we are also indebted to Townshend's collection: whose note runs as follows:

SPEECH FOR REPEALING SUPERFLUOUS LAWS.

May it please you, Mr. Speaker, not out of ostentation to this House, but reverence I do speak it, that I do much wonder to see the House so continually divided, and to agree upon nothing; to see so many laws here so well framed, and offences provided against, and yet to have no better success or entertainment. I do think every man in his particular bound to help the Commonwealth the best he may; and better it is to venture a man's credit by speaking than to stretch a man's conscience by silence, and to endeavour to make that which is good in nature possible in effect.1

Laws be like pills all gilt over, which if they be easily and well swallowed down are neither bitter in digestion nor hurtful to the body. Every man knows that time is the true controller of laws, and therefore there having been a great alteration of time since the repeal of a number of laws, I know and do assure myself there are many more than I know laws both needless and dangerous.

2

I could therefore wish that as usually at every Parliament there is a Committee selected for the continuance of divers statutes, so the house would be pleased also that there might be a Committee for the repeal of divers statutes, and of divers superfluous branches of statutes. And that every particular member of this House would give information to the Committees what statutes he thinketh fitting to be repealed, or what branch to be superfluous; lest, as he sayeth, pluat super nos laqueos. The more laws we make the more snares we lay to entrap ourselves.3

I do not find that these motions had any "better success or entertainment" than the others. The last raised no discussion at the time, and merged ultimately, as the similar motion in 1597 had done, in an ordinary "continuance act." The Weights and Measures Bill was read a second time the next day, and upon some objections in details summarily thrown out. Upon the question for committing,

1 The original has "to make that good in nature which is possible in effect." 2 So the paragraph stands in Townshend and in the MS. also, except that it has 'any number,' instead of a number:' evidently very much misreported or misprinted. 3 Townshend, p. 194. Harl. MSS. 2283, fo. 15 b.

there were, says Townshend, "some twelve I, I, I, but not one for the engrossing; but all said No. So it was rejected."1

The truth is, I fancy, that the House was in as great a hurry to get the necessary supplies voted, as the Queen was to receive them; and that they could not attend with spirit to anything else until they had seen that business safely through. The Spaniards were besieged, it is true, in Kinsale by land, and ships had been sent to cut off their supplies by sea; and "many of our discoursers," says Chamberlain,2 26 gave them for lost, and made it a matter of ease to defeat them by sickness, famine, or the sword;" but they were still there; and Tyrone was approaching from the North with a force almost as large as the besieging army. It may easily be believed therefore, that to provide whatever was necessary for their speedy capture or expulsion seemed to the House the one business to which for the present all others must be postponed. It is certain that they acted in the matter as if they thought so. And as soon as Bacon's Weights and Measures Bill was disposed of, this was the next business that came on.

6.

Sir Walter Raleigh led the way, and though the discussion lasted into the dark, it appears to have turned entirely upon matters of of detail. To the amount of the grant-an amount quite unprecedented-there are no traces of opposition from any quarter. Opinions differed upon the mode of distribution, and in particular upon the question whether the "three-pound men" should be included. But a grant of four whole subsidies, with eight fifteens and tens,the first to be paid all at once next February, the others each in divided payments at half-yearly intervals, the whole therefore payable within three years and a half,—was agreed on in Committee that same Saturday afternoon; and on Monday in the House, after some further discussion of details, "the Speaker appointed the Committees for drawing of the Subsidy Bill,-all to hasten it; and so the House

All this time, not a murmur of discontent is to be traced in the journals; not an allusion to monopolies; not a mention of conditions or reciprocal concessions; but all was going so rapidly and smoothly that one of the members thought it necessary to remind the House that they had as yet done nothing else, and to express a hope "that her Majesty would not dissolve the Parliament till some acts were 231 Oct. 1601, p. 119.

1 Townshend, p. 197. 3 Townshend, p. 205. The Speaker, I suppose, read the names of the Commit. tees, who had already been appointed by the House: p. 203.

passed."1

On the part of the Government what little it was necessary to say was said by Sir R. Cecil: and the only observation of Bacon's which is reported, is in favour of the non-exemption of " the three-pound men;" upon which, concurring with the majority of the Committee, he concluded "it was dulcis tractus pari jugo: and therefore the poor as well as the rich not to be exempted."2

What makes the unanimity of the House in this matter the more remarkable is, that their hearts were all the while full of serious discontent with the Government, on account of the still growing grievance of monopolies; that they had come up from all parts of the country charged with complaint and remonstrance; and that the feeling, when it found utterance at last, was general enough and strong enough to silence all expressions of dissent, if any dissent existed. It is curious also to observe, in an assembly so miscellaneous and not very orderly in its debates, how slow this feeling was in finding a tongue. After the subsidy-question had been settled on the 9th of November, there was no more lack of debating. Questions of various kinds,—including a point of privilege which brought them into collusion with the Lord Keeper, and a Bill against Pluralities of Benefices which touched the Prerogative,-were largely and noisily discussed. But it was not till the 18th that a word seems to have been uttered about Monopoly-Patents; nor does any action on that subject appear to have been expected by the public outside. "The Parliament," says Chamberlain, writing on the 14th, "huddles in high matters: only they have had a cast at Osborne's office, to correct and amend it at least; but there is no great hope of success. The Alpha and Omega is concluded already. I mean the grant of four subsidies and eight fifteens."4

Now "Osborne's office" was not one of the monopoly-patents; but the office of Treasurer's Remembrancer in the Exchequer, in which it seems that abuses had been found. A bill on the subject had been brought in, and was then under reference to a Committee, whose report was brought up by Bacon on the 18th, in a speech of which Townshend has preserved for us the following note:

2 Ib. p. 204.

1 Townshend, p. 204. 3 The Speaker had directed a warrant for a new writ to the Clerk of the Crown. The Lord Keeper desired to have the warrant directed to himself. Some of the members (Bacon among them) preferred that course as more honourable to the House. "It is far more honourable for this house (said Bacon) in my opinion when our warrant shall move the principal member of Justice, than when it shall command a base, petty, or inferior servant to the Clerk of the Crown, or the Clerk of the Petty Bag. It will be said our warrant emanavit improvide, when we shall direct our warrants to these base officers, when we may move the Great Seal of England by it, even as soon as either Petty Bag or Petty officer." But upon inquiry it was found that the precedents were the other way, and the Lord Keeper did not insist. D'Ewes, pp. 636, 637, 643. And see further on, p. 25.

4 Camd. Soc. Publ. p. 122.

Keeper's secretary, stood up, and desired that the Bill which Mr. Hide called for touching Patents might be read." The Speaker desired him to wait till the Committees were named: after that, he said, he might speak. But I suppose Cecil saw in the face of the House that the question would have to be met, and felt that he must contrive to get his instructions before it came on. And therefore, while they were proceeding with the naming of the Committees, he "spake something in Mr. Speaker's ear:" who, as soon as the time and place of commitment were named, immediately rose," without further hearing Mr. Downalde:" and so the House adjourned. Whether Cecil's whisper had anything to do with it, I do not know; but some irregularity there clearly was. And that may be the reason why D'Ewes (not understanding perhaps how it could have happened according to the usages of the House) omits this whole passage, as related in that private journal of which he otherwise makes such large use, and gives merely the entries from the "original journalbook of the House," which contain no hint of it. Nevertheless, when we read further that Mr. Downalde took the Speaker's conduct "in great disgrace, and told him he would complain of him the next sitting; to which the Speaker answered not one word, but looked earnestly on him, and so the press of people parted them," we need not doubt that the note was taken from the life.

Neither need we doubt that Elizabeth knew that same evening what had passed, and made up her mind for what was coming. For Elizabeth, though she often seemed to venture into dangerous positions and to run great risks, knew how to measure her own forces, and always kept some course in reserve upon which she might fall back in an emergency. If her ministers could hold the ground for her, it was best. If not, she could still come herself.

On this occasion she had a day's respite. Thursday, the 19th, was occupied with matters in which the House always took an eager interest, and spoke with many tongues. A burgess elect, being stopped on his way up to London, had "sent up his solicitor to follow his causes in law," etc. The solicitor had been arrested at the suit of a tailor, and carried prisoner to Newgate; where" after a discharge gotten because he said he served a Parliament-man, he was no sooner discharged, but straight he was again arrested and carried to the Compter, and there lay all night, until he sent to the Sergeant-at-arms, who fetched him out and kept him in his custody." The question was whether this were a breach of privilege; inasmuch as the master had not taken the oaths; and it was not till after much examination, re-examination, discussion, and con1 Townshend, p. 225. Harl. MSS. 2283, fo. 40 b.

sultation, that the solicitor was ordered to be discharged, and the tailor and his officer to pay all fees, and undergo three day's imprisonment. Immediately upon this came a report of proceedings in another privilege question of higher interest, the question pending between the House and the Lord Keeper. Mr. Secretary Herbert had delivered their message to his Lordship, who had replied that upon consideration of "the weightiness of divers businesses now in hand," etc., "he would not now stand to make contention," but "would be most ready and willing to perform the desire of the House."l

All this was satisfactory; but it consumed time; and nothing more was said about the monopolies that day. On Friday, however, the 20th, though not till after a long debate on a Bill against wilful absence from Church, and the hearing of another complaint from a member whose man had been arrested on his way up to London,— the great question at last forced its way into the front.

"The Speaker," says Townshend, " gave the Clerk a Bill to read. And the House called for the Checquer Bill: some said Yea, and some said No, and a great noise there was.

"At last Mr. Laurence Hide said: To end this controversy, because the time is very short, I would move the House to have a very short bill read; entituled An Act for Explanation of the Common Law in certain cases of Letters Patents. And all the House cried I, I, I."2

The long silence being at length broken, the cry of grievance found no want of tongues, and seems to have been felt from the first to be irresistible for though some of the members must have been personally interested in the monopolies, not a voice was raised in defence of them. A difference of opinion no doubt there was; but it turned wholly upon the form of the proposed proceeding for redress. In the object of the measure, namely to obtain relief from the grievance, all parties were prepared to concur. Nor was the disputed point of form material to that object, though very material in other ways. For the remedy proposed by the Bill was to declare these Patents illegal by the Common Law. Now since they had been granted in virtue of a prerogative which was at that time confidently assumed, asserted, and exercised, as indisputably belonging to the Crown; which, though not perhaps wholly undisputed, was freely allowed by a large body of respectable opinion; and which had not as yet been disallowed by any authority that could claim to be decisive; it was now no longer the monopolies, but the Prerogative itself, that was in question. It was like one of the cases of privilege 1 Townshend, p. 226. 2 Ib. p. 229.