The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0091/00916.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 34KB | 535 lines

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part XVI}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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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 ri