added another quarter of a century to the long sleep of Parliament. Throughout his whole reign Henry summoned Parliament only seven times, and during the last thirteen years only once, in 1504. Money was invariably the object of its summons. The extraordinary servility of Parliament-especially shown in the regularity with which they rendered each successive monarch at his accession partially independent of their help, by granting him a revenue for life can be best accounted for by a brief examination of its constitution and character. The long wars, and the attainders and executions which followed the alternate triumphs of each party, had swept off nearly all the old nobility who had been accustomed to act as leaders of the Opposition, and had served as powerful checks on the ambition of the Crown. The old race of haughty, independent Churchmen had died out as well, and were succeeded by men who looked to the royal favour for advancement and protection from the hatred of the nation. When Henry VII. therefore summoned the Lords to the Parliament of 1485, it is scarcely singular that there appeared only twenty-nine temporal peers, several of whom were new creations. There was, therefore, a permanent royal majority of ecclesiastics already existing; and the new nobility who grew up under the Tudors were more likely to buy safety and advancement by adhering to the ranks of this majority, than to take up the useless and dangerous part of opposition. The Lords, in consequence, entirely ceased to exercise any check on the Crown, and became instead its ready instrument. The Commons had not yet acquired self-importance and self-reliance enough to act alone. Deprived of their leaders they were helpless; nor was it till they learned to follow the lead of the king that they emerged again. from the pathless slough in which they were plunged. SECTION 2.-Early Years of Henry VIII (1509–29). The parliamentary history of the reign of Henry VIII. is divided into three very distinct periods. During the first (15091515), Parliament was assembled at intervals chiefly to vote. 1 The customs, and tunnage and poundage, were granted in this way to each king until the accession of Charles I. money for carrying on the continental war. During the s The early period was at first uneventful, save for repeated The case of Richard Strode, howe of taxation for war. 1512, forms an important epoch in the history of privilege. Richard Strode, member for the borough of Plymp Devonshire, proposed certain Bills in Parliament for the tion of the Cornish mines. He was in consequence pros by the Stannary Courts1 for an infringement of their pri and imprisoned in a dungeon in Lidford Castle, where mained for three weeks, until delivered by a writ of pr Attention had been attracted to his case by the non-perfo of his duties as one of the collectors appointed to ra fifteenth voted in Parliament in consequence of his arrest case was carefully inquired into by the Commons and to be a gross violation of their rights of freedom of deb liberty of the person. It was determined to proceed by Parliament, in order that a definite decision of the whole ture might be recorded on the subject of privilege. Henr it a rule not to interfere with his Parliaments so long proceedings did not trench on his authority; he readily s his assent, therefore, to the statute which is usually desc the "Statute anent Richard Strode" (4 Henry VIII. c. declared the action of the Stannary Courts against Strod and void; and added that all similar actions, condemnatio punishments instituted and enforced in the future for an spoken in Parliament or any bill brought forward in Pa 1 These Courts had special jurisdiction over the Duchy of Corny should be utterly illegal and void as well. This is the first statute which deals with the question of freedom of debate. During the second period (1515-1529), the ruling genius of the Government was the great minister-ecclesiastic, Cardinal Wolsey. Naturally of despotic views himself, he desired to release his master from the trammels of the Constitution and render him supreme in uncontrolled despotism. With the keen eye of a statesman, he realized at once that the strongest check on the power of the monarch lay in the free traditions of the Parliament, and these he determined to remove. Active measures of repression and coercion, however, formed no part of his plan. Parliament was not to be forced, or even bribed, to submit unquestioningly to the views of the Government. It was simply to be deprived of all power of expressing any opinion at all. It was to dream away in numbing inactivity, lapped in a long, long sleep, which is so nearly akin to death, until at last-like the Dodo and other anachronisms—it should have the good taste to become decently extinct. A great gap therefore ensues in the history of Parliament. Between the years 1515-1523 no summons was issued to the estates of the realm; and again between the years 1523-1529 another blank occurs in the parliamentary annals. But for the single exception of the Parliament summoned in 1523, the period of the great Cardinal might be described as an epoch of undiluted personal government. Eight long years of peace and ordinary expenditure had facili tated the execution of Wolsey's plan, and then the outbreak of war involved him in unusual expenses, which drove him to his wit's end to find the necessary cash. All attempts to raise money by extra-parliamentary means having failed, he decided once more to assemble the representatives of the people in order to obtain a general grant. In April, therefore, Parliament met at the Black Friars, and Sir Thomas More, a member of the Council, was chosen Speaker of the Commons by the influence of the Court. The influence of the Court, in fact, was very great in this Parliament, owing to the presence of a large number of Crown nominees and placeholders who voted solidly together for their patron on all occasions; the resistance, therefore, which the Commons offered to the unprecedented demands of the Government really betokens a courage and independence on the part of the country members—if we may antedate an expression—which must relieve them entirely from the charge of blind subservience to the views of the Crown and disregard of the feelings of the country. On April 29, Wolsey in person demanded from the House a vote of one-fifth of every man's goods and land, which he calculated would amount to £800,000. The Commons made no reply whatever to this speech, though he repeatedly called on various members to give him a reasonable answer. At last, Sir Thomas More, bending the knee, replied that the Commons were accustomed to return answer only by the mouth of their Speaker; that it was impossible for him to convey their reply until he had their instructions, which they could not give until they had debated the question, and this they claimed the right of doing in private, in accordance with their privileges. So Wolsey was obliged to withdraw. A long discussion ensued, in which the Commons displayed gross ignorance of the real condition of England in estimating the number of parishes at 40,000, whereas they really did not amount to 15,000. Even with this over-estimate, they considered the royal demands utterly outrageous. Wolsey therefore attempted a little brow-beating, in the hopes of producing the desired effect. He appeared in all his pomp, with "his maces, his pillers, his poleaxes, his crosse, his belt, and the great seale too." But all these trappings of authority were as inefficacious as his arguments. The Commons listened to him again in absolute silence, unconvinced, and positively refused to discuss the question in his presence. On his departure, the debate was continued for sixteen days with the utmost vehemence; but the solid ranks of the king's party were utterly inaccessible to argument, and they eventually carried the day in favour of a heavy tax. Wolsey was so disgusted with the independence of Parliament, that he determined for the future to raise money by unconstitutional and unpopular means, rather than again assemble a body he so heartily distrusted. PERSONAL GOVERNMENT WITH PARLIAMENT. (1529-1588.) SECTION 1.-Later Years of Henry VIII. Management THE (1529-47). HE re-assembling of the two Houses in 1529 marked the fall of Wolsey and Wolsey's system, and is the great turningpoint of the reign. Henry suddenly awoke to the fact that in Parliament there lay ready to his hand an engine of almost incalculable power and the utmost facility, which, if properly handled and guided, might be employed to carry out his most arbitrary views, and to render his personal government more supremely absolute than before. Circumstances rendered it probable that if their own privileges were not infringed, and constitutional forms were strictly observed, Parliament would follow the lead of the king, as they had in earlier times followed the barons and bishops. The chances of resistance, moreover, could be minimised by a judicious distribution of places among the members, by additions at intervals to the list of boroughs, and by active interference, if necessary, to secure the election of members who were not likely to prove troublesome. The result of this new policy was a very considerable change in the principles of government. The system of the New Monarchy, which had hitherto been based on personal government without Parliament, assumed the form of personal government by means of Parliament, which is commonly, though incorrectly, known as the Tudor Despotism. The mode of government, in fact, is no whit less arbitrary than before. Cruel and bloody laws are enforced as rigorously, outrageous acts of tyranny are perpetrated on individuals as recklessly; but it is no longer the king who is the sole instrument of violence, the blame is now shared with the ministers who propose, and the Parliament who assent, if indeed it is not entirely shifted on to their shoulders. This system of parliament |