that several of the members laid their hands on their swords, saying, "They knew how to defend their own properties." This put a stop to the intentions of the court.

The "Meddlesome" Commons.-A Parliament met in April, 1571, when the Lord Keeper Bacon, in answer to the Speaker's customary request for freedom of speech in the Commons, said that Queen Elizabeth, "having experience of late of some disorder and certain offences, which, though they were not punished, yet were they offences still, and so must be accounted, they would, therefore, do well to meddle with no matter of state but such as should be propounded unto them, and to occupy themselves in other matters concerning the commonwealth." A member having rather prematurely suggested the offer of a subsidy, several complaints were made of irregular and oppressive practices, and Mr. Bell said that licences granted by the Crown and other abuses galled the people, intimating also that the subsidy should be accompanied by a redress of grievances. This occasion of introducing the subject, though strictly constitutional, was likely to cause displeasure. The Speaker informed them, a few days after, of a message from the Queen to spend little time in motions, and make no long speeches. And Bell, it appears, having been sent for by the Council, came into the House "with such an amazed countenance that it daunted all the rest," who for many days durst not enter on any matter of importance. It became the common whisper that no one must speak against licences, lest the Queen and Council should be angry. And at the close of the session the Lord Keeper severely reprimanded those audacious, arrogant, and presumptuous members who had called her Majesty's grants and prerogatives in question, meddling with matters neither pertaining to them nor within the capacity of their understanding.-Hallam's "Constitutional History."

Frequent Committals to the Tower.-At the meeting of Parliament in February, 1575-6, Peter Wentworth broke out, in a speech of uncommon boldness, against Queen Elizabeth's arbitrary encroachments on their privileges. The liberty of free speech, he said, had in the last two sessions been so many ways infringed, that they were in danger, while they contented themselves with the name, of losing and foregoing the thing. It was common for a rumour to spread through that House, "the Queen likes or dislikes such a matter; beware what you do." Messages were even sometimes brought down either commanding or inhibiting, very injurious to the liberty of debate. After surprising the House by the bold words, "None is without fault, no, not our noble Queen, but has committed great and dangerous faults to herself," he went on to tax her with ingratitude and unkindness to her subjects, in a strain perfectly free indeed from disaffection, but of more rude censure than any kings would put up with. . Wentworth had gone to a length which alarmed the House of Commons. They judged it expedient to prevent an unpleasant interference by sequestering their member, and appointing a committee of all the Privy Councillors in the House to examine him. Wentworth declined their authority, till they assured him

that they sat as members of the Commons and not as Councillors. After a long examination, in which he not only behaved with intrepidity, but, according to his own statement, reduced them to confess the truth of all he advanced, they made a report to the House, who committed him to the Tower. He had lain there a month when the Queen sent word that she remitted her displeasure towards him, and referred his enlargement to the House, who released him upon a reprimand from the Speaker, and an acknowledgment of his fault, upon his knees. . . In the session of 1587-8, Wentworth insisted that some questions of his proposing should be read to the House. These queries were to the following purport : "Whether this council was not a place for any member of the same, freely and without control, by bill or speech, to utter any of the griefs of this commonwealth? Whether there be any council that can make, add, or diminish from the laws of the realm, but only this council of parliament? Whether it be not against the orders of this council to make any secret or matter of weight, which is here in hand, known to the prince or any other, without consent of the House?" with others to similar effect. These questions Serjeant Pickering, the Speaker, instead of reading them to the House, showed to a courtier, through whose means Wentworth was committed to the Tower. Others who had spoken in favour of his motion underwent the same fate. Again, in 1593, on the very first day of the session, the unconquerable Peter Wentworth, with another member, presented a petition to the Lord Keeper, desiring "the Lords of the Upper House to join with them of the Lower in imploring her Majesty to entail the succession of the crown, for which they had already prepared a bill." This step drew down, as must have been expected, the Queen's indignation. They were summoned before the Council, and committed to different prisons.-Ibid.

An Undaunted Patriot.-A bill for reforming the abuses of ecclesiastical courts was presented by Morice, attorney of the court of wards, and underwent some discussion in the House (1593). But the Queen sent for the Speaker, and expressly commanded that no bill touching matters of state or reformation of causes ecclesiastical should be exhibited; and, if any such should be offered, enjoining him on his allegiance not to read it. It was the custom at that time for the Speaker to read and expound to the house all the bills that any member offered. Morice himself was committed to safe custody, from which he wrote a spirited letter to Lord Burleigh, expressing his sorrow for having offended the Queen, but at the same time his resolution "to strive," he says, "while his life should last, for freedom of conscience, public justice, and the liberties of his country."-Hallam.

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A "Pope-like" Speech.-Wentworth, the most distinguished assertor of civil liberty in Elizabeth's reign, related in the House a conversation he had held with Archbishop Parker. "I was," he says, among others, the last Parliament (1574), sent for unto the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the Articles of Religion that then passed this House. He asked us Why we did put out of the book the articles for the homilies, consecration of bishops, and such like ?' 'Surely, sir,' said I,

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'because we were so occupied in other matters that we had no time to examine them how they agreed with the Word of God.' 'What!' said he; surely you mistake the matter; you will refer yourselves wholly to us therein No; by the faith I bear to God,' said I, 'we will pass nothing before we know what it is; for that were but to make you popes. Make you popes who list,' said I, 'for we will make you none.' And sure, Mr. Speaker, the speech seemed to me to be a Pope-like speech; and I fear lest our bishops do attribute this of the Pope's canons unto themselves-Papa non potest errare.”—Ibid.

Elizabeth and the Bishops.-Elizabeth, in her speech to Parliament on closing the session of 1584, when many complaints against the rulers of the Church had rung in her ears, told the bishops that if they did not amend what was wrong, she meant to depose them. Her power to do so was unquestioned, and her readiness to carry it into effect on minor occasions was shown by her well-known letter to Cox, Bishop of Ely, when he resisted the sacrifice of his garden in Holborn to the Queen's favourite, Hatton: "Proud prelate,-You know what you were before I made you what you are: if you do not immediately comply with my request, by G- I will unfrock you.-ELIZABETH.”

A Member of Parliament Pilloried.—In Grafton's "Abridgment of the Chronicles of England" there is the following account of a member who fell into great disgrace in the Parliament which sat in 1571: An undiscrete Burgeoys of the Parliament.-And it fortuned that in the said Parliament one very indiscrete and unmete man was returned a Burgeoys for the borough of Westbury, in Wiltshire, who being instructed by such as delighted to abuse his simplicitie to evil purposes, as he himselfe in the Parliament Hous (beyng sober) openly declared, or els caryed by excesse of drink, or both, did spreade abroade lewde and sedicious rumours against the Queenes Majesties person. And being thereof detected to the Parliament House, and the offence by hym confessed, and his defectes and insufficiency well considered, hee was from the House committed to ward. And for that there was confessed corruption in receaving of money for his election, and also a band taken of him by certein of the town of Westbury, to save them harmless of the said corrupt retorne (as hee confessed), the towne was amerced by the Parliament House at twentie pounds. And it was ordered that hee should have his said bande redelyvered. And afterward the sayd person, for the spreading of his sedicious rumour, he was, by order of the Quenes Majesties most honorable Council, sett on the pillory in Chepesyde in London." This case, remarks Hallam, is the earliest precedent on record for the punishment of bribery in elections.

“Hemming” a Member Down.-Serjeant Heale, addressing the House in 1601, said, “The Queen hath as much right to all our lands and goods as to the revenue of her crown;" at which all the House hemmed, and laughed, and talked. "Well," quoth Serjeant Heale, "all your hemming shall not put me out of countenance." So Mr. Speaker stood up and said, "It is a great disorder that this should be used, for it is the ancient use of every man to be silent when any one speaketh; and

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he that is speaking should be suffered to deliver his mind without interruption." So the Serjeant proceeded, and when he had spoken a little while, the House hemmed again, and so he sat down.-Parliamentary History.

Parliamentary Despatch.-Lord Bacon relates that Mr. Popham, when he was Speaker, and the Lower House had sat long and done in effect nothing, coming one day to Queen Elizabeth, she said to him, "Now, Mr. Speaker, what has passed in the Lower House?" He answered, "If it please your Majesty, seven weeks."

Bills Quashed by the Sovereign.-Queen Elizabeth on one occasion refused her assent to no less than forty-eight bills which had passed both Houses. As the title of each bill was read, the usual bow implying assent was withheld, and the clerk thereupon made the announcement usual in such cases, that her Majesty "would take time to think about it." The last time on which the power to reject bills was exercised by the sovereign was in 1707, when Queen Anne refused her assent to a bill for settling the militia in Scotland.

The Gunpowder Plot.-In the Journals of the Commons, November 5th, 1605, occurs this entry: "This last night the Upper House of Parliament was searched by Sir Thomas Knevett, and one Johnston, servant to Mr. Thomas Percyl, was there apprehended, who had placed thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in the vault under the house, with a purpose to blow up the King and the whole company when they should there assemble. Afterwards divers other gentlemen were discovered to be of the plot." The King, addressing the Parliament on that occasion, said: "This may well be called a roaring, nay, a thundering sin of fire and brimstone, from the which God hath so miraculously delivered us all.” The Plot is commemorated in the Houses of Parliament by an observance continued (says Mr. R. Palgrave) down to the present day. Before the opening of every session, a company of "beefeaters" from the Tower of London examine all the places below the rooms in which the Lords and Commons are to sit.

Insulting the Commons. In the report of a committee, 20th June, 1604, the following subject of complaint to the King was made among others: "The Gentleman Usher's fault in depriving, by his unaccustomed neglect, a great part of our House from hearing your Majesty's speech the first day of Parliament. The Yeoman of the Guard's words were very opprobrious; and howsoever they might have been not unfitly applied to the peasants of France, or boores of Germany, yet could they not be other than very reproachful and injurious to the great dignities and honour of the Commons of the realm." The following minute of the circumstance occurs in the Journals of the House: Brian Tash, the Yeoman of the Guard keeping one of the doors of the Upper House, repulsed several members of the Lower House, and shut the door upon them, with these uncivil and contemptible terms, "Goodmen burgesses, you come not here.'"-Hatsell.

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Disputing Royal Interference.-A double return (writes Oldfield) having been made in an election for the county of Bucks, in the

third year of the reign of King James I. (1606), the House decided that Sir Francis Goodwin was duly elected, and nullified the return of Sir John Fortescue. The King interposing desired the Lords to demand a conference with the Commons on the subject. This the Commons refused; and also declined to comply with a positive command that they should confer with one of the judges. The matter was adjusted by Sir Francis yielding up his right.

A Bishop's Apology.—In 1614, Dr. Richard Neile, Bishop of Lincoln, uttered some words which gave offence to the Commons, and they complained of them in a message to the Lords, to which they received an answer that the bishop "had made solemn protestation, upon his salvation, that he had not spoken anything with any evil intention to that House, which he doth with all his heart duly respect and highly esteem; expressing, with many tears, his sorrow that his words were so misconceived, and strained further than he ever meant; which submissive and ingenuous behaving of himself had satisfied the Lords, and their lordships assure the Commons that if they had conceived the lord bishop's words to have been spoken, or meant, to cast any aspersion of sedition or undutifulness upon that House, their lordships would forthwith have proceeded to the censuring and punishing thereof with all severity."-May's " Law, &c., of Parliament."

The "Kings" of the Lower House.-James, notwithstanding his arbitrary notions of the kingly power and "right divine," appears to have been duly impressed with the power of the House of Commons. Mr. Forster relates that Sir Robert Cotton was one of the twelve members who carried the famous declaration against monopolies, in 1620, to King James at Newmarket, when the quick-witted, shrewd old monarch called out, "Chairs! chairs! here be twal kynges comin!" The following instance of the King's impression is given by L'Estrange :-The King mounted his horse one time, who formerly used to be very sober and quiet, but then began to bound and prance. The de'il i' my saul, sirrah," says he," and you be not quiet I'se send you to the five hundred kings in the House of Commons; they'll quickly tame you."

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Opening of Parliament by James I. in 1621.-Sir S. D'Ewes records that in the King's short progress to Westminster, the following passages were accounted somewhat remarkable. First, that he spake often and lovingly to the people, standing thick and threefold on all sides to behold him, "God bless ye! God bless ye!" contrary to his former hasty and passionate custom, which often, in his sudden distemper, would bid a p― or a plague on such as flocked to see him. Secondly, that though the windows were filled with many great ladies as he rode along, yet that he spake to none of them but to the Marquis of Buckingham's mother and wife, who was the sole daughter and heiress of the Earl of Rutland. Thirdly, that he spake particularly and bowed to the Count of Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador. And, fourthly, that looking up to one window as he passed, full of gentlewomen or ladies, all in yellow bands, he cried out aloud, “ A p— take ye! are ye there?" at which, being much ashamed, they all withdrew themselves suddenly from the window.

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