House and other members." The result of the examination, which took place in the Star Chamber, was that the unlucky orator was by order of the House committed close prisoner to the Tower; where after he had lain for above a month her Majesty sent to acquaint the House that "she was graciously pleased to remit her justly occasioned displeasure," and to consent that the offender should be released; "which message," we are told, "was most thankfully accepted of by the whole House," the subservient spirit of which was at the same time soothed and gratified by a declamation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in infinite laudation of her Majesty's clemency and goodness. “Let this serve us for an example," concluded the right honourable member, "to beware that we offend not in the like hereafter, lest that, in forgetting our duties so far, we may give just cause to our gracious sovereign to think that this her clemency hath given occasion of further boldness, and thereby so much grieve and provoke her, as, contrary to her most gracious and mild consideration, she be constrained to change her natural clemency into necessary and just severity.”

After this there was no meeting of the legislature for five years; but at last the same parliament was called together again in January, 1580, after no fewer than twenty-four prorogations. The Wentworths however were still at their post; and now Paul got up and moved, on a Saturday forenoon, that Sunday se'nnight should be kept by the whole House as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, in the Temple Church, and also that the members should every morning by way of preparation for business assemble at seven o'clock to hear a sermon. The motion gave rise to a long and warm debate, but in the end it was carried by a majority of a hundred and fifteen to a hundred. No sooner, however, was her Majesty acquainted with what had been resolved upon than she sent down her vice-chamberlain, Sir Christopher Hatton, with a message, "That she did much admire at so great a rashness in that House, as to put in execution such an innovation without her privity and pleasure first made known to them;" upon which, struck with consternation, the members, refusing in their hurry and terror even to hear one or two of their number who professed a desire to speak for their rights and liberties, hastened to agree to a motion "that the House should acknowledge their offence and contempt, and humbly crave forgiveness, with a full purpose to forbear committing the like for the future." It is strange to see how prone they were to fall into such blunders, or to rush into such perils, with so little pluck as they showed whenever they heard their mistress's threatening growl, or perceived her finger lifted at them. In 1588, in another parliament, one of the Wentworths, it is not stated which, was, for merely submitting some questions to the chair touching the right of the House to liberty of speech, sent a prisoner to the Tower by her Majesty's order; and four other members, who had spoken in favour of a bill lately brought in for an alteration of the liturgy, were the next day sent after him to the same place. The utmost length that the boldest of those left behind ventured upon this occasion was to move that, since several good and necessary members of that House were taken from them, it would please them to be humble petitioners to her Majesty for the restitution of them again to the House." But even this was thought too much: Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, we are told, answered, that if the gentlemen were committed for matter within the compass of the privilege of the House, there might

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be room for a petition; "but if not," he added, "we shall occasion her Majesty's further displeasure." So the five members remained in durance till her Majesty's vengeance was satisfied, or she deemed they had had a lesson they would sufficiently remember. At the opening of the parliament which met in February, 1593, the Lord Keeper, in replying to the usual demand or petition of the Speaker for liberty of speech to the members of the Lower House, said, in the name of the Queen, “Privilege of speech is granted, but you must know what privilege you have; not to speak every one what he listeth, or what cometh in his brain to utter; but your privilege is, Aye or No. Wherefore, Mr. Speaker, her Majesty's pleasure is, that, if you perceive any idle heads, which will not stick to hazard their own estates, which will meddle with reforming the Church and transforming the Commonwealth, and do exhibit any bills to such purpose, that you receive them not, until they be viewed and considered by those who it is fitter should consider of such things, and can better judge of them." Notwithstanding this hint, two days after, the incorrigible Mr. Peter Wentworth and Sir Henry Bromley are found presenting a petition, from the Commons apparently, to the Lord Keeper, "therein desiring the Lords of the Upper House to be suppliant with them of the Lower House unto her Majesty for entailing the succession of the crown, whereof a bill was ready drawn by them." The consequence was that by the Queen's orders the two members were on the next day, which chanced to be Sunday, called before the council, by whom they were informed "that her Majesty was so highly offended that they must needs commit them;" and Wentworth was accordingly forthwith sent back to his old quarters in the Tower, and Bromley, together with two other members, Stephens and Welch, who also appeared to be concerned in the business, to the Fleet. No notice was taken of the matter till more than a fortnight after, when at last a Mr. Wroth, while the House was discussing a subsidy bill, ventured to move, "That in respect that some counties might complain of the tax of these many subsidies, their knights and burgesses never consenting unto them, nor being present at the grant, and because an instrument, taking away some of its strings, cannot give a pleasant sound, he therefore desired that we might be humble and earnest suitors to her Majesty that she would be pleased to set at liberty those members of the House that were restrained." But Mr. Wroth's gentle words and insinuating metaphors wholly failed to charm the adder: all the privy counsellors in the House, we are told, joined in answering, "that her Majesty had committed them for causes best known to herself; and for us to press her Majesty with this suit, we should but hinder them whose good we seek ; and it is not to be doubted but her Majesty, of her gracious disposition, will shortly of herself yield to them that which we would ask for them, and it will like her better to have it left unto herself than sought by us." Hatscll, who labours hard to put the best face upon the pusillanimity of the Commons throughout this reign, is reluctantly obliged to add in conclusion that "with these assurances the House acquiesced; and, though they continued sitting above a month, it does not appear from any circumstances that these gentlemen were ever released, or that any further motions were made about them."* We have no doubt, nevertheless, that Wentworth and his three friends were set at large

Precedents, I. 106 (second edition).

again after a little while; Elizabeth never allowed passion to carry her farther on these occasions than was necessary for attaining her end, which in this instance was to keep the Commons in proper discipline, and that was completely effected by the quiescent submission with which they had taken her exertion of authority, kissing, indeed, we may say, the rod that had chastised them.

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Only two days, however, after the committal of Wentworth and the other three members, her Majesty found herself again called upon to make her hand felt. A Mr. Morrice had brought in two bills touching the abuses of the ecclesiastical courts; the bills, it appears, though introduced by a speech from the mover, were not read, but only delivered to the Speaker for his private perusal; but Elizabeth upon hearing of what had been done immediately sent for that functionary; and the next morning, as soon as the House met, he gave his brethren an account of his interview with her Majesty, in a solemn oration. "The matter," he said, “I have to speak is great, yea, it is the greatest I ever had to deal in." He then told how greatly he had been alarmed when, upon finding himself in the royal presence, he saw none of those honourable persons who had been in the House when the matter was discussed; but much to his relief some of them ere long made their appearance. He seems to have dreaded above all things confronting the lioness alone in her den. Her Majesty charged him to deliver to the House a message, which is too long to be quoted in full; but the material part of it consisted in reminding the Commons of the declaration of her Majesty's pleasure, made by the Lord Keeper at the opening of the Parliament, that they "should not meddle with matters of state, or in causes ecclesiastical." 'She wondered," said the Speaker, "that any would be of so high commandment to attempt-I use her own words-a thing contrary to that which she hath so expressly forbidden; wherefore, with this she was highly displeased. And because the words then spoken by my Lord Keeper are not now perhaps well remembered, or some be now here that were not there, her Majesty's present charge and express command is, that no bills touching matters of state, or reformation in causes ecclesiastical, be exhibited. And upon my allegiance I am commanded, if any such bill be exhibited, not to read it." But this was not all; the mere injunction laid upon the Speaker not to suffer the reading of any objectionable bill would not have prevented the matter being brought before the House in speeches and motions; wherefore the same day Morrice, the mover of the present bill, was summoned to Court, and was committed to the custody of the Chancellor of the Exchequer rather an odd selection of a gaoler. But we see from this case what was Elizabeth's doctrine as to the proper functions and rights of parliament: she held that the Commons had nothing to do with any matters of either Church or State, or rather, indeed-for to that some of her expressions amount—that it belonged to the sovereign alone, when calling or opening the parliament, to say what business it should occupy itself about, and that it could take up no other question whatever except such as were laid out for it. And we see also how uniformly, notwithstanding the opposition of a few individuals, and sometimes, it may be, a little general restiveness at first, one House of Commons after another throughout her reign acquiesced in the end in this view of the constitution, and submitted to trot quietly along with the bit in its mouth and the saddle on its back.

When Elizabeth was succeeded by James, it was as if the crown had passed not from a woman to a man, but from a man to a woman-as if the kingdom were tombé en quenouille, as the French say. But he too attempted to ride the Commons in very high style. It appears that, immediately after the rising of parliament in June 1614, several members had been committed to prison for their language or conduct in the House; the matter was taken up in the next parliament, which assembled in January 1620, but it was allowed to drop on a message being brought to the House from the King, stating that his Majesty granted them liberty of speech in as ample manner as any of his predecessors had ever done, and that if any should speak undutifully (as he hoped none would) he did not doubt that they themselves would be more forward to inflict punishment than he to require it, and expressing a wish that the House would rest satisfied with this assurance. Yet a few days after the adjournment of the House, in June 1621, Sir Edwyn Sandys was taken up and sent to prison for something he had said in a recent debate, which was construed as slander on his Majesty's government. When the House met again in November, Sir Edwyn being still absent, a member, Mr. Mallory, moved to know "what was become of him ;" and the debate that arose, and which was renewed three days after, brought forward Mr. Secretary Calvert, who assured the House that he was not committed for anything said or done in parliament; "but," says the member by whom the debates of this parliament are reported, "the House will scarce believe Mr. Secretary, but thinketh he equivocateth." In this feeling, on the 1st of December it was ordered, that Sandys should be presently sent for to come and attend the service of the House if he were able, and if not, then to declare in writing whether he were examined or committed for any parliamentary business; and it was also resolved that a petition and remonstrance touching this and other grievances should be sent to his Majesty. But the petition had not yet been dispatched, when, on the 4th, there arrived from James, who was then at Newmarket, a letter beginning in the following lofty strain:-" Mr. Speaker, we have heard, by divers reports, to our great grief, that the far distance of our person at this time from our High Court of Parliament, caused by our want of health, hath emboldened some fiery and popular spirits in our House of Commons to debate and argue publicly on matters far beyond their reach or capacity, and so tending to our high dishonour, and to the trenching upon our prerogative royal." The letter went on to desire the Speaker to acquaint the House with his Majesty's pleasure that none therein should presume to meddle with anything concerning his Majesty's government or mysteries of state; and then, referring to the affair of Sandys, after affirming that he had not been committed for anything he had done or said in parliament, his Majesty proceeded :—" But, to put them out of doubt of any question of that nature that may arise among them hereafter, you shall resolve them, in our name, that we think ourself very free and able to punish any man's misdemeanours in parliament, as well during their sitting as after; which we mean not to spare hereafter, upon any occasion of any man's insolent behaviour there that shall be ministered unto us. And, if they have already touched any of those points which we have forbidden in any petition of theirs, which is to be sent unto us, it is our pleasure that you shall tell them, that, except they reform it before it comes to our hands, we will not

deign the hearing or answering of it." Upon this letter being read, orders were given to stay the messengers who were to carry the petition to the king; and a committee was appointed to draw up another petition and declaration, which was forwarded to his Majesty two days after. It drew from James a very long reply, in which, after rating the petitioners roundly both for their foolish conduct and their bad logic, he concluded:-" And, although we cannot allow of the style, calling it your ancient and undoubted right and inheritance, but could rather have wished that ye had said, that your privileges were derived from the grace and permission of our ancestors and us (for most of them grow from precedents, which shows rather a toleration than inheritance), yet we are pleased to give you our royal assurance, that, as long as you contain yourselves within the limits of your duty, we will be as careful to maintain and preserve your lawful liberties and privileges as ever any of our predecessors were, nay, as to preserve our own royal prerogative. So as your House shall only have need to beware to trench upon the prerogative of the Crown; which would enforce us, or any just king, to retrench them of their privileges that would pare his prerogative and flowers of the Crown." There was, it must be confessed, some colour for the view thus announced by James; but the frankness of some of his expressions was rather startling, and honourable members were thrown into no little excitement. How. ever, to wipe off the imputation of rashness, it was agreed that nothing should be done for a few days. On the 17th another letter arrived from James, professing to explain the former; but he did not retract a tittle of the doctrine he had therein advanced : "the plain truth is," reiterated his Majesty, "that we cannot with patience endure our subjects to use such antimonarchical words to us concerning their liberties, except they had subjoined, that they were granted unto them by the grace and favour of our predecessors." On the next day a select committee which had been appointed for the purpose presented to the House a protestation they had drawn up, which affirmed, "that the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England; and that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the King, state, and the defence of the realm and of the Church of England, and the making and maintenance of laws, and redress of mischiefs and grievances which daily happen within this realm, are proper jects and matter of counsel and debate in parliament; and that in the handling and proceeding of those businesses every member of the House hath and of right ought to have freedom of speech to propound, treat, reason, and bring to conclusion the same; . . . and that every such member of the said House hath like freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, or molestation (other than by censure of the House itself), for or concerning any bill, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters touching the parliament, or parliament business." The House, whose customary sittings were then in the morning, had assembled at the unusual hour of four in the afternoon to receive this paper; and, the Speaker being in the chair, it was now ordered to be entered on the Journal, there to remain as of record. "Accordingly," we are told, "it was so entered, sitting the House, between five and six of the clock at night, by candlelight." The Protestation is a distinct and energetic statement of rights now universally admitted to belong to the Commons; and it does honour to Coke,

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