[505] "My faithful 3, such is now my misfortune, as I must be for this time secretary to the devil in answering your letters directed unto him. That the entering now into the matter of the subsidy should be deferred until the council's next meeting with me, I think no ways convenient, especially for three reasons. First, ye see it has bin already longest delayd of anything, and yet yee see the lower house are ever the longer the further from it; and (as in everything that concerns mee) delay of time does never turn them towards mee, but, by the contrary, every hour breedeth a new trick of contradiction amongst them, and every day produces new matter of sedition, so fertile are their brains in ever buttering forth venome. Next, the Parlt. is now so very near an end, as this matter can suffer no longer delay. And thirdly, if this be not granted unto before they receive my answer unto their petition, it needs never to be moved, for the will of man or angel cannot devise a pleasing answer to their proposition, except I should pull the crown not only from my own head, but also from the head of all those that shall succeed unto mee, and lay it down at their feet. And that freedom of uttering my thoughts, which no extremity, strait nor peril of my life could ever bereave mee of in time past, shall now remain with me, as long as the soul shall with the body. And as for the Reservations of the Bill of Tonnage and Poundage, yee of the Upper House must out of your Love and Discretion help it again or otherwise they will in this, as in all things else that concern mee, wrack both me and all my Posterity. Yee may impart this to little 10 and bigg Suffolk. And so Farewell from my Wildernesse, wch I had rather live in (as God shall judge mee) like an Hermite in this Forrest, then be a King over such a People as the pack of Puritans are that over-rules the lower house. J. R."
MS. penes autorem.
I cannot tell who is addressed in this letter by the numeral 3; perhaps the Earl of Dunbar. By 10 we must doubtless understand Salisbury.
[506] Parl. Hist. Journals, 274, 278, etc. In a conference with the Lords on this bill, Mr. Hare, a member, spoke so warmly, as to give their lordships offence, and to incur some reprehension. "You would have thought," says Sir Thomas Hoby, in a manuscript letter in the Museum, Sloane MSS. 4161, "that Hare and Hyde represented two tribunes of the people." But the Commons resented this infringement on their privileges, and after voting that Mr. Hare did not err in his employment in the committee with the Lords, sent a message to inform the other house of their vote, and to request that they "would forbear hereafter any taxations and reprehensions in their conferences." Journals, 20th and 22nd Feb.
[507] Journals, 316.
An acute historical critic doubts whether James aimed at an union of legislatures, though suggested by Bacon. Laing's Hist. of Scotland, iii. 17. It is certain that his own speeches on the subject do not mention this; nor do I know that it was ever distinctly brought forward by the government; yet it is hard to see how the incorporation could have been complete without it. Bacon not only contemplates the formation of a single parliament, but the alterations necessary to give it effect (vol. i. p. 638), suggesting that the previous commission of lords of articles might be adopted for some, though not for all purposes. This of itself was a sufficient justification for the dilatoriness of the English parliament. Nor were the common lawyers who sat in the house much better pleased with Bacon's schemes for remodelling all our laws. See his speech (vol. i. p. 654) for naturalising the ante-nati. In this he asserts the kingdom not to be fully peopled; "the territories of France, Italy, Flanders, and some parts of Germany, do in equal space of ground bear and contain a far greater quantity of people, if they were mustered by the poll;" and even goes on to assert the population to have been more considerable under the heptarchy.
[508] It was held by twelve judges out of fourteen, in Calvin's case, that the post-nati, or Scots born after the king's accession, were natural subjects of the King of England. This is laid down, and irresistibly demonstrated, by Coke, then chief justice, with his abundant legal learning. State Trials, vol. ii. 559.
It may be observed, that the high-flying creed of prerogative mingled itself intimately with this question of naturalisation; which was much argued on the monarchical principle of personal allegiance to the sovereign, as opposed to the half-republican theory that lurked in the contrary proposition. "Allegiance," says Lord Bacon, "is of a greater extent and dimension than laws or kingdoms, and cannot consist by the laws merely, because it began before laws; it continueth after laws, and it is in vigour when laws are suspended and have not had their force." Id. 596. So Lord Coke: "Whatsoever is due by the law or constitution of man may be altered; but natural legiance or obedience of the subject to the sovereign cannot be altered; ergo, natural legiance or obedience to the sovereign is not due by the law or constitution of man."—652.
There are many doubtful positions scattered through the judgment in this famous case. Its surest basis is the long series of precedents, evincing that the natives of Jersey, Guernsey, Calais, and even Normandy and Guienne, while these countries appertained to the kings of England, though not in right of its crown, were never reputed aliens.
[509] The house had lately expelled Sir Christopher Pigott for reflecting on the Scots nation in a speech. Journals, 13th Feb. 1607.