Richard's views of sacredness of king ship and are bound to maintain the rights of his Crown. The same idea comes out in the speech of the Chancellor at the re-assembling of Parliament at Shrewsbury; the object of meeting, he says, is to see that there be not several sovereigns in the kingdom, but one only1. All this is on exactly the same lines, as the anti-papal arguments of Ockham and others, to prove the omnipotence of the sovereign authority from the necessity of unity in the state. It may be noticed, that in making Parliament the instrument of the destruction of its own liberties, Richard set the precedent, afterwards followed with better success by Henry VIII. The general pardon which he granted to his subjects', is an exact parallel to the famous pardon of the whole realm by Henry VIII. for its breach of the Statute of Praemunire. Richard appears also to have been the first king, who saw the advantage of manipulating Parliament; he is accused of packing the House with his own nominees and of bribing members3. Walsingham tells us that after this act the sheriffs throughout the kingdom were compelled to take new and unaccustomed oaths, that they would of unction. obey the king's commands whether signified under the Great Seal, the Privy Seal, or even the Signet". That Richard was standing up for what he believed 1 Rot. Parl. III. 357. 2 21 Ric. II. c. 20: the Bishop of Exeter declares the granting of this pardon to be one of the chief grounds of the summoning of Parliament. 3 Articles of Deposition, c. 19. 4 Walsingham, II. 231; Articles of Deposition, c. 20. to be a principle seems proved by his repeatedly declaring during his troubles, that his wretched condition was an outrage on all kings, and would bring royalty into dishonour'. We know, that until the day of his death he regarded himself as king by virtue of unction, despite his deposition, that he regarded this ceremony as conferring a sacramental grace, and that he directed in his will, that he should receive a royal funeral. It seems clear, then, that ideas, originally framed into a system of defence against the Papacy, found expression in a doctrine of absolute monarchy held by a self-willed English king, and of the divine origin of kingship as evidenced by the custom of hereditary succession and by the indelible character of unction. a For the position of Richard as king was itself strong proof of the progress of the idea that in 1 "Ce sera pour lui [le roi de France] grant vitupere, Voire et pour tous les royz qui nez de mere Sont au jourduy; Veu loultrage et le tresgrant ennuy, La povrete et le point ou je suy." (Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre Richard: Archaeol. There is much more in the same strain. In speaking of Bolingbroke Richard is made to say: "Tous ceulx seront ses ennemis Qui aymeront honneur, loyaute, pris * Walsingham, II. 240. The king had wished to be a second time anointed, with oil from the Holy Land. It was used for Henry IV.; Richard speaks of himself as unworthy tam nobile sacramentum. That he desired the ceremony of unction to be repeated is nothing against his regarding it as a sacrament, conferring a grace. His accession a proof of advance of herent birthright is the chief title to the regal ideas of primo- dignity. Like Arthur of Brittany, Richard was a geniture. boy when the throne became vacant; as in the case Appearance of doctrine of legitimism. of Arthur, his father had not himself worn the Crown; while, in both cases, there was living an uncle ambitious and unscrupulous, and one of the most powerful men in the country. Yet while in the twelfth century, the uncle succeeded and the principle of an elective monarchy was affirmed; in the fourteenth, there is no question about the nephew's succession; the principle of representative primogeniture has triumphed. Lastly, the speech of the Bishop of Carlisle, which is familiar to us from Shakespeare's version', is evidence that the doctrines of unlimited obedience, and of legitimism are becoming popular, and that the new dynasty which bases itself on the rights of the nation and the choice of Parliament will have to encounter an opposition grounded upon the claims of hereditary right and upon the iniquity of rebellion". 1 King Richard II. Act Iv. Sc. 1, 11. 114-149. Shakespeare, who changes the circumstances, took the speech from Holinshed, who got it from Hall. The latter apparently found it in Lystoire de la traison et mort du roy Richart dengleterre. (English Historical Society's Edition, pp. 70, 1.) Cf. also the speech of the Earl of Warwick in 1386. (Higden, ix. 110.) 2 The proclamation of the French king against the usurper is further evidence of this. Lystoire de la traison, Appendix H. CHAPTER V. KINGSHIP IN ENGLAND FROM HENRY IV. TO ELIZABETH. volution THE claims of Richard II. to found a despotism Constituwere repudiated by the nation. The Revolution of tional Re1399 is an assertion of the right of Englishmen to of 1399. constitutional government. The articles of deposition in which the charges against Richard are set forth, contain or imply a theory of constitutionalism as uncompromising as the absolutist doctrine of the king. Nor was this all. In elevating Henry of Bolingbroke to the throne the English nobles passed over the nearest heir, and asserted the right of Parliament to elect the fittest person from within the royal family. Yet the position is not quite clear. Henry paid homage to the principle of legitimism by his claim to be the nearest heir to Henry III. The fiction was transparent enough; no one believed Henry's Henry's ancestor Edmund Crouchback to have been claim to hereditary older than his brother Edward I. Yet the more right ridiculous the fable appears, the stronger is the evidence it affords of the hold upon the minds of sentiment. Englishmen of the principle of strict hereditary succession. Men will not bolster up a claim by a evidence of popular seen in transparent falsehood, save to satisfy some really existing sentiment. However, constitutionalism triumphed for a time, and the theory of government propounded by an English lawyer1 at the close of the period is as emphatic in its repudiation of despotism and preference for 'mixed monarchy,' as were the doctrines of Wycliffe and Richard II. upon the other side. Yet the new dynasty was a failure; strong government was needed, and the country 'perishing for lack of it" called the legitimate line to its assistance'. It is as a reformer, not as a pretender, that Richard Duke of York first comes into prominence. Yet it was only owing to his position hereditary as the legitimate heir of Edward III. that he gained right a the leadership of the reforming party. From the doctrine. position of popular leader clamouring for good go **** Indefeasible Yorkist vernment he quickly passes to that of the dispossessed heir demanding his rights. It is now that the notion of indefeasible hereditary right first appears in English history. On no theory of the 1 Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliae (1468-70); The Governance of England (1471-6). Accounts of Fortescue's theory are given by Mr Plummer in his introduction to the latter and by Dr Stubbs, Constitutional History, § 365. 2 Ibid. § 372. Parliament thus sums up the grievances of the nation under the Lancastrian dynasty, "In whose [Henry's] time not plenty, peace, justice, good governance, policy, and virtuous conversation, but unrest, inward war and trouble, unrighteousness, shedding and effusion of innocent blood, abusion of the laws, partiality, riot, extortion, murder, rape and vicious living have been the guides and leaders of this noble realm of England." Rot. Parl. v. 464. 3 It is an extension to the succession of the doctrine Nullum tempus occurrit regi. Some of the arguments employed are noticeable: The Duke of York answers the objection raised |