There were some other topics in favour of prerogative, still more extravagant, advanced in the house this parliament. When the question of the subsidy was before them, Mr. serjeant Heyle said, Mr. Speaker, I marvel much that the house should stand upon granting of a subsidy or the time of payment, when all we have is her majesty's, and she may lawfully at her pleasure take it from us: yea, she hath as much right to all our lands and goods as to any revenue of her crown. At which all the house hemmed, and laughed, and talked. Well, quoth serjeant Heyle, all your hemIming shali not put me out of countenance. So Mr. Speaker stood up and said, It is a great disorder, that this house should be so used. So the said serjeant proIceeded, and when he had spoken a little while, the house hemmed again; and so he sat down. In his latter speech, he said, he could prove his former position by precedents in the time of Henry the Third, king John, king Stephen, &c., which was the occasion of their hemming. D'Ewes, p. 633. It is observable, that Heyle was an eminent lawyer, a man of character. Winwood, vol. i. p. 290. And though the house in general showed their disapprobation, no one cared to take him down, or oppose these monstrous positions. It was also asserted this session, that in the same manner as the Roman consul was possessed of the power of rejecting or admitting motions in the senate, the speaker might either admit or reject bills in the house. D'Ewes. p. 677. The house declared themselves against this opinion; but the very proposal of it is a proof at what a low ebb liberty was at that time in England.

In the year 1591, the judges made a solemn decree, that England was an absolute empire, of which the king was the head. In consequence of this opinion they determined that, even if the act of the first of Elizabeth had never been made, the king was supreme head of the church; and might have erected, by his prerogative, such a court as the ecclesiastical commission; for that he was the head of all his subjects. Now that court was plainly arbitrary: the inference is, that his power was equally absolute over the laity. See Coke's Reports, p. 5. Caudrey's case.

Note 4 U, p. 548.

We have remarked before, that Harrison, in book ii. chap. 11, says, that in the reign of Henry VIII. there were hanged seventy-two thousand thieves and rogues; (besides other malefactors;) this makes about two thousand a year: but in queen Elizabeth's time, the same author says, there were only between three and four hundred a year hanged for theft and robbery: so much had the times mended. But in our age there are not forty a year hanged for those crimes in all England. Yet Harrison complains of the relaxation of the laws, that there were so few such rogues punished in his time. Our vulgar prepossession in favour of the morals of former and rude ages is very absurd and ill grounded. The same author says, chap. 10, that there were computed to be ten thousand gipsies in England: a species of banditti introduced about the reign of Henry VIII.; and he adds, that there will be

Note 4 X, p. 551.

Harrison, in his Description of Britain, printed in 1577, has the following passage, chap. 13. “Certes, there is no prince in Europe that hath a more beautiful sort of ships than the queen's majesty of England at this present; and those generally are of such exceeding force, that two of them being well appointed and furnished as they ought, will not let to encounter with three or four of them of other countries, and either bowge them or put them to flight, if they may not bring them home. The queen's highness hath at this present already made and furnished to the number of one and twenty great ships, which lie for the most part in Gillingham road. Besides these, her grace hath other in hand also, of whom hereafter, as their turns do come about, I will not let to leave some further remembrance. She hath likewise three notable galleys, the Speedwell, the Tryeright, and the Black Galley; with the sight whereof, and the rest of the navy royal, it is incredible to say how marvellously her grace is delighted; and not without great cause, sith by their means her coasts are kept in quiet, and sundry foreign enemies put back, which otherwise would invade us." After speaking of the merchant-ships, which, he says, are commonly estimated at seventeen or eighteen hundred, he continues, "I add, therefore, to the end all men should understand somewhat of the great masses of treasure daily employed upon our navy, how there are few of those ships of the first and second sort, (that is, of the merchant-ships,) that being apparelled and made ready to sail, are not worth one thousand pounds, or three thousand ducats at the least, if they should presently be sold. What shall we then think of the navy-royal, of which some one vessel is worth two of the other, as the shipwright has often told me? It is possible that some covetous person, hearing this report, will either not credit at all, or suppose money so employed to be nothing profitable to the queen's coffers, as a good husband said once, when he heard that provisions should be made for armour, wishing the queen's money to be rather laid out to some speedier return of gain unto her grace: but if he wist that the good keeping of the sea is the safeguard of our land, he would alter his censure, and soon give over his judg ment." Speaking of the forests, this author says, "An infinite deal of wood hath been destroyed within these few years; and I dare affirm, that, if wood do go so fast to decay in the next hundred years of grace, as they have done, or are like to do in this, it is to be feared that sea-coal will be good merchandise even in the city of London." Harrison's prophecy was fulfilled in a very few years; for about 1615, there were two hundred sail employed in carrying coal to London. See Anderson, vol. i. p. 494.

Note 4 Y, p. 552.

Life of Burleigh, published by Collins, p. 44. The author hints, that this quantity of plate was considered only as small in a man of Burleigh's rank. His words are, "His plate was not above fourteen or fifteen thou sand pounds:" that he means pound weight is evident. For, by Burleigh's will, which is annexed to his life, that nobleman gives away in legacies, to friends and relations, near four thousand pounds weight, which would have been above twelve thousand pounds sterling in value. The remainder he orders to be divided into two equal portions; the half to his eldest son and

heir; the other half to be divided equally among his second son and three daughters. Were we therefore to understand the whole value of his plate to be only fourteen or fifteen thousand pounds sterling, he left not the tenth of it to the heir of his family.

Note 4 Z, p. 552.

Harrison says, "The greatest part of our building in the cities and good towns of England consisteth only of timber, cast over with thick clay to keep out the wind. Certes, this rude kind of building made the Spaniards in queen Mary's days to wonder; but chiefly when they saw that large diet was used in many of these so homely cottages, insomuch that one of no small reputation among them said, after this manner; These English, quoth he, have their houses made of sticks and dirt; but they fare commonly so well as the king. Whereby it appeareth that he liked better of our good fare in such coarse cabins, than of their own thin diet in their princely habitations and palaces. The clay with which our houses are commonly impanelled, is either white, red, or blue." Book ii. chap. 12. The author adds, that the new houses of the nobility are commonly of brick or stone, and that glass windows were beginning to be used in England.

Note 5 A, p. 553.

The following are the words of Roger Ascham, the queen's preceptor. "It is your shame, (I speak to you all, you young gentlemen of England,) that one maid should go beyond ye all in excellency of learning, and knowledge of divers tongues. Point out six of the best given gentlemen of this court, and all they together show not so much good will, spend not so much time, bestow not so many hours daily, orderly, and constantly, for the increase of learning and knowledge as doth the queen's majesty herself. Yea, I believe that, besides her perfect readiness in Latin, Italian, French,

and Spanish, she readeth here now at Windsor more Greek every day, than some prebendary of this church doth Latin in a whole week. Amongst all the benefits which God had blessed me withal, next to the knowledge of Christ's true religion, I count this the greatest, that it pleased God to call me to be one poor minister in setting forward these excellent gifts of learning," &c. Page 242. Truly, says Harrison, it is a rare thing with us now to hear of a courtier which hath but his own language; and to say how many gentlewomen and ladies there are that, besides sound knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues, are thereto no less skilful in the Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some of them, it resteth not in me, sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen do surmount in this behalf, so these come little or nothing at all behind them for their parts; which industry God continue. The stranger, that entereth in the court of England upon the sudden, shall rather imagine himself to come into some public school of the university, where many give ear to one that readeth unto them, than into a prince's palace, if you confer thus with those of other nations." Description of Britain, book ii. chap. 15. By this account the court had profited by the example of the queen. The sober way of life practised by the ladies of Elizabeth's court appears from the same author. Reading, spinning, and needlework, occupied the elder; music the younger. Id. Ibid.

Note 5 B, p. 557.

Sir Charles Cornwallis, the king's ambassador at Madrid, when pressed by the duke of Lerma to enter into a league with Spain, said to that minister; "Though his majesty was an absolute king, and therefore not bound to give an account to any of his actions; yet that so gracious and regardful a prince he was of the

"Thus we see

love and contentment of his own subjects, as I assured myself he would not think it fit to do anything of so great consequence without acquainting them with his intentions." Winwood, vol. ii. p. 222. Sir Walter Raleigh has this passage in the preface to his History of the World: "Philip II., by strong hand and main force, attempted to make himself not only an absolute monarch over the Netherlands, like unto the kings and monarchs of England and France, but, Turk-like, to tread under his feet all their natural and fundamental laws, privileges, and ancient rights." We meet with this passage in sir John Davis's Question concerning Impositions, p. 161. by this comparison, that the king of England doth lay but his little finger upon his subjects, when other princes and states do lay their heavy loins upon their people: what is the reason of this difference? From whence cometh it? Assuredly not from a different power of prerogative: for the king of England is as absolute a monarch as any emperor or king in the world, and hath as many prerogatives incident to his crown." Coke, in Cawdry's case says, "That, by the ancient laws of this realm, England is an absolute empire and monarchy; and that the king is furnished with plenary and entire power, prerogative, and jurisdiction, and is supreme governor over all persons within this realm." Spencer, speaking of some grants of the English kings to the Irish corporations, says, "All which, though at the time of their first grant they were tolerable, and perhaps reasonable, yet now

are most unreasonable and inconvenient. But all these will easily be cut off, with the superior power of her majesty's prerogative, against which her own grants are not to be pleaded or enforced." State of Ireland, p. 1537, edit. 1706. The same author, in p. 1660 proposes a plan for the civilization of Ireland; that the queen should create a provost-martial in every county, who might ride about with eight or ten followers in search of stragglers and vagabonds; the lightly by the stocks; the second time, by whipping; first time he catches any he may punish them more

but the third time he may hang them, without trial or process, on the first bough: and he thinks that this authority may more safely be intrusted to the provostmarshal than to the sheriff; because the latter magistrate having a profit by the escheats of felons, may be tempted to hang innocent persons." Here a real, absolute, or rather despotic power is pointed out; and we may infer from all these passages, either that the word absolute bore a different sense from what it does at present, or that men's ideas of the English, as well as Irish government, were then different. This latter inference seems juster. The word being derived from the French, bore always the same sense as in that language. An absolute monarchy, in Charles the First's answer to the nineteen propositions, is opposed to a limited; and the king of England is acknowledged not to be absolute: so much had matters changed even before the civil war. In sir John Forbook written in the reign of Edward the Fourth, the tescue's treatise of absolute and limited monarchy, a word absolute is taken in the same sense as at present;

and the government of England is also said not to be absolute. They were the princes of the house of Tudor chiefly who introduced that administration, which had the appearance of absolute government. The princes before them were restrained by the barons; as those after them by the house of commons. The people had, properly speaking, little liberty in either of these ancient governments, but least in the more ancient.

Note 5 C, p. 558.

Even this parliament, which showed so much spirit and good sense in the affair of Goodwin, made a strange concession to the crown, in their fourth session. Toby Mathews, a member, had been banished

words too intelligible, fell this session under the indignation of the commons. Parliament. Hist. vol. v. p. 221. The king himself, after all his magnificent boasts, was obliged to make his escape through a distinction which he framed between a king in abstracto and a king in concreto: an abstract king, he said, had all power; but a concrete king was bound to observe the laws of the country which he governed. King James's Works, p. 533. But how bound? By con science only? Or might his subjects resist him and defend their privileges? This he thought not fit to explain. And so difficult is it to explain that point, that, to this day, whatever liberties may be used by private inquirers, the laws have, very prudently, thought proper to maintain a total silence with regard to it.

Note 5 I, p. 570.

Parl. Hist. vol. v. p. 290. So little fixed at this time were the rules of parliament, that the commons complained to the peers of a speech made in the upper house by the bishop of Lincoln; which it belonged only to that house to censure, and which the other could not regularly be supposed to be acquainted with. These at least are the rules established since the parliament became a real seat of power, and scene of business. Neither the king must take notice what passes in either house, nor either house of what passes in the other, till regularly informed of it. The commons, in their famous protestation, 1621, fixed this rule with regard to the king, though at present they would not bind themselves by it. But as liberty was yet new, those maxims which guard and regulate it were unknown and unpractised.

Note 51, p. 575.

Some of the facts of this narrative, which seem to condemn Raleigh, are taken from the king's declaration, which being published by authority, when the facts were recent, being extracted from examinations before the privy-council, and subscribed by six privycounsellors, among whom was Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, a prelate nowise complaisant to the court, must be allowed to have great weight, or rather to be of undoubted credit. Yet the most material facts are confirmed either by the nature and reason of the thing, or by sir Walter's own apology and his letters. The king's declaration is in the Harleyan Miscellany, vol. iii. No. 2.

1. There seems to be an improbability that the Spaniards who knew nothing of Raleigh's pretended mine, should have built a town in so wide a coast, within three miles of it. The chances are extremely against such a supposition; and it is more natural to think, that the view of plundering the town led him thither, than that of working a mine. 2. No such mine is there found to this day. 3. Raleigh in fact found no mine, and in fact he plundered and burnt a Spanish town. Is it not more probable, therefore, that the latter was his intention? How can the secrets of his breast be rendered so visible as to counterpoise certain facts? 4. He confesses, in his letter to lord Carew, that though he knew it, yet he concealed from the king the settlement of the Spaniards on that coast. Does not this fact alone render him sufficiently criminal? 5. His commission empowers him only to settle on a coast possessed by savage and barbarous inhabitants. Was it not the most evident breach of orders to disembark on a coast possessed by Spaniards? 6. His orders to Keymis, when he sent him up the river, are contained in his own apology, and from them it appears, that he knew (what was unavoidable) that the Spaniards would resist, and would oppose the English landing and taking possession of the country. His intentions, therefore, were hostile from the beginning. 7. Without provocation, and even when at a VOL. L

distance, he gave Keymis orders to dislodge the Spaniards from their own town. Could any enterprise be more hostile? And considering the Spaniards as allies to the nation, could any enterprise be more criminal? Was he not the aggressor, even though it should be true that the Spaniards fired upon his men at landing? It is said he killed three or four hundred of them. Is that so light a matter? 8. In his letter to the king, and in his apology, he grounds his defence on former hostilities exercised by the Spaniards against other companies of Englishmen. These are accounted for by the ambiguity of the treaty between the nations. And it is plain, that though these might possibly be reasons for the king's declaring war against that nation, they could never entitle Raleigh to declare war, and without any commission, or contrary to his commission, to invade the Spanish settlements. He pretends indeed that peace was never made with Spain in the Indies: a most absurd notion ! The chief hurt which the Spaniards could receive from England was in the Indies; and they never would have made peace at all, if hostilities had been still to be continued on these settlements. By secret agreement, the English were still allowed to support the Dutch even after the treaty of peace. If they had also been allowed to invade the Spanish settlements, the treaty had been a full peace to England, while the Spaniards were still exposed to the full effects of war. 9. If the claim to the property of that country, as first discoverers, was good, in opposition to present settlement, as Raleigh pretends, why was it not laid before the king with all its circumstances, and submitted to his judgment? 10. Raleigh's force is acknowledged by himself to have been insufficient to support him in the possession of St. Thomas, against the power of which Spain was master on that coast; yet it was sufficient, as he owns, to take by surprise and plunder twenty towns. It was not therefore his design to settle, but to plunder. By these confessions, which I have here brought together, he plainly betrays himself. 11. Why did he not stay and work his mine, as at first he projected? He apprehended that the Spaniards would be upon him with a greater force. But before he left England, he knew that this must be the case, if he invaded any part of the Spanish colonies. His intention therefore never was to settle, but only to plunder. 12. He acknowledges that he knew neither the depth nor riches of the mine, but only that there was some ore there. Would he have ventured all his fortune and credit on so precarious a foundation? 13. Would the other adventurers, if made acquainted with this, have risked everything to attend him? Ought a fleet to have been equipped for an experiment? Was there not plainly an imposture in the management of this affair? 14. He says to Keymis, in his orders, Bring but a basket-full of ore, and it will satisfy the king that my project was not imaginary. This was easily done from the Spanish mines; and he seems to have been chiefly displeased at Keymis for not attempting it. Such a view was a premeditated apology to cover his cheat. 15. The king in his declaration imputes it to Raleigh, that as soon as he was at sea, he immediately fell into such uncertain and doubtful talk of his mine, and said, that it would be sufficient if he brought home a basket-full of ore. From the circumstance last mentioned, it appears that this imputation was not without reason. 16. There are many other circumstances of great weight in the king's declaration; that Raleigh, when he fell down to Plymouth, took no pioneers with him, which he always declared to be his intention; that he was nowise provided with instruments for working a mine, but had a sufficient stock of warlike stores; that young Raleigh, in attacking the Spaniards, employed the words which, in the narration, I have put in his mouth; that the mine was moveable, and shifted as he saw convenient: not to mention many other public facts which prove him to have been highly criminai against his companions as well as his country. Howel,

52

in his letters, says, that there lived in London, in 1645, an officer, a man of honour, who asserted, that he heard young Raleigh speak these words, vol. ii. letter 63. That was a time when there was no interest in maintaining such a fact. 17. Raleigh's account of his first voyage to Guiana proves him to have been a man capable of the most extravagant credulity or most impudent imposture. So ridiculous are the stories which he tells of the Inca's chimerical empire in the midst of Guiana; the rich city of El Dorado, or Manao, two days' journey in length, and shining with gold and silver; the old Peruvian prophecies in favour of the English, who, he says, were expressly named as the deliverers of that country, long before any European had ever touched there; the Amazons, or republic of women; and in general, the vast and incredible riches which he saw on that continent, where nobody has yet found any treasure? This whole narrative is a proof that he was extremely defective either in solid understanding, or morals, or both. No man's character indeed seems ever to have been carried to such extremes as Raleigh's, by the opposite passions of envy and pity. In the former part of his life, when he was active and lived in the world, and was probably best known, he was the object of universal hatred and detestation throughout England; and the latter part, when shut up in prison, he became, much more unreasonably, the object of great love and admiration.

As to the circumstances of the narrative, that Raleigh's pardon was refused him, that his former sentence was purposely kept in force against him, and that he went out under these express conditions, they may be supported by the following authorities.-1. The king's word and that of six privy-counsellors, who affirm it for fact. 2. The nature of the thing. If no suspicion had been entertained of his intentions, a pardon would never have been refused to a man to whom authority was intrusted. 3. The words of the commission itself, where he is simply styled sir Walter Raleigh, and not faithful and well-beloved, according to the usual and never-failing style on such occasions. 4. In all the letters which he wrote home to sir Ralph Winwood and to his own wife, he always considers himself as a person unpardoned and liable to the law. He seems indeed, immediately upon the failure of his enterprise, to have become desperate, and to have expected the fate which he met with.

king, sufficient to have produced a war, at least to have destroyed all cordiality between the nations.

This explication I thought necessary, in order to clear up the story of Raleigh; which, though very obvious, is generally mistaken in so gross a manner, that I scarcely know its parallel in the English history. Note 5 K, p. 577.

This parliament is remarkable for being the epoch, in which were first regularly formed, though without acquiring these denominations, the parties of court and country; parties which have ever since continued, and which, while they oft threaten the total dissolution of the government, are the real causes of its permanent life and vigour. In the ancient feudal constitution, of which the English partook with other European nations, there was a mixture, not of authority and liberty, which we have since enjoyed in this island, and which now subsist uniformly together; but of authority and anarchy, which perpetually shocked with each other, and which took place alternately, according as circumstances were more or less favourable to either of them. A parliament composed of barbarians, summoned from their fields and forests, uninstructed by study, conversation, or travel; ignorant of their own laws and history, and unacquainted with the situation of all foreign nations; a parliament called precariously by the king, and dissolved at his pleasure; sitting a few days, debating a few points prepared for them, and whose members were impa tient to return to their own castles, where alone they were great, and to the chase, which was their favourite amusement: such a parliament was very little fitted to enter into a discussion of all the questions of government, and to share, in a regular manner, the legal administration. The name, the authority of the king alone appeared in the common course of government; in extraordinary emergencies, he assumed, with still better reason, the sole direction; the imperfect and unformed laws left, in everything, a latitude of interpretation; and when the ends pursued by the mo narch were, in general, agreeable to his subjects, little scruple or jealousy was entertained with regard to the regularity of the means. During the reign of an able, fortunate, or popular prince, no member of either house, much less of the lower, durst think of entering into a formed party, in opposition to the court; since the dissolution of the parliament must, in a few days, leave him unprotected, to the vengeance of his sovereign, and to those stretches of prerogative, which were then so easily made, in order to punish an obnoxious subject. During an unpopular and weak reign, the current commonly ran so strong against the mo

The king's chief blame seems to have lain in his negligence, in allowing Raleigh to depart without a more exact scrutiny: but for this he apologizes by saying, that sureties were required for the good behaviour of Raleigh and all his associates in the enterprise, but that they gave in bonds for each other-a cheat which was not perceived till they had sailed, and which increased the suspicion of bad intentions.

Perhaps the king ought also to have granted Raleigh a pardon for his old treason, and to have tried him anew for his new offences. His punishment in that case would not only have been just, but conducted in a just and unexceptionable manner. But we are told that a ridiculous opinion at that time prevailed in the nation, (and it is plainly supposed by sir Walter in his apology,) that, by treaty, war was allowed with the Spaniards in the Indies, though peace was made in Europe and while that notion took place, no jury would have found Raleigh guilty. So that had not the king punished him upon the old sentence, the Spaniards would have had a just cause of complaint against the

party; or if the prince was able to engage any considerable barons on his side, the question was decided with arms in the field, not by debates or arguments in a senate or assembly. And upon the whole, the chief circumstance, which, during ancient times, retained the prince in any legal form of administration, was, that the sword, by the nature of the feudal tenures, remained still in the hands of his subjects; and this irregular and dangerous check had much more influence than the regular and methodical limits of the laws and constitution. As the nation could not be compelled, it was necessary that every public measure of consequence, particularly that of levying new taxes, should seem to be adopted by common consent and approbation.

The princes of the house of Tudor, partly by the vigour of their administration, partly by the concur rence of favourable circumstances, had been able to establish a more regular system of government; but they drew the constitution so near to despotism as diminished extremely the authority of the parliament. The senate became, in a great degree, the organ of royal will and pleasure: opposition would have been