Note 433 — Chapter V

D'Ewes, 619, 644, etc.

The speeches made in this parliament are reported more fully than usual by Heywood Townsend, from whose journal those of most importance have been transcribed by D'Ewes. Hume has given considerable extracts, for the sole purpose of inferring from this very debate on monopolies, that the royal prerogative was, according to the opinion of the House of Commons itself, hardly subject to any kind of restraint. But the passages he selects are so unfairly taken (some of them being the mere language of courtiers, others separated from the context, in order to distort their meaning), that no one who compares them with the original can acquit him of extreme prejudice. The adulatory strain in which it was usual to speak of the sovereign often covered a strong disposition to keep down his authority. Thus when a Mr. Davies says in this debate: "God hath given that power to absolute princes, which he attributes to himself—Dixi quod dii estis;" it would have been seen, if Hume had quoted the following sentence, that he infers from hence, that justice being a divine attribute, the king can do nothing that is unjust, and consequently cannot grant licences to the injury of his subjects. Strong language was no doubt used in respect of the prerogative. But it is erroneous to assert, with Hume, that it came equally from the courtiers and country gentlemen, and was admitted by both. It will chiefly be found in the speeches of Secretary Cecil, the official defender of prerogative, and of some lawyers. Hume, after quoting an extravagant speech ascribed to Sergeant Heyle, that "all we have is her majesty's, and she may lawfully at any time take it from us; yea, she hath as much right to all our lands and goods as to any revenue of her crown," observes that Heyle was an eminent lawyer, a man of character. That Heyle was high in his profession is beyond doubt; but in that age, as has since, though from the change of times less grossly, continued to be the case, the most distinguished lawyers notoriously considered the court and country as plaintiff and defendant in a great suit, and themselves as their retained advocates. It is not likely, however, that Heyle should have used the exact words imputed to him. He made, no doubt, a strong speech for prerogative, but so grossly to transcend all limits of truth and decency seems even beyond a lawyer seeking office. Townsend and D'Ewes write with a sort of sarcastic humour, which is not always to be taken according to the letter. D'Ewes, 433; Townsend, 205.

Hume proceeds to tell us, that it was asserted this session, that the speaker might either admit or reject bills in the house; and remarks, that the very proposal of it is a proof at what a low ebb liberty was at that time in England. There cannot be a more complete mistake. No such assertion was made; but a member suggested that the speaker might, as the consuls in the Roman senate used, appoint the order in which bills should be read; at which speech, it is added, some hissed. D'Ewes, 677. The present regularity of parliamentary forms, so justly valued by the house, was yet unknown; and the members called confusedly for the business they wished to have brought forward.