[527] Aikin's Memoirs of James I. i. 350. This speech justly gave offence. "The 21st of this present (May 1610)," says a correspondent of Sir Ralph Winwood, "he made another speech to both the houses, but so little to their satisfaction that I hear it bred generally much discomfort to see our monarchical power and royal prerogative strained so high, and made so transcendent every way, that if the practice should follow the positions, we are not likely to leave to our successors that freedom we received from our forefathers; nor make account of anything we have, longer than they list that govern." Winwood, iii. 175. The traces of this discontent appear in short notes of the debate. Journals, p. 430.
[528] Journals, 431.
[529] Somers Tracts, vol. ii. 159; in the Journals much shorter.
[530] These canons were published in 1690 from a copy belonging to Bishop Overall, with Sancroft's imprimatur. The title-page runs in an odd expression: "Bishop Overall's Convocation-Book concerning the Government of God's Catholic Church and the Kingdoms of the whole World." The second canon is as follows: "If any man shall affirm that men at the first ran up and down in woods and fields, etc., until they were taught by experience the necessity of government; and that therefore they chose some among themselves to order and rule the rest, giving them power and authority so to do; and that consequently all civil power, jurisdiction, and authority, was first derived from the people and disordered multitude, or either is originally still in them, or else is deduced by their consent naturally from them, and is not God's ordinance, originally descending from him and depending upon him, he doth greatly err."—P. 3.
[531] Coke's 2nd Institute, 601; Collier, 688; State Trials, ii. 131. See too an angry letter of Bancroft, written about 1611 (Strype's Life of Whitgift, Append. 227), wherein he inveighs against the common lawyers and the parliament.
[532] Cowell's Interpreter, or Law Dictionary; edit. 1607. These passages are expunged in the later editions of this useful book. What the author says of the writ of prohibition, and the statutes of præmunire, under these words, was very invidious towards the common lawyers, treating such restraints upon the ecclesiastical jurisdiction as necessary in former ages, but now become useless since the annexation of the supremacy of the Crown.
[533] Commons' Journals, 339, and afterwards to 415. The authors of the Parliamentary History say there is no further mention of the business after the conference, overlooking the most important circumstance, the king's proclamation suppressing the book, which yet is mentioned by Rapin and Carte, though the latter makes a false and disingenuous excuse for Cowell. Vol. iii. p. 798. Several passages concerning this affair occur in Winwood's Memorials, to which I refer the curious reader. Vol. iii. p. 125, 129, 131, 136, 137, 145.
[534] Winwood, iii. 123.
[535] Somers Tracts, ii. 162; State Trials, ii. 519.
[536] The court of the council of Wales was erected by statute 34 H. 8, c. 26, for that principality and its marches, with authority to determine such causes and matters as should be assigned to them by the king, "as heretofore hath been accustomed and used;" which implies a previous existence of some such jurisdiction. It was pretended, that the four counties of Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester, and Salop were included within their authority, as marches of Wales. This was controverted in the reign of James by the inhabitants of these counties, and on reference to the twelve judges, according to Lord Coke, it was resolved that they were ancient English shires, and not within the jurisdiction of the council of Wales; "and yet," he subjoins, "the commission was not after reformed in all points as it ought to have been." Fourth Inst. 242. An elaborate argument in defence of the jurisdiction may be found in Bacon, ii. 122. And there are many papers on this subject in Cotton MSS. Vitellius, C. i. The complaints of this enactment had begun in the time of Elizabeth. It was alleged that the four counties had been reduced from a very disorderly state to tranquillity by means of the council's jurisdiction. But, if this were true, it did not furnish a reason for continuing to exclude them from the general privileges of the common law, after the necessity had ceased. The king, however, was determined not to concede this point. Carte, iii. 794.