It would perhaps have been a deviation from my subject to enlarge so much on these political principles in a writer of any later age, when they had been openly sustained in the councils of the nation. But as the reigns of the Tudor family were so inauspicious to liberty that some have been apt to imagine its recollection to have been almost effaced, it becomes of more importance to show that absolute monarchy was, in the eyes of so eminent an author as Hooker, both pernicious in itself, and contrary to the fundamental laws of the English commonwealth. Nor would such sentiments, we may surely presume, have been avowed by a man of singular humility, and whom we might charge with somewhat of an excessive deference to authority, unless they had obtained more currency, both among divines and lawyers, than the complaisance of courtiers in these two professions might lead us to conclude; Hooker being not prone to deal in paradoxes, nor to borrow from his adversaries that sturdy republicanism of the school of Geneva which had been their scandal. I cannot indeed but suspect that his whig principles, in the last book, are announced with a temerity that would have startled his superiors; and that its authenticity, however called in question, has been better preserved by the circumstance of a posthumous publication than if he had lived to give it to the world. Whitgift would probably have induced him to suppress a few passages incompatible with the servile theories already in vogue. It is far more usual that an author's genuine sentiments are perverted by means of his friends and patrons than of his adversaries.
Spoliation of church revenues.—The prelates of the English church, while they inflicted so many severities on others, had not always cause to exult in their own condition. From the time when Henry taught his courtiers to revel in the spoil of monasteries, there had been a perpetual appetite for ecclesiastical possessions. Endowed by a prodigal superstition with pomp and wealth beyond all reasonable measure, and far beyond what the new system of religion appeared to prescribe, the church of England still excited the covetousness of the powerful, and the scandal of the austere.[358] I have mentioned in another place how the bishoprics were impoverished in the first reformation under Edward VI. The catholic bishops who followed made haste to plunder, from a consciousness that the goods of their church were speedily to pass into the hands of heretics.[359] Hence the alienation of their estates had gone so far that in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign statutes were made, disabling ecclesiastical proprietors from granting away their lands, except on leases for three lives, or twenty-one years.[360] But an unfortunate reservation was introduced in favour of the Crown. The queen, therefore, and her courtiers, who obtained grants from her, continued to prey upon their succulent victim. Few of her council imitated the noble disinterestedness of Walsingham, who spent his own estate in her service, and left not sufficient to pay his debts. The documents of that age contain ample proofs of their rapacity. Thus Cecil surrounded his mansion-house at Burleigh with estates, once belonging to the see of Peterborough. Thus Hatton built his house in Holborn on the Bishop of Ely's garden. Cox, on making resistance to this spoliation, received a singular epistle from the queen.[361] This bishop, in consequence of such vexations, was desirous of retiring from the see before his death. After that event, Elizabeth kept it vacant eighteen years. During this period we have a petition to her from Lord Keeper Puckering, that she would confer it on Scambler, Bishop of Norwich, then eighty-eight years old, and notorious for simony, in order that he might give him a lease of part of the lands.[362] These transactions denote the mercenary and rapacious spirit which leavened almost all Elizabeth's courtiers.
The bishops of this reign do not appear, with some distinguished exceptions, to have reflected so much honour on the established church as those who attach a superstitious reverence to the age of the reformation are apt to conceive. In the plunder that went forward, they took good care of themselves. Charges against them of simony, corruption, covetousness, and especially destruction of their church estates for the benefit of their families, are very common—sometimes no doubt unjust, but too frequent to be absolutely without foundation.[363] The council often wrote to them, as well as concerning them, with a sort of asperity which would astonish one of their successors. And the queen never restrained herself in treating them on any provocation with a good deal of rudeness, of which I have just mentioned an egregious example.[364] In her speech to parliament on closing the session of 1584, when many complaints against the rulers of the church had rung in her ears, she told the bishops that if they did not amend what was wrong, she meant to depose them.[365] For there seems to have been no question in that age but that this might be done by virtue of the Crown's supremacy.
The church of England was not left by Elizabeth in circumstances that demanded applause for the policy of her rulers. After forty years of constantly aggravated molestation of the nonconforming clergy, their numbers were become greater, their popularity more deeply rooted, their enmity to the established order more irreconcilable. It was doubtless a problem of no slight difficulty, by what means so obstinate and opinionated a class of sectaries could have been managed; nor are we perhaps, at this distance of time, altogether competent to decide upon the fittest course of policy in that respect.[366] But it is manifest that the obstinacy of bold and sincere men is not to be quelled by any punishments that do not exterminate them, and that they were not likely to entertain a less conceit of their own reason when they found no arguments so much relied on to refute it as that of force. Statesmen invariably take a better view of such questions than churchmen; and we may well believe that Cecil and Walsingham judged more sagaciously than Whitgift and Aylmer. The best apology that can be made for Elizabeth's tenaciousness of those ceremonies which produced this fatal contention I have already suggested, without much express authority from the records of that age; namely, the justice and expediency of winning over the catholics to conformity, by retaining as much as possible of their accustomed rites. But in the latter period of the queen's reign, this policy had lost a great deal of its application; or rather the same principle of policy would have dictated numerous concessions in order to satisfy the people. It appears by no means unlikely that, by reforming the abuses and corruption of the spiritual courts, by abandoning a part of their jurisdiction, so heterogeneous and so unduly obtained, by abrogating obnoxious and at best frivolous ceremonies, by restraining pluralities of benefices, by ceasing to discountenance the most diligent ministers, and by more temper and disinterestedness in their own behaviour, the bishops would have palliated, to an indefinite degree, that dissatisfaction with the established scheme of polity, which its want of resemblance to that of other protestant churches must more or less have produced. Such a reformation would at least have contented those reasonable and moderate persons who occupy sometimes a more extensive ground between contending factions than the zealots of either are willing to believe or acknowledge.
General remarks.—I am very sensible that such freedom as I have used in this chapter cannot be pleasing to such as have sworn allegiance to either the Anglican or the puritan party; and that even candid and liberal minds may be inclined to suspect that I have not sufficiently admitted the excesses of one side to furnish an excuse for those of the other. Such readers I would gladly refer to Lord Bacon's "Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of England;" a treatise written under Elizabeth, in that tone of dispassionate philosophy which the precepts of Burleigh sown in his own deep and fertile mind had taught him to apply. This treatise, to which I did not turn my attention in writing the present chapter, appears to coincide in every respect with the views it displays. If he censures the pride and obstinacy of the puritan teachers, their indecent and libellous style of writing, their affected imitation of foreign churches, their extravagance of receding from everything formerly practised, he animadverts with no less plainness on the faults of the episcopal party, on the bad example of some prelates, on their peevish opposition to every improvement, their unjust accusations, their contempt of foreign churches, their persecuting spirit.[367]
Letter of Walsingham in defence of the queen's government.—Yet that we may not deprive this great queen's administration, in what concerned her dealings with the two religious parties opposed to the established church, of what vindication may best be offered for it, I will refer the reader to a letter of Sir Francis Walsingham, written to a person in France, after the year 1580.[368] It is a very able apology for her government; and if the reader should detect, as he doubtless may, somewhat of sophistry in reasoning, and of mis-statement in matter of fact, he will ascribe both one and the other to the narrow spirit of the age with respect to civil and religious freedom, or to the circumstances of the writer, an advocate whose sovereign was his client.
ON THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF ELIZABETH
The subject of the two last chapters, I mean the policy adopted by Elizabeth for restricting the two religious parties which from opposite quarters resisted the exercise of her ecclesiastical prerogatives, has already afforded us many illustrations of what may more strictly be reckoned the constitutional history of her reign. The tone and temper of her administration have been displayed in a vigilant execution of severe statutes, especially towards the catholics, and sometimes in stretches of power beyond the law. And as Elizabeth had no domestic enemies or refractory subjects who did not range under one or other of these two sects, and little disagreement with her people on any other grounds, the ecclesiastical history of this period is the best preparation for our enquiry into the civil government. In the present chapter I shall first offer a short view of the practical exercise of government in this reign, and then proceed to show how the queen's high assumptions of prerogative were encountered by a resistance in parliament, not quite uniform, but insensibly becoming more vigorous.
Elizabeth ascended the throne with all the advantages of a very extended authority. Though the jurisdiction actually exerted by the court of star-chamber could not be vindicated according to statute-law, it had been so well established as to pass without many audible murmurs. Her progenitors had intimidated the nobility; and if she had something to fear at one season from this order, the fate of the Duke of Norfolk and of the rebellious earls in the north put an end for ever to all apprehension from the feudal influence of the aristocracy. There seems no reason to believe that she attempted a more absolute power than her predecessors; the wisdom of her counsellors, on the contrary, led them generally to shun the more violent measures of the late reigns; but she certainly acted upon many of the precedents they had bequeathed her, with little consideration of their legality. Her own remarkable talents, her masculine intrepidity, her readiness of wit and royal deportment, which the bravest men unaffectedly dreaded, her temper of mind, above all, at once fiery and inscrutably dissembling, would in any circumstances have ensured her more real sovereignty than weak monarchs, however nominally absolute, can ever enjoy or retain. To these personal qualities was added the co-operation of some of the most diligent and circumspect, as well as the most sagacious counsellors that any prince has employed; men as unlikely to loose from their grasp the least portion of that authority which they found themselves to possess, as to excite popular odium by an unusual or misplaced exertion of it. The most eminent instances, as I have remarked, of a high-strained prerogative in her reign, have some relation to ecclesiastical concerns; and herein the temper of the predominant religion was such as to account no measures harsh or arbitrary that were adopted towards its conquered, but still formidable, enemy. Yet when the royal supremacy was to be maintained against a different foe by less violent acts of power, it revived the smouldering embers of English liberty. The stern and exasperated puritans became the depositaries of that sacred fire; and this manifests a second connection between the temporal and ecclesiastical history of the present reign.
Civil liberty, in this kingdom, has two direct guarantees; the open administration of justice according to known laws truly interpreted, and fair constructions of evidence; and the right of parliament, without let or interruption, to enquire into, and obtain the redress of, public grievances. Of these, the first is by far the most indispensable; nor can the subjects of any state be reckoned to enjoy a real freedom, where this condition is not found both in its judicial institutions and in their constant exercise. In this, much more than in positive law, our ancient constitution, both under the Plantagenet and Tudor line, had ever been failing; and it is because one set of writers have looked merely to the letter of our statutes or other authorities, while another have been almost exclusively struck by the instances of arbitrary government they found on record, that such incompatible systems have been laid down with equal positiveness on the character of that constitution.
Trials for treason and other political offences unjustly conducted.—I have found it impossible not to anticipate, in more places than one, some of those glaring transgressions of natural as well as positive law, that rendered our courts of justice in cases of treason little better than the caverns of murderers. Whoever was arraigned at their bar was almost certain to meet a virulent prosecutor, a judge hardly distinguishable from the prosecutor except by his ermine, and a passive pusillanimous jury. Those who are acquainted only with our modern decent and dignified procedure, can form little conception of the irregularity of ancient trials; the perpetual interrogation of the prisoner, which gives most of us so much offence at this day in the tribunals of a neighbouring kingdom; and the want of all evidence except written, and perhaps unattested, examinations or confessions. Habington, one of the conspirators against Elizabeth's life in 1586, complained that two witnesses had not been brought against him, conformably to the statute of Edward VI. But Anderson, the chief justice, told him, that as he was indicted on the act of Edward III., that provision was not in force.[369] In the case of Captain Lee, a partisan of Essex and Southampton, the court appear to have denied the right of peremptory challenge.[370] Nor was more equal measure dealt to the noblest prisoners by their equals. The Earl of Arundel was convicted of imagining the queen's death, on evidence which at the utmost would only have supported an indictment for reconciliation to the church of Rome.[371]
The integrity of judges is put to the proof as much by prosecutions for seditious writings as by charges of treason. I have before mentioned the conviction of Udal and Penry, for a felony created by the 23rd of Elizabeth; the former of which, especially, must strike every reader of the trial as one of the gross judicial iniquities of this reign. But, before this sanguinary statute was enacted, a punishment of uncommon severity had been inflicted upon one Stubbe, a puritan lawyer, for a pamphlet against the queen's intended marriage with the Duke of Anjou. It will be in the recollection of most of my readers that, in the year 1579, Elizabeth exposed herself to much censure and ridicule, and inspired the justest alarm in her most faithful subjects, by entertaining, at the age of forty-six, the proposals of this young scion of the house of Valois. Her council, though several of them in their deliberations had much inclined against the preposterous alliance, yet in the end, displaying the compliance usual with the servants of self-willed princes, agreed, "conceiving," as they say, "her earnest disposition for this her marriage," to further it with all their power. Sir Philip Sidney, with more real loyalty, wrote her a spirited remonstrance, which she had the magnanimity never to resent.[372] But she poured her indignation on Stubbe, who, not entitled to use a private address, had ventured to arouse a popular cry in his "Gaping Gulph, in which England will be swallowed up by the French Marriage." This pamphlet is very far from being, what some have ignorantly or unjustly called it, a virulent libel; but is written in a sensible manner, and with unfeigned loyalty and affection towards the queen. But, besides the main offence of addressing the people on state affairs, he had, in the simplicity of his heart, thrown out many allusions proper to hurt her pride, such as dwelling too long on the influence her husband would acquire over her, and imploring that she would ask her physicians whether to bear children at her years would not be highly dangerous to her life. Stubbe, for writing this pamphlet, received sentence to have his right hand cut off. When the penalty was inflicted, taking off his hat with his left, he exclaimed, Long live Queen Elizabeth! Burleigh, who knew that his fidelity had borne so rude a test, employed him afterwards in answering some of the popish libellers.[373]
There is no room for wonder at any verdict that could be returned by a jury, when we consider what means the government possessed of securing it. The sheriff returned a pannel, either according to express directions, of which we have proofs, or to what he judged himself of the crown's intention and interest.[374] If a verdict had gone against the prosecution in a matter of moment, the jurors must have laid their account with appearing before the star-chamber; lucky, if they should escape, on humble retractation, with sharp words, instead of enormous fines and indefinite imprisonment. The control of this arbitrary tribunal bound down and rendered impotent all the minor jurisdictions. That primæval institution, those inquests by twelve true men, the unadulterated voice of the people responsible alone to God and their conscience, which should have been heard in the sanctuaries of justice, as fountains springing fresh from the lap of earth, became, like waters constrained in their course by art, stagnant and impure. Until this weight that hung upon the constitution should be taken off, there was literally no prospect of enjoying with security those civil privileges which it held forth.[375]
Illegal commitments.—It cannot be too frequently repeated, that no power of arbitrary detention has ever been known to our constitution since the charter obtained at Runnymede. The writ of habeas corpus has always been a matter of right. But as may naturally be imagined, no right of the subject, in his relation to the Crown, was preserved with greater difficulty. Not only the privy council in general arrogated to itself a power of discretionary imprisonment, into which no inferior court was to enquire, but commitments by a single counsellor appear to have been frequent. These abuses gave rise to a remarkable complaint of the judges, which, though an authentic recognition of the privilege of personal freedom against such irregular and oppressive acts of individual ministers, must be admitted to leave by far too great latitude to the executive government, and to surrender, at least by implication from rather obscure language, a great part of the liberties which many statutes had confirmed.[376] This is contained in a passage from Chief Justice Anderson's Reports. But as there is an original manuscript in the British Museum, differing in some material points from the print, I shall follow it in preference.[377]
Remonstrance of judges against them.—"To the Rt. Hon. our very good lords Sir Chr. Hatton, of the honourable order of the garter knight, and chancellor of England, and Sir W. Cecill of the hon. order of the garter knight, Lord Burleigh, lord high treasurer of England,—We her majesty's justices, of both benches, and barons of the exchequer, do desire your lordships that by your good means such order may be taken that her highness's subjects may not be committed or detained in prison, by commandment of any nobleman or counsellor, against the laws of the realm, to the grievous charges and oppression of her majesty's said subjects: Or else help us to have access to her majesty, to be suitors unto her highness for the same; for divers have been imprisoned for suing ordinary actions, and suits at the common law, until they will leave the same, or against their wills put their matter to order, although some time it be after judgment and accusation.
"Item: Others have been committed and detained in prison upon such commandment against the law; and upon the queen's writ in that behalf, no cause sufficient hath been certified or returned.
"Item: Some of the parties so committed and detained in prison after they have, by the queen's writ, been lawfully discharged in court, have been eftsoones recommitted to prison in secret places, and not in common and ordinary known prisons, as the Marshalsea, Fleet, King's Bench, Gatehouse, nor the custodie of any sheriff, so as upon complaint made for their delivery, the queen's court cannot learn to whom to award her majesty's writ, without which justice cannot be done.
"Item: Divers serjeants of London and officers have been many times committed to prison for lawful execution of her majesty's writs out of the King's Bench, Common Pleas, and other courts, to their great charges and oppression, whereby they are put in such fear as they dare not execute the queen's process.
"Item: Divers have been sent for by pursuivants for private causes, some of them dwelling far distant from London, and compelled to pay to the pursuivants great sums of money against the law, and have been committed to prison till they would release the lawful benefit of their suits, judgments, or executions for remedie, in which behalf we are almost daily called upon to minister justice according to law, whereunto we are bound by our office and oath.
"And whereas it pleased your lordships to will divers of us to set down when a prisoner sent to custody by her majesty, her council, or some one or two of them, is to be detained in prison, and not to be delivered by her majesty's courts or judges:
"We think that, if any person shall be committed by her majesty's special commandment, or by order from the council-board, or for treason touching her majesty's person (a word of five letters follows, illegible to me), which causes being generally returned into any court, is good cause for the same court to leave the person committed in custody.
"But if any person shall be committed for any other cause, then the same ought specially to be returned."
This paper bears the original signatures of eleven judges. It has no date, but is indorsed 5 June 1591. In the printed report, it is said to have been delivered in Easter term 34 Eliz., that is, in 1592. The Chancellor Hatton, whose name is mentioned, died in November 1591; so that, if there is no mistake, this must have been delivered a second time, after undergoing the revision of the judges. And in fact the differences are far too material to have proceeded from accidental carelessness in transcription. The latter copy is fuller, and on the whole more perspicuous, than the manuscript I have followed; but in one or two places it will be better understood by comparison with it.
Proclamations unwarranted by law.—It was a natural consequence, not more of the high notions entertained of prerogative than of the very irregular and infrequent meeting of parliament, that an extensive and somewhat indefinite authority should be arrogated to proclamations of the king in council. Temporary ordinances, bordering at least on legislative authority, grow out of the varying exigencies of civil society, and will by very necessity be put up with in silence, wherever the constitution of the commonwealth does not, directly or in effect, provide for frequent assemblies of the body in whom the right of making or consenting to laws has been vested. Since the English constitution has reached its zenith, we have endeavoured to provide a remedy by statute for every possible mischief or inconvenience; and if this has swollen our code to an enormous redundance, till, in the labyrinth of written law, we almost feel again the uncertainties of arbitrary power, it has at least put an end to such exertions of prerogative as fell at once on the persons and properties of whole classes. It seems by the proclamations issued under Elizabeth, that the Crown claimed a sort of supplemental right of legislation, to perfect and carry into effect what the spirit of existing laws might require, as well as a paramount supremacy, called sometimes the king's absolute or sovereign power, which sanctioned commands beyond the legal prerogative, for the sake of public safety, whenever the council might judge that to be in hazard. Thus we find anabaptists, without distinction of natives or aliens, banished the realm; Irishmen commanded to depart into Ireland; the culture of woad,[378] and the exportation of corn, money, and various commodities, prohibited; the excess of apparel restrained. A proclamation in 1580 forbids the erection of houses within three miles of London, on account of the too great increase of the city, under the penalty of imprisonment and forfeiture of the materials.[379] This is repeated at other times, and lastly (I mean during her reign) in 1602, with additional restrictions.[380] Some proclamations in this reign hold out menaces, which the common law could never have executed on the disobedient. To trade with the French king's rebels, or to export victuals into the Spanish dominions (the latter of which might possibly be construed into assisting the queen's enemies) incurred the penalty of treason. And persons having in their possession goods taken on the high seas, which had not paid custom, are enjoined to give them up, on pain of being punished as felons and pirates.[381] Notwithstanding these instances, it cannot perhaps be said on the whole that Elizabeth stretched her authority very outrageously in this respect. Many of her proclamations, which may at first sight appear illegal, are warrantable by statutes then in force, or by ancient precedents. Thus the council is empowered by an act (28 H. 8, c. 14) to fix the prices of wines; and abstinence from flesh in Lent, as well as on Fridays and Saturdays (a common subject of Elizabeth's proclamations), is enjoined by several statutes of Edward VI. and of her own.[382] And it has been argued by some not at all inclined to diminish any popular rights, that the king did possess a prerogative by common law of restraining the export of corn and other commodities.[383]
Restrictions on printing.—It is natural to suppose that a government thus arbitrary and vigilant must have looked with extreme jealousy on the diffusion of free enquiry through the press. The trades of printing and bookselling, in fact, though not absolutely licensed, were always subject to a sort of peculiar superintendence. Besides protecting the copyright of authors,[384] the council frequently issued proclamations to restrain the importation of books, or to regulate their sale.[385] It was penal to utter, or so much as to possess, even the most learned works on the catholic side; or if some connivance was usual in favour of educated men, the utmost strictness was used in suppressing that light infantry of literature, the smart and vigorous pamphlets with which the two parties arrayed against the church assaulted her opposite flanks.[386] Stowe, the well-known chronicler of England, who lay under suspicion of an attachment to popery, had his library searched by warrant, and his unlawful books taken away; several of which were but materials for his history.[387] Whitgift, in this, as in every other respect, aggravated the rigour of preceding times. At his instigation, the star-chamber, in 1585, published ordinances for the regulation of the press. The preface of these recites enormities and abuses of disorderly persons professing the art of printing and selling books to have more and more increased in spite of the ordinances made against them, which it attributes to the inadequacy of the penalties hitherto inflicted. Every printer therefore is enjoined to certify his presses to the Stationers' Company, on pain of having them defaced, and suffering a year's imprisonment. None to print at all, under similar penalties, except in London, and one in each of the two universities. No printer who has only set up his trade within six months to exercise it any longer, nor any to begin it in future, until the excessive multitude of printers be diminished, and brought to such a number as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London for the time being shall think convenient; but, whenever any addition to the number of master printers shall be required, the Stationers' Company shall select proper persons to use that calling with the approbation of the ecclesiastical commissioners. None to print any book, matter, or thing whatsoever, until it shall have been first seen, perused, and allowed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Bishop of London, except the queen's printer, to be appointed for some special service, or law-printers, who shall require the licence only of the chief justices. Every one selling books printed contrary to the intent of this ordinance, to suffer three months' imprisonment. The Stationers' Company empowered to search houses and shops of printers and booksellers, and to seize all books printed in contravention of this ordinance, to destroy and deface the presses, and to arrest and bring before the council those who shall have offended therein.[388]
The forms of English law, however inadequate to defend the subject in state prosecutions, imposed a degree of seeming restraint on the Crown, and wounded that pride which is commonly a yet stronger sentiment than the lust of power, with princes and their counsellors. It was possible that juries might absolve a prisoner; it was always necessary that they should be the arbiters of his fate. Delays too were interposed by the regular process; not such, perhaps, as the life of man should require, yet enough to weaken the terrors of summary punishment. Kings love to display the divinity with which their flatterers invest them, in nothing so much as the instantaneous execution of their will; and to stand revealed, as it were, in the storm and thunderbolt, when their power breaks through the operation of secondary causes, and awes a prostrate nation without the intervention of law. There may indeed be times of pressing danger, when the conservation of all demands the sacrifice of the legal rights of a few; there may be circumstances that not only justify, but compel, the temporary abandonment of constitutional forms. It has been usual for all governments, during an actual rebellion, to proclaim martial law, or the suspension of civil jurisdiction. And this anomaly, I must admit, is very far from being less indispensable at such unhappy seasons, in countries where the ordinary mode of trial is by jury, than where the right of decision resides in the judge. But it is of high importance to watch with extreme jealousy the disposition, towards which most governments are prone, to introduce too soon, to extend too far, to retain too long, so perilous a remedy. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the court of the constable and marshal, whose jurisdiction was considered as of a military nature, and whose proceedings were not according to the course of the common law, sometimes tried offenders by what was called martial law, but only, I believe, either during, or not long after, a serious rebellion. This tribunal fell into disuse under the Tudors. But Mary had executed some of those taken in Wyatt's insurrection without regular process, though their leader had his trial by a jury. Elizabeth, always hasty in passion and quick to punish, would have resorted to this summary course on a slighter occasion. One Pete Burchell, a fanatical puritan, and perhaps insane, conceiving that Sir Christopher Hatton was an enemy to true religion, determined to assassinate him. But by mistake he wounded instead a famous seaman, Captain Hawkins. For this ordinary crime, the queen could hardly be prevented from directing him to be tried instantly by martial law. Her council, however (and this it is important to observe), resisted this illegal proposition with spirit and success.[389] We have indeed a proclamation some years afterwards, declaring that such as brought into the kingdom or dispersed papal bulls, or traitorous libels against the queen, should with all severity be proceeded against by her majesty's lieutenants or their deputies, by martial law, and suffer such pains and penalties as they should inflict; and that none of her said lieutenants or their deputies be any wise impeached, in body, lands, or goods, at any time hereafter, for anything to be done or executed in the punishment of any such offender, according to the said martial law, and the tenor of this proclamation, any law or statute to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.[390] This measure, though by no means constitutional, finds an apology in the circumstances of the time. It bears date the 1st of July 1588, when within the lapse of a few days the vast armament of Spain might effect a landing upon our coasts; and prospectively to a crisis, when the nation, struggling for life against an invader's grasp, could not afford the protection of law to domestic traitors. But it is an unhappy consequence of all deviations from the even course of law, that the forced acts of over-ruling necessity come to be distorted into precedents to serve the purposes of arbitrary power.
Martial law.—No other measure of Elizabeth's reign can be compared, in point of violence and illegality, to a commission in July 1595, directed to Sir Thomas Wilford; whereby upon no other allegation than that there had been of late sundry great unlawful assemblies of a number of base people in riotous sort, both in the city of London and the suburbs, for the suppression whereof (for that the insolency of many desperate offenders is such, that they care not for any ordinary punishment by imprisonment), it was found necessary to have some such notable rebellious persons to be speedily suppressed by execution to death, according to the justice of martial law, he is appointed provost-marshal, with authority, on notice by the magistrates, to attach and seize such notable rebellious and incorrigible offenders, and in the presence of the magistrates to execute them openly on the gallows. The commission empowers him also "to repair to all common highways near to the city, which any vagrant persons do haunt, and, with the assistance of justices and constables, to apprehend all such vagrant and suspected persons, and them to deliver to the said justices, by them to be committed and examined of the causes of their wandering, and finding them notoriously culpable in their unlawful manner of life, as incorrigible, and so certified by the said justices, to cause to be executed upon the gallows or gibbet some of them that are so found most notorious and incorrigible offenders; and some such also of them as have manifestly broken the peace, since they have been adjudged and condemned to death for former offences, and had the queen's pardon for the same."[391]
This peremptory style of superseding the common law was a stretch of prerogative without an adequate parallel, so far as I know, in any former period. It is to be remarked, that no tumults had taken place of any political character or of serious importance, some riotous apprentices only having committed a few disorders.[392] But rather more than usual suspicion had been excited about the same time by the intrigues of the jesuits in favour of Spain, and the queen's advanced age had begun to renew men's doubts as to the succession. The rapid increase of London gave evident uneasiness, as the proclamations against new buildings show, to a very cautious administration, environed by bold and inveterate enemies, and entirely destitute of regular troops to withstand a sudden insurrection. Circumstances of which we are ignorant, I do not question, gave rise to this extraordinary commission. The executive government in modern times has been invested with a degree of coercive power to maintain obedience, of which our ancestors, in the most arbitrary reigns, had no practical experience. If we reflect upon the multitude of statutes enacted since the days of Elizabeth in order to restrain and suppress disorder, and above all on the prompt and certain aid that a disciplined army affords to our civil authorities, we may be inclined to think that it was rather the weakness than the vigour of her government which led to its inquisitorial watchfulness and harsh measures of prevention. We find in an earlier part of her reign an act of state somewhat of the same character, though not perhaps illegal. Letters were written to the sheriffs and justices of divers counties in 1569, directing them to apprehend, on a certain night, all vagabonds and idle persons having no master, nor means of living, and either to commit them to prison, or pass them to their proper homes. This was repeated several times; and no less than 13,000 persons were thus apprehended, chiefly in the north, which, as Strype says, very much broke the rebellion attempted in that year.[393]
Amidst so many infringements of the freedom of commerce, and with so precarious an enjoyment of personal liberty, the English subject continued to pride himself in his immunity from taxation without consent of parliament. This privilege he had asserted, though not with constant success, against the rapacity of Henry VII. and the violence of his son. Nor was it ever disputed in theory by Elizabeth. She retained, indeed, notwithstanding the complaints of the merchants at her accession, a custom upon cloths, arbitrarily imposed by her sister, and laid one herself upon sweet wines. But she made no attempt at levying internal taxes, except that the clergy were called upon, in 1586, for an aid not granted in convocation, but assessed by the archdeacon according to the value of their benefices; to which they naturally showed no little reluctance.[394] By dint of singular frugality she continued to steer the true course, so as to keep her popularity undiminished and her prerogative unimpaired; asking very little of her subjects' money in parliaments, and being hence enabled both to have long breathing times between their sessions, and to meet them without coaxing or wrangling; till, in the latter years of her reign, a foreign war and a rebellion in Ireland, joined to a rapid depreciation in the value of money, rendered her demands somewhat higher. But she did not abstain from the ancient practice of sending privy-seals to borrow money of the wealthy.
Loans of money not quite voluntary.—These were not considered as illegal, though plainly forbidden by the statute of Richard III.; for it was the fashion to set aside the authority of that act, as having been passed by an usurper. It is impossible to doubt that such loans were so far obtained by compulsion, that any gentleman or citizen of sufficient ability refusing compliance would have discovered that it were far better to part with his money than to incur the council's displeasure. We have indeed a letter from a lord mayor to the council informing them that he had committed to prison some citizens for refusing to pay the money demanded of them.[395] But the queen seems to have been punctual in their speedy repayment according to stipulation; a virtue somewhat unusual with royal debtors. Thus we find a proclamation in 1571, that such as had lent the queen money in the last summer should receive repayment in November and December.[396] Such loans were but an anticipation of her regular revenue, and no great hardship on rich merchants; who, if they got no interest for their money, were recompensed with knighthoods and gracious words. And as Elizabeth incurred no debt till near the conclusion of her reign, it is probable that she never had borrowed more than she was sure to repay.
A letter quoted by Hume from Lord Burleigh's papers, though not written by him, as the historian asserts, and somewhat obscure in its purport, appears to warrant the conclusion that he had revolved in his mind some project of raising money by a general contribution or benevolence from persons of ability, without purpose of repayment. This was also amidst the difficulties of the year 1569, when Cecil perhaps might be afraid of meeting parliament, on account of the factions leagued against himself. But as nothing further was done in this matter, we must presume that he perceived the impracticability of so unconstitutional a scheme.[397]
Character of Lord Burleigh's administration.—Those whose curiosity has led them to somewhat more acquaintance with the details of English history under Elizabeth than the pages of Camden or Hume will afford, cannot but have been struck with the perpetual interference of men in power with matters of private concern. I am far from pretending to know how far the solicitations for a prime minister's aid and influence may extend at present. Yet one may think that he would hardly be employed, like Cecil, where he had no personal connection, in reconciling family quarrels, interceding with a landlord for his tenant, or persuading a rich citizen to bestow his daughter on a young lord. We are sure, at least, that he would not use the air of authority upon such occasions. The vast collection of Lord Burleigh's letters in the Museum is full of such petty matters, too insignificant, for the most part, to be mentioned even by Strype.[398] They exhibit, however, collectively, a curious view of the manner in which England was managed, as if it had been the household and estate of a nobleman under a strict and prying steward. We are told that the relaxation of this minister's mind was to study the state of England and the pedigrees of its nobility and gentry: of these last he drew whole books with his own hands; so that he was better versed in descents and families than most of the heralds, and would often surprise persons of distinction at his table by appearing better acquainted with their manors, parks, and woods, than themselves.[399] Such knowledge was not sought by the crafty Cecil for mere diversion's sake. It was a main part of his system to keep alive in the English gentry a persuasion that his eye was upon them. No minister was ever more exempt from that false security which is the usual weakness of a court. His failing was rather a bias towards suspicion and timidity; there were times, at least, in which his strength of mind seems to have almost deserted him, through sense of the perils of his sovereign and country. But those perils appear less to us, who know how the vessel outrode them, than they could do to one harassed by continual informations of those numerous spies whom he employed both at home and abroad. The one word of Burleigh's policy was prevention; and this was dictated by a consciousness of wanting an armed force or money to support it, as well as by some uncertainty as to the public spirit, in respect at least of religion. But a government that directs its chief attention to prevent offences against itself, is in its very nature incompatible with that absence of restraint, that immunity from suspicion, in which civil liberty, as a tangible possession, may be said to consist. It appears probable, that Elizabeth's administration carried too far, even as a matter of policy, this precautionary system upon which they founded the penal code against popery; and we may surely point to a contrast very advantageous to our modern constitution, in the lenient treatment which the Jacobite faction experienced from the princes of the house of Hanover. She reigned however in a period of real difficulty and danger. At such seasons, few ministers will abstain from arbitrary actions, except those who are not strong enough to practise them.
Disposition of the House of Commons.—I have traced, in another work, the acquisition by the House of Commons of a practical right to enquire into and advise upon the public administration of affairs, during the reigns of Edward III., Richard II., and the princes of the line of Lancaster. This energy of parliament was quelled by the civil wars of the fifteenth century; and, whatever may have passed in debates within its walls that have not been preserved, did not often display itself in any overt act under the first Tudors. To grant subsidies which could not be raised by any other course, to propose statutes which were not binding without their consent, to consider of public grievances, and procure their redress, either by law or petition to the Crown, were their acknowledged constitutional privileges, which no sovereign or minister ever pretended to deny. For this end liberty of speech and free access to the royal person were claimed by the speaker as customary privileges (though not quite, in his modern language, as undoubted rights), at the commencement of every parliament. But the House of Commons in Elizabeth's reign contained men of a bold and steady patriotism, well read in the laws and records of old time, sensible to the dangers of their country and abuses of government, and conscious that it was their privilege and their duty to watch over the common weal. This led to several conflicts between the crown and parliament; wherein, if the former often asserted the victory, the latter sometimes kept the field, and was left on the whole a gainer at the close of the campaign.
It would surely be erroneous to conceive, that many acts of government in the four preceding reigns had not appeared at the time arbitrary and unconstitutional. If indeed we are not mistaken in judging them according to the ancient law, they must have been viewed in the same light by contemporaries, who were full as able to try them by that standard. But, to repeat what I have once before said, the extant documents from which we draw our knowledge of constitutional history under those reigns are so scanty, that instances even of a successful parliamentary resistance to measures of the Crown may have left no memorial. The debates of parliament are not preserved, and very little is to be gained from such histories as the age produced. The complete barrenness indeed of Elizabeth's chroniclers, Holingshed and Thin, as to every parliamentary or constitutional information, speaks of itself the jealous tone of her administration. Camden, writing to the next generation, though far from an ingenuous historian, is somewhat less under restraint. This forced silence of history is much more to be suspected after the use of printing and the reformation, than in the ages when monks compiled annals in their convents, reckless of the censure of courts, because independent of their permission. Grosser ignorance of public transactions is undoubtedly found in the chronicles of the middle ages; but far less of that deliberate mendacity, or of that insidious suppression, by which fear, and flattery, and hatred, and the thirst of gain, have, since the invention of printing, corrupted so much of historical literature throughout Europe. We begin however to find in Elizabeth's reign more copious and unquestionable documents for parliamentary history. The regular journals indeed are partly lost; nor would those which remain give us a sufficient insight into the spirit of parliament, without the aid of other sources. But a volume called Sir Simon D'Ewes's journal, part of which is copied from a manuscript of Heywood Townsend, a member of all parliaments from 1580 to 1601, contains minutes of the most interesting debates as well as transactions, and for the first time renders us acquainted with the names of those who swayed an English House of Commons.[400]
Addresses concerning the succession.—There was no peril more alarming to this kingdom during the queen's reign than the precariousness of her life—a thread whereon its tranquillity, if not its religion and independence, was suspended. Hence the Commons felt it an imperious duty not only to recommend her to marry, but, when this was delayed, to solicit that some limitations of the Crown might be enacted, in failure of her issue. The former request she evaded without ever manifesting much displeasure, though not sparing a hint that it was a little beyond the province of parliament. Upon the last occasion, indeed, that it was preferred, namely, by the speaker in 1575, she gave what from any other woman must have appeared an assent, and almost a promise. But about declaring the succession she was always very sensible. Through a policy not perhaps entirely selfish, and certainly not erroneous on selfish principles, she was determined never to pronounce among the possible competitors for the throne. Least of all could she brook the intermeddling of parliament in such a concern. The Commons first took up this business in 1562, when there had begun to be much debate in the nation about the opposite titles of the Queen of Scots and Lady Catherine Grey; and especially in consequence of a dangerous sickness the queen had just experienced, and which is said to have been the cause of summoning parliament. Their language is wary, praying her only by "proclamation of certainty already provided, if any such be," alluding to the will of Henry VIII., "or else by limitations of certainty, if none be, to provide a most gracious remedy in this great necessity;"[401] offering at the same time to concur in provisions to guarantee her personal safety against any one who might be limited in remainder. Elizabeth gave them a tolerably courteous answer, though not without some intimation of her dislike to this address.[402] But at their next meeting, which was not till 1566, the hope of her own marriage having grown fainter, and the circumstances of the kingdom still more powerfully demanding some security, both houses of parliament united, with a boldness of which there had perhaps been no example for more than a hundred years, to overcome her repugnance. Some of her own council among the peers are said to have asserted in their places that the queen ought to be obliged to take a husband, or that a successor should be declared by parliament against her will. She was charged with a disregard to the state and to posterity. She would prove, in the uncourtly phrase of some sturdy members of the lower house, a step-mother to her country, as being seemingly desirous that England, which lived as it were in her, should rather expire with than survive her; that kings can only gain the affections of their subjects by providing for their welfare both while they live and after their deaths; nor did any but princes hated by their subjects, or faint-hearted women, ever stand in fear of their successors.[403] But this great princess wanted not skill and courage to resist this unusual importunity of parliament. The peers, who had forgotten their customary respectfulness, were excluded the presence-chamber till they made their submission. She prevailed on the Commons, through her ministers who sat there, to join a request for her marriage with the more unpalatable alternative of naming her successor; and when this request was presented, gave them fair words, and a sort of assurance that their desires should by some means be fulfilled.[404] When they continued to dwell on the same topic in their speeches, she sent messages through her ministers, and at length a positive injunction through the speaker, that they should proceed no further in the business. The house however was not in a temper for such ready acquiescence as it sometimes displayed. Paul Wentworth, a bold and plain-spoken man, moved to know whether the queen's command and inhibition that they should no longer dispute of the matter of succession, were not against their liberties and privileges. This caused, as we are told, long debates; which do not appear to have terminated in any resolution.[405] But, more probably having passed than we know at present, the queen, whose haughty temper and tenaciousness of prerogative were always within check of her discretion, several days after announced through the speaker, that she revoked her two former commandments; "which revocation," says the journal, "was taken by the house most joyfully, with hearty prayer and thanks for the same." At the dissolution of this parliament, which was perhaps determined upon in consequence of their steadiness, Elizabeth alluded in addressing them with no small bitterness to what had occurred.[406]
This is the most serious disagreement on record between the Crown and the Commons since the days of Richard II. and Henry IV. Doubtless the queen's indignation was excited by the nature of the subject her parliament ventured to discuss, still more than by her general disapprobation of their interference in matters of state. It was an endeavour to penetrate the great secret of her reign, in preserving which she conceived her peace, dignity, and personal safety to be bound up. There were, in her opinion, as she intimates in her speech at closing the session, some underhand movers of this intrigue (whether of the Scots or Suffolk faction does not appear), who were more to blame than even the speakers in parliament. And if, as Cecil seems justly to have thought, no limitations of the Crown could at that time have been effected without much peril and inconvenience, we may find some apology for her warmth about their precipitation in a business, which, even according to our present constitutional usage, it would naturally be for the government to bring forward. It is to be collected from Wentworth's motion, that to deliberate on subjects affecting the commonwealth was reckoned, by at least a large part of the House of Commons, one of their ancient privileges and liberties. This was not one which Elizabeth, however she had yielded for the moment in revoking her prohibition, ever designed to concede to them. Such was her frugality, that, although she had remitted a subsidy granted in this session, alleging the very honourable reason that, knowing it to have been voted in expectation of some settlement of the succession, she would not accept it when that implied condition had not been fulfilled, she was able to pass five years without again convoking her people.
Session of 1571.—A parliament met in April 1571, when the lord keeper Bacon,[407] in answer to the speaker's customary request for freedom of speech in the Commons, said that "her majesty having experience of late of some disorder and certain offences, which, though they were not punished, yet were they offences still, and so must be accounted, they would therefore do well to meddle with no matters of state, but such as should be propounded unto them, and to occupy themselves in other matters concerning the commonwealth."
Influence of the puritans in parliament.—The Commons so far attended to this intimation, that no proceedings about the succession appear to have taken place in this parliament, except such as were calculated to gratify the queen. We may perhaps except a bill attainting the Queen of Scots, which was rejected in the upper house. But they entered for the first time on a new topic, which did not cease for the rest of this reign to furnish matter of contention with their sovereign. The party called puritan, including such as charged abuses on the actual government of the church, as well as those who objected to part of its lawful discipline, had, not a little in consequence of the absolute exclusion of the catholic gentry, obtained a very considerable strength in the Commons. But the queen valued her ecclesiastical supremacy more than any part of her prerogative. Next to the succession of the Crown, it was the point she could least endure to be touched. The house had indeed resolved, upon reading a bill the first time for reformation of the common prayer, that petition be made to the queen's majesty for her licence to proceed in it, before it should be further dealt in. But Strickland, who had proposed it, was sent for to the council, and restrained from appearing again in his place, though put under no confinement. This was noticed as an infringement of their liberties. The ministers endeavoured to excuse his detention, as not intended to lead to any severity, nor occasioned by anything spoken in that house, but on account of his introducing a bill against the prerogative of the queen, which was not to be tolerated. And instances were quoted of animadversion or speeches made in parliament. But Mr. Yelverton maintained that all matters not treasonable, nor too much to the derogation of the imperial Crown, were tolerable there, where all things came to be considered, and where there was such fulness of power as even the right of the Crown was to be determined, which it would be high treason to deny. Princes were to have their prerogatives, but yet to be confined within reasonable limits. The queen could not of herself make laws, neither could she break them. This was the true voice of English liberty, not so new to men's ears as Hume has imagined, though many there were who would not forfeit the court's favour by uttering it. Such speeches as the historian has quoted of Sir Humphry Gilbert, and many such may be found in the proceedings of this reign, are rather directed to intimidate the house by exaggerating their inability to contend with the Crown, than to prove the law of the land to be against them. In the present affair of Strickland, it became so evident that the Commons would at least address the queen to restore him, that she adopted the course her usual prudence indicated, and permitted his return to his house. But she took the reformation of ecclesiastical abuses out of their hands, sending word that she would have some articles for that purpose executed by the bishops under her royal supremacy, and not dealt in by parliament. This did not prevent the Commons from proceeding to send up some bills in the upper house, where, as was natural to expect, they fell to the ground.[408]
This session is also remarkable for the first marked complaints against some notorious abuses, which defaced the civil government of Elizabeth.[409] A member having rather prematurely suggested the offer of a subsidy, several complaints were made of irregular and oppressive practices, and Mr. Bell said, that licences granted by the Crown and other abuses galled the people, intimating also, that the subsidy should be accompanied by a redress of grievances.[410] This occasion of introducing the subject, though strictly constitutional, was likely to cause displeasure. The speaker informed them a few days after of a message from the queen to spend little time in motions, and make no long speeches.[411] And Bell, it appears, having been sent for by the council, came into the house "with such an amazed countenance, that it daunted all the rest," who for many days durst not enter on any matter of importance.[412] It became the common whisper, that no one must speak against licences, lest the queen and council should be angry. And at the close of the session, the lord keeper severely reprimanded those audacious, arrogant, and presumptuous members who had called her majesty's grants and prerogatives in question, meddling with matters neither pertaining to them, nor within the capacity of their understanding.[413]
The parliament of 1572 seemed to give evidence of their inheriting the spirit of the last by choosing Mr. Bell for their speaker.[414] But very little of it appeared in their proceedings. In their first short session, chiefly occupied by the business of the Queen of Scots, the most remarkable circumstances are the following. The Commons were desirous of absolutely excluding Mary from inheriting the crown, and even of taking away her life, and had prepared bills with this intent. But Elizabeth, constant to her mysterious policy, made one of her ministers inform them that she would neither have the Queen of Scots enabled nor disabled to succeed, and willed that the bill respecting her should be drawn by her council: and that, in the meantime, the house should not enter on any speeches or arguments on that matter.[415] Another circumstance worthy of note in this session is a signification, through the speaker, of her majesty's pleasure that no bills concerning religion should be received, unless they should be first considered and approved by the clergy, and requiring to see certain bills touching rites and ceremonies that had been read in the house. The bills were accordingly ordered to be delivered to her, with a humble prayer that, if she should dislike them, she would not conceive an ill opinion of the house, or of the parties by whom they were preferred.[416]
Speech of Mr. Wentworth in 1576.—The submissiveness of this parliament was doubtless owing to the queen's vigorous dealings with the last. At their next meeting, which was not till February 1575-6, Peter Wentworth, brother, I believe, of the person of that name before mentioned, broke out, in a speech of uncommon boldness, against her arbitrary encroachments on their privileges. The liberty of free speech, he said, had in the two last sessions been so many ways infringed, that they were in danger, while they contented themselves with the name, of losing and foregoing the thing. It was common for a rumour to spread through that house, "the queen likes or dislikes such a matter; beware what you do." Messages were even sometimes brought down, either commanding or inhibiting, very injurious to the liberty of debate. He instanced that in the last session, restraining the house from dealing in matters of religion; against which and against the prelates he inveighed with great acrimony. With still greater indignation he spoke of the queen's refusal to assent to the attainder of Mary, and after surprising the house by the bold words, "none is without fault, no not our noble queen, but has committed great and dangerous faults to herself," went on to tax her with ingratitude and unkindness to her subjects, in a strain perfectly free indeed from disaffection, but of more rude censure than any kings would put up with.[417]
This direct attack upon the sovereign, in matters relating to her public administration, seems no doubt unparliamentary; though neither the rules of parliament in this respect, nor even the constitutional principle, were so strictly understood as at present. But it was part of Elizabeth's character to render herself extremely prominent, and, as it were, responsible in public esteem, for every important measure of her government. It was difficult to consider a queen as acting merely by the advice of ministers, who protested in parliament that they had laboured in vain to bend her heart to their councils. The doctrine that some one must be responsible for every act of the Crown was yet perfectly unknown; and Elizabeth would have been the last to adopt a system so inglorious to monarchy. But Wentworth had gone to a length which alarmed the House of Commons. They judged it expedient to prevent an unpleasant interference by sequestering their member, and appointing a committee of all the privy counsellors in the house to examine him. Wentworth declined their authority, till they assured him that they sat as members of the Commons, and not as counsellors. After a long examination, in which he not only behaved with intrepidity, but, according to his own statement, reduced them to confess the truth of all he advanced, they made a report to the house, who committed him to the Tower. He had lain there a month when the queen sent word that she remitted her displeasure towards him, and referred his enlargement to the house, who released him upon a reprimand from the speaker, and an acknowledgment of his fault upon his knees.[418] In this commitment of Wentworth, it can hardly be said that there was anything, as to the main point, by which the house sacrificed its acknowledged privileges. In later instances, and even in the reign of George I., members have been committed for much less indecent reflections on the sovereign. The queen had no reason upon the whole to be ill-pleased with this parliament, nor was she in haste to dissolve it, though there was a long intermission of its sessions. The next was in 1581, when the chancellor, on confirming a new speaker, did not fail to admonish him that the House of Commons should not intermeddle in anything touching her majesty's person or estate, or church government. They were supposed to disobey this injunction and fell under the queen's displeasure, by appointing a public fast on their own authority, though to be enforced on none but themselves. This trifling resolution, which showed indeed a little of the puritan spirit, passed for an encroachment on the supremacy, and was only expiated by a humble apology.[419] It is not till the month of February 1587-8, that the zeal for ecclesiastical reformation overcame in some measure the terrors of power, but with no better success than before. A Mr. Cope offered to the house, we are informed, a bill and a book, the former annulling all laws respecting ecclesiastical government then in force, and establishing a certain new form of common prayer contained in the latter. The speaker interposed to prevent this bill from being read, on the ground that her majesty had commanded them not to meddle in this matter. Several members however spoke in favour of hearing it read, and the day passed in debate on this subject. Before they met again, the queen sent for the speaker, who delivered up to her the bill and book. Next time that the house sat, Mr. Wentworth insisted that some questions of his proposing should be read. These queries were to the following purport: Whether this council was not a place for any member of the same, freely and without control, by bill or speech, to utter any of the griefs of this commonwealth? Whether there be any council that can make, add, or diminish from the laws of the realm, but only this council of parliament? Whether it be not against the orders of this council to make any secret or matter of weight, which is here in hand, known to the prince or any other, without consent of the house? Whether the speaker may overrule the house in any matter or cause in question? Whether the prince and state can continue and stand, and be maintained without this council of parliament, not altering the government of the state? These questions Serjeant Pickering, the speaker, instead of reading them to the house, showed to a courtier, through whose means Wentworth was committed to the Tower. Mr. Cope, and those who had spoken in favour of his motion, underwent the same fate; and notwithstanding some notice taken of it in the house, it does not appear that they were set at liberty before its dissolution, which ensued in three weeks.[420] Yet the Commons were so set on displaying an ineffectual hankering after reform, that they appointed a committee to address the queen for a learned ministry.