the judge.[1] The long parliament had not ventured to grapple with the subject; but this, the little parliament, went at once to the root of the evil, and voted that the whole system should be abolished. But then, came the appalling difficulty, how to dispose of the causes actually pending in the court, and how to substitute in its place a less objectionable tribunal. Three bills introduced for that purpose were rejected as inapplicable or insufficient: the committee prepared a fourth; it was read twice in one day, and committed, and would probably have passed, had not the subsequent proceedings been cut short by the dissolution of the parliament.[2]
3. But the reformers were not content with the abolition of a single court; they resolved to cleanse the whole of the Augean stable. What, they asked, made up the law? A voluminous collection of statutes, many of them almost unknown, and many inapplicable to existing circumstances; the dicta of judges, perhaps ignorant, frequently partial and interested; the reports of cases, but so contradictory that they were
[Footnote 1: "It was confidently reported by knowing gentlemen of worth, that there were depending in that court 23,000 (2 or 3,000?) causes; that some of them had been there depending five, some ten, some twenty, some thirty years; and that there had been spent in causes many hundreds, nay, thousands of pounds, to the utter undoing of many families."—Exact Relation, 12.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, Aug. 5, Oct. 17, 23, Nov. 3. Exact Relation, 12-15. The next year, however, Cromwell took the task into his own hands; and, in 1655, published an ordinance, consisting of sixty-seven articles, "for the better regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of the high court of Chancery." Widrington and Whitelock, the commissioners of the great seal, and Lenthall, master of the rolls, informed him by letter, that they had sought the Lord, but did not feel themselves free to act according to the ordinance. The protector took the seals from the two first, and gave them Fiennes and Lisle; Lenthall overcame his scruples, and remained in office.—See the ordinance in Scobell, 324; the objections to it in Whitelock, 621.]
regularly marshalled in hosts against each other; and the usages of particular districts, only to be ascertained through the treacherous memories of the most aged of the inhabitants. Englishmen had a right to know the laws by which they were to be governed; it was easy to collect from the present system all that was really useful; to improve it by necessary additions; and to comprise the whole within the small compass of a pocket volume. With this view, it was resolved to compose a new body of law; the task was assigned to a committee; and a commencement was made by a revision of the statutes respecting treason and murder.[1] But these votes and proceedings scattered alarm through the courts at Westminster, and hundreds of voices, and almost as many pens, were employed to protect from ruin the venerable fabric of English jurisprudence. They ridiculed the presumption of these ignorant and fanatical legislators, ascribed to them the design of substituting the law of Moses for the law of the land, and conjured the people to unite in defence of their own "birthright and inheritance," for the preservation of which so many miseries had been endured, so much blood had been shed.[2]
4. From men of professed sanctity much had been expected in favour of religion. The sincerity of their seal they proved by the most convincing test,—an act for the extirpation of popish priests and Jesuits, and the disposal of two-thirds of the real and personal
[Footnote 1: Journals, Aug. 18, 19, Oct. 20. Exact Relation, 15-18.]
[Footnote 2: The charge of wishing to introduce the law of God was frequently repeated by Cromwell. It owed its existence to this, that many would not allow of the punishment of death for theft, or of the distinction between manslaughter and murder, because no such things are to be found in the law of Moses.—Exact Relation, 17.]
estates of popish recusants.[1] After this preliminary skirmish with antichrist, they proceeded to attack Satan himself "in his stronghold" of advowsons. It was, they contended, contrary to reason, that any private individual should possess the power of imposing a spiritual guide upon his neighbours; and therefore they resolved that presentations should he abolished, and the choice of the minister be vested in the body of the parishioners; a vote which taught the patrons of livings to seek the protection of the lord-general against the oppression of the parliament. From advowsons, the next step was to tithes. At the commencement of the session, after a long debate, it was generally understood that tithes ought to be done away with, and in their place a compensation be made to the impropriators, and a decent maintenance be provided for the clergy. The great subject of dispute was, which question should have the precedence in point of time, the abolition of the impost, or the substitution of the equivalent. For five months the committee intrusted with the subject was silent; now, to prevent, as it was thought, the agitation of the question of advowsons, they presented a report respecting the method of ejecting scandalous, and settling godly, ministers; to which they appended their own opinion, that incumbents, rectors, and impropriators had a property in tithes. This report provoked a debate of five days. When the question was put on the first part, though the committee had mustered all the force of the Independents in its favour, it was rejected by a
[Footnote 1: To procure ready money for the treasury, it was proposed to allow recusants to redeem the two-thirds for their lives, at four years' purchase. This amendment passed, but with great opposition, on the ground that it amounted to a toleration of idolatry.—Ibid, ii. Thurloe, i. 553.]