Progress Of Liberty.
These particular acts, as well as the general course of events, attest the progress of constitutional maxims and practices.
Lecture XXV.
Summary of the history of the Parliament from the death of Richard II. to the accession of the House of Stuart.
Progress of the forms of procedure, and of the privileges of Parliament.
Liberty of speech in both Houses.
Inviolability of members of Parliament.
Judicial power of the House of Lords.
Decadence of the Parliament during the wars of the Roses, and under the Tudor dynasty.
Causes of this decadence and of the progress of royal authority, from Henry VII. to Elizabeth.
Conclusion.
The Tudors And Stuarts.
It is impossible to comprehend the entire scope of the character and influence of great events. Some occurrences, which procure order and liberty for the present, prepare the way for tyranny and confusion in the future; while others, on the contrary, establish absolute power at first, and subsequently give birth to full political freedom. We cannot fail to be struck by this reflection when we consider the prodigious difference which exists between the immediate results and the remote consequences of the deposition of Richard II. It delivered England from an arbitrary, insolent, and disorderly government; but sixty years afterwards it gave rise to the wars of the Red and White Roses, and to all those cruel internal distractions which facilitated the establishment of the Tudor despotism: so that the decay of English liberties, from 1461 to 1640, had its primary source in the event which, in 1399, had consummated their triumph.
In considering the general character of the state of the government from 1399 to 1461, under the first three kings of the House of Lancaster, Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., we must admit that this period was remarkable neither for the unchangeableness nor for the progress of institutions. During this epoch, the Parliament gained none of those signal victories which distinguished the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.; no really new right, no fundamental and previously unknown guarantee, were added to those already possessed.