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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part XVI}
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$Subject{parliament
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VIII: The Constitutional History Of England
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part XVI

     There was now a more apparent harmony between the court and the
parliament.  It seems to have been tacitly agreed that they should not
interfere with the king's household expenses; and they gratified him in a
point where his honor had been most wounded, declaring his prerogative to be
as high and unimpaired as that of his predecessors, and repealing the
pretended statute by virtue of which Edward II. was said to have been deposed.
^f They were provident enough, however, to grant conditional subsidies, to be
levied only in case of a royal expedition against the enemy; and several were
accordingly remitted by proclamation, this condition not being fulfilled.
Richard never ventured to recall his favorites, though he testified his
unabated affection for Vere by a pompous funeral.  Few complaints,
unequivocally affecting the ministry, were presented by the commons.  In one
parliament the chancellor, treasurer, and counsel resigned their offices,
submitting themselves to its judgment in case any matter of accusation should
be alleged against them.  The commons, after a day's deliberation, probably to
make their approbation appear more solemn, declared in full parliament that
nothing amiss had been found in the conduct of these ministers, and that they
held them to have faithfully discharged their duties.  The king reinstated
them accordingly, with a protestation that this should not be made a
precedent, and that it was his right to change his servants at pleasure. ^g

[Footnote f: Rot. Parl. 14 R. II. p. 279, 15 R. II. p. 286.]

[Footnote g: Rot. Parl. 13 R. II. p. 258.]

     But this summer season was not to last forever.  Richard had but
dissembled with those concerned in the transactions of 1388, none of whom he
could ever forgive.  These lords in lapse of time were divided among each
other.  The earls of Derby and Nottingham were brought into the king's
interest.  The Earl of Arundel came to an open breach with the Duke of
Lancaster, whose pardon he was compelled to ask for an unfounded accusation in
parliament. ^h Gloucester's ungoverned ambition, elated by popularity, could
not brook the ascendency of his brother Lancaster, who was much less odious to
the king.  He had constantly urged and defended the concession of Guienne to
this prince to be held for life, reserving only his liege homage to Richard as
King of France; ^i a grant as unpopular among the natives of that country as
it was derogatory to the crown; but Lancaster was not much indebted to his
brother for assistance which was only given in order to diminish his influence
in England.  The truce with France, and the king's French marriage, which
Lancaster supported, were passionately opposed by Gloucester.  And the latter
had given keener provocation by speaking contemptuously of that misalliance
with Katherine Swineford which contaminated the blood of Plantagenet.  To the
parliament summoned in the 20th of Richard, one object of which was to
legitimate the Duke of Lancaster's antenuptial children by this lady, neither
Gloucester nor Arundel would repair.  There passed in this assembly something
remarkable, as it exhibits not only the arbitrary temper of the king, a point
by no means doubtful, but the inefficiency of the commons to resist it without
support from political confederacies of the nobility.  The circumstances are
thus related in the record.

[Footnote h: 17 R. II. p. 313.]

[Footnote i: Rymer, t. vii. pp. 583, 659.]

     During the session the king sent for the lords into parliament one
afternoon, and told them how he had heard of certain articles of complaint
made by the commons in conference with them a few days before, some of which
appeared to the king against his royalty, estate, and liberty, and commanded
the chancellor to inform him fully as to this.  The chancellor accordingly
related the whole matter, which consisted of four alleged grievances; namely,
that sheriffs and escheators, notwithstanding a statute, are continued in
their offices beyond a year; ^j that the Scottish marches were not well kept;
that the statute against wearing great men's liveries was disregarded; and,
lastly, that the excessive charges of the king's household ought to be
diminished, arising from the multitude of bishops and of ladies who are there
maintained at his cost.

[Footnote j: Hume has represented this as if the commons had petitioned 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 passage from Walsingham in the same note is also
wholly perverted; as the reader will discover without further observation.  A
historian must be strangely warped who quotes a passage explicitly complaining
of illegal acts in order to infer that those very acts were legal.]

     Upon this information the king declared to the lords that through God's
gift he is by lineal right of inheritance King of England, and will have the
royalty and freedom of his crown, from which some of these articles derogate.
The first petition, that sheriffs should never remain in office beyond a year,
he rejected; but, passing lightly over the rest, took most offence that the
commons, who are his lieges, should take on themselves to make any ordinance
respecting his royal person or household, or those whom he might please to
have about him.  He enjoined therefore the lords to declare plainly to the
commons his pleasure in this matter; and especially directed the Duke of
Lancaster to make the speaker give up the name of the person who presented a
bill for this last article in the lower house.

     The commons were in no state to resist this unexpected promptitude of
action in the king.  They surrendered the obnoxious bill, with its proposer,
one Thomas Haxey, and with great humility made excuse that they never designed
to give offence to his majesty, nor to interfere with his household or
attendants, knowing well that such things do not belong to them, but to the
king alone; but merely to draw his attention, that he might act therein as
should please him best.  The king forgave these pitiful suppliants; but Haxey
was adjudged in parliament to suffer death as a traitor.  As, however, he was
a clerk, ^k the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the head of the prelates,
obtained of the king that his life might be spared, and that they might have
the custody of his person; protesting that this was not claimed by way of
right, but merely of the king's grace. ^l

[Footnote k: 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 title 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.]

[Footnote l: Rot. Parl. 20 R. II. p. 339.  In Henry IV.'s first parliament the
commons petitioned for Haxey's restoration, and truly say that his sentence
was en aneantissement des custumes de la commune.  P. 434.  His judgment was
reversed by both houses, as having passed 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 passages 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.]

     This was an open defiance of parliament, and a declaration of arbitrary
power.  For it would be impossible to contend that, after the repeated
instances of control over public expenditure by the commons since the 50th of
Edward III., this principle was novel and unauthorized by the constitution, or
that the right of free speech demanded by them in every parliament was not a
real and indisputable privilege.  The king, however, was completely
successful, and, having proved the feebleness of the commons, fell next upon
those he more dreaded.  By a skilful piece of treachery he seized the Duke of
Gloucester, and spread consternation among all his party.  A parliament was
summoned, in which the only struggle was to outdo the king's wishes, and thus
to efface their former transgressions. ^m Gloucester, who had been murdered at
Calais, was attainted after his death; Arundel was beheaded, his brother the
Archbishop of Canterbury deposed and banished, Warwick and Cobham sent beyond
sea.  The commission of the tenth, the proceedings in parliament of the
eleventh year of the king, were annulled.  The answers of the judges to the
questions put at Nottingham, which had been punished with death and exile,
were pronounced by parliament to be just and legal.  It was declared high
treason to procure the repeal of any judgment against persons therein
impeached. Their issue male were disabled from ever sitting in parliament or
holding place in council.  These violent ordinances, as if the precedent they
were then overturning had not shielded itself with the same sanction, were
sworn to by parliament upon the cross of Canterbury, and confirmed by a
national oath, with the penalty of excommunication denounced against its
infringers. Of those recorded to have bound themselves by this adjuration to
Richard, far the greater part had touched the same relics for Gloucester and
Arundel ten years before, and two years afterwards swore allegiance to Henry
of Lancaster. ^n

[Footnote m: This assembly, 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.]

[Footnote n: Rot. Parl. 21 R. II. p. 347.]

     In the fervor of prosecution this parliament could hardly go beyond that
whose acts they were annulling; and each is alike unworthy to be remembered in
the way of precedent.  But the leaders of the former, though vindictive and
turbulent, had a concern for the public interest; and, after punishing their
enemies, left the government upon its right foundation.  In this all regard
for liberty was extinct; and the commons set the dangerous precedent of
granting the king a subsidy upon wool during his life.  Their remarkable act
of severity was accompanied by another, less unexampled, but, as it proved, of
more ruinous tendency.  The petitions of the commons not having been answered
during the session, which they were always anxious to conclude, a commission
was granted for twelve peers and six commoners to sit after the dissolution,
and "examine, answer, and fully determine, as well all the said petitions, and
the matters therein comprised, as all other matters and things moved in the
king's presence, and all things incident thereto not yet determined, as shall
seem best to them." ^o The "other matters" mentioned above were, I suppose,
private petitions to the king's council in parliament, which had been
frequently despatched after a dissolution.  For in the statute which
establishes this commission, 21 R. II. c. 16, no powers are committed but
those of examining petitions: which, if it does not confirm the charge
afterwards alleged against Richard, of falsifying the parliament roll, must at
least be considered as limiting and explaining the terms of the latter.  Such
a trust had been committed to some lords of the council eight years before, in
very peaceful times; and it was even requested that the same might be done in
future parliaments. ^p But it is obvious what a latitude this gave to a
prevailing faction.  These eighteen commissioners, or some of them (for there
were those who disliked the turn of affairs), usurped the full rights of the
legislature, which undoubtedly were only delegated in respect of business
already commenced. ^q They imposed a perpetual oath on prelates and lords for
all time to come, to be taken before obtaining livery of their lands, that
they would maintain the statutes and ordinances made by this parliament, or
"afterwards by the lords and knights having power committed to them by the
same." They declared it high treason to disobey their ordinances.  They
annulled the patents of the dukes of Hereford and Norfolk, and adjudged Henry
Bowet, the former's chaplain, who had advised him to petition for his
inheritance, to the penalties of treason. ^r And thus, having obtained a
revenue for life, and the power of parliament being notoriously usurped by a
knot of his creatures, the king was little likely to meet his people again,
and became as truly absolute as his ambition could require.

[Footnote o: 21 R. II. p. 369.]

[Footnote p: 13 R. II. p. 256.]

[Footnote q: 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 petitiones 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. I 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 asserted 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.]

[Footnote r: Rot. Parl. pp. 372, 385.]

     It had been necessary for this purpose to subjugate the ancient nobility.
For the English constitution gave them such paramount rights that it was
impossible either to make them surrender their country's freedom, or to
destroy it without their consent.  But several of the chief men had fallen or
were involved with the party of Gloucester.  Two who, having once belonged to
it, had lately plunged into the depths of infamy to ruin their former friends,
were still perfectly obnoxious to the king, who never forgave their original
sin.  These two, Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, and Mowbray, Earl of
Nottingham, now dukes of Hereford and Norfolk, the most powerful of the
remaining nobility, were, by a singular conjuncture, thrown, as it were, at
the king's feet.  Of the political mysteries which this reign affords, none is
more inexplicable than the quarrel of these peers.  In the parliament at
Shrewsbury, in 1398, Hereford was called upon by the king to relate what had
passed between the Duke of Norfolk and himself in slander of his majesty.  He
detailed a pretty long and not improbable conversation, in which Norfolk had
asserted the king's intention of destroying them both for their old offence in
impeaching his ministers.  Norfolk had only to deny the charge and throw his
gauntlet at the accuser.  It was referred to the eighteen commissioners who
sat after the dissolution, and a trial by combat was awarded.  But when this,
after many delays, was about to take place at Coventry, Richard interfered and
settled the dispute by condemning Hereford to banishment for ten years and
Norfolk for life.  This strange determination, which treated both as guilty
where only one could be so, seems to admit no other solution than the king's
desire to rid himself of two peers whom he feared and hated at a blow.  But it
is difficult to understand by what means he drew the crafty Bolingbroke into
his snare. ^s However this might have been, he now threw away all appearance
of moderate government.  The indignities he had suffered in the eleventh year
of his reign were still at his heart, a desire to revenge which seems to have
been the mainspring of his conduct. Though a general pardon of those
proceedings had been granted, not only at the time, but in his own last
parliament, he made use of them as a pretence to extort money from seventeen
counties, to whom he imputed a share in the rebellion.  He compelled men to
confess under their seals that they had been guilty of treason, and to give
blank obligations, which his officers filled up with large sums. ^t Upon the
death of the Duke of Lancaster, who had passively complied throughout all
these transactions, Richard refused livery of his inheritance to Hereford,
whose exile implied no crime, and who had letters patent enabling him to make
his attorney for that purpose during its continuance.  In short, his
government for nearly two years was altogether tyrannical; and, upon the same
principles that cost James II. his throne, it was unquestionably far more
necessary, unless our fathers would have abandoned all thought of liberty, to
expel Richard II.  Far be it from us to extenuate the treachery of the Percys
towards this unhappy prince, or the cruel circumstances of his death, or in
any way to extol either his successor or the chief men of that time, most of
whom were ambitious and faithless; but after such long experience of the
king's arbitrary, dissembling, and revengeful temper, I see no other safe
course, in the actual state of the constitution, than what the nation
concurred in pursuing.

[Footnote s: 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.]

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

     The reign of Richard II. is, in a constitutional light, the most
interesting part of our earlier history; and it has been the most imperfectly
written.  Some have misrepresented the truth through prejudice, and others
through carelessness.  It is only to be understood, and, indeed, there are
great difficulties in the way of understanding it at all, by a perusal of the
rolls of parliament, with some assistance from the contemporary historians,
Walsingham, Knyghton, the anonymous biographer published by Hearne, and
Froissart.  These, I must remark, except occasionally the last, are extremely
hostile to Richard; and although we are far from being bound to acquiesce in
their opinions, it is at least unwarrantable in modern writers to their
opinions, it is at least unwarrantable in modern writers to sprinkle their
margins with references to such authority in support of positions decidedly
opposite. ^u

[Footnote u: It is fair to observe that Froissart's testimony makes most in
favor 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, l. 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.]

     The revolution which elevated Henry IV. to the throne was certainly so
far accomplished by force, that the king was in captivity, and those who might
still adhere to him in no condition to support his authority.  But the sincere
concurrence which most of the prelates and nobility, with the mass of the
people, gave to changes that could not have been otherwise effected by one so
unprovided with foreign support as Henry, proves this revolution to have been,
if not an indispensable, yet a national act, and should prevent our
considering the Lancastrian kings as usurpers of the throne.  Nothing indeed
looks so much like usurpation in the whole transaction as Henry's remarkable
challenge of the crown, insinuating, though not avowing, as Hume has justly
animadverted upon it, a false and ridiculous title by right line of descent,
and one equally unwarrantable by conquest.  The course of proceedings is
worthy of notice.  As the renunciation of Richard might well pass for the
effect of compulsion, there was a strong reason for propping up its
instability by a solemn deposition from the throne, founded upon specific
charges of misgovernment.  Again, as the right of dethroning a monarch was
nowhere found in the law, it was equally requisite to support this assumption
of power by an actual abdication.  But as neither one nor the other filled up
the Duke of Lancaster's wishes, who was not contented with owing a crown to
election, nor seemed altogether to account for the exclusion of the house of
March, he devised this claim, which was preferred in the vacancy of the
throne, Richard's cession having been read and approved in parliament, and the
sentence of deposition, "out of abundant caution, and to remove all scruple,"
solemnly passed by seven commissioners appointed out of the several estates.
"After which challenge and claim," says the record, "the lords spiritual and
temporal, and all the estates there present, being asked, separately and
together, what they thought of the said challenge and claim, the said estates,
with the whole people, without any difficulty or delay, consented that the
said duke should reign over them." ^v The claim of Henry, as opposed to that
of the Earl of March, was indeed ridiculous; but it is by no means evident
that, in such cases of extreme urgency as leave no security for the common
weal but the deposition of a reigning prince, there rests any positive
obligation upon the estates of the realm to fill his place with the nearest
heir.  A revolution of this kind seems rather to defeat and confound all prior
titles; though in the new settlement it will commonly be prudent, as well as
equitable, to treat them with some regard.  Were this otherwise it would be
hard to say why William III. reigned to the exclusion of Anne, or even of the
Pretender, who had surely committed no offence at that time; or why (if such
indeed be the true construction of the Act of Settlement) the more distant
branches of the royal stock, descendants of Henry VII. and earlier kings, have
been cut off from their hope of succession by the restriction to the heirs of
the Princess Sophia.

[Footnote v: Rot. Parl. p. 423.]

     In this revolution of 1399 there was as remarkable an attention shown to
the formalities of the constitution, allowance made for the men and the times,
as in that of 1688.  The parliament was not opened by commission; no one took
the office of president; the commons did not adjourn to their own chamber;
they chose no speaker; the name of parliament was not taken, but that only of
estates of the realm.  But as it would have been a violation of constitutional
principles to assume a parliamentary character without the king's commission,
though summoned by his writ, so it was still more essential to limit their
exercise of power to the necessity of circumstances.  Upon the cession of the
king, as upon his death, the parliament was no more; its existence, as the
council of the sovereign, being dependent upon his will.  The actual
convention summoned by the writs of Richard could not legally become the
parliament of Henry; and the validity of a statute declaring it to be such
would probably have been questionable in that age, when the power of statutes
to alter the original principles of the common law was by no means so
thoroughly recognized as at the Restoration and Revolution.  Yet Henry was too
well pleased with his friends to part with them so readily; and he had much to
effect before the fervor of their spirits should abate.  Hence an expedient
was devised of issuing writs for a new parliament, returnable in six days.
These neither were nor could be complied with; but the same members as had
deposed Richard sat in the new parliament, which was regularly opened by
Henry's commissioner as if they had been duly elected. ^w In this contrivance,
more than in all the rest, we may trace the hand of lawyers.

[Footnote w: If proof could be required of anything so self-evident as that
these assemblies consisted of exactly the same persons, it may be found in
their writs of expenses, as published by Prynne, 4th Register, p. 450.]

     If we look back from the accession of Henry IV. to that of his
predecessor, the constitutional authority of the house of commons will be
perceived to have made surprising progress during the course of twenty-two
years.  Of the three capital points in contest while Edward reigned, that
money could not be levied, or laws enacted, without the commons' consent, and
that the administration of government was subject to their inspection and
control, the first was absolutely decided in their favor, the second was at
least perfectly admitted in principle, and the last was confirmed by frequent
exercise.  The commons had acquired two additional engines of immense
efficiency; one, the right of directing the application of subsidies, and
calling accountants before them; the other, that of impeaching the king's
ministers for misconduct.  All these vigorous shoots of liberty throve more
and more under the three kings of the house of Lancaster, and drew such
strength and nourishment from the generous heart of England, that in
aftertimes, and in a less prosperous season, though checked and obstructed in
their growth, neither the blasts of arbitrary power could break them off, nor
the mildew of servile opinion cause them to wither.  I shall trace the
progress of parliament till the civil wars of York and Lancaster: 1. in
maintaining the exclusive right of taxation; 2. in directing and checking the
public expenditure; 3. in making supplies depend on the redress of grievances;
4. in securing the people against illegal ordinances and interpolations of the
statutes; 5. in controlling the royal administration; 6. in punishing bad
ministers; and lastly, in establishing their own immunities and privileges.

     1. The pretence of levying money without consent of parliament expired
with Edward III., who had asserted it, as we have seen, in the very last year
of his reign.  A great council of lords and prelates, summoned in the second
year of his successor, declared that they could advise no remedy for the
king's necessities without laying taxes on the people, which could only be
granted in parliament. ^x Nor was Richard ever accused of illegal tallages,
the frequent theme of remonstrance under Edward, unless we may conjecture that
this charge is implied in an act (11 R. II. c. 9) which annuls all impositions
on wool and leather, without consent of parliament, if any there be. ^y
Doubtless his innocence in this respect was the effect of weakness; and if the
revolution of 1399 had not put an end to his newly acquired despotism, this,
like every other right of his people, would have been swept away.  A less
palpable means of evading the consent of the commons was by the extortion of
loans, and harassing those who refused to pay by summonses before the council.
These loans, the frequent resource of arbitrary sovereigns in later times, are
first complained of in an early parliament of Richard II.; and a petition is
granted that no man shall be compelled to lend the king money. ^z But how
little this was regarded we may infer from a writ directed, in 1386, to some
persons in Boston, enjoining them to assess every person who had goods and
chattels to the amount of twenty pounds, in his proportion of two hundred
pounds, which the town had promised to lend the king; and giving an assurance
that this shall be deducted from the next subsidy to be granted by parliament.
Among other extraordinary parts of this letter is a menace forfeiting life,
limbs, and property, held out against such as should not obey these
commissioners. ^a After his triumph over the popular party towards the end of
his reign, he obtained large sums in this way.

[Footnote x: 2 R. II. p. 56.]

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

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

[Footnote a: Rymer, t. vii. p. 544.]

     Under the Lancastrian kings there is much less appearance of raising
money in an unparliamentary course.  Henry IV. obtained an aid from a great
council in the year 1400; but they did not pretend to charge any besides
themselves; though it seems that some towns afterwards gave the king a
contribution. ^b A few years afterwards he directs the sheriffs to call on the
richest men in their countries to advance the money voted by parliament.
This, if any compulsion was threatened, is an instance of overstrained
prerogative, though consonant to the practice of the late reign. ^c There is,
however, an instance of very arbitrary conduct with respect to a grant of
money in the minority of Henry VI.  A subsidy had been granted by parliament
upon goods imported under certain restrictions in favor of the merchants, with
a provision that, if these conditions be not observed on the king's part, then
the grant should be void and of no effect. ^d But an entry is made on the roll
of the next parliament, that, "whereas some disputes have arisen about the
grant of the last subsidy, it is declared by the Duke of Bedford and other
lords in parliament, with advice of the judges and others learned in the law,
that the said subsidy was at all events to be collected and levied for the
king's use; notwithstanding any conditions in the grant of the said subsidy
contained." ^e The commons, however, in making the grant of a fresh subsidy in
this parliament, renewed their former conditions, with the addition of
another, that "it ne no part thereof be beset ne dispensed to no other use,
but only in and for the defense of the said roialme." ^f

[Footnote b: 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.]

[Footnote c: Rymer, t. viii. pp. 412, 488.]

[Footnote d: Rot. Parl. vol. iv. p. 216.]

[Footnote e: Rot. Parl. p. 301.]

[Footnote f: Id. p. 302.]

     2. The right of granting supplies would have been very incomplete, had it
not been accompanied with that of directing their application.  The principle
of appropriating public moneys began, as we have seen, in the minority of
Richard; and was among the best fruits of that period.  It was steadily
maintained under the new dynasty.  The parliament of 6 H. IV. granted
two-fifteenths and two-tenths, with a tax on skins and wool, on condition that
it should be expended in the defence of the kingdom, and not otherwise, as
Thomas Lord Furnival and Sir John Pelham, ordained treasurers of war for this
parliament, to receive the said subsidies, shall account and answer to the
commons at the next parliament.  These treasurers were sworn in parliament to
execute their trusts. ^g A similar precaution was adopted in the next session.
^h

[Footnote g: Id. vol. iii. p. 546.]

[Footnote h: Id. p. 568.]

     3. The commons made a bold attempt in the second year of Henry IV. to
give the strongest security to their claims of redress, by inverting the usual
course of parliamentary proceedings.  It was usual to answer their petitions
on the last day of the session, which put an end to all further discussion
upon them, and prevented their making the redress of grievances a necessary
condition of supply.  They now requested that an answer might be given before
they made their grant of subsidy.  This was one of the articles which Richard
II.'s judges had declared it high treason to attempt.  Henry was not inclined
to make a concession which would virtually have removed the chief impediment
to the ascendency of parliament.  He first said that he would consult with the
lords, and answer according to their advice.  On the last day of the session
the commons were informed that "it had never been known in the time of his
ancestors that they should have their petitions answered before they had done
all their business in parliament, whether of granting money or any other
concern; wherefore the king will not alter the good customs and usages of
ancient times." ^i

[Footnote i: Ibid. vol. iii. p. 453.]