rogative, called the suspending power, it made royal grants to favoured individuals, contrary to the terms of existing statutes, by inserting in the grants, or letters-patent, the non-obstante clause,-notwithstanding the particular statute which the grants contravened.1 It also made to its friends and courtiers grants of fines and penalties which had accrued, or which were expected to accrue to the crown, from persons convicted, or expected to be convicted, under penal statutes; and of the profits to be derived from the escheat of persons dying without legal heirs.

No prerogatives could be more unjust or more injurious than these; and they were put an end to by a statute of this parliament. Its title is," An Act concerning Monopolies, and Dispensations with Penal Laws, and the Forfeitures thereof." In its preamble it refers, as the foundation of its enactments, "to a royal judgment, which King James did, in 1610, publish in print to the whole realm and to all posterity, that all grants and monopolies, and of the benefit of any penal laws, or of power to dispense with the law, or to compound for the forfeiture, were contrary to the laws, -which royal declaration was truly consonant and agreeable to the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm."

It therefore declared that "all monopolies, commissions, grants, licenses, charters, and letters-patent, for the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using anything within the realm, or of any other monopolies ;-or of power, liberty, or faculty to dispense with any others; or to give license or toleration to do, use, or exercise anything against the tenour or purport of any law or statute; or to give or make warrant for any such dispensation, license, or toleration to be had and made; or to agree or compound with any others for any penalty or forfeitures limited by any statute;-or of any grant or promise of the benefit, profit, or commodity of any forfeiture, penalty, or sum of money, that was or should be due by any statute, before judgment thereupon had; and all proclamations, inhibitions, restraints, warrants of assist

1 See ante, p. 130.

1623.]

MONOPOLIES ABOLISHED.

257

ance, and all other matters and things whatsoever, anyway tending to the strengthening, furthering, or countenancing of the same, or any of them,—were altogether contrary to the laws of the realm, and so were and should be utterly void, and in no wise be put in use or executed."

This declaration of the law is enforced by provisions for rendering monopolies impracticable; and one provision saves from the operation of the act, and declares that it "shall not extend to letters-patent and grants of privilege for the term of fourteen years, and under, thereafter to be made, of the sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures within this realm, to the true and first inventor or inventors of such manufactures, which others, at the time of making such letters-patent and grants, shall not use." It is under this exception from the act, that the crown has exercised, and now exercises, the right of granting letters-patent for new inventions.

1 21 James I., cap. 3.

CHAPTER XV.

CHARLES I., HIS FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD PARLIAMENTS, AND THE PETITION OF RIGHT.

1625-1628.

Scope of the Inquiry.-Charles's Policy in relation to the Parliament.First Parliament.-King's Speech. — Adjourned.-Re-assembled at Oxford.--Statement of Grievances.-Message to hasten Supply.Consideration of it deferred.-Parliament dissolved.-Expedients to raise Money.-Second Parliament opened.-Supply urged, but postponed by intended Impeachment of Buckingham.-Commons' Answer, and King's haughty Reply.-Commons vote Supplies conditionally. Reproved by the King, and Lord Keeper.-Commons justify their Proceedings, and enter a Protest on their Journals.-Commons consider of a Supply.-Charges against Buckingham.-Members of the Commons imprisoned.—The King's Explanation.--Sir D. Digges and Sir J. Elliot discharged.-Lords' Privileges.—Earl of Arundel.— King's Letter to the Speaker, urging Supplies.-Parliament dissolved. Expedients to raise Money.-Compulsory Enforcements.-Expedition to Rochelle.-Nation's Alarm.—Third Parliament called.—The King's Speech.-Commons' Proceedings.-Committee of Grievances.-Commons' Resolutions.-Conference with the Lords.-Commons promise Subsidy, and declare their Right to manage their own Debates.― Billeting of Soldiers.-Lords' Debate on the Liberty of the Subject. -King's Speech, proposing to the Commons to rely on his Word. -Message from the King.-Another Message, consenting to a Bill being drawn.—The Commons again decline to rely on the King's Word.-Conferences concerning the Petition of Right.-Royal Letter to the Lords to shorten the Debate.-Petition of Right.—Meeting of Parliament for the Royal Assent.-The King's evasive Answer.— Mainwaring's Sermons.-Mainwaring impeached.-King's Message, threatening to close the Session.-Debate and Scene in the Commons -Speaker leaves the Chair and the House.-Debate in his Absence.King's Message.-Conference between Lords and Commons on Petition of Right.-Royal Assent given in due form.-Joy of the Commons.—

1625.]

HIS POSITION AT HIS ACCESSION.

259 Subsidies granted.-Sentence on Mainwaring.-Remonstrance against Buckingham.-Tonnage and Poundage.-Parliament prorogued.— Mainwaring pardoned. — Parliament re-assembled, 1628-9.- Complaints against the Crown.-False Print of the Royal Assent to the Petition of Right.—Seizure of Members' Goods for Tonnage.—Bill for Tonnage and Poundage.--Proceedings against Members to recover it. -Oliver Cromwell's first Appearance.-Commons support the Merchants. Examine the Custom-house Officers.-Another Scene in the Commons. Speaker refuses to put a Question.-Outbreak and Resolution. King endeavours to force the House to adjourn.-Proclamation dissolving the Parliament.-Lord Clarendon's Opinion of that Measure.

CHARLES I. ascended the throne on the 27th of March 1625. His reign is, perhaps, the most exciting in our national history. In it, the great contest between prerogative and freedom, was brought to decision by the ultima ratio of war, followed by the execution of the king. These events long divided the nation into two parties; one of which deprecated the war as a great rebellion, and the execution of the king, as sacrilegious parricide; the other justified the war, as a national and just resistance of arbitrary and illegal power; and the king's execution as the lawful punishment of a tyrant.

It is not necessary to our purpose to follow the course of that memorable history through the civil war; but the contest between Charles and his parliaments, prior to the civil war, abounds with events and circumstances that must not be overlooked. The commons then asserted and maintained principles of constitutional freedom with indefatigable perseverance and boldness; and transmitted them to posterity as privileges of parliament, or in general statutes. Of the latter, the most important is that known as the Petition of Right; a landmark of the constitution, inferior only in importance to Magna Charta, and Confirmatio Chartarum. It was the constitutional result of the first three parliaments of Charles; but, unlike its great predecessors, which were the works of the barons, this proceeded from the commons. The only other statutes of this reign, of a constitutional

nature, were passed in the first year of the Long Parliament. The following twenty years are blotted out of our constitutional history. The Civil War, the Commonwealth, the Protectorate of Cromwell, filled them indeed with momentous events; and great changes were for the time made in the system of government. But these changes were obliterated, with the national consent, at the restoration of Charles II., in 1660; and no trace of them appears in our statute-book. There the reign of Charles II. is treated as commencing at the death of his father; the first statute after his restoration bearing the date of the twelfth year of his reign. Highly interesting and important, therefore, as is the history of the period referred to, we may exclude it from our present consideration.

The characteristic feature of Charles's reign, in the relation between him and his first three parliaments, was, on his part a constant endeavour to obtain supplies without diminishing the absoluteness of his prerogative; on their part, to make the supplies the condition of concessions in favour of civil liberty. He was but twenty-five years of age when he ascended the throne; and, as might have been expected from his education under his father James, he was imbued with the highest notion of his royal power and prerogative. But he had to encounter in parliament, the same band of patriots that had so boldly struggled with his father,—the most able and determined men in the nation; against whom Charles, firm in "the divinity that doth hedge a king," pitted his friend and favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, as his chief minister, who had been popular in the latter parliament of James, but of "whose exorbitant power and abusive carriage" the parliament of Charles had conceived the greatest apprehension and dislike.

Charles, moreover, placed himself in a disadvantageous condition for a contest with parliament, by adopting the war with Spain, which his father had threatened, but which was not yet commenced, for the recovery of the Palatinate; and from which his accession gave him an excuse for withdraw