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[ NOTE BB, p. 259. The queen’s speech in the camp of Tilbury was in these words. “My loving people, we have been persuaded, by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear: I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood; even in the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms; to which rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms. I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead; than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting, by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.”]

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[ NOTE CC, p. 264. Strype, vol. iii. p. 525. On the 4th of September, boon after the dispersion of the Spanish armada, died the earl of Leicester, the queen’s great but unworthy favorite. Her affection for him continued to the last. He had discovered no conduct in any of his military enterprises, and was suspected of cowardice; yet she intrusted him with the command of her armies during the danger of the Spanish invasion; a partiality which might have proved fatal to her, had the duke of Parma been able to land his troops in England. She had even ordered a commission to be drawn for him, constituting him her lieutenant, in the kingdoms of England and Ireland; but Burleigh and Hatton represented to her the danger of intrusting such unlimited authority in the hands of any subject, and prevented the execution of that design. No wonder that a conduct so unlike the usual jealousy of Elizabeth, gave reason to suspect that her partiality was founded on some other passion than friendship. But Elizabeth seemed to carry her affection to Leicester no farther than the grave; she ordered his goods to be disposed of at a public sale, in order to reimburse herself of some debt which he owed her; and her usual attention to money was observed to prevail over her regard to the memory of the deceased. This earl was a great hypocrite, a pretender to the strictest religion, an encourager of the Puritans, and founder of hospitals.]

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[ NOTE DD, p. 264. Strype, vol. iii. p. 542. Id. append, p. 239. There are some singular passages in this last speech, which may be worth taking notice of, especially as they came from a member who was no courtier; for he argues against the subsidy. “And first,” says he, “for the necessity thereof, I cannot deny, but if it were a charge imposed upon us by her majesty’s commandment, or a demand proceeding from her majesty by way of request, that I think there is not one among us all, either so disobedient a subject in regard of our duty, or so unthankful a man in respect of the inestimable benefits which by her or from her we have received, which would not with frank consent, both of voice and heart, most willingly submit himself thereunto, without any unreverend inquiry into the causes thereof. For it is continually in the mouth of us all, that our lands, goods, and lives, are at our prince’s disposing. And it agreeth very well with that position of the civil law, which sayeth, ‘Quod omnia regis aunt,’ But how? ‘Ita tamen ut omnium sint. Ad regem enim potestas omnium pertinet; ad singulos proprietas.’ So that although it be most true that her majesty hath over ourselves and our goods ‘potestatem imperandi,’ yet it is true, that until that power command, (which, no doubt, will not command without very just cause,) every subject hath his own ‘proprietatem possidendi.’ Which power and commandment from her majesty, which we have not yet received, I take it, (saving reformation,) that we are freed from the cause of necessity. And the cause of necessity is the dangerous estate of the commonwealth,” etc. The tenor of the speech pleads rather for a general benevolence than a subsidy; for the law of Richard III. against benevolence was nevei conceived to have any force. The member even proceeds to assert, with some precaution, that it was in the power of parliament to refuse the king’s demand of a subsidy; and that there was an instance of that liberty in Heary III.‘s time near four hundred years before. Sub Fine.]

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[ NOTE EE, p. 266 We may judge of the extent and importance of these abuses by a speech of Bacon’s against purveyors, delivered in the first session of the first parliament of the subsequent reign, by which also we may learn that Elizabeth had given no redress to the grievances complained of. “First,” says he, “they take in kind what they ought not to take; secondly, they take in quantity a far greater proportion than cometh to your majesty’s use; thirdly, they take in an unlawful manner, in a manner, I say, directly and expressly prohibited by the several laws. For the first, I am a little to alter their name; for in stead of takers, they become taxers. Instead of taking provisions for your majesty’s service, they tax your people ‘ad redimendam vexationem;’ imposing upon them and extorting from them divers sums of money, sometimes in gross, sometimes in the nature of stipends annually paid, ‘ne noceant,’ to be freed and eased of their oppression Again, they take trees, which by law they cannot do; timber trees which are the beauty, countenance, and shelter of men’s houses; that men have long spared from their own purse and profit; that men esteem for their use and delight, above ten times the value; that are a loss which men cannot repair or recover. These do they take, to the defacing and spoiling of your subjects’ mansions and dwellings, except they may be compounded with to their own appetites. And if a gentleman be too hard for them while he is at home, they will watch their time when there is but a bailiff or a servant remaining, and put the axe to the root of the tree, ere even the master can stop it. Again, they use a strange and most unjust exaction in causing the subjects to pay poundage of their own debts, due from your majesty unto them; so as a poor man, when he has had his hay, or his wood, or his poultry (which perchance he was full loath to part with, and had for the provision of his own family, and not to put to sale) taken from him, and that not at a just price, but under the value, and cometh to receive his money, he shall have after the rate of twelve pence in the pound abated for poundage of his due payment upon so hard conditions. Nay, further, they are grown to that extremity, (as is affirmed, though it be scarce credible, save that in such persons all things are credible,) that they will take double poundage once when the debenture is made, and again the second time when the money is paid. For the second point, most gracious sovereign, touching the quantity which they take far above that which is answered to your majesty’s use; it is affirmed unto me by divers gentlemen of good report, as a matter which I may safely avouch unto your majesty, that there is no pound profit which redoundeth unto your majesty in this course, but induceth and begetteth three pound damage upon your subjects, beside the discontentment. And to the end they may make their spoil more securely, what do they? Whereas divers statutes do strictly provide, that whatsoever they take shall De registered and attested, to the end that by making a collation of that which is taken from the country and that which is answered above, their deceits might appear, they, to the end, to obscure their deceits, utterly omit the observation of this, which the law prescribeth. And therefore to descend, if it may please your majesty, to the third sort of abuse, which is of the unlawful manner of their taking, whereof this question is a branch; it is so manifold, as it rather asketh an enumeration of some of the particulars than a prosecution of all. For their price, by law they ought to take as they can agree with the subject; by abuse, they take at an imposed and enforced price. By law they ought to take but one apprizement by neighbors in the country; by abuse, they make a second apprizement at the court gate; and when the subjects’ cattle come up many miles, lean and out of plight by reason of their travel, then they prize them anew at an abated price. By law, they ought to take between sun and sun; by abuse, they take by twilight and in the night time, a time well chosen for malefactors. By law, they ought not to take in the highways, (a place by her majesty’s high prerogative protected, and by statute by special words excepted;) by abuse, they take in the highways. By law, they ought to show their commission, etc. A number of other particulars there are,” etc. Bacon’s Works, vol. iv. p. 305, 306.

Such were the abuses which Elizabeth would neither permit her parliaments to meddle with, nor redress herself. I believe it will readily be allowed, that this slight prerogative alone, which has passed almost unobserved amidst other branches of so much greater importance, was sufficient to extinguish all regular liberty. For what elector, or member of parliament, or even juryman, durst oppose the will of the court, while he lay under the lash of such an arbitrary prerogative? For a further account of the grievous and incredible oppressions of purveyors, see the Journals of the house of commons, vol. i. p. 190. There is a story of a carter, which may be worth mentioning on this occasion. “A carter had three times been at Windsor with his cart, to carry away, upon summons of a remove, some part of the stuff of her majesty’s wardrobe; and when he had repaired thither once, twice, and the third time, and that they of the wardrobe had told him the third time, that the remove held not, the carter, slapping his hand on his thigh, said, ‘Now I see that the queen is a woman as well as my wife;’ which words being overheard by her majesty, who then stood at the window, she said, ‘What a villain is this?’ and so sent him three angels to stop his mouth.” Birch’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 155.]