Note 29 — Chapter XIII · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION UNDER CHARLES II.

It was ordered 21 Jan. 1549, that the eldest son of the Earl of Bedford should continue in the house after his father had succeeded to the peerage. And, 9th Feb. 1575, that his son should do so, "according to the precedent in the like case of the now earl his father." It is worthy of notice that this determination, which, at the time, seems to have been thought doubtful, though very unreasonably (Journals, 10th Feb.), but which has had an influence which no one can fail to acknowledge, in binding together the two branches of the legislature, and in keeping alive the sympathy for public and popular rights in the English nobility (that sensus communis, which the poet thought so rare in high rank) is first recorded, and that twice over, in behalf of a family, in whom the love of constitutional freedom has become hereditary, and who may be justly said to have deserved, like the Valerii at Rome, the surname of Publicolæ.