Page 85 of 163

They mistake, indeed, very much the genius of this reign, who imagine that it was not extremely arbitrary. All the high prerogatives of the crown were to the full exerted in it; but what gave some consolation, and promised in time some relief to the people, they were always complained of by the commons: such as the dispensing power;[******] the extension of the forests;[*******] erecting monopolies;[********] exacting loans—[*********]

     * 36 Edward III. etc.

     ** 14 Edward III. cap. 19.

     *** 36 Edward III. cap. 2.

     **** 7 Richard II. cap. 8.

     ****** Cotton’s Abridg. p. 71.

     ******* Cotton’s Abridg. p. 56, 61, 122.

     ******** Rymer, vol. v. p. 491, 574. Cotton’s Abridg. p. 56.

—stopping justice by particular warrants;[*] the renewal of the commission of “trailbaton;”[**] pressing men and ships into the public service;[***] levying arbitrary and exorbitant fines;[****] extending the authority of the privy council or star-chamber to the decision of private causes;[*****] enlarging the power of the mareschal’s and other arbitrary courts;[******] imprisoning members for freedom of speech in parliament;[*******] obliging people without any rule to send recruits of men at arms, archers, and hoblers to the army.[********]

     * Cotton, p. 114.

     ** Cotton, p. 67.

     *** Cotton, p. 47, 79, 113.

     **** Cotton, p. 32.

     ****** Cotton, p. 74.

     ******* Walsing. p. 189, 190.

But there was no act of arbitrary power more frequently repeated in this reign, than that of imposing taxes without consent of parliament. Though that assembly granted the king greater supplies than had ever been obtained by any of his predecessors, his great undertakings, and the necessity of his affairs, obliged him to levy still more; and after his splendid success against France had added weight to his authority, these arbitrary impositions became almost annual and perpetual. Cotton’s Abridgment of the records affords numerous instances of this kind, in the first[*] year of his reign, in the thirteenth year,[**] in the fourteenth,[***] in the twentieth,[****] in the twenty-first,[*****] in the twenty-second,[******] in the twenty fifth,[*******] in the thirty-eighth,[********] in the fiftieth,[*********] and in the fifty-first,[**********]

     * Tyrrel’s Hist. vol. iii. p. 554, from the records.

     ** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 363.

     *** Page 17, 18.

     **** Page 39.

     ****** Page 52, 53, 57, 58.

     ******* Page 69.

     ******** Page 76.

     ********* Page 101.

     ********** Page 138.

The king openly avowed and maintained this power of levying taxes at pleasure. At one time, he replied to the remonstrance made by the commons against it, that the impositions had been exacted from great necessity, and had been assented to by the prelates, earls, barons, and some of the commons;[*] at another, that he would advise with his council.[**] When the parliament desired that a law might be enacted for the punishment of such as levied these arbitrary impositions he refused compliance.[***]

     * Page 152.

     ** Cotton, p. 53. He repeats the same answer in p. 60. “Some
     of the commons” were such as he should be pleased to consult
     with.

     *** Cotton, p. 57.

In the subsequent year, they desired that the king might renounce this pretended prerogative; but his answer was, that he would levy no taxes without necessity for the defence of the realm, and where he reasonably might use that authority.[*] This incident passed a few days before his death; and these were, in a manner, his last words to his people. It would seem that the famous charter or statute of Edward I., “de tallagio non concedendo,” though never repealed, was supposed to have already lost by age all its authority.

These facts can only show the practice of the times: for as to the right, the continual remonstrances of the commons may seem to prove that it rather lay on their side: at least, these remonstrances served to prevent the arbitrary practices of the court from becoming an established part of the constitution. In so much a better condition were the privileges of the people even during the arbitrary reign of Edward III., than during some subsequent ones, particularly those of the Tudors, where no tyranny or abuse of power ever met with any check or opposition, or so much as a remonstrance, from parliament.

In this reign, we find, according to the sentiments of an ingenious and learned author, the first strongly marked and probably contested distinction between a proclamation by the king and his privy council, and a law which had received the assent of the lords and commons.[**]

It is easy to imagine, that a prince of so much sense and spirit as Edward, would be no slave to the court of Rome. Though the old tribute was paid during some years of his minority,[***] he afterwards withheld it; and when the pope, in 1367, threatened to cite him to the court of Rome for default of payment, he laid the matter before his parliament. That assembly unanimously declared, that King John could not, without a national consent, subject his kingdom to a foreign power; and that they were therefore determined to support their sovereign against this unjust pretension.[****]

     * Cotton, p. 132.

     ** Observations on the Statutes, p. 193.

     *** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 434.

     **** Cotton’s Abridg. p. 110.

During this reign, the statute of provisors was enacted, rendering it penal to procure any presentations to benefices from the court of Rome, and securing the rights of all patrons and electors, which had been extremely encroached on by the pope.[*] By a subsequent statute, every person was outlawed who carried any cause by appeal to the court of Rome.[**]

The laity at this time seem to have been extremely prejudiced against the papal power, and even somewhat against their own clergy, because of their connections with the Roman pontiff. The parliament pretended, that the usurpations of the pope were the cause of all the plagues, injuries, famine, anc poverty of the realm; were more destructive to it than al the wars; and were the reason why it contained not a third of the inhabitants and commodities which it formerly possessed: that the taxes levied by him exceeded five times those which were paid to the king; that every thing was venal in that sinful city of Rome; and that even the patrons in England had thence learned to practise simony without shame or remorse.[***] At another time, they petition the king to employ no churchman in any office of state;[****] and they even speak in plain terms of expelling by force the papal authority, and thereby providing a remedy against oppressions, which they neither could, nor would, any longer endure.[*****] Men who talked in this strain, were not far from the reformation: but Edward did not think proper to second all this zeal. Though he passed the statute of provisors, he took little care of its execution; and the parliament made frequent complaints of his negligence on this head.[******] He was content with having reduced such of the Romish ecclesiastics as possessed revenues in England, to depend entirely upon him by means of that statute.