The Constitutional History of England. Hallam Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ a vote that it should not pass till their list of grievances was ready to be presented. No notice was taken of these till the next session beginning in November 1606, when the king returned an answer to each of the sixteen articles in which matters of grievance were alleged. Of these the greater part refer to certain grants made to particular persons in the nature of monopolies; the king either defending these in his answer, or remitting the parties to the courts of law to try their legality.

      Union with Scotland debated.—The principal business of this third session, as it had been of the last, was James's favourite scheme of a perfect union between England and Scotland. It may be collected, though this was never explicitly brought forward, that his views extended to a legislative incorporation.507 But in all the speeches on this subject, and especially his own, there is a want of distinctness as to the object proposed. He dwells continually upon the advantage of unity of laws, yet extols those of England as the best, which the Scots, as was evident, had no inclination to adopt. Wherefore then was delay to be imputed to our English parliament, if it waited for that of the sister kingdom? And what steps were recommended towards this measure, that the Commons can be said to have declined, except only the naturalisation of the ante-nati, or Scots born before the king's accession to our throne, which could only have a temporary effect?508 Yet Hume, ever prone to eulogise this monarch at the expense of his people, while he bestows merited praise on his speech in favour of the union, which is upon the whole a well-written and judicious performance, charges the parliament with prejudice, reluctance, and obstinacy. The code, as it may be called, of international hostility, those numerous statutes treating the northern inhabitants of this island as foreigners and enemies, were entirely abrogated. And if the Commons, while both the theory of our own constitution was so unsettled and its practice so full of abuse, did not precipitately give in to schemes that might create still further difficulty in all questions between the Crown and themselves, schemes, too, which there was no imperious motive for carrying into effect at that juncture, we may justly consider it as an additional proof of their wisdom and public spirit. Their slow progress however in this favourite measure, which, though they could not refuse to entertain it, they endeavoured to defeat by interposing delays and impediments, gave much offence to the king, which he expressed in a speech to the two houses, with the haughtiness, but not the dignity, of Elizabeth. He threatened them to live alternately in the two kingdoms, or to keep his court at York; and alluded, with peculiar acrimony, to certain speeches made in the house, wherein probably his own fame had not been spared.509 "I looked," he says, "for no such fruits at your hands, such personal discourses and speeches, which of all other, I looked you should avoid, as not beseeming the gravity of your assembly. I am your king; I am placed to govern you, and shall answer for your errors; I am a man of flesh and blood, and have my passions and affections as other men; I pray you, do not too far move me to do that which my power may tempt me unto."510

      Continual bickerings between the Crown and Commons.—It is most probable, as experience had shown, that such a demonstration of displeasure from Elizabeth would have ensured the repentant submission of the Commons. But within a few years of the most unbroken tranquillity, there had been one of those changes of popular feeling which a government is seldom observant enough to watch. Two springs had kept in play the machine of her administration, affection and fear; attachment arising from the sense of dangers endured, and glory achieved for her people, tempered, though not subdued, by the dread of her stern courage and vindictive rigour. For James not a particle of loyal affection lived in the hearts of the nation, while his easy and pusillanimous, though choleric disposition, had gradually diminished those sentiments of apprehension which royal frowns used to excite. The Commons, after some angry speeches, resolved to make known to the king through the speaker their desire, that he would listen to no private reports, but take his information of the house's meaning from themselves; that he would give leave to such persons as he had blamed for their speeches to clear themselves in his hearing; and that he would by some gracious message make known his intention that they should deliver their opinions with full liberty, and without fear. The speaker next day communicated a slight but civil answer he had received from the king, importing his wish to preserve their privileges, especially that of liberty of speech.511 This, however, did not prevent his sending a message a few days afterwards, commenting on their debates, and on some clauses they had introduced into the bill for the abolition of all hostile laws.512 And a petition having been prepared by a committee under the house's direction for better execution of the laws against recusants, the speaker, on its being moved that the petition be read, said that his majesty had taken notice of the petition as a thing belonging to himself, concerning which it was needless to press him. This interference provoked some members to resent it, as an infringement of their liberties. The speaker replied that there were many precedents in the late queen's time, where she had restrained the house from meddling in politics of divers kinds. This, as a matter of fact, was too notorious to be denied. A motion was made for a committee "to search for precedents of ancient as well as later times that do concern any messages from the sovereign magistrate, king or queen of this realm, touching petitions offered to the House of Commons." The king now interposed by a second message, that, though the petition were such as the like had not been read in the house, and contained matter whereof the house could not properly take knowledge, yet if they thought good to have it read, he was not against the reading. And the Commons were so well satisfied with this concession, that no further proceedings were had; and the petition, says the journal, was at length, with general liking, agreed to sleep. It contained some strong remonstrances against ecclesiastical abuses, and in favour of the deprived and silenced puritans, but such as the house had often before in various modes brought forward.513

      The ministry betrayed, in a still more pointed manner, their jealousy of any interference on the part of the Commons with the conduct of public affairs in a business of a different nature. The pacification concluded with Spain in 1604, very much against the general wish,514 had neither removed all grounds of dispute between the governments, nor allayed the dislike of the nations. Spain advanced in that age the most preposterous claims to an exclusive navigation beyond the tropic, and to the sole possession of the American continent; while the English merchants, mindful of the lucrative adventures of the queen's reign, could not be restrained from trespassing on the rich harvest of the Indies by contraband and sometimes piratical voyages. These conflicting interests led of course to mutual complaints of maritime tyranny and fraud; neither likely to be ill-founded, where the one party was as much distinguished for the despotic exercise of vast power, as the other by boldness and cupidity. It was the prevailing bias of the king's temper to keep on friendly terms with Spain, or rather to court her with undisguised and impolitic partiality.515 But this so much thwarted the prejudices of his subjects that no part perhaps of his administration had such a disadvantageous effect on his popularity. The merchants presented to the Commons, in this session of 1607, a petition upon the grievances they sustained from Spain, entering into such a detail of alleged cruelties as was likely to exasperate that assembly. Nothing however was done for a considerable time, when after receiving the report of a committee on the subject, the house prayed a conference with the Lords. They, who acted in this and the preceding session as the mere agents of government, intimated in their reply, that they thought it an unusual matter for the Commons to enter upon, and took time to consider about a conference. After some delay this was granted, and Sir Francis Bacon reported its result to the lower house. The Earl of Salisbury managed the conference on the part of the Lords. The tenor of his speech, as reported by Bacon, is very remarkable. After discussing the merits of the petition, and considerably extenuating the wrongs imputed to Spain, he adverted to the circumstance of its being presented to the Commons. The Crown of England was invested, he said, with an absolute power of peace and war; and inferred, from a series of precedents which he vouched, that petitions made in parliament, intermeddling with such matters, had gained little success; that great inconveniences must follow from the public debate of a king's designs, which, if they take wind, must be frustrated; and that if parliaments have ever been made acquainted with matter of peace or war in a general way, it was either when the king and council conceived that it was material to have some declaration of the zeal and affection of the people, or else when they needed money for the charge of a war, in which case they should be sure enough to hear of it; that the Lords would make a good construction of the Commons' desire, that it sprang from a forwardness to assist his majesty's future resolutions, СКАЧАТЬ