View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 12

[159] Articles had been exhibited by the chancellor before the peers, in the seventh of the king, against Spencer, bishop of Norwich, who had led a considerable army in a disastrous expedition against the Flemings, adherents to the anti-pope Clement in the schism. This crusade had been exceedingly popular, but its ill success had the usual effect. The commons were not parties in this proceeding. Rot. Parl. p 153.

[160] Rot. Parl. p. 221.

[161] Rot. Parl. p. 281.

[162] The judgment against Simon de Burley, one of those who were executed on this occasion, upon impeachment of the commons, was reversed under Henry IV.; a fair presumption of its injustice. Rot. Parl. vol.

iii. p. 464.

[163] Rot. Parl. 14 R II. p. 279; 15 R. II. p. 286.

[164] Rot. Parl. 13 R. II. p. 258.

[165] 17 R. II. p. 313.

[166] Rymer, t. vii. p. 583, 659.

[167] Hume has represented this as if the commons had pet.i.tioned for the continuance of sheriffs beyond a year, and grounds upon this mistake part of his defence of Richard II. (Note to vol. ii. p. 270, 4to. edit.) For this he refers to Cotton's Abridgment; whether rightly or not I cannot say, being little acquainted with that inaccurate book, upon which it is unfortunate that Hume relied so much. The pa.s.sage from Walsingham in the same note is also wholly perverted; as the reader will discover without further observation. An historian must be strangely warped who quotes a pa.s.sage explicitly complaining of illegal acts in order to infer that those very acts were legal.

[168] The church would perhaps have interfered in behalf of Haxey if he had only received the tonsure. But it seems that he was actually in orders; for the record calls him Sir Thomas Haxey, a t.i.tle at that time regularly given to the parson of a parish. If this be so, it is a remarkable authority for the clergy's capacity of sitting in parliament.

[169] Rot. Parl. 20 R. II. p. 339. In Henry IV.'s first parliament the commons pet.i.tioned for Haxey's restoration, and truly say that his sentence was en aneantiss.e.m.e.nt des custumes de la commune, p. 434. His judgment was reversed by both houses, as having pa.s.sed de volonte du roy Richard en contre droit et la course quel avoit este devant en parlement. p. 480. There can be no doubt with any man who looks attentively at the pa.s.sages relative to Haxey that he was a member of parliament; though this was questioned a few years ago by the committee of the house of commons, who made a report on the right of the clergy to be elected; a right which, I am inclined to believe, did exist down to the Reformation, as the grounds alleged for Nowell's expulsion in the first, of Mary, besides this instance of Haxey conspire to prove, though it has since been lost by disuse.

[170] This a.s.sembly, if we may trust the anonymous author of the Life of Richard II., published by Hearne, was surrounded by the king's troops.

p. 133.

[171] Rot. Parl, 21 R. II. p. 347.

[172] 21 R. II. p. 369.

[173] 13 R. II. p. 256.

[174] This proceeding was made one of the articles of charge against Richard in the following terms: Item, in parliamento ultimo celebrato apud Salopiam, idem rex proponens opprimere populum suum procuravit subtiliter et fecit concedi, quod potestas parliamenti de consensu omnium statuum regni sui remaneret apud quasdam certas personas ad terminandum, dissoluto parliamento, certas pet.i.tiones in eodem parliamento porrectas protunc minime expeditas. Cujus concessionis colore personae sic deputatae processerunt ad alia generaliter parliamentum illud tangentia; et hoc de voluntate regis; in derogationem status parliamenti, et in magnum incommodum totius regni et perniciosum exemplum. Et ut super factis eorum hujusmodi aliquem colorem et auctoritatem viderentur habere, rex fecit rotulos parliamenti pro voto suo mutari et deleri, contra effectum consensionis praedictae. Rot. Parl.

1 H. IV. vol. iii. p. 418. Whether the last accusation, of altering the parliamentary roll, be true or not, there is enough left in it to prove everything I have a.s.serted in the text. From this it is sufficiently manifest how unfairly Carte and Hume have drawn a parallel between this self-deputed legislative commission and that appointed by parliament to reform the administration eleven years before.

[175] Rot. Parl. p. 372, 385.

[176] Besides the contemporary historians, we may read a full narrative of these proceedings in the Rolls of Parliament, vol. iii. p. 382. It appears that Mowbray was the most offending party, since, independently of Hereford's accusation, he is charged with openly maintaining the appeals made in the false parliament of the eleventh of the king. But the banishment of his accuser was wholly unjustifiable by any motives that we can discover. It is strange that Carte should express surprise at the sentence upon the duke of Norfolk, while he seems to consider that upon Hereford as very equitable. But he viewed the whole of this reign, and of those that ensued, with the jaundiced eye of Jacobitism.

[177] Rot. Parl. 1 H. IV. p. 420, 426; Walsingham, p. 353, 357; Otterburn, p. 199; Vita Ric. II. p. 147.

[178] It is fair to observe that Froissart's testimony makes most in favour of the king, or rather against his enemies, where it is most valuable; that is, in his account of what he heard in the English court in 1395, 1. iv. c. 62, where he gives a very indifferent character of the duke of Gloucester. In general this writer is ill-informed of English affairs, and undeserving to be quoted as an authority.

[179] Rot. Parl. p. 423.

[180] If proof could be required of anything so self-evident as that these a.s.semblies consisted of exactly the same persons, it may be found in their writs of expenses, as published by Prynne, 4th Register, p.

450.

[181] 2 R. II. p. 56.

[182] It is positively laid down by the a.s.serters of civil liberty, in the great case of impositions (Howell's State Trials, vol. ii. p. 443, 507), that no precedents for arbitrary taxation of exports or imports occur from the accession of Richard II. to the reign of Mary.

[183] 2 R. II. p. 62. This did not find its way to the statute-book.

[184] Rymer, t. vii. p. 544.

[185] Carte, vol. ii. p. 640. Sir M. Hale observes that he finds no complaints of illegal impositions under the kings of the house of Lancaster. Hargrave's Tracts, vol. i. p. 184.

[186] Rymer, t. viii. p. 412, 488.

[187] Rot. Parl. vol. iv. p. 216.

[188] Id. p. 301.

[189] Id. p. 302.

[190] Id. vol. iii. p. 546.

[191] Id. p. 568.

[192] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 453.

[193] Id. vol. iv. p. 63.

[194] Walsingham, p. 379.

[195] Walsingham, p. 210. Ruffhead observes in the margin upon this statute, 8 R. II. c. 3, that it is repealed, but does not take notice what sort of repeal it had.

[196] 15 R. II. p. 285. See, too, 16 R. II. p. 301, where the same power is renewed in H. IV.'s parliaments.

[197] 13 H. IV. p. 643.

[198] Rot. Parl. v. 4 H. V. p. 6, 9.

[199] 5 R. II. stat. 2, c. 5; Rot. Parl. 6 R. II. p. 141. Some other instances of the commons attempting to prevent these unfair practices are adduced by Ruffhead, in his preface to the Statutes, and in Prynne's preface to Cotton's Abridgment of the Records. The act 13 R. II. stat.

1, c. 15, that the king's castles and gaols which had been separated from the body of the adjoining counties should be reunited to them, is not founded upon any pet.i.tion that appears on the roll; and probably, by making search, other instances equally flagrant might be discovered.

[200] There had been, however, a pet.i.tion of the commons on the same subject, expressed in very general terms, on which this terrible superstructure might artfully be raised. p. 474.

[201] p. 626.

[202] We find a remarkable pet.i.tion in 8 H. IV., professedly aimed against the Lollards, but intended, as I strongly suspect, in their favour. It condemns persons preaching against the catholic faith or sacraments to imprisonment till the next parliament, where they were to abide such judgment as should be rendered _by the king and peers of the realm_. This seems to supersede the burning statute of 2 H. IV., and the spiritual cognizance of heresy. Rot. Parl. p. 583. See, too, p. 626. The pet.i.tion was expressly granted; but the clergy, I suppose, prevented its appearing on the statute roll.

[203] Rot. Parl. vol iii. p. 102.

[204] Rot. Parl. vol. iv. p. 22. It is curious that the authors of the Parliamentary History say that the roll of this parliament is lost, and consequently suppress altogether this important pet.i.tion. Instead of which they give, as their fashion is, impertinent speeches out of Holingshed, which are certainly not genuine, and would be of no value if they were so.

[205] Henry VI. and Edward IV. in some cases pa.s.sed bills with sundry provisions annexed by themselves. Thus the act for resumption of grants, 4 E. IV., was enc.u.mbered with 289 clauses in favour of so many persons whom the king meant to exempt from its operation; and the same was done in other acts of the same description. Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 517.