[510] Commons' Journals, 366.
The journals are full of notes of these long discussions about the union in 1604, 1606, 1607, and even 1610. It is easy to perceive a jealousy that the prerogative by some means or other would be the gainer. The very change of name to Great Britain was objected to. One said, we cannot legislate for Great Britain. P. 186. Another, with more astonishing sagacity, feared that the king might succeed, by what the lawyers call remitter, to the prerogatives of the British kings before Julius Cæsar, which would supersede Magna Charta. P. 185.
James took the title of King of Great Britain in the second year of his reign. Lord Bacon drew a well-written proclamation on that occasion. Bacon, i. 621; Rymer, xvi. 603. But it was, not long afterwards, abandoned.
[511] Commons' Journals, p. 370.
[512] P. 377.
[513] Commons' Journals, p. 384.
[514] James entertained the strange notion that the war with Spain ceased by his accession to the throne. By a proclamation dated 23rd June 1603, he permits his subjects to keep such ships as had been captured by them before the 24th April, but orders all taken since to be restored to the owners. Rymer, xvi. 516. He had been used to call the Dutch rebels, and was probably kept with difficulty by Cecil from displaying his partiality still more outrageously. Carte, iii. 714. All the council, except this minister, are said to have been favourable to peace. Id. 938.
[515] Winwood, vol. ii. 100, 152, etc.; Birch's Negotiations of Edmondes. If we may believe Sir Charles Cornwallis, our ambassador at Madrid, "England never lost such an opportunity of winning honour and wealth, as by relinquishing the war." The Spaniards were astonished how peace could have been obtained on such advantageous conditions. Winwood, p. 75.
[516] Bacon, i. 663; Journals, p. 341. Carte says, on the authority of the French ambassador's despatches, that the ministry secretly put forward this petition of the Commons in order to frighten the Spanish court into making compensation to the merchants, wherein they succeeded. iii. 766. This is rendered very improbable by Salisbury's behaviour. It was Carte's mistake to rely too much on the despatches he was permitted to read in the Dépôt des Affaires Etrangères; as if an ambassador were not liable to be deceived by rumours in a country of which he has in general too little knowledge to correct them.
[517] There was a duty on wool, woolfells, and leather, called magna, or sometimes antiqua custuma, which is said in Dyer to have been by prescription, and by the barons in Bates's case to have been imposed by the king's prerogative. As this existed before the 25th Edward I., it is not very material whether it were so imposed, or granted by parliament. During the discussion, however, which took place in 1610, a record was discovered of 3 Edw. I. proving it to have been granted par tous les grauntz del realme, par la prière des comunes des marchants de tout Engleterre. Hale, 146. The prisage of wines, or duty of two tons from every vessel, is considerably more ancient; but how the Crown came by this right does not appear.