Читать книгу Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II (Vol. 1-3) - Hallam Henry - Страница 25

1. Cf. Historical Essays and Studies, vol. ii. p. 505

2. Europe during the Middle Ages, Chapter VIII. Part 3. I may remind the reader that Hallam regarded his Constitutional History as a continuation of this chapter, which sketches the development of the constitution from the earliest times down to the accession of Henry VII., the point at which the present work begins.

3. English Law at the Renaissance, p. 27.

4. Middle Ages (12th ed.), ii. p. 267.

5. This statute is not even alluded to in Ruffhead's edition, and has been very little noticed by writers on our law or history. It is printed in the late edition, published by authority, and is brought forward in the First Report of the Lords' Committee, on the dignity of a Peer (1819), p. 282. Nothing can be more evident than that it not only establishes by a legislative declaration the present constitution of parliament, but recognises it as already standing upon a custom of some length of time.

6. The pleadings, as they are called, or written allegations of both parties, which form the basis of a judicial enquiry, commence with the declaration, wherein the plaintiff states, either specially, or in some established form, according to the nature of the case, that he has a debt to demand from or an injury to be redressed by, the defendant. The latter, in return, puts in his plea; which, if it amount to a denial of the facts alleged in the declaration, must conclude to the country, that is, must refer the whole matter to a jury. But if it contain an admission of the fact, along with a legal justification of it, it is said to conclude to the court; the effect of which is to make it necessary for the plaintiff to reply; in which replication he may deny the facts pleaded in justification, and conclude to the country; or allege some new matter in explanation, to show that they do not meet all the circumstances, concluding to the court. Either party also may demur, that is, deny that, although true and complete as a statement of facts, the declaration or plea is sufficient according to law to found or repel the plaintiff's suit. In the last case it becomes an issue in law, and is determined by the judges without the intervention of a jury; it being a principle, that by demurring, the party acknowledges the truth of all matters alleged on the pleadings. But in whatever stage of the proceedings either of the litigants concludes to the country (which he is obliged to do, whenever the question can be deduced to a disputed fact), a jury must be impanelled to decide it by their verdict. These pleadings, together with what is called the postea, that is, an indorsement by the clerk of the court wherein the trial has been, reciting that afterwards the cause was so tried, and such a verdict returned, with the subsequent entry of the judgment itself, form the record.

This is merely intended to explain the phrase in the text, which common readers might not clearly understand. The theory of special pleading, as it is generally called, could not be further elucidated without lengthening this note beyond all bounds. But it all rests upon the ancient maxim: "De facto respondent juratores, de jure judices." Perhaps it may be well to add one observation—that in many forms of action, and those of most frequent occurrence in modern times, it is not required to state the legal justification on the pleadings, but to give it in evidence on the general issue; that is, upon a bare plea of denial. In this case the whole matter is actually in the power of the jury. But they are generally bound in conscience to defer, as to the operation of any rule of law, to what is laid down on that head by the judge; and when they disregard his directions, it is usual to annul the verdict, and grant a new trial. There seem to be some disadvantages in the annihilation, as it may be called, of written pleadings, by their reduction to an unmeaning form, which has prevailed in three such important and extensive forms of action, as ejectment, general assumpsit, and trover; both as it throws too much power into the hands of the jury, and as it almost nullifies the appellant jurisdiction, which can only be exercised where some error is apparent on the face of the record. But great practical convenience, and almost necessity, has generally been alleged as far more than a compensation for these evils.

7. The population for 1485 is estimated by comparing a sort of census in 1378, when the inhabitants of the realm seem to have amounted to about 2,300,000, with one still more loose under Elizabeth in 1588, which would give about 4,400,000; making some allowance for the more rapid increase in the latter period. Three millions at the accession of Henry VII. is probably not too low an estimate.

8. Rot. Parl. vi. 270. But the pope's bull of dispensation for the king's marriage speaks of the realm of England as "jure hæreditario ad te legitimum in illo prædecessorum tuorum successorem pertinens." Rymer, xii. 294. And all Henry's own instruments claim an hereditary right, of which many proofs appear in Rymer.

9. Stat. 11 H. 7, c. 1.

10. Blackstone (vol. iv. c. 6) has some rather perplexed reasoning on this statute, leaning a little towards the de jure doctrine, and at best confounding moral with legal obligations. In the latter sense, whoever attends to the preamble of the act will see that Hawkins, whose opinion Blackstone calls in question, is right; and that he is himself wrong in pretending that "the statute of Henry VII. does by no means command any opposition to a king de jure, but excuses the obedience paid to a king de facto.

11. For these observations on the statute of Fines, I am principally indebted to Reeves's History of the English Law (iv. 133), a work, especially in the latter volumes, of great research and judgment; a continuation of which, in the same spirit, and with the same qualities (besides some others that are rather too much wanting in it), would be a valuable accession not only to the lawyer's, but philosopher's library. That entails had been defeated by means of a common recovery before the statute, had been remarked by former writers, and is indeed obvious; but the subject was never put in so clear a light as by Mr. Reeves.

The principle of breaking down the statute de donis was so little established, or consistently acted upon, in this reign, that in 11 H. 7 the judges held that the donor of an estate-tail might restrain the tenant from suffering a recovery. Id. p. 159, from the year-book.

12. It is said by the biographer of Sir Thomas More, that parliament refused the king a subsidy in 1502, which he demanded on account of the marriage of his daughter Margaret, at the advice of More, then but twenty-two years old. "Forthwith Mr. Tyler, one of the privy chamber, that was then present, resorted to the king, declaring that a beardless boy, called More, had done more harm than all the rest, for by his means all the purpose is dashed." This of course displeased Henry, who would not, however, he says, "infringe the ancient liberties of that house, which would have been odiously taken." Wordsworth's Eccles. Biography, ii. 66. This story is also told by Roper.

13. Stat. 11 H. 7, c. 10. Bacon says the benevolence was granted by act of parliament, which Hume shows to be a mistake. The preamble of 11 H. 7 recites it to have been "granted by divers of your subjects severally;" and contains a provision, that no heir shall be charged on account of his ancestor's promise.

14. Hall, 502.

15. Turner's History of England, iii. 628, from a MS. document. A vast number of persons paid fines for their share in the western rebellion of 1497, from £200 down to 20s. Hall, 486. Ellis's Letters illustrative of English History, i. 38.

16. 1 H. 8, c. 8.

17. 2 H. 7, c. 3. Rep. 1 H. 8, c. 6.

18. They were convicted by a jury, and afterwards attainted by parliament, but not executed for more than a year after the king's accession. If we may believe Holingshed, the council at Henry VIII.'s accession made restitution to some who had been wronged by the extortion of the late reign;—a singular contrast to their subsequent proceedings! This, indeed, had been enjoined by Henry VII.'s will. But he had excepted from this restitution "what had been done by the course and order of our laws;" which, as Mr. Astle observes, was the common mode of his oppressions.

19. Lord Hubert inserts an acute speech, which he seems to ascribe to More, arguing more acquaintance with sound principles of political economy than was usual in the supposed speaker's age, or even in that of the writer. But it is more probable that this is of his own invention. He has taken a similar liberty on another occasion, throwing his own broad notions of religion into an imaginary speech of some unnamed member of the Commons, though manifestly unsuited to the character of the times. That More gave satisfaction to Wolsey by his conduct in the chair appears by a letter of the latter to the king, in State Papers, temp. H. 8, 1630, p. 124.

20. Roper's Life of More; Hall, 656, 672. This chronicler, who wrote under Edward VI., is our best witness for the events of Henry's reign. Grafton is so literally a copyist from him, that it was a great mistake to republish this part of his chronicle in the late expensive, and therefore incomplete, collection; since he adds no one word, and omits only a few ebullitions of protestant zeal which he seems to have considered too warm. Holingshed, though valuable, is later than Hall. Wolsey, the latter observes, gave offence to the Commons, by descanting on the wealth and luxury of the nation, "as though he had repined or disclaimed that any man should fare well, or be well clothed, but himself."

But the most authentic memorial of what passed on this occasion has been preserved in a letter from a member of the Commons to the Earl of Surrey (soon after Duke of Norfolk), at that time the king's lieutenant in the north.

"Please it your good Lordships to understand, that sithence the beginning of the Parliament, there hath been the greatest and sorest hold in the Lower House for the payment of two shillings of the pound, that ever was seen, I think, in any parliament. This matter hath been debated, and beaten fifteen or sixteen days together. The highest necessity alledged on the King's behalf to us, that ever was heard of; and, on the contrary, the highest poverty confessed, as well by knights, esquires, and gentlemen of every quarter, as by the commoners, citizens, and burgesses. There hath been such hold that the House was like to have been dissevered; that is to say, the knights being of the King's council, the King's servants and gentlemen of the one party; which in so long time were spoken with, and made to see, yea, it may fortune, contrary to their heart, will, and conscience. Thus hanging this matter, yesterday the more part being the King's servants, gentlemen, were there assembled; and so they, being the more part, willed and gave to the King two shillings of the pound of goods or lands, the best to be taken for the King. All lands to pay two shillings of the pound for the laity, to the highest. The goods to pay two shillings of the pound, for twenty pound upward; and from forty shillings of goods, to twenty pound, to pay sixteen pence of the pound; and under forty shillings, every person to pay eight pence. This to be paid in two years. I have heard no man in my life that can remember that ever there was given to any one of the King's ancestors half so much at one graunt. Nor, I think, there was never such a president seen before this time. I beseeke Almighty God, it may be well and peaceably levied, and surely payd unto the King's grace, without grudge, and especially without loosing the good will and true hearts of his subjects, which I reckon a far greater treasure for the King than gold and silver. And the gentlemen that must take pains to levy this money among the King's subjects, I think, shall have no little business about the same." Strype's Eccles. Memorials, vol. i. p. 49. This is also printed in Ellis's Letters illustrative of English History, i. 220.

21. I may notice here a mistake of Mr. Hume and Dr. Lingard. They assert Henry to have received tonnage and poundage several years before it was vested in him by the legislature. But it was granted by his first parliament, stat. 1 H. 8, c. 20, as will be found even in Ruffhead's table of contents, though not in the body of his volume; and the act is of course printed at length in the great edition of the statutes. That which probably by its title gave rise to the error, 6 H. 8, c. 13, has a different object.

22. Hall, 645. This chronicler says the laity were assessed at a tenth part. But this was only so of the smaller estates, namely, from £20 to £300; for from £300 to £1000 the contribution demanded was twenty marks for each £100, and for an estate of £1000, two hundred marks, and so in proportion upwards. MS. Instructions to Commissioners, penes auctorem. This was, "upon sufficient promise and assurance, to be repaid unto them upon such grants and contributions as shall be given and granted to his grace at his next parliament."—Ib. "And they shall practise by all the means to them possible that such sums as shall be so granted by the way of loan, be forthwith levied and paid, or the most part, or at the least the moiety thereof, the same to be paid in as brief time after as they can possibly persuade and induce them unto; showing unto them that, for the sure payment thereof, they shall have writings delivered unto them under the king's privy seal by such person or persons as shall be deputed by the king to receive the said loan, after the form of a minute to be shown unto them by the said commissioners, the tenor whereof is thus: We, Henry VIII., by the grace of God, King of England and of France, Defender of Faith, and Lord of Ireland, promise by these presents truly to content and repay unto our trusty and well-beloved subject A. B. the sum of——, which he hath lovingly advanced unto us by way of loan, for defence of our realm, and maintenance of our wars against France and Scotland; In witness whereof we have caused our privy seal hereunto to be set and annexed the—— day of——, the fourteenth year of our reign."—Ib. The rate fixed on the clergy I collect by analogy, from that imposed in 1525, which I find in another manuscript letter.

23. A letter in my possession from the Duke of Norfolk to Wolsey, without the date of the year, relates, I believe, to this commission of 1525, rather than that of 1522; it being dated on the 10th April, which appears from the contents to have been before Easter; whereas Easter did not fall beyond that day in 1523 or 1524, but did so in 1525; and the first commission, being of the 14th year of the king's reign, must have sat later than Easter 1522. He informs the cardinal, that from twenty pounds upward there were not twenty in the county of Norfolk who had not consented. "So that I see great likelihood that this grant shall be much more than the loan was." It was done, however, very reluctantly, as he confesses; "assuring your grace that they have not granted the same without shedding of many salt tears, only for doubt how to find money to content the king's highness." The resistance went further than the duke thought fit to suppose; for in a very short time the insurrection of the common people took place in Suffolk. In another letter from him and the Duke of Suffolk to the cardinal they treat this rather lightly, and seem to object to the remission of the contribution.

This commission issued soon after the news of the battle of Pavia arrived. The pretext was the king's intention to lead an army into France. Warham wrote more freely than the Duke of Norfolk as to the popular discontent, in a letter to Wolsey, dated April 5. "It hath been showed me in a secret manner of my friends, the people sore grudgeth and murmureth, and speaketh cursedly among themselves, as far as they dare, saying that they shall never have rest of payments as long as some liveth, and that they had better die than to be thus continually handled, reckoning themselves, their children, and wives, as despoulit, and not greatly caring what they do, or what becomes of them. … Further I am informed, that there is a grudge newly now resuscitate, and revived in the minds of the people; for the loan is not repaid to them upon the first receipt of the grant of parliament, as it was promised them by the commissioners, showing them the king's grace's instructions, containing the same, signed with his grace's own hand in summer, that they fear not to speak, that they be continually beguiled, and no promise is kept unto them; and thereupon some of them suppose that if this gift and grant be once levied, albeit the king's grace go not beyond the sea, yet nothing shall be restored again, albeit they be showed the contrary. And generally it is reported unto me, that for the most part every man saith he will be contented if the king's grace have as much as he can spare, but verily many say they be not able to do as they be required. And many denieth not but they will give the king's grace according to their power, but they will not anywise give at other men's appointments, which knoweth not their needs. … I have heard say, moreover, that when the people be commanded to make fires and tokens of joy for the taking of the French king, divers of them have spoken that they have more cause to weep than to rejoice thereat. And divers, as it hath been showed me secretly, have wished openly that the French king were at his liberty again, so as there were a good peace, and the king should not attempt to win France; the winning whereof should be more chargeful to England than profitable, and the keeping thereof much more chargeful than the winning. Also it hath been told me secretly that divers have recounted and repeated what infinite sums of money the king's grace hath spent already in invading France, once in his own royal person, and two other sundry times by his several noble captains, and little or nothing in comparison of his costs hath prevailed; insomuch that the king's grace at this hour hath not one foot of land more in France than his most noble father had, which lacked no riches or wisdom to win the kingdom of France, if he had thought it expedient." The archbishop goes on to observe, rather oddly, that "he would that the time had suffered that this practising with the people for so great sums might have been spared till the cuckow time and the hot weather (at which time mad brains be wont to be most busy) had been overpassed."

Warham dwells, in another letter, on the great difficulty the clergy had in making so large a payment as was required of them, and their unwillingness to be sworn as to the value of their goods. The archbishop seems to have thought it passing strange that people would be so wrongheaded about their money. "I have been," he says, "in this shire twenty years and above, and as yet I have not seen men but would be conformable to reason, and would be induced to good order, till this time; and what shall cause them now to fall into these wilful and indiscreet ways, I cannot tell, except poverty and decay of substance be the cause of it.

24. Hall, 696. These expressions, and numberless others might be found, show the fallacy of Hume's hasty assertion, that the writers of the sixteenth century do not speak of their own government as more free than that of France.

25. Hall, 699.

26. The word impeachment is not very accurately applicable to these proceedings against Wolsey; since the articles were first presented to the Upper House, and sent down to the Commons, where Cromwell so ably defended his fallen master that nothing was done upon them. "Upon this honest beginning," says Lord Herbert, "Cromwell obtained his first reputation." I am disposed to conjecture from Cromwell's character and that of the House of Commons, as well as from some passages of Henry's subsequent behaviour towards the cardinal, that it was not the king's intention to follow up this prosecution, at least for the present. This also I find to be Dr. Lingard's opinion.

27. Rot. Parl. vi. 164; Burnet, Appendix, No. 31. "When this release of the loan," says Hall, "was known to the commons of the realm, Lord! so they grudged and spake ill of the whole parliament; for almost every man counted it his debt, and reckoned surely of the payment of the same, and therefore some made their wills of the same, and some other did set it over to other for debt; and so many men had loss by it, which caused them sore to murmur, but there was no remedy."—P. 767.

28. Stat. 35 H. 8, c. 12. I find in a manuscript, which seems to have been copied from an original in the exchequer, that the monies thus received by way of loan in 1543 amounted to £110,147 15s. 8d. There was also a sum called devotion money, amounting only to £1,093 8s. 3d., levied in 1544, "of the devotion of his highnesse's subjects for Defence of Christendom against the Turk.

29. Lodge's Illustrations of British History, i. 711; Strype's Eccles. Memorials, Appendix, n. 119. The sums raised from different counties for this benevolence afford a sort of criterion of their relative opulence. Somerset gave £6807; Kent £6471; Suffolk £4512; Norfolk £4046; Devon £4527; Essex £5051; but Lancaster only £660; and Cumberland, £574. The whole produced £119,581 7s. 6d. besides arrears. In Haynes's State Papers, p. 54, we find a curious minute of Secretary Paget, containing reasons why it was better to get the money wanted by means of a benevolence than through parliament. But he does not hint at any difficulty of obtaining a parliamentary grant.

30. Lodge, p. 80. Lord Herbert mentions this story, and observes, that Reed having been taken by the Scots, was compelled to pay much more for his ransom than the benevolence required of him.

31. Rhymer, xv. 84. These commissions bearing date 5th January 1546.

32. Hall, 622. Hume, who is favourable to Wolsey, says, "There is no reason to think the sentence against Buckingham unjust." But no one who reads the trial will find any evidence to satisfy a reasonable mind; and Hume himself soon after adds, that his crime proceeded more from indiscretion than deliberate malice. In fact, the condemnation of this great noble was owing to Wolsey's resentment, acting on the savage temper of Henry.

33. Several letters that passed between the council and Duke of Norfolk (Hardwicke State Papers, i. 28, etc.) tend to confirm what some historians have hinted, that he was suspected of leaning too favourably towards the rebels. The king was most unwilling to grant a free pardon. Norfolk is told, "If you could, by any good means or possible dexterity, reserve a very few persons for punishments, you should assuredly administer the greatest pleasure to his highness that could be imagined, and much in the same advance your own honour."—P. 32. He must have thought himself in danger from some of these letters, which indicate the king's distrust of him. He had recommended the employment of men of high rank as lords of the marches, instead of the rather inferior persons whom the king had lately chosen. This called down on him rather a warm reprimand (p. 39); for it was the natural policy of a despotic court to restrain the ascendency of great families; nor were there wanting very good reasons for this, even if the public weal had been the sole object of Henry's council. See also, for the subject of this note, the State Papers and MSS., H. 8, 1830, p. 518 et alibi. They contain a good deal of interesting matter as to the northern rebellion, which gave Henry a pretext for great severities towards the monasteries in that part of England.

34. Pole, at his own solicitation, was appointed legate to the Low Countries in 1537, with the sole object of keeping alive the flame of the northern rebellion, and exciting foreign powers as well as the English nation to restore religion by force, if not to dethrone Henry. It is difficult not to suspect that he was influenced by ambitious views in a proceeding so treasonable, and so little in conformity with his polished manners and temperate life. Philips, his able and artful biographer, both proves and glories in the treason. Life of Pole, sect. 3.

35. Coke's 4th Institute, 37. It is, however, said by Lord Herbert and others, that the Countess of Salisbury and the Marchioness of Exeter were not heard in their defence. The acts of attainder against them were certainly hurried through parliament; but whether without hearing the parties, does not appear.

36. Burnet observes, that Cranmer was absent the first day the bill was read, 17th June 1540; and by his silence leaves the reader to infer that he was so likewise on 19th June, when it was read a second and third time. But this, I fear, cannot be asserted. He is marked in the journal as present on the latter day; and there is the following entry; "Hodie lecta est pro secundo et tertio, billa attincturæ Thomæ Comitis Essex, et communi omnium procerum tunc præsentium concessu nemine discrepante, expedita est." And at the close of the session, we find a still more remarkable testimony to the unanimity of parliament, in the following words: "Hoc animadvertendum est, quod in h^aac sessione cum proceres darent suffragia, et dicerent sententias super actibus prædictis, ea erat concordia et sententiarum conformitas, ut singuli iis et eorum singulis assenserint, nemine discrepante. Thomas de Soulemont, Cleric. Parliamentorum." As far therefore as entries on the journals are evidence, Cranmer was placed in the painful and humiliating predicament of voting for the death of his innocent friend. He had gone as far as he dared in writing a letter to Henry, which might be construed into an apology for Cromwell, though it was full as much so for himself.

37. Burnet has taken much pains with the subject, and set her innocence in a very clear light (i. 197 and iii. 114). See also Strype, i. 280, and Ellis's Letters, ii. 52. But Anne had all the failings of a vain, weak woman, raised suddenly to greatness. She behaved with unamiable vindictiveness towards Wolsey, and perhaps (but this worst charge is not fully authenticated) exasperated the king against More. A remarkable passage in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 103, edit. 1667, strongly displays her indiscretion.

A late writer, whose acuteness and industry would raise him to a very respectable place among our historians, if he could have repressed the inveterate partiality of his profession, has used every oblique artifice to lead his readers into a belief of Anne Boleyn's guilt, while he affects to hold the balance, and state both sides of the question without determining it. Thus he repeats what he must have known to be the strange and extravagant lies of Sanders about her birth; without vouching for them indeed, but without any reprobation of their absurd malignity. Lingard's Hist. of England, vi. 153 (8vo. edit). Thus he intimates that "the records of her trial and conviction have perished, perhaps by the hands of those who respected her memory" (p. 316); though, had he read Burnet with any care, he would have found that they were seen by that historian, and surely have not perished since by any unfair means; not to mention that the record of a trial contains nothing from which a party's guilt or innocence can be inferred. Thus he says that those who were executed on the same charge with the queen, neither admitted nor denied the offence, for which they suffered; though the best informed writers assert that Norris constantly declared the queen's innocence and his own.

Dr. Lingard can hardly be thought serious, when he takes credit to himself, in the commencement of a note at the end of the same volume, for not "rendering his book more interesting, by representing her as an innocent and injured woman, falling a victim to the intrigues of a religious faction." He well knows that he could not have done so, without contradicting the tenor of his entire work, without ceasing, as it were, to be himself. All the rest of this note is a pretended balancing of evidence, in the style of a judge who can hardly bear to put for a moment the possibility of a prisoner's innocence.

I regret very much to be compelled, in this edition, to add the name of Mr. Sharon Turner to those who have countenanced the supposition of Anne Boleyn's guilt. But Mr. Turner, a most worthy and painstaking man, to whose earlier writings our literature is much indebted, has, in his history of Henry VIII., gone upon the strange principle of exalting that tyrant's reputation at the expense of every one of his victims, to whatever party they may have belonged. Odit damnatos. Perhaps he is the first, and will be the last, who has defended the attainder of Sir Thomas More. A verdict of a jury, an assertion of a statesman, a recital of an act of parliament, are, with him, satisfactory proofs of the most improbable accusations against the most blameless character.

38. The lords pronounced a singular sentence, that she should be burned or beheaded at the king's pleasure. Burnet says the judges complained of this as unprecedented. Perhaps in strictness the king's right to alter a sentence is questionable, or rather would be so, if a few precedents were out of the way. In high treason committed by a man, the beheading was part of the sentence, and the king only remitted the more cruel preliminaries. Women, till 1791, were condemned to be burned. But the two queens of Henry, the Countess of Salisbury, Lady Rochford, Lady Jane Grey, and, in later times, Mrs. Lisle, were beheaded. Poor Mrs. Gaunt was not thought noble enough to be rescued from the fire. In felony, where beheading is no part of the sentence, it has been substituted by the king's warrant in the cases of the Duke of Somerset and Lord Audley. I know not why the latter obtained this favour; for it had been refused to Lord Stourton, hanged for murder under Mary, as it was afterwards to Earl Ferrers.

39. It is often difficult to understand the grounds of a parliamentary attainder, for which any kind of evidence was thought sufficient; and the strongest proofs against Catherine Howard undoubtedly related to her behaviour before marriage, which could be no legal crime. But some of the depositions extend further.

Dr. Lingard has made a curious observation on this case. "A plot was woven by the industry of the reformers, which brought the young queen to the scaffold, and weakened the ascendency of the reigning party."—P. 407. This is a very strange assertion; for he proceeds to admit her ante-nuptial guilt, which indeed she is well known to have confessed, and does not give the slightest proof of any plot. Yet he adds, speaking of the queen and Lady Rochford: "I fear [i.e. wish to insinuate] both were sacrificed to the manes of Anne Boleyn.

40. Stat. 26 H. 8, c. 13.

It may be here observed, that the act attainting Catherine Howard of treason proceeds to declare that the king's assent to bills by commission under the great seal is as valid as if he were personally present; any custom or use to the contrary notwithstanding. 33 H. 8, c. 21. This may be presumed therefore to be the earliest instance of the king's passing bills in this manner.

41. 22 H. 8, c. 18.

42. 28 H. 8, c. 7.

43. 35 H. 8, c. 1.

44. 28 H. 8, c. 17.

45. 31 H. 8, c. 8; Burnet, i. 263, explains the origin of this act. Great exceptions had been taken to some of the king's ecclesiastical proclamations, which altered laws, and laid taxes on spiritual persons. He justly observes that the restrictions contained in it gave great power to the judges, who had the power of expounding in their hands. The preamble is full as offensive as the body of the act; reciting the contempt and disobedience of the king's proclamations by some "who did not consider what a king by his royal power might do, which if it continued would tend to the disobedience of the laws of God, and the dishonour of the king's majesty, who might full ill bear it," etc. See this act at length in the great edition of the statutes. There was one singular provision; the clause protecting all persons, as mentioned, in their inheritance or other property, proceeds, "nor shall by virtue of the said act suffer any pains of death." But an exception is afterwards made for "such persons which shall offend against any proclamation to be made by the king's highness, his heirs or successors, for or concerning any kind of heresies against Christian doctrine." Thus it seems that the king claimed a power to declare heresy by proclamation, under penalty of death.

46. Gray has finely glanced at this bright point of Henry's character, in that beautiful stanza where he has made the founders of Cambridge pass before our eyes, like shadows over a magic glass:

"the majestic lord,

Who broke the bonds of Rome."

In a poet, this was a fair employment of his art; but the partiality of Burnet towards Henry VIII. is less warrantable; and he should have blushed to excuse, by absurd and unworthy sophistry, the punishment of those who refused to swear to the king's supremacy. P. 351.

After all, Henry was every whit as good a king and man as Francis I., whom there are still some, on the other side of the Channel, servile enough to extol; not in the least more tyrannical and sanguinary, and of better faith towards his neighbours.

47. 1 Edw. 6, c. 12. By this act it is provided that a lord of parliament shall have the benefit of clergy though he cannot read. Sect. 14. Yet one can hardly believe, that this provision was necessary at so late an æra.

48. 2 Strype, 147, 341, 491.

49. Id. 149. Dr. Lingard has remarked an important change in the coronation ceremony of Edward VI. Formerly, the king had taken an oath to preserve the liberties of the realm, and especially those granted by Edward the Confessor, etc., before the people were asked whether they would consent to have him as their king. See the form observed at Richard the Second's coronation in Rymer, vii. 158. But at Edward's coronation, the archbishop presented the king to the people, as rightful and undoubted inheritor by the laws of God and man to the royal dignity and crown imperial of this realm, etc., and asked if they would serve him and assent to his coronation, as by their duty of allegiance they were bound to do. All this was before the oath. 2 Burnet, Appendix, p. 93.

Few will pretend that the coronation, or the coronation oath, were essential to the legal succession of the crown, or the exercise of its prerogatives. But this alteration in the form is a curious proof of the solicitude displayed by the Tudors, as it was much more by the next family, to suppress every recollection that could make their sovereignty appear to be of popular origin.

50. Haynes's state papers contain many curious proofs of the incipient amour between Lord Seymour and Elizabeth, and show much indecent familiarity on one side, with a little childish coquetry on the other. These documents also rather tend to confirm the story of our elder historians, which I have found attested by foreign writers of that age (though Burnet has thrown doubts upon it), that some differences between the queen-dowager and the Duchess of Somerset aggravated at least those of their husbands. P. 61, 69. It is alleged with absurd exaggeration, in the articles against Lord Seymour, that, had the former proved immediately with child after her marriage with him, it might have passed for the king's. This marriage, however, did not take place before June, Henry having died in January. Ellis's Letters, ii. 150.

51. Journals, Feb. 27, March 4, 1548–9. From these I am led to doubt whether the commons actually heard witnesses against Seymour, which Burnet and Strype have taken for granted.

52. Stat. 5 and 6 Edw. VI., c. 11, s. 12.

53. Burnet, ii. 243. An act was made to confirm deeds of private persons, dated during Jane's ten days, concerning which some doubt had arisen. 1 Mary, sess. 2, c. 4. It is said in this statute, "her highness's most lawful possession was for a time disturbed and disquieted by traiterous rebellion and usurpation."

It appears that the young king's original intention was to establish a modified Salic law, excluding females from the crown, but not their male heirs. In a writing drawn by himself, and entitled "My Device for the Succession," it is entailed on the heirs male of the lady queen, if she have any before his death; then to the Lady Jane and her heirs male; then to the heirs male of Lady Katharine; and in every instance, except Jane, excluding the female herself. Strype's Cranmer, Append. 164. A late author, on consulting the original MS., in the king's handwriting, found that it had been at first written, "the Lady Jane's heirs male," but that the words "and her" had been interlined. Nares's Memoirs of Lord Burghley, i. 451. Mr. Nares does not seem to doubt but that this was done by Edward himself: the change, however, is remarkable, and should probably be ascribed to Northumberland's influence.

54. Burnet, Strype, iii. 50, 53; Carte, 290. I doubt whether we have anything in our history more like conquest than the administration of 1553. The queen, in the month only of October, presented to 256 livings, restoring all those turned out under the acts of uniformity. Yet the deprivation of the bishops might be justified probably by the terms of the commission they had taken out in Edward's reign, to hold their sees during the king's pleasure, for which was afterwards substituted "during good behaviour." Burnet, App. 257; Collier, 218.

55. Burnet, ii. 278; Stat. 1 Mary, sess. 3, c. 1. Dr. Lingard rather strangely tells this story on the authority of Father Persons, whom his readers probably do not esteem quite as much as he does. If he had attended to Burnet, he would have found a more sufficient voucher.

56. Carte, 330.

57. Haynes, 195; Burnet, ii. Appendix, 256, iii. 243.

58. Burnet, ii. 347. Collier, ii. 404, and Lingard, vii. 266 (who, by the way, confounds this commission with something different two years earlier) will not hear of this allusion to the inquisition. But Burnet has said nothing that is not perfectly just.

59. Strype, iii. 459.

60. See Stafford's proclamation from Scarborough Castle, Strype, iii. Appendix, No. 71. It contains no allusion to religion, both parties being weary of Mary's Spanish counsels. The important letters of Noailles, the French ambassador, to which Carte had access, and which have since been printed, have afforded information to Dr. Lingard, and with those of the imperial ambassador, Renard, which I have not had an opportunity of seeing, throw much light on this reign. They certainly appear to justify the restraint put on Elizabeth, who, if not herself privy to the conspiracies planned in her behalf (which is, however, very probable), was at least too dangerous to be left at liberty. Noailles intrigued with the malcontents, and instigated the rebellion of Wyatt, of which Dr. Lingard gives a very interesting account. Carte, indeed, differs from him in many of these circumstances, though writing from the same source, and particularly denies that Noailles gave any encouragement to Wyatt. It is, however, evident from the tenor of his despatches that he had gone great lengths in fomenting the discontent, and was evidently desirous of the success of the insurrection (iii. 36, 43, etc.). This critical state of the government may furnish the usual excuse for its rigour. But its unpopularity was brought on by Mary's breach of her word as to religion, and still more by her obstinacy in forming her union with Philip against the general voice of the nation, and the opposition of Gardiner; who, however, after her resolution was taken, became its strenuous supporter in public. For the detestation in which the queen was held, see the letters of Noailles, passim; but with some degree of allowance for his own antipathy to her.

61. Burnet, i. 117. The king refused his assent to a bill which had passed both houses, but apparently not of a political nature. Lords' Journals, p. 162.

62. Burnet, 190.

63. Id. 195, 215. This was the parliament, in order to secure favourable elections for which the council had written letters to the sheriffs. These do not appear to have availed so much as they might hope.

64. Carte, 311, 322; Noailles, v. 252. He says that she committed some knights to the Tower for their language in the house. Id. 247. Burnet, p. 324, mentions the same.

65. Burnet, 322; Carte, 296. Noailles says, that a third part of the Commons in Mary's first parliament was hostile to the repeal of Edward's laws about religion, and that the debates lasted a week. ii. 247. The journals do not mention any division; though it is said in Strype, iii. 204, that one member, Sir Ralph Bagnal, refused to concur in the act abolishing the supremacy. The queen, however, in her letter to Cardinal Pole, says of this repeal: "Quod non sine contentione, disputatione acri, et summo labore fidelium factum est." Lingard, Carte, Philips's Life of Pole. Noailles speaks repeatedly of the strength of the protestant party, and of the enmity which the English nation, as he expresses it, bore to the pope. But the aversion to the marriage with Philip, and dread of falling under the yoke of Spain, was common to both religions, with the exception of a few mere bigots to the church of Rome.

66. Noailles, vol. 5, passim.

67. Strype, ii. 394.

68. Strype, iii. 155; Burnet, ii. 228.

69. Burnet, ii. 262, 277.

70. Noailles, v. 190. Of the truth of this plot there can be no rational ground to doubt; even Dr. Lingard has nothing to advance against it but the assertion of Mary's counsellors, the Pagets and Arundels, the most worthless of mankind. We are, in fact, greatly indebted to Noailles for his spirited activity, which contributed, in a high degree, to secure both the protestant religion and the national independence of our ancestors.

71. Henry VII. first established a band of fifty archers to wait on him. Henry VIII. had fifty horse-guards, each with an archer, demilance and couteiller, like the gendarmerie of France; but on account, probably, of the expense it occasioned, their equipment being too magnificent, this soon was given up.

72. View of Middle Ages, ch. 8. I must here acknowledge, that I did not make the requisite distinction between the concilium secretum, or privy council of state, and the concilium ordinarium, as Lord Hale calls it, which alone exercised jurisdiction.

73. Commonwealth of England, book 3, c. 1. The statute 26 H. 8, c. 4 enacts, that if a jury in Wales acquit a felon, contrary to good and pregnant evidence, or otherwise misbehave themselves, the judge may bind them to appear before the president and council of the Welsh marches. The partiality of Welsh jurors was notorious in that age; and the reproach has not quite ceased.

74. State Trials, i. 901; Strype, ii. 120. In a letter to the Duke of Norfolk (Hardwicke Papers, i. 46) at the time of the Yorkshire rebellion in 1536, he is directed to question the jury who had acquitted a particular person, in order to discover their motive. Norfolk seems to have objected to this for a good reason, "least the fear thereof might trouble others in the like case." But it may not be uncandid to ascribe this rather to a leaning towards the insurgents than a constitutional principle.

75. Hale's Jurisdiction of the Lords' House, p. 5. Coke, 4th Inst. 65, where we have the following passage: "So this court [the court of star-chamber, as the concilium was then called] being holden coram rege et concilio, it is, or may be, compounded of three several councils; that is to say, of the lords and others of his majesty's privy council, always judges without appointment, as before it appeareth. 2. The judges of either bench and barons of the exchequer are of the king's council, for matters of law, etc., and the two chief justices, or in their absence other two justices, are standing judges of this court. 3. The lords of parliament are properly de magno concilio regis; but neither those, not being of the king's privy council, nor any of the rest of the judges or barons of the exchequer are standing judges of the court." But Hudson, in his Treatise of the Court of Star-chamber, written about the end of James's reign, inclines to think that all peers had a right of sitting in the court of star-chamber; there being several instances where some who were not of the council of state were present and gave judgment, as in the case of Mr. Davison, "and how they were complete judges unsworn, if not by their native right, I cannot comprehend; for surely the calling of them in that case was not made legitimate by any act of parliament; neither without their right were they more apt to be judges than any other inferior persons in the kingdom; and yet I doubt not but it resteth in the king's pleasure to restrain any man from that table, as well as he may any of his council from the board." Collectanea Juridica, ii. p. 24. He says also, that it was demurrable for a bill to pray process against the defendant, to appear before the king and his privy council. Ibid.

76. The privy council sometimes met in the star-chamber, and made orders. See one in 18 H. 6, Harl. MSS. Catalogue, N. 1878, fol. 20. So the statute, 21 H. 8, c. 16, recites a decree by the king's council in his star-chamber, that no alien artificer shall keep more than two alien servants, and other matters of the same kind. This could no way belong to the court of star-chamber, which was a judicial tribunal.

It should be remarked, though not to our immediate purpose, that this decree was supposed to require an act of parliament for its confirmation; so far was the government of Henry VIII. from arrogating a legislative power in matters of private right.

77. Lord Hale thinks that the jurisdiction of the council was gradually "brought into great disuse, though there remain some straggling footsteps of their proceedings till near 3 H. 7."—P. 38. "The continual complaints of the commons against the proceedings before the council in causes civil or criminal, although they did not always attain their concession, yet brought a disreputation upon the proceedings of the council, as contrary to Magna Charta and the known laws."—P. 39. He seems to admit afterwards, however, that many instances of proceedings before them in criminal causes might be added to those mentioned by Lord Coke. P. 43.

The paucity of records about the time of Edward IV. renders the negative argument rather weak; but, from the expression of Sir Thomas Smith in the text, it may perhaps be inferred that the council had intermitted in a considerable degree, though not absolutely disused, their exercise of jurisdiction for some time before the accession of the house of Tudor.

Mr. Brodie, in his History of the British Empire under Charles I., i. 158, has treated at considerable length, and with much acuteness, this subject of the antiquity of the star-chamber. I do not coincide in all his positions; but the only one very important, is that wherein we fully agree, that its jurisdiction was chiefly usurped, as well as tyrannical.

I will here observe that this part of our ancient constitutional history is likely to be elucidated by a friend of my own, who has already given evidence to the world of his singular competence for such an undertaking, and who unites, with all the learning and diligence of Spelman, Prynne, and Madox, an acuteness and vivacity of intellect which none of those writers possessed.

78. Commonwealth of England, book 3, c. 4. We find Sir Robert Sheffield in 1517 "put into the Tower again for the complaint he made to the king of my lord cardinal." Lodge's Illustrations, i. p. 27. See also Hall, p. 585, for Wolsey's strictness in punishing the "lords, knights, and men of all sorts, for riots, bearing, and maintenance.

79. Plowden's Commentaries, 393. In the year-book itself, 8 H. 7, pl. ult. the word star-chamber is not used. It is held in this case, that the chancellor, treasurer, and privy-seal were the only judges, and the rest but assistants. Coke, 4 Inst. 62, denies this to be law; but on no better grounds than that the practice of the star-chamber, that is, of a different tribunal, was not such.

80. Hist. of Henry VII. in Bacon's works, ii. p. 290.

81. The result of what has been said in the last pages may be summed up in a few propositions. 1. The court erected by the statute of 3 Henry VII. was not the court of star-chamber. 2. This court by the statute subsisted in full force till beyond the middle of Henry VIII.'s reign, but not long afterwards went into disuse. 3. The court of star-chamber was the old concilium ordinarium, against whose jurisdiction many statutes had been enacted from the time of Edward III. 4. No part of the jurisdiction exercised by the star-chamber could be maintained on the authority of the statute of Henry VII.

82. Burnet, ii. 324.

83. Burnet. Reeves's History of the Law, iv. p. 308. The contemporary authority is Keilwey's Reports. Collier disbelieves the murder of Hun on the authority of Sir Thomas More; but he was surely a prejudiced apologist of the clergy, and this historian is hardly less so. An entry on the journals, 7 H. 8, drawn of course by some ecclesiastic, particularly complains of Standish as the author of periculosissimæ seditiones inter clericam et secularem potestatem.

84. Burnet is confident that the answer to Luther was not written by Henry (vol. iii. 171), and others have been of the same opinion. The king, however, in his answer to Luther's apologetical letter, where this was insinuated, declares it to be his own. From Henry's general character and proneness to theological disputation, it may be inferred that he had at least a considerable share in the work, though probably with the assistance of some who had more command of the Latin language. Burnet mentions in another place, that he had seen a copy of the Necessary Erudition of a Christian Man, full of interlineations by the king.

85. Epist. Lutheri ad Henricum regem missa, etc. Lond. 1526. The letter bears date at Wittenberg, September 1, 1525. It had no relation, therefore, to Henry's quarrel with the Pope, though probably Luther imagined that the king was becoming more favourably disposed. After saying that he had written against the king "stultus ac præceps," which was true, he adds, "invitantibus iis qui majestati tuæ parum favebant," which was surely a pretence; since who, at Wittenberg, in 1521, could have any motive to wish that Henry should be so scurrilously treated? He then bursts out into the most absurd attack on Wolsey; "illud monstrum et publicum odium Dei et hominum, Cardinalis Eboracensis, pestis illa regni tui." This was a singular style to adopt in writing to a king, whom he affected to propitiate; Wolsey being nearer than any man to Henry's heart. Thence, relapsing into his tone of abasement, he says, "ita ut vehementer nunc pudefactus, metuam oculos coram majestate tuâ levare, qui passus sim levitate istâ me moveri in talem tantumque regem per malignos istos operarios; præsertim cum sim fœx et vermis, quem solo contemptu oportuit victum aut neglectum esse," etc. Among the many strange things which Luther said and wrote, I know not one more extravagant than this letter, which almost justifies the supposition that there was a vein of insanity in his very remarkable character.

86. Collier, vol. ii. Appendix, No. 2. In the Hardwicke Papers, i. 13, we have an account of the ceremonial of the first marriage of Henry with Catherine in 1503. It is remarkable that a person was appointed to object publicly in Latin to the marriage, as unlawful, for reasons he should there exhibit; "whereunto Mr. Doctor Barnes shall reply, and declare solemnly, also in Latin, the said marriage to be good and effectual in the law of Christ's church, by virtue of a dispensation, which he shall have then to be openly read." There seems to be something in this of the tortuous policy of Henry VII.; but it shows that the marriage had given offence to scrupulous minds.

87. See Burnet, Lingard, Turner, and the letters lately printed in State Papers, temp. Henry VIII. pp. 194, 196.

88. Burnet wishes to disprove the bribery of these foreign doctors. But there are strong presumptions that some opinions were got by money (Collier, ii. 58); and the greatest difficulty was found, where corruption perhaps had least influence, in the Sorbonne. Burnet himself proves that some of the cardinals were bribed by the king's ambassador, both in 1528 and 1532. Vol. i. Append. pp. 30, 110. See, too, Strype, i. Append. No. 40.

The same writer will not allow that Henry menaced the university of Oxford in case of non-compliance; yet there are three letters of his to them, a tenth part of which, considering the nature of the writer, was enough to terrify his readers. Vol. iii. Append. p. 25. These probably Burnet did not know when he published his first volume.

89. The king's marriage is related by the earlier historians to have taken place November 14, 1532. Burnet however is convinced by a letter of Cranmer, who, he says, could not be mistaken, though he was not apprised of the fact till some time afterwards, that it was not solemnised till about the 25th of January (vol. iii. p. 70). This letter has since been published in the Archæologia, vol. xviii., and in Ellis's Letters, ii. 34. Elizabeth was born September 7, 1533; for though Burnet, on the authority, he says, of Cranmer, places her birth on September 14, the former date is decisively confirmed by letters in Harl. MSS. 283, 22, and 787, 1 (both set down incorrectly in the catalogue). If a late historian therefore had contented himself with commenting on these dates and the clandestine nature of the marriage, he would not have gone beyond the limits of that character of an advocate for one party which he has chosen to assume. It may not be unlikely, though by no means evident, that Anne's prudence, though, as Fuller says of her, "she was cunning in her chastity," was surprised at the end of this long courtship. I think a prurient curiosity about such obsolete scandal very unworthy of history. But when this author asserts Henry to have cohabited with her for three years, and repeatedly calls her his mistress, when he attributes Henry's patience with the pope's chicanery to "the infecundity of Anne," and all this on no other authority than a letter of the French ambassador, which amounts hardly to evidence of a transient rumour, we cannot but complain of a great deficiency in historical candour.

90. The principal authority on the story of Henry's divorce from Catherine is Burnet, in the first and third volumes of his History of the Reformation; the latter correcting the former from additional documents. Strype, in his Ecclesiastical Memorials, adds some particulars not contained in Burnet, especially as to the negotiations with the pope in 1528; and a very little may be gleaned from Collier, Carte, and other writers. There are few parts of history, on the whole, that have been better elucidated. One exception perhaps may yet be made. The beautiful and affecting story of Catherine's behaviour before the legates at Dunstable is told by Cavendish and Hall, from whom later historians have copied it. Burnet, however, in his third volume, p. 46, disputes its truth, and on what should seem conclusive authority, that of the original register, whence it appears that the queen never came into court but once, June 18, 1529, to read a paper protesting against the jurisdiction, and that the king never entered it. Carte accordingly treated the story as a fabrication. Hume of course did not choose to omit so interesting a circumstance; but Dr. Lingard has pointed out a letter of the king, which Burnet himself had printed, vol. i. Append. 78, mentioning the queen's presence as well as his own, on June 21, and greatly corroborating the popular account. To say the truth, there is no small difficulty in choosing between two authorities so considerable, if they cannot be reconciled, which seems impossible: but, upon the whole, the preference is due to Henry's letter, dated June 23, as he could not be mistaken, and had no motive to misstate.