MARY. 1553-1558. verned as if it that no esta tion existed. "It having now become expedient that the Church should use her rights," surprise cannot be excited, that Mary, as a practical proof of the sincerity of her promises to the men of The country goSuffolk and to the privy council, should, the moment she was had been recently established upon the throne, regulate her administration as if conquered, and the country had been recently conquered, and that no established constitu blished constitution existed, and that such statutes as interfered with the ascendancy, should be treated as null and void. Thus the queen, by her edict, in the month of October, presented to two hundred and fifty-six livings, restoring all those turned out under the Acts of Uniformity; the Latin Liturgy was restored; and the married clergy expelled from their livings; Protestant ministers, for no other crime than their religion, were incarcerated in prison; the bishopric of Durham, which had been dissolved by statute, was erected anew by letters patent "; and as illustrative of the prostrate spirit of the nation, a proclamation was issued in this reign, which, after forbidding the importation of heretical and treasonable publications, declares that whoever should be found possessed of such books should be reputed and taken for a rebel, and executed according to martial law 16:-in fact, Mary, believing it to be her duty, acted up to the worst principles of a tyrannical "dissenting sect," and boasted she was a virgin sent by God to ride and tame the people of England". 2. Interference by the Crown in Parliamentary Elections, and its Results. Mary "a virgin ride and tame the people of sent by God to England." The methods adopted by Mary to influence the parlia- Corruption of mentary elections, and to gain by corruption the members parliament. who were chosen, were carried on so openly, that the price for which each man sold himself was publicly known 1. Previous to the parliament of 1554, the queen directed a circular to the sheriffs, commanding them to admonish the 14 3 Strype, 50, 53. Carte, 290. Burnet, App. 257. Collier, 218. 364. 16 3 Strype, 459. 2 Burnet, 363. Heylin, 79. 4 Hume, 419. 17 Strype's Cranmer, 309. Southey's Book of the Church, 319. 1 2 Burnet, 262, 277. MARY. 1553-1558. Creation and restoration of boroughs. The peers in bers, by a partial nomination of abbots. electors to choose good Catholics and “inhabitants, as the old laws require';" and the Earl of Sussex, one of her miserable tools, wrote to the gentlemen of Norfolk, and to the burgesses of Yarmouth, requesting them to reserve their voices for the persons whom he should name. The crown, unconstitutionally to increase its influence, granted to ten boroughs the privilege of returning members of parliament, and restored two ancient boroughs; at the parliamentary elections, Protestants were driven away by violence; false returns operated to the exclusion of some; several of the most staunch Protestants were debarred the Lower House by force; and common justice was denied in Chancery to all but those who supported the infamy of the crown. In the Upper House the spiritual peers were changed, and creased in num- their number enlarged by a partial nomination of abbots, while the numerous places, &c., appear to have had a due effect upon the temporal in completing their apostacy3: but these methods, though they temporarily diverted the streams ofnational justice and pure religion, proved in the sequel like those dangerous medicines, which palliate the instant symptoms of a disease that they aggravate. Mass performed before both Houses. Statutes of Edward VI. relative to religion were repealed. It cannot therefore excite surprise, that, during this reign, a mass of the Holy Ghost, with the attendant ceremonies, was celebrated before two of the meanest houses of parliament that ever existed, in express violation of an act of parliament, which a great proportion of those who were then present had enacted*. The statutes of Edward VI., relative to religion, were repealed; the queen's marriage with Philip II. approved *; the sanguinary laws against heretics revived'; penal statutes against seditious words, and rumours; and to imagine or attempt the death of the "fond" Philip was made treason"; the tenths and first fruits were restored to the church, with all the impropriations which remained in the hands of the 2 3 Strype, 155. 2 Burnet, 228. 5 Lingard, 70. 33 Burnet, 453, et seq. 3 Strype, Eccles. Mem. 154, 155. 4 1 Brodie, crown 10; and all past and future sales and grants of crown lands were confirmed ". But base as the parliaments were, and utterly reckless of the lives of their countrymen, they did not entirely sacrifice "national independence;" and they refused to invest the queen with a power to dispose of the crown, and of appointing her successor 12; and the more effectually to destroy the ambition of Philip, they passed a law, by which it was declared, "that her majesty, as their only queen, should solely, and as a sole queen, enjoy the crown and sovereignty of her realms, with all the pre-eminences, dignities, and rights thereto belonging, in as large and ample a manner after her marriage as before, without any title or claim accruing to the Prince of Spain, either as tenant by courtesy of the realm, or by any other Neither could the queen prevail upon them to declare Philip presumptive heir of the crown,-to confide to him the administration of affairs,―to give their consent to his coronation',-nor obtain subsidies to support the Emperor Charles in his wars against France ". 13 " means 15 MARY. 1553-1558. Parliament re fused to invest the queen with power to dispose of the crown; or to declare tive heir of the crown, or to give his coronation. their consent to port the government in every quitous and accursed policy. Notwithstanding the " piety and charity" of the age, no concessions could be obtained in favour of Rome, till parliament received explicit assurances from the queen and pope, that the abbey and church lands should remain with the present possessors: and some other favourite measures of the The peers supcourt were rejected by the "commons 16," it being an extraordinary circumstance that, the peers supported the govern- stage of its iniment in every stage of its iniquitous and accursed policy ". The privileges of the commons, during this reign, are illustrated by one or two incidents. In 1555, several members being dissatisfied with the measures of parliament, and unable to prevent them, refused any longer to attend the house. For this contumacy they were, after the dissolution, indicted in the Queen's Bench. Six submitted to the mercy of the court, and paid their fines; the rest traversed, but the queen died before the question was brought to an issue. 10 Stat. 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 4. 11 4 Hume, 441. 5 Lingard, 107. 18 Stat. 1 Mary, Sess. III. c. 2. 15 4 Hume, 401, 402. 12 4 Hume, 395. 14 Baker, 322. Godwin, 348. 16 Heylin, 41. Carte, 311, 322. 5 Noailles, 252. 5 Lingard, 73. 17 1 Burnet, 190, 195, 215. 1 Hallam's Const. Hist. 59. 18 4 Inst. 17. 1 Strype's Mem. 165. 4 Hume, 403. Illustration of parliament. the privileges of S MARY. 1553-1558. Members of par liament com dom of speech. Judging of the matter by the subsequent claims of the House of Commons, and by the principles of free government, this attempt of the crown was a breach of privilege; but it gave little umbrage, and was not called in question during this reign ". Freedom of speech was also punished: the queen, accordmitted for free- ing to the statement of the Count of Noailles, committed several members to prison upon that account 20; and when a member of the name of Copley was committed by the house for "irreverent words of her majesty," he was not released till the queen was applied to for his pardon "1. Enactments of popular statutes. A jury, com menced to be an effective tribunal of Edward VI. and Mary. 21 3. Popular Statutes; and Trial by Jury. Popular statutes were passed, by which every species of treason not contained in Stat. 25 Edward III., Stat. 5, c. 2, and every species of felony appointed to be within the case of pramunire, that did not subsist before the accession of Henry VIII., were abolished'; but many clauses of the recent "Riot Act" were revived for religious persecution, and the clause of Stat. 5 and 6 Edward VI., c. 11, became repealed which required the confronting of two witnesses, in order to prove any treason. The reigns of Edward VI. and Mary constitute the period when a jury commenced to be a fair and effective tribunal, by during the reigns Occasionally assuming the right of judging for itself; and when persons whose fate was to be determined by their verdict, reposed a degree of confidence in their integrity. In the case of Sir N. Throckmorton, the jury, with a spirit of independence superior to that of the two estates of the legislature, persisted in acquitting a state prisoner against the direction of the court, and the expressed wishes of the sovereign3. 19 4 Hume, 403, 404. 20 5 Dep. de Noail. 247, 296. 1 Burnet, 324. 21 4 Hume, 442. 1 Stat. 1 Mary, Sess. I. c. 1. Stat. 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, c. 10. Vide ante 111. 2 4 Hume, 379. 5 Lingard, 34, 35. 3 Hollins. 1126. 1 State Trials, 369-900. 5 Lingard, 55, 56. The virulence of the prosecutors did not end here: the Attorney General, after the acquittal, prayed the court that the jury might be bound in recognizances to answer for their verdict. They were soon after fined and imprisoned by a sentence in the Star Chamber ;-they were to pay one hundred marks a piece, and to be imprisoned till further order. It was some months before they were released, and then not without paying different compositions, according to the value of their effects; which had, 4. Municipal Institutions. From the Patent Rolls, it appears that Mary granted no less than forty-seven municipal charters; but none of these charters gave any franchises, except such as the crown had the constitutional power to grant. The improper interference with the parliamentary and municipal rights of election, was not directly effected by the charters of the crown, or, generally speaking, by the acts of the sovereigns who granted charters of that description, but resulted from the chicanery and sophistry of those who were from time to time desirous, from selfish interests, of perverting the borough rights, and whose efforts for that object were too often rendered effectual by the decisions of the House of Commons and the courts of law. The charters of Mary were, in general, expressly granted to the "inhabitants," but in none of them is any mode provided of nominating, making, or admitting burgesses or citizens. citizens were the Either, therefore, the burgesses or citizens must be the Burgesses and "inhabitants" at large, without any restriction, selection, inhabitant houseor previous admission, or they must be the resiants presented, holders. admitted, and enrolled at the court leet. The first is too undefined to be the acknowledged mode of acquiring burgessship; and no trace of such a state of things is to be found in our law, or to be deduced from any of our institutions. The latter mode of selecting some of the inhabitants,-of pointing out a defined and recognised body,-actually existed. There was a court leet, and at that court any inhabitant householder, paying scot and lot, ought, as a resiant, to have been admitted and sworn; and there must have been a suit roll, upon which all the resiants, who had been presented as such by the jury, ought to have beeen enrolled. Such a body has never been recognised by our laws: and the only question remains, were they the burgesses?-if they were not, who were?—what other legal mode of admitting burgesses was ever in the mean time, been all inventoried and appraised by the sheriff for the purpose. (1 State Trials, 78.) Such was the security which might be reposed in this boasted privilege of trial by a jury of equals; and such the perils under which a jury exercised its own judgment, in opposition to the inclinations of the sovereign. During the reign of the Star Chamber, the persons of jurors were no more exempted from penal sentences than those of private individuals; everything was reduced to the same level of subordination.-4 Reeves, 563, 564. |