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[ NOTE K, p. 281. In the fifth year of the king, the commons complained of the government about the king’s person, his court, the excessive number of his servants, of the abuses in the chancery, king’s bench, common pleas, exchequer, and of grievous oppressions in the country, by the great multitudes of maintainers of quarrels, (men linked in confederacies together,) who behaved themselves like kings in the country, so as there was very little law or right, and of other things which they said were the cause of the late commotions under Wat Tyler. Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 365. This irregular government, which no king and no house of commons had been able to remedy, was the source of the licentiousness of the great, and turbulency of the people, as well as tyranny of the princes. If subjects would enjoy liberty, and kings security, the laws must be executed.
In the ninth of this reign, also the commons discovered an accuracy and a jealousy of liberty, which we should little expect in those rude times. “It was agreed by parliament,” says Cotton, (p.309), “that the subsidy of wools, woolfels, and skins, granted to the king until the time of midsummer then ensuing, should cease from the same time unto the feast of St. Peter ‘ad vincula’ for that thereby the king should be interrupted for claiming such grant as due.” See also Cotton, p. 198.]
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[ NOTE L, p. 290. Knyghton, p. 2715, etc. The same author (p. 2680) tells us, that the king, in return to the message, said, that he would not for their desire remove the meanest scullion from his kitchen. This author also tells us, that the king said to the commissioners, when they harangued him, that he saw his subjects were rebellious, and his best way would be to call in the king of France to his aid. But it is plain that all these speeches were either intended by Knyghton merely as an ornament to his history, or are false. For (1.) when the five lords accuse the king’s ministers in the next parliament, and impute to them every rash action of the king, they speak nothing of these replies, which are so obnoxious, were so recent, and are pretended to have been so public. (2.) The king, so far from having any connections at that time with France, was threatened with a dangerous invasion from that kingdom. This story seems to have been taken from the reproaches afterwards thrown out against him, and to have been transferred by the historian to this time, to which they cannot be applied.]
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[ NOTE M, p. 295. We must except the twelfth article, which accuses Brembre of having cut off the heads of twenty-two prisoners confined for felony or debt, without warrant or process of law; but as it is not conceivable what interest Brembre could have to treat these felons and debtors in such a manner, we may presume that the fact is either false or misrepresented. It was in these men’s power to say any thing against the persons accused. No defence or apology was admitted; all was lawless will and pleasure.
They are also accused of designs to murder the lords; but these accusations either are general, or destroy one another. Sometimes, as in article fifteenth, they intend to murder them by means of the mayor and city of London; sometimes, as in article twenty-eighth, by trial and false inquests; sometimes, as in article twenty-eighth, by means of the king of France, who was to receive Calais for his pains.]
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[ NOTE N, p. 296. In general, the parliament, in those days, never paid a proper regard to Edward’s statute of treasons, though one of the most advantageous laws for the subject that has ever been enacted. In the seventeenth of the king, the dukes of Lancaster and Glocester complain to Richard, that Sir Thomas Talbot, with others of his adherents conspired the death of the said dukes in divers parts of Cheshire, as the same was confessed and well known; and praying that the parliament may judge of the fault. Whereupon the king and the lords in the parliament judged the same fact to be open and high treason; and hereupon they award two writs, the one to the sheriff of York, and the other to the sheriffs of Derby, to take the body of the said Sir Thomas, returnable in the king’s bench in the month of Easter then ensuing. And open proclamation was made in Westminster Hall, that upon the sheriffs return, and at the next coming in of the said Sir Thomas, the said Thomas should be convicted of treason, and incur the loss and pain of the same; and all such as should receive him after the proclamation should incur the same loss and pain. Cotton, p. 354. It is to be observed, that this extraordinary judgment was passed in a time of tranquillity. Though the statute itself of Edward III. reserves a power to the parliament to declare any new species of treason, it is not to be supposed that this power was reserved to the house of lords alone, or that men were to be judged by a law “ex post facto.” At least, if such be the meaning of the clause, it may be affirmed, that men were at that time very ignorant of the first principles of law and justice.]
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[ NOTE O, p. 301. In the preceding parliament, the commons had shown a disposition very complaisant to the king; yet there happened an incident in their proceedings which is curious, and shows us the state of the house during that period. The members were either country gentlemen or merchants, who were assembled for a few days, and were entirely unacquainted with business; so that it was easy to lead them astray, and draw them into votes and resolutions very different from their intention. Some petitions concerning the state of the nation were voted: in which, among other things, the house recommended frugality to the king; and for that purpose desired that the court should not be so much frequented as formerly by bishops and ladies. The king was displeased with this freedom; the commons very humbly craved pardon. He was not satisfied unless they would name the mover of the petitions. It happened to be one Haxey, whom the parliament, in order to make atonement, condemned for this offence to die the death of a traitor. But the king, at the desire of the archbishop of Canterbury and the prelates, pardoned him. When a parliament in those times, not agitated by any faction, and being at entire freedom, could be guilty of such monstrous extravagance, it is easy to judge what might be expected from them in more trying situations. See Cotton’s Abridg. p. 361, 362.]