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[ NOTE N, p. 296. In general, the parliament, in those days, never paid a proper regard to Edward’s statute of treasons, though one of the most advantageous laws for the subject that has ever been enacted. In the seventeenth of the king, the dukes of Lancaster and Glocester complain to Richard, that Sir Thomas Talbot, with others of his adherents conspired the death of the said dukes in divers parts of Cheshire, as the same was confessed and well known; and praying that the parliament may judge of the fault. Whereupon the king and the lords in the parliament judged the same fact to be open and high treason; and hereupon they award two writs, the one to the sheriff of York, and the other to the sheriffs of Derby, to take the body of the said Sir Thomas, returnable in the king’s bench in the month of Easter then ensuing. And open proclamation was made in Westminster Hall, that upon the sheriffs return, and at the next coming in of the said Sir Thomas, the said Thomas should be convicted of treason, and incur the loss and pain of the same; and all such as should receive him after the proclamation should incur the same loss and pain. Cotton, p. 354. It is to be observed, that this extraordinary judgment was passed in a time of tranquillity. Though the statute itself of Edward III. reserves a power to the parliament to declare any new species of treason, it is not to be supposed that this power was reserved to the house of lords alone, or that men were to be judged by a law “ex post facto.” At least, if such be the meaning of the clause, it may be affirmed, that men were at that time very ignorant of the first principles of law and justice.]

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[ NOTE O, p. 301. In the preceding parliament, the commons had shown a disposition very complaisant to the king; yet there happened an incident in their proceedings which is curious, and shows us the state of the house during that period. The members were either country gentlemen or merchants, who were assembled for a few days, and were entirely unacquainted with business; so that it was easy to lead them astray, and draw them into votes and resolutions very different from their intention. Some petitions concerning the state of the nation were voted: in which, among other things, the house recommended frugality to the king; and for that purpose desired that the court should not be so much frequented as formerly by bishops and ladies. The king was displeased with this freedom; the commons very humbly craved pardon. He was not satisfied unless they would name the mover of the petitions. It happened to be one Haxey, whom the parliament, in order to make atonement, condemned for this offence to die the death of a traitor. But the king, at the desire of the archbishop of Canterbury and the prelates, pardoned him. When a parliament in those times, not agitated by any faction, and being at entire freedom, could be guilty of such monstrous extravagance, it is easy to judge what might be expected from them in more trying situations. See Cotton’s Abridg. p. 361, 362.]

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[ NOTE P, p. 312. To show how little credit is to be given to this charge against Richard, we may observe, that a law in the 13th Edward III. had been enacted against the continuance of sheriffs for more than one year. But the inconvenience of changes having afterwards appeared, from experience, the commons, in the twentieth of this king, applied; by petition, that the sheriffs might be continued; though that petition had not been enacted into a statute, by reason of other disagreeable circumstances which attended it. See Cotton, p. 361. It was certainly a very moderate exercise of the dispensing power in the king to continue the sheriffs, after he found that that practice would be acceptable to his subjects, and had been applied for by one house of parliament; yet is this made an article of charge against him by the present parliament. See article 18. Walsingham, speaking of a period early in Richard’s minority, says, “But what do acts of parliament signify, when, after they are made, they take no effect, since the king, by the advice of the privy council, takes upon him to alter, or wholly set aside, all those things which by general consent had been ordained in parliament?” If Richard, therefore, exercised the dispensing power, he was warranted by the examples of his uncles and grandfather, and indeed of all his predecessors from the time of Henry III., inclusive.]

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[ NOTE Q, p. 318. The following passage in Cotton’s Abridgment (p. 196) shows a strange prejudice against the church and churchmen. “The commons afterwards coming into the parliament, and making their protestation, showed, that for want of good redress about the king’s person in his household, in all his courts, touching maintainers in every county, and purveyors, the commons were daily pilled, and nothing defended against the enemy, and that it should shortly deprive the king and undo the state. Wherefore in the same government they entirely require redress. Whereupon the king appointed sundry bishops, lords, and nobles, to sit in privy council about these matters; who, since that they must begin at the head, and go at the request of the commons, they, in the presence of the king, charged his confessor not to come into the court but upon the four principal festivals.” We should little expect that a popish privy council, in order to preserve the king’s morals, should order his confessor to be kept at a distance from him. This incident happened in the minority of Richard. As the popes had for a long time resided at Avignon, and the majority of the sacred college were Frenchmen, this circumstance naturally increased the aversion of the nation to the papal power; but the prejudice against the English clergy cannot be accounted for from that cause.]

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[ NOTE R, p. 450. That we may judge how arbitrary a court that of the constable of England was, we may peruse the patent granted to the earl of Rivers in this reign, as it is to be found in Spellman’s Glossary in verb. Constabularius: as also more fully in Rymer, vol. xi. p. 581. Here is a clause of it: “Et ulterius de uberiori gratia nostra eidem comiti de Rivers plenam potestatem damus ad cognoscendum et procedendum, in omnibus et singulis causis et negotiis, de et super crimine lesse majestatis, seu super occasione eseterisque causis quibuscunque per prfatum comitem de Rivers, ut constabularium Angli——qu in curia constabularii Angli ab antique, viz, tempore dicti domini Gtilielmi Conqutoris, sen aliquo tempore citra, tractari, audiri examinari, aut decidi consueverant, aut jure debuerant aut clebeni, causasque et negotia prdicta cum omnibus et singulis emergentibus, incidentibus et connexis, audiendum, examinandum, et fine debito terminandum, etiam summarie et de plano, sine strepitu et figura justiti, sola facti veritate inspecta, ac etiam manu regia, si opportunum visum fuerit eidem comiti de Rivers, vices nostras, appellatione remots.” The office of constable was perpetual in the monarchy; its jurisdiction was not limited to times of war, as appears from this patent, and as we learn from Spellman; yet its authority was in direct contradiction to Magna Charta; and it is evident, that no regular liberty could subsist with it. It involved a full dictatorial power, continually subsisting in the state. The only check on the crown, besides the want of force to support all its prerogatives, was, that the office of constable was commonly either hereditary or during life, and the person invested with it was, for that reason, not so proper an instrument of arbitrary power in the king. Accordingly the office was suppressed by Henry VIII., the most arbitrary of all the English princes. The practice, however, of exercising martial law still subsisted; and was not abolished till the Petition of Right under Charles I. This was the epoch of true liberty, confirmed by the restoration, and enlarged and secured by the revolution.]