Without the first, each part would be at liberty to attempt HENRY VI. destroying the balance, by usurping or abusing power; but 1422-1461. without the last, there can be no balance at all. This may be illustrated by supposing a prince who claims and exercises a right of levying money without consent of parliament. He could not be opposed effectually, if the two Houses of Parliament had not a right to oppose him, to call his ministers to account, and to make him feel that, far from being absolute, he was under this constitutional dependency; but he would not be opposed at all, if the two Houses of Parliament were under his influence, and incapable of directing their proceedings independently of him.” 4. Borough Institutions. greater accuracy. In consequence of the increase of learning and the growing Municipal charimportance of citizens and burgesses, the municipal charters ters drawn with from 18 Henry VI. were, with a few exceptions, drawn with a degree of particularity, which had not previously existed, and those rights, such as the power of perpetual succession, -having a common name,-power of pleading and being impleaded by that name,—and the capacity of purchasing and possessing property, &c., which the citizens and burgesses had enjoyed at the common law, as incidental to the creation of a borough, were granted in express language, and those general terms by which the inhabitant householders of borough had been hitherto described, as "men," "burgesses, and, "commonalty," merged into that of "corporation," under every poration first a more specific name;-the designation of corporation never The name of corhaving previously to this period been applied to the borough adopted. institutions. tions unchanged. But in every other respect such institutions were un- Borough instituchanged, and all the inhabitant householders of every city and borough, exercised the parliamentary and municipal franchises, not as a matter of favour, but as a constitutional right, arising from their freedom by birth and their liability to the local burdens. Political depravity was not sufficiently matured to deprive them of these, their unquestionable legal birthrights. The municipal records of this period have been subsequently much erased, and essentially altered, in order to give Municipal realtered and cords essentially erased. HENRY VI. the sanctity of usage to modern usurpation': and the Paston 1422-1461. Letters evince the anxiety of all parties relative to the parlia Paston Letters. mentary elections, and the early interference of the peers of the realm, which circumstances show the increase of the authority of the commons, and the efforts made to influence their deliberations. 1 Additional MSS. Br. Museum, 6036, p. 19. Ib. 28 B. 6036-] Paston Letters, 98, 2; Ib. p. 103, 107, 122. M. and S. Hist. Boroughs, 229, et seq. 907. et in loc. passim. 1461-1483. CHAPTER V. THE LINE OF YORK. A.D. 1461-1485. EDWARD IV., March 4, A.D. 1461,-April 9, a.d. 1483. RICHARD III., June 26, A.D. 1483,—August 22, A.D. 1485. EDWARD IV. THE reigns of Edward IV., Edward V., and Richard III. do not present any essential change from that state of things which had characterized the reign of Henry VI. No essential change from that of the reign of Henry VI. 1483. It has, however, been justly observed', that the measures of parliament, during this age, furnish us with examples of a EDWARD V. strange contrast of freedom and servility. They scruple to grant, and sometimes refuse, to the king the smallest supplies, the most necessary for the support of government, even the most necessary for the maintenance of wars, for which the strange contrast nation, as well as the parliament itself, expressed great fondness: but they never scruple to concur in the most flagrant act of injustice or tyranny, which falls on any individual, RICHARDIII. however distinguished by birth or merit. Measures of parliament furnish examples of a of freedom, and servility. 1483-1485. These maxims, so ungenerous, so opposite to all principles of good government, so contrary to the practice of present parliaments, are very remarkable in all the transactions of the English history, for more than a century after the period in which we are now engaged. 1 3 Hume, 263. |