
 making the ministers resign, though they had ceased to have 
 the confidence of the nation, a very far-seeing and excep- 
 tionally gifted sovereign might earn the gratitude of his 
 country by forcing a dissolution ; but it is a contingency 
 not very likely to occur. 
 
 At ordinary times, our sovereigns have adopted the prin- 
 ciple that the king reigns but does not govern ; but the 
 present sovereign has laid down very clearly that, if that is 
 the case, she has no intention of giving up her due knowledge 
 of what is going on. These views were expressed in her 
 memorandum to Lord Palmerston which ran as follows : — 
 
 " The queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will 
 distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order 
 that the queen may know as distinctly to what she is giving 
 her royal sanction. Secondly, having once given her sanc- 
 tion to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified 
 by the minister. Such an act she must consider as failing 
 in sincerity to the crown, and justly to be visited by her 
 constitutional right of dismissing that minister. She expects 
 to be kept informed of what passes between him and the 
 foreign ministers, before important decisions are taken, 
 based upon that intercourse ; to receive the foreign despatches 
 in good time ; and to have the draft for her approval sent to 
 her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their 
 contents before they must be sent off." 
 
254 THE MINISTRY AND THE CABINET. 
 
 Having briefly recapitulated the very important functions 
 which still remain to the sovereign, we must now pass to the 
 ministry, the body to whom the more active functions have 
 been delegated. The ministry form a large part of the execu- 
 tive. They consist of two bodies, a large one, comprising 
 those officers who hold political office under the crown, 
 and who according to custom all belong to that party which 
 has the majority in the House of Commons, and an inner 
 council or cabinet which is made up of the chief officers, 
 and who discuss in secret the most important matters of State. 
 The cabinet and the ministry are terms unknown to the 
 law. Of the ministers, some are, and some are not, members 
 of the Privy Council, but the cabinet are, as we have seen, 
 all members of that body, and have developed out of a small 
 irregular committee, meeting for the transaction of the 
 highest State business. The offices held by the members of 
 the cabinet are not fixed. They vary in number from time 
 to time. Though its members are an important part of the 
 executive, they are all of them members of the legislative 
 body. The whole system is the result of no law, and it is 
 fettered in its operation by no enactments. 
 
 It is just this point which has been the greatest puzzle to 
 philosophers. When the American statesmen in the 
 eighteenth century were framing a constitution for the 
 United States, they took care that the legislative, executive 
 and judicial functions should be kept completely separate. 
 So they set up a president, elected by one set of electors for 
 four years, and surrounded by a staff of ministers named by 
 himself; a congress of two houses, one, the senate, consisting 
 of two members for each State, another, the house of repre- 
 sentatives, of members for each State, in proportion to its 
 numbers, elected practically by universal suffrage ; but they 
 forbad any minister to be a member of the congress, and 
 
THE UNITED STATES. 2$$ 
 
 would not allow the president to dissolve congress, nor 
 congress to depose the president, except by the tremendous 
 process of State impeachment. And what was the reason 
 of this ? They took as their model the English constitution 
 as they saw it, and tried to keep its merits, while they 
 avoided its failings. But at the time they took their obser- 
 vation, George III. was not only reigning but governing, 
 and his minister, Lord North, was little better than a head 
 clerk, and falling into the same error as the English statesmen 
 of 1 701, they imagined that it was essential to prevent the 
 king's ministers from having seats in Parliament. Before 
 the plan was tried in practice, the English saw their folly 
 and repealed that section of the Act of Settlement ; * but the 
 Americans embodied it in their plan, and hence we have 
 the present arrangement. 
 
 Now, without going into detail, the great merit of the 
 English plan is, that if the English ministers cannot get the 
 measures passed by the House of Commons, they can advise 
 the king to dissolve the House and see whether the nation 
 will give them more support ; or if the House is dissatisfied 
 with the ministry, it can refuse to order supplies, or pass the 
 Mutiny Bill, in which case, as supplies are only voted for 
 one year and the Mutiny Bill is only in force for the same 
 length of time,! the ministry is in its turn forced to dissolve, 
 and hence the ministry, the Commons, and the nation can 
 never be out of accord for any very long time together. 
 Again, when an English minister wants a tax granted or a 
 bill passed, he can go down to the House and explain it, 
 and use his personal influence to get it through. Moreover, 
 no bill has a chance which is not supported by ministers or, 
 at any rate, not opposed by them, and therefore they never 
 
 * See p. 207. t See p. 197. 
 
256 THE OPPOSITION'. 
 
 wish to advise the sovereign to exercise his prerogative of 
 refusing his consent. Now the American constitution fails 
 in all these points. The president, if he disagrees with his 
 House of Congress, cannot dissolve them; on the other 
 hand, they cannot make him dissolve. He cannot go down 
 to the House ; he can only write a letter ; and the ill work- 
 ing of the system is shown by the fact that the right of veto 
 has again and again to be used, because the executive is con- 
 tinually out of accord with the legislative department. Again, 
 there are other points of difference. In England immense 
 interest is taken in politics, indeed, a too keen excitement 
 is felt ; while in America, except at election times, the masses 
 take little interest in politics, and why ? Because in England 
 our system of practically putting the executive into the 
 hands of that party which has the majority, has created a 
 constitutional opposition ever ready to show the nation that 
 it is more fit than the men in power to manage the nation's 
 affairs. A regular battle is always going on. At any moment 
 a grand catastrophe may occur, and the ministry and the 
 opposition may have to change sides, or an appeal be made 
 to the country. It has all the excitement of a fight. Now, 
 in America there is nothing of this. No debate can turn 
 out a ministry or produce a general election, and the con- 
 sequence is that little interest is taken. 
 
 But are there no disadvantages ? Certainly. Party war- 
 fare in England runs very high ; very hard words are used. 
 But hard words do not hurt much ; the question is whether 
 the interests of the nation suffer by the constant possibility 
 of change. This depends immensely on the constitution of 
 parties. Were either unscrupulous, or unpatriotic, the most 
 terrible results might happen, but so long as each honestly 
 aims at securing the good of the country, and does not 
 ostentatiously attempt to reverse the policy of its predecessor, 
 
QUALITIES OF AN ENGLISH MINISTER. 2tf 
 
 the advantage of never having the ministry for long out of 
 accord with the nation, far outweighs all minor disadvantages. 
 
 But does our system secure us the great aim of all govern- 
 ment, the getting as our rulers the best men ? It can at any 
 rate claim that it does as well as any other plan yet devised. 
 The qualities needful to enable any man to hold his own as a 
 minister in England seem to be these. He must be capable 
 of an immense amount of hard work, or he would never for 
 a moment be able to stand the strain of work both in his 
 office and in the House of Parliament, particularly in the 
 Commons. He must have been so many years in the House 
 that he has convinced it that he is a capable man. He 
 must almost necessarily be a good speaker, to explain or 
 defend his policy. He must have the respect of the House 
 and of the nation. But it does not necessarily follow that 
 even men such as these are invariably able to manage such 
 varied departments as war, the Home office, the navy We 
 have, however, provided against this difficulty, by arranging 
 that the detailed work of each department shall be done by 
 permanent officials, who do not change with the ministry and 
 have no politics, so that the heads of departments are 
 merely thoroughly able men, who come into each depart- 
 ment with a desire to make it work well, and who by their 
 general knowledge of affairs are often able to give a fillip 
 to business, to excite energy, and war against the great 
 danger of permanent officials, — red tapeism. If this is not, in 
 theory, claiming a great deal, in practice the system is found 
 to supply us with at least as able men as the President of 
 the United States can command, and we have yet to learn 
 that our departments are worse managed than those of the 
 States. 
 
 So much for our method of choosing our executive and 
 its working ; we now turn to judicature. Of this, happily, 
 
 s 
 
258 THE LEGISLATIVE. 
 
 hardly anything need be said. The judges, once the mere 
 officers of the king, are now appointed practically by the 
 prime minister ; but no one has ever yet asserted, that party 
 motives have ever raised to the bench a political partisan 
 who was unworthy to wear the ermine. 
 
 Lastly, the legislative. The fluctuations which have been 
 traced in the career of the national assembly, have been many 
 and various ; but all along it has maintained one great 
 characteristic. It has thoroughly represented the feelings 
 and views of that portion of the nation which has for the 
 time possessed the chief political power. Whether one 
 estimates political weight in terms of the strongest bat- 
 talions, or the largest number of votes, the result has been 
 the same. Throughout the Middle Ages the House of Lords 
 was the predominant House, because the strength of the 
 nation lay in the lords and their retainers. Slowly the 
 power, following the change outside, passed to the House 
 of Commons, but even then only to the House of Com- 
 mons as dominated by the same class to which belonged 
 the House of Lords. Then the great Reform Bill of 1832 
 upset this arrangement, and gave power into the hands of 
 the now all-powerful middle class ; and finally, in 1867, 
 Lord Beaconsfield decided to shift the centre of gravity 
 still lower, and place the arbitrament of the destinies of the 
 nation in the hands of the working classes. 
 
 Each of these changes has produced a corresponding 
 change in the members of the ministry and the Commons. 
 So long as the peers held sway, the sovereigns had difficulty 
 in keeping as their counsellors any men who were not of 
 noble birth, and when, after the revolution, power passed 
 from the hands of the king to the Houses of Parliament, 
 dukes and earls still formed the predominant element in 
 every ministry* It was only by degrees that commoners 
 
THE FUTURE. 259 
 
 such as the Pitts, gained a footing. With 1832 came a 
 change. Since that date the ministries have been less 
 aristocratic, as they have come to reflect the character of 
 a new House of Commons, and there is some evidence 
 to show, that since 1867 a further change is in progress. 
 
 But of this it is too soon to offer any forecast. As a rule, 
 since the English Parliament came to have the chief power, 
 and the principle of ministerial responsibility has been 
 enforced, England has had as her boast, that her politicians 
 have been singularly free from low-mindedness or self- 
 seeking ; that her politics have been moulded by the wishes 
 of her people and not by the mean aspirations of wire- 
 pullers ; and so long as she can maintain this boast, there 
 is little fear but that her institutions, gradually continuing 
 their process of development, may still meet the wants of 
 her great empire ; but once let the nation surrender itself 
 into the arms of men who look to self first, party next, and 
 the nation afterwards, if any such exist, and we may be 
 sure that it will have entered upon a road which can only 
 lead to ruin. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Admiralty, 52 
 
 Alcred, 8 
 
 Alfred, 11, 13, 16 
 
 Annates, 49 
 
 Anne, 205, 212 
 
 Anselm, 31, 33, 41 
 
 Appropriation of supplies, 175, 
 
 196 
 Assize of Arms, 53 
 Assize of Clarendon, 50 
 Assize, grand, 51 
 Aylesbury Petition, 215 
 
 Bacon, Sir Francis, 97, 123, 130, 
 
 133, 135 
 Bastwick, 156 
 Bates' Case, 129 
 Becket, Thomas a, 46, 48, 49 
 Bigod, Earl, 71 
 Birmingham, 165, 246 
 Black Death, 81 
 Black Prince, 79, 82, 83 
 Blanche of Lancaster, 82 
 Bohun, Earl, 71, 82 
 Boniface VIII. , 69 
 Bourchier, 78 
 Brand, 243 
 Bretwalda, 10 
 Bribery, 203, 204 
 Bristol, Earl of, 140, 141 
 Brougham, Lord, 229 
 Burdett, Sir Francis, 245, 247 
 Burke, 216, 225, 226, 240, 243 
 Bute, Lord, 218, 221 
 
 Cabal, 176-181 
 
 Cabinet, 177, 210 
 
 Canute, 13, 16, 17, 21, 37 
 
 Capet, Hugh, 19 
 
 Carr, 131, 134 
 
 Cecil (Salisbury), 128, 131 
 
 Ceorl, 7 
 
 Cerdic, 4 
 
 Chamberlain, 36 
 
 Chancellor, 36, 38, 97 
 
 Chancery, 52 
 
 Charles I., 138-163, 171, 203 
 
 II., 168-189, 197, 199 
 
 ■ VII., 94 
 
 Charter of Henry I., 32 
 Charter, Great, 60-63 
 Charters, Confirmation of, 72 
 Charters of towns, 57, 18S 
 Chatham, 216, 219, 239 
 Church, 6, 20, 27, 33, 46-49, 60, 
 69, 86, 105, 107, 157, 173, iS? 
 Clarence, Lionel, 70, 82, 83 
 Clarendon, Constitutions of, 48, 
 
 49 
 
 , Earl of, 175, 176 
 
 Cobbett, 245 
 
 Coke, Sir Edward, 101, 130, 
 
 133, 136 
 Colchester, 234 
 Comitatus (Comes), 3 
 Common Pleas, Court of, 52 
 Convocation, 69, 163 
 Constable, 36 
 Corporation Act, 173 
 Corporations, Remodelling of, 
 
 188, 190 
 Counties, Elections in, 233 
 
INDEX. 
 
 20 1 
 
 Counties Palatine, 23 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 133, 143, 163- 
 167 
 
 , Richard, 167 
 
 , Thomas, 105 
 
 Crouchback, Edmund, 74, 86 
 Cupbearer, 36 
 Curia Regis, 39 
 Cynric, 5 
 
 Dan by, Earl, 181, 204, 211 
 
 Danegeld, 61 
 
 Dashwood, Sir Francis, 238 
 
 Declaration of Indulgence, 181 
 
 Derby. See Henry IV. 
 
 Despensers, 75 
 
 De tallagio non concedendo, 72 
 
 Dispensing power, 181 
 
 Dissolution of Parliament, Right 
 
 of, 253, 255 
 Distraint of knighthood, 153 
 Divine right, 121 
 Domesday-book. 28 
 Dunning, 226, 229 
 Dunstan, 12, 18 
 Dux (Herzog), 2, 9 
 
 Ealdorman, 2, 7 
 
 Earldoms, 12 
 
 Edgar, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18 
 
 Edgar Atheling, 20, 21, 32 
 
 Edmund, 17 
 
 Edward the Elder, 12, 18 
 
 I., 44, 53, 67-73,88 
 
 II., 71-75 
 
 III., 75-83, 86, 89 
 
 IV., 90-102 
 
 VI., 95, 101, 107, 112, 113, 
 
 162, 202 
 the Confessor, 13, 18, 20, 
 
 21, 28, 33, 35, 38 
 Edwin, 10 
 Edwin, Earl, 21, 22 
 Egbert, II, 13 
 Elfric, 154 
 Eliot, 133, I43-H7 
 Elizabeth, 1 12-122, 129, 133, 139, 
 
 15 1 , *54 
 
 Ethelbert of Kent, 8 
 Ethelbert, 127 
 
 Ethelred II., 12, 18 
 Exchequer, Court of, 39 
 
 Ferdinand of Castille, 92, 94, 95 
 
 Feudalism, Continental, 15 ; mo- 
 dified by William the Con- 
 queror, 23, 26 ; fall of, 93 
 
 Feudal dues, 32; commuted, 171 
 
 Fitz Osbern, 37 
 
 Fitz Peter, 57 
 
 Flambard Ranulf, 32, 33, 37, 38 
 
 Forests, 153 
 
 Fox, 227 
 
 Friends of the People, 242 
 
 Fyrd, 52 
 
 Gatton, 241, 244, 246, 253 
 Gaveston, 74 
 
 Gaunt, John of, 79, 82, 83 
 George I., 209, 212, 215 
 
 II., 209, 212 
 
 III., 217-229 
 
 IV. , 229 
 
 Gesith, 3 
 
 Gloucester, Thomas of, 82, 84 
 
 , Humphrey of, 74, 88 
 
 , Richard of, 99, 10 1 
 
 Godolphin, 201 
 Godwin, 13, 18, 37 
 Goodwin's Case, 126 
 Grafton, Duke of, 221 
 Grampound, 245 
 Gregory VII., 22 
 Grenville, Lord George, 222 
 
 , Lord, 243 
 
 Grey, Lord, 242, 243, 244, 247 
 Guader, Ralph, 28 
 
 Habeas Corpus, 142, 184 
 
 Hampden, John, 133, 143, 155 
 
 , Edmund, 133 
 
 Harley, 209, 212 
 
 Harold, 20, 21 
 ! Harthacnut, 13 
 
 Henrietta Maria, 139, 151, 152 
 : Henry I., 30-42, 46, 49, 50, 54, 
 59, 60, 61, 88 
 
 II., 25, 44-57, 68, 70, So, 88 
 
 III., 49, 63, 64, 214 
 
 IV., 84-87,89 
 
262 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Henry V., 87 
 
 VI., 87, 89, 95 
 
 VII., 91, 94-102, 104, 105, 
 
 106, 108, in 
 VIII., 95, 96, 98, 101-113, 
 
 122 
 
 , Bishop of Winchester, 44 
 
 High Commission Court, 112; 
 
 abolished, 161 
 High Court of Justice, 39 
 High Steward, 36 
 Hobbes, 122 
 Hunt, 245, 247 
 
 Impeachment, 79; revived, 135 
 Influence of Crown, 214, 230 ; 
 
 diminished, 226, 229 
 Instrument of Government, 164 
 Investitures, 33 
 
 James I., 116, 1 18-137, x 5* 
 II., 184-191, 195 
 
 John, 49, 55-60, 63, 65, 80, 88 
 
 Joinville, 25 
 
 Judges, 97, 142, 158, 161 
 
 Junius, 225 
 
 Jury, 50, 51 
 
 Justices-in-Eyre, 50 
 
 Justiciar, 36, 37 
 
 King, introduction of, 5 ; early 
 powers of, 7, 8, 9 ; after Con- 
 quest, 35 ; new monarchy, 97 ; 
 present time, 250-253 
 
 King's Bench, 51 
 
 Knights of shire, 66, 76, 233 
 
 Lancaster, Thomas of, 74, 75 
 
 Lanfranc, 30 
 
 Langton, Stephen, 59, 63, 65 
 
 Latimer, Lord, 79 
 
 Laud, 139, 151, 152 
 
 Leeds, 165, 245 
 
 Leighton, 156 
 
 Leofric, 18 
 
 Locke, 122 
 
 Lollardism, 86 
 
 London, 231 
 
 Longchamp, 57 
 
 Lords-Lieutenant. 97 
 
 Lords, House of, 76, 163, 212 
 
 Louis, St., 25, 65 
 
 Louis XL, 92, 94, 95, 108 
 
 Malcolm, 17 
 
 Manchester, 165, 246 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 201, 209 
 
 Marshall (Earl of Pembroke), 63 
 
 Marshall, The, 36 
 
 Mary, 95, 129, 164, 165 
 
 Mary Queen of Scots, 116, 117, 
 
 118 
 Matilda (Empress), 42, 46 
 Maud, 32, 33 
 Melbourne, Lord, 230 
 Mercia, 11 
 
 Middlesex, Lord, 137 
 Militia, 52 
 Militia Bill, 162 
 Milton, 133 
 
 Mompesson, Sir Giles, 135 
 Monasteries, 108 
 Monopolies, 119, 137 
 Montague, Dr., 140 
 Montesquieu, 251 
 Montfort, Simon de, 64-68 
 More, Sir Thomas, 105 
 Mortimer, Roger, 75 
 Mortmain, 69 
 Morton, Cardinal, 98-132 
 Mutiny Act, 197, 255 
 
 Neville, Lord, 79 
 
 Newcastle, Duke of, 219, 220, 
 
 221 
 Normandy, 68 
 North, Lord, 223, 226, 227, 229, 
 
 255 
 
 Northumbria, 9 
 
 Noy, 154, 155 
 
 Occasional Conformity Act, 217 
 Odo of Bayeux, 24, 31, 37 
 Offa, n 
 Orlton, Adam, 75 
 
 Palatine Counties, 23 
 Palmerston, Lord, 241, 244, 246, 
 
 253 
 Parliament : of Oxford, 64 : De 
 
INDEX. 
 
 263 
 
 Montfort's, 65 ; of 1295, 70 ; 
 separated into two Houses, 76 ; 
 powers of, 80 ; Good, 83 ; de- 
 cline of, 89 ; revival of, 107 ; 
 Addled, 132; Short, 157; Long, 
 158; Barebones, 164; Crom- 
 well's, 165 ; Restoration, 169 ; 
 Victory of, 194 ; Reformed, 
 248 
 
 Parties, 185 
 
 Party Government, 192-212 
 
 Penryn, 246 
 
 Perrers, Alice, 79 
 
 Petition and Advice, 166 
 
 Petition of Right, 143 
 
 Philip II. of Spain, 115 
 
 Pitt. See Chatham 
 
 Pitt (the younger), 228, 240, 241, 
 
 243 
 Placemen, 205 
 Pole, Michael de la, 83, 84 
 Pole, William de la, 97 
 Premier, 211 
 Preston, 231 
 Privileges of Parliament, 126, 127, 
 
 136 ; abuse of, 221 
 Privy Council, 52 ; constitution 
 
 of, S^ ; under Edward VI., no ; 
 
 at Restoration, 117; Temple's 
 
 council, 182 
 Proclamations, 89 
 Provisions of Oxford, 64 
 Prynne, 156 
 Pym, 133, 136, 157 
 
 Reform, Parliamentary, 165, 
 
 238-249 
 Representation, 65 
 Retainers, 82 
 Retford, East, 246 
 Revenue, King's, 9, 39, 150, 1 7 1, 
 
 196, 226 
 Richard I., 55, 56, 57, 65 
 Richard II., 83-88, 129, 214 
 Richmond, Duke of, 240 
 Rights, Bill of, 192, 193 
 Robert of Normandy, 31, 32, 34 
 Roches, Peter des, 58 
 Rockingham, Marquis of, 221, 
 
 226, 227 
 
 Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, 37, 
 
 43. 44, 46 
 
 Rotten boroughs, 112. See Re- 
 form 
 
 Russell, Lord John, 246 
 
 Sac and Soc, 23 
 Saladin Tithe, 65 
 Salisbury, Cecil, 128, 138 
 Schism Act, 217 
 Scrope, 87 
 Scutage, 53 
 
 Settlement, Act of, 198, 205, 207 
 Sigebert, 8 
 Siward, 28 
 Shelburne, Earl, 227 
 Sheriff, 6, 97, 155, 233 
 Ship money, 155 
 Shire, 6 
 
 Shire-moot (County Court), 6 
 Shirley's Case, 127 
 Standing army, 95, 172, 191, 197 
 St. John (Bolingbroke), 209, 218 
 Star Chamber, no, in j abol- 
 ished, 161 
 Statute of Westminster, 73 
 Statute of Winchester, 53, 70 
 Stephen, 28, 42, 43, 46 
 Stigand, 20 
 Strafford (Wentworth), 133, 143, 
 
 144, 145, 146, 149, 150, 158, 
 
 159 
 Stratford, Archbishop, 77 
 Strickland's Case, 117 
 Stuart, Arabella, 131 
 Subsidy, 135 
 Suffolk (Michael de la Pole), 83, 
 
 84 
 Suffolk (De la Pole), 97 
 Suger, 37 
 Sunderland, Earl of, 200 
 
 Tacitus, 2, 7 
 Temple, Lord, 228 
 Temple, Sir William, 182 
 Test Act, 181 
 Thegn (Thane), 3 
 Toleration Act, 217 
 Tonnage and poundage, 129 
 Topcliffe, 95 
 
264 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tories, 185 ; revival of, 218 
 Torrington, 233 
 Treason trials, 198 
 Treasurer, 36, 38 
 Treasury, First Lord of, 21 1 
 Triennial Act, 159, 173 
 
 United States, 206, 254, 256, 257 
 
 Vere, de, Earl of Oxford, 84, 85 
 Villiers (Buckingham), 131, 134, 
 139, 140, 142, 144, 146 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, 202, 204, 
 
 210 
 Walter of Coutance, 57 
 Walter Hubert, 57 
 Warwick, Earl of, 98 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 247, 248 
 
 Wentworth, Peter, 117 
 
 Whigs, 185 ; sections of, 219 
 
 Wilfred, 8 
 
 Wilkes, 222, 223, 224, 239 
 
 William I., 14-49, 52, 65, 81 
 
 II., 30, 31, 37, 40.. 52 
 
 III., 170, 191, 192-201 
 
 IV., 230 
 
 Witenagemot, 6 ; constitution of, 
 7 ; becomes the magnum con- 
 cilium, 40 
 
 Wolsey, 96, 98, 104, 105, 106, 211 
 
 Woodvilles, 98, 99 
 
 Wykeham, William of, 78, 79 
 
 York, Edmund, Duke of, 83 
 — — , Richard Duke of, 74 
 
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