Crown for purveyance, without creating a precedent for "binding the Prerogative"-a thing which the Judges in those days would hardly have allowed that a statute could do.' It will be seen that Bacon spoke in favour of Composition, and answered a series of objections. But I am afraid that nobody will be able to fill up the blanks completely enough to give a connected account of his argu ment. Composition disputed. Sir Francis Bacon:-A compact transaction :-Composition breeds mistaking.— Quest. now, conveniency. Neither against the Prerogative nor against public good.— Fawning upon superiors:-Pleasing a multitude. In altero fœda species servitutis: In altero falsa species libertatis. Humores moti et non remoti morbum aggravant. Nec insidiis cœli capiere sereni. First years of a King:- Dancing: - Triumphs :- Afterthoughts of ambition.— Sinews of wars in coffers, as to have the sinews of peace in parchment. Practice of Powder a Supersedeas to other practices. Their despairs dangerous, but their hopes more dangerous.— Objections: A perpetual tax. Ans. A time of probation. Payments certain.-Royalties:- Casualties:-As fines for alienation, wards, fines of Alienations. 2. New precedent.— A new precedent of an offer.-Discharge him now or never. 3. Precedent to redeem vexations. Prerogative buying. 4. Prerogative evicted, Dishonour.— Dismissed, Honour. 5. King cannot part with his Prerogative. -Quest. of Security. Whether he should live upon **** Laws that trench to the Right bind the Prerogative: not simple Prohibitions. 1" Mr. Fuller-If the laws cannot bind the King in matter of Purveyance, as the Judges delivered, then the Composition to no purpose." C. J. p. 278. 6. Subsidy upon tonnage and poundage. The statute mistaken in the ground. 7. Instance of Prisage. Butlerage and Prisage, ancient Rights of the Crown.-No affinity. 8. Compositions already displeasant.— Compositions no squyre for this which we shall now make. The Green Cloth shall never deal with this. 9. Buying of Justice.— A buying of interest, possession, freedom, safety, ease.—The King hath more than a Preemption :-Confessed. Terminum antiquum ne moveas. Compositions at Westminster for peace sake, buyings of Justice. Prerogative as ancient as the Law :-This as ancient as any. -Caput inter nubila conditur. Children for the Chapel may be taken:-A preferment.— Small, for when their voices change, they shall be cast off The place not remedied by the old law.-The new doth. 10. That we have ever proceeded by way of law.-Penelope :Tantalus poma fugacia captat. Before the Lady Marie's Grace.-Four funerals since one Christening. E. III. times many laws, because many mighty and noble issue. Let not us bring ourselves into the like case.' The debate had already lasted more than two days when this speech was made; and still there were no symptoms of a conclusion. "The matter of conveniency was to be further proceeded in" the next day. Nevertheless, since "the necessities of the King" had been openly alleged as the motive for standing upon terms of composition, and the policy of keeping him in straits by way of bit and bridle (though Salisbury's huckstering system was fast teaching it) had not yet been adopted as the tactic of the reforming party, there was still an escape from the dilemma. A perpetual tax was a serious matter to resolve on; but the present necessity might be met by a present supply. What if they should offer a third Subsidy instead? Suggestions tending that way had already been thrown out in the course of the debate by some of the popular members. And now the King, having understood probably that there was good hope of a larger grant if that course were taken, intimated to the House through the Speaker that though the proposal of composition came originally from himself, if they did not like it he was content they should leave it.' This intimation of course settled that part of the question; the discussion turned in effect into a debate on Supply (which will be noticed presently): and the suspended bill having passed quickly through its remaining stages (in spite of Salisbury's attempts, through the help of the Speaker with whom he was in constant communication, to keep it back) 2 was sent up to the Lords by the hands of Bacon, with instructions to use some speech in commendation of it.3 How he performed this office we have no means of knowing,-further than that his commendation did not secure its passage. The Archbishop of Canterbury reported from the Committee to which it was referred, that "Mr. Attorney-General having opened the parts of the Bill at large unto the Committees, they found the same in many things inconvenient, and not fit to be further proceeded in ;"4 and though the Commons were not satisfied without two more Conferences, (in which they had the advantage of hearing the defects of their Bill explained by Coke in detail), they did not succeed in 18 March. C. J. pp. 280, 281. "We had 2 whole subsidies given us" (writes Salisbury to Mar, 9 March, 1605-6) "but there is such a heat because his M. will not put down Purveyors and Purveyance, by which he should lose 50,000l. a year, as we are now only seeking to temper that particular grievance by making a law to punish the abuse, but in no wise to put down the use; and if it be possible, to get somewhat more than 2 subsidies; whereof if we had made a good despatch, then have on to our Union." (Dom. James I. vol. xix.) 5 2 See the Speaker's letter to him, 17 March, 1605-6. Dom. James I. vol. xix. 3 20 March. C. J. p. 287. 10 April. Lords' Journals, ii. 412. Dudley Carleton, in his letter of 17 April, gives the following account of the matter as it then remained. "The Bill of Purveyors was the main matter which bred trouble on all sides. For first it was arraigned by the Attorney at a Conference, and ten charges laid to it as impossibilities to have it pass; which was reported to the Lower House, and Sir John Savile made a collection out of the ten objections, reducing them to four-hanging the innocent, damning the ignorant, raising rebellion, and starving the King.. For material points, they were handled well and substantially. But the Judges overruled all on Prerogative side, and gave it out for law that the King had both prising and preemption, and that he was not bound to payment but upon these terms, quand bonnement il peut: and delivered one judgment in all mens opinions of dangerous consequence-that the Prerogative was not subject to law, but that it was transcendent above the reach of Parliament. In the end the Lords closed up the matter with the King's favourable intentions; that in kindness he would do much, but upon constraint nothing, and that of himself he would see that arrangement in this disorder which Parliament could not provide for." S. P. Dom. Coke was not yet one of the Judges, and, as Attorney-General, was no doubt the retained advocate of the Crown. But is there any reason to doubt that this decision in favour of Prerogative had his full personal concurrence? In Conferences between the two Houses, he was called in as legal adviser of the Upper House, "ad tractandum et colloquium habendum cum Proceribus." making them think better of it. So the Bill was lost; and the law had to remain for the present as it was. Inasmuch however as it was not the law, but the transgression of the law, which constituted the grievance, it was within the power of the executive to provide a remedy. And the King,-who had not meddled in this part of the business, and appears to have been really desirous to further the professed object of the Bill-which was to confine the Purveyors within the limits of their Commission, and the Commission within the limits of the law-was not slow to do what he could in the matter. Within a week after the final rejection of the Bill by the Lords, "a Proclamation for the prevention of future abuses in Purveyance" was published: of which, as being the practical result of all these discussions, and as showing the state in which the question was allowed to rest for many years, it may be worth while to state the effect. The taking of timber-trees-which was one of the chief heads of complaint set forth by Bacon in his speech during the last sessionit forbade altogether. It forbade the taking of carts, etc. for the use of any but servants in necessary attendance, or from any place more than fourteen miles distant. It forbade the ordering of vehicles for carriage of coals and wood, without the concurrence of two Justices of Peace of the Counties next adjoining. It prescribed a several commission to be made out for each several shire; in which the kinds and quantities of provision to be taken were to be set down by the proper authorities; with blank schedules annexed, upon which every article taken was to be entered in the presence of the Constable or other local officer whose duty it was to see them delivered: the same, when filled up, to be signed by the Constable and (if he chose) by the owner or seller; and a duplicate to be delivered to one of the next Justices of the Peace. It enjoined the Justices at Quarter Sessions to require from the Constables an account of what warrants they had received and what provisions had been taken: and to certify the same every half-year to the Board of Green Cloth. If it should appear upon a comparison of the accounts, or upon information otherwise received, that any Purveyor had infringed any of these regulations, it enjoined the principal officers of the Household to bring the person so offending before a Justice of Peace of the County where the offence had been committed: who might then either bind him over to the Sessions to be proceeded against in the ordinary way, or recommend him to the Attorney General for prosecution in the Star Chamber. It said nothing however about the mode of settling the prices to be paid, and left the Board of Green Cloth in full possession of its authority; which was probably the reason why it was not accepted by the Commons as a satisfactory substitute for their rejected Bill. For though it was read in the House on the 25th of April, and though, if their real object was only to enforce and not to alter the existing law, the securities taken seem to be sufficient, they immediately proceeded to bring in another Bill; which, passing very rapidly through the usual stages, was sent up to the Lords on the 10th of May: but could go no further: the Lords declining to proceed with it, on the ground (then it seems for the first time distinctly laid down) that "when a Bill hath been brought into the House, proceeded withal, and rejected, another Bill of the same argument and matter may not be renewed and begun again in the same House and in the same Session, where the former Bill was begun." Here therefore for the present the matter ended. 10. The disputes and disappointments about this measure, upon which the Reformers spent their main force, though it troubled and retarded, did not materially interfere with the progress of the Subsidy Bill; the history of which is the rather worth telling, because Bacon referred to it at a later time as a proceeding in which "the manner was as worthy to be noted as the matter." "For (said he) the ancient majesty of the Kings of this realm was then preserved, in that those Subsidies were never demanded nor moved from the King; much less made the business or errand of the Parliament; but after the Parliament had sitten a good while, an honest gentleman (by name Sir Edward Montague) stood up, and in a plain familiar manner moved for two Subsidies and four fifteenths; concluding with these plain words, that so much he thought would content, and less would not be well accepted: whereupon the two Subsidies passed upon question the same day: and yet nevertheless upon conference with the Lords touching the occasions of the King, and by persuasion of some good servants of the King's which were gracious with the House, and chiefly out of their own good affections, came on afterwards to three." And though in alleging this as evidence of "the affection of the subjects of England in their own nature to help their King," he did not perhaps take due account of the temporary fervour of loyalty produced by the Gunpowder Plot, it will 17 May, 1606. Lords' Journals, ii. p. 435. Letter to the King in 1615: which will be printed in its place. VOL. III. T |