Lectures on the constitution and laws of England / With a commentary on Magna Charta, and illustrations of many of the English statutes

by Francis Stoughton Sullivan

The Reformation advanced under Edward VI. but it was destined that this prince should only make his appearance on the stage of public life, and give the hope of an able administration. The sway of Mary was a paroxysm of religious madness. She knew not, that when the individuals of a kingdom have agreed to adopt a new religion, it is the duty of the sovereign to give a sanction to it. The reformed were about to experience whatever cruelty the extremity of a mistaken zeal can inflict. But the fires lighted by Gardiner, Bonner, and such abominable men, brought no converts to popery. The dread of endangering the succession of Elizabeth prevented the parliament from giving a check to the obstinate malignity and the sanguinary rage of this unworthy queen; or, perhaps, the nation had scarcely recovered the astonishment into which it was thrown by the atrocity of her deeds, when, in the sixth year of her reign, superstition, peevishness, and the most selfish and unhappy passions, put an end to her life.

Elizabeth, who had learned wisdom from misfortune, attained the summit of political glory. The perilous condition of affairs, on her commencing to reign, required singular moderation and ability, and she exerted them. A sagacity, almost incapable of mistake, directed all her operations[31]. England grew in commerce and advantages, while the rest of Europe was agitated with contentions, and debated with the tyranny of power. Her jealousy of prerogative was corrected by her attachment to the felicity of her people; and the popularity with which she reigned is the fullest proof that she preserved inviolated all the barriers of liberty[32]. The reformation which the folly of her predecessor had interrupted, was compleated by her prudence.

This accomplished princess was succeeded by James VI. of Scotland. He substituted, in the place of ability, the affectation of it. The English nation received him with marks of respect which they were not to continue long. With high notions of kingly dignity, all his actions tended to degrade it; and, while his littleness rendered him contemptible at home, he became an object of ridicule abroad, from his ignorance of foreign politics. Careless in the choice of his ministers, and supremely conceited of his own wisdom, his reign brought no glory to the crown.

The great improvement, which, about this period, displayed itself in the national manners, diffused among all ranks of men very enlarged ideas concerning the nature and principles of civil government. The arts had been cultivated with uncommon success. Discoveries had been made in the most distant regions of the globe. Commerce had brought great accessions of wealth. The balance of property had turned with no equivocal direction to the side of the people.

It was not an age for fastidious and tyrannical maxims. The Commons knew all their strength, and were determined to employ it. The prince endeavoured in vain to impress them with his exorbitant notions of regal authority. Every complaint and grievance of the subject were inquired into; every suspicious and inclement act of prerogative was opposed. The doctrines of the divine right of kings, and of passive obedience, were now first heard of, and alarmed and astonished the nation. Pretensions to power, destructive of the natural and inherent privileges of humanity, and inconsistent with every principle of common sense, were asserted from the pulpit, were claimed by the sovereign. The extravagance of James awakened the thunder which was to burst on the head of his successor.

Charles I. had imbibed the same lofty conceptions of kingly power; and his character was marked by the same incapacity for real business. His situation required insinuation and address; but he affected the utmost stateliness of demeanor. He disgusted the Commons; he insulted the people. To the exercise of his authority, he fancied there was no limitation. Inflamed with opposition, he presumed to attack whatever was most sacred, and most valuable among men. The imprudence of Buckingham had not softened his obstinacy: His Queen was indiscreet, and he confided in her. The violent councils of Strafford precipitated his own and the ruin of his master. The religious foppery of Laud completed what the incapacity of James had begun: It was the cement of union between the friends of liberty and the sect of the Puritans. The people beheld with a fixed and a general indignation the insult and the violence which were offered to the majesty of their laws, and to their constitution. The flames of civil discord were kindled. England was torn during six years with political and religious fury. The unfortunate Charles atoned at length by his death the disorders he had occasioned. The delegates of the people pronounced him guilty of misgovernment and breach of trust. “The pomp, says an eloquent historian, the dignity, the ceremony of this transaction, corresponded to the greatest conception that is suggested in the whole annals of human kind[33].”

Cromwel, the immediate cause of the death of Charles, and of those circumstances of censure which accompanied it, astonished at the height, to which, in the course of the civil wars, his ambition had carried him, was induced to aspire still higher. His genius was great, his fortune greater. On the abolition of monarchy, he introduced into England a military despotism, under the appellation of a common-wealth[34]. From an inferior rank, he had risen gradually to direct the affairs of a powerful nation. Though irregular in his politics, the vigour of his conduct brought signal glory to his councils and his arms. But the fabric he had built was ill-contrived and ill-cemented; its parts were disproportioned; and it rested on no solid foundation. It began to totter during his own life. His son Richard had none of the talents of an usurper. The minds of the people united in an anxious wish for the re-establishment of the ancient constitution; and general Monke acquired the honour of the peerage, and the fame of uncommon political sagacity, for forwarding an event, which it was impossible to prevent.

Charles II. never forgave the people of England for the misfortunes he himself had suffered, nor for those of his House. This monarch had quickness of parts, but possessed not that discernment which sees into the future. He entered without reflection into schemes and projects, and renounced them with the same precipitation. Though an enemy to the constitution of his country, and though in the interest of France, he was not able to produce any lasting disadvantage to the kingdom. His reign, though tumultuous, was not unfavourable to liberty. The total abolition of the military tenures and their appendages, which had place during his sovereignty, was a most important acquisition to the people: It relieved their estates from every source of legal oppression. The habeas corpus act, which was some years posterior to it, offered the firmest security to their persons. It produces in a court of justice the body of every prisoner; it makes known the cause of every commitment; and, if an individual has suffered confinement in opposition to the law, though at the command of the king in council, he is restored to his liberty, and has a claim of compensation for the loss and the indignity his affairs and his honour have sustained.

The clamour against popery was loud and violent during the long administration of Charles II. and yet the crown was permitted to pass to the Duke of York. This confidence, so honourable to the people, was abused by the sovereign. James II. had the zeal of a monk, not the virtue and the talents of a great king. His bigotry and his lust of power made him perpetrate the most atrocious and the most insolent acts. Violating equally civil and religious liberty, his subjects deprived him of a throne of which he was unworthy.