View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 11

[111] Rot. Parl. p. 304.

[112] Rot. Parl. p. 310. In the mode of levying subsidies a remarkable improvement took place early in the reign of Edward III. Originally two chief taxors were appointed by the king for each county, who named twelve persons in every hundred to a.s.sess the moveable estate of all inhabitants according to its real value. But in 8 E. III., on complaint of parliament that these taxors were partial, commissioners were sent round to compound with every town and parish for a gross sum, which was from thenceforth the fixed quota of subsidy, and raised by the inhabitants themselves. Brady on Boroughs, p. 81.

[113] Laws appear to have been drawn up, and proposed to the two houses by the king, down to the time of Edward I. Hale's Hist. of Common Law, p. 16.

Sometimes the representatives of particular places address separate pet.i.tions to the king and council; as the citizens of London, the commons of Devons.h.i.+re, &c. These are intermingled with the general pet.i.tions, and both together are for the most part very numerous. In the roll of 50 Edw. III. they amount to 140.

[114] Rot. Parl. p. 239.

[115] Rot. Parl. p. 113.

[116] p. 280.

[117] "If there be any difference between an ordinance and a statute, as some have collected, it is but only this, that an ordinance is but temporary till confirmed and made perpetual, but a statute is perpetual at first, and so have some ordinances also been." Whitelocke on Parliamentary Writ, vol. ii. p. 297. See Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 17; vol. iv. p. 35.

[118] These may be found in Willis's Not.i.tia Parliamentaria. In 28 E. I.

the universities were summoned to send members to a great council in order to defend the king's right to the kingdom of Scotland. 1 Prynne.

[119] Rot. Parl. ii. 206.

[120] Rot. Parl. ii 253, 257.

[121] Id. p. 131.

[122] Rot. Parl. ii. p. 128.

[123] Rymer, t. v. p. 282. This instrument betrays in its language Edward's consciousness of the violent step he was taking; and his wish to excuse it as much as possible.

[124] The commons in the 17th of Edw. III. pet.i.tion that the statutes made two years before be maintained in their force, having granted for them the subsidies which they enumerate, "which was a great spoiling (rancon) and grievous charge for them." But the king answered that, "perceiving the said statute to be against his oath, and to the blemish of his crown and royalty, and against the law of the land in many points, he had repealed it. But he would have the articles of the said statute examined, and what should be found honourable and profitable to the king and his people put into a new statute, and observed in future."

Rot. Parl. ii. 139. But though this is inserted among the pet.i.tions, it appears from the roll a little before (p. 139, n. 23), that the statute was actually repealed by common consent; such consent at least being recited, whether truly or not.

[125] Rymer, t. v. p. 165.

[126] p. 148.

[127] 21 E. III. p. 165.

[128] 28 E. III. p. 261.

[129] 28 E. III. p. 295. Carte says, "the lords and commons, giving this advice separately, declared," &c. Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 518. I can find no mention of the commons doing this in the roll of parliament.

[130] Rymer, p. 269.

[131] p. 114.

[132] p. 304.

[133] Most of our general historians have slurred over this important session. The best view, perhaps, of its secret history will be found in Lowth's Life of Wykeham; an instructive and elegant work, only to be blamed for marks of that academical point of honour which makes a fellow of a college too indiscriminate an encomiast of its founder. Another modern book may be named with some commendation, though very inferior in its execution, G.o.dwin's Life of Chaucer of which the duke of Lancaster is the political hero.

[134] Rymer, p. 322.

[135] Rymer, p. 322.

[136] p. 329.

[137] Anonym. Hist. Edw. III. ad calcem Hemingford, p. 444, 448.

Walsingham gives a different reason, p. 192.

[138] Rot. Parl. p. 374. Not more than six or seven of the knights who had sat in the last parliament were returned to this, as appears by the writs in Prynne's 4th Register, p. 302, 311.

[139] Walsingham, p. 200, says pene omnes; but the list published in Prynne's 4th Register induces me to qualify this loose expression. Alice Perrers had bribed, he tells us, many of the lords and all the lawyers of England; yet by the perseverance of these knights she was convicted.

[140] Rot. Parl. vol. ii. p. 374.

[141] vol. iii. p. 12.

[142] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 12

[143] Rot. Parl. p. 35-38.

[144] Id. p. 57.

[145] See p. 47 of this volume.

[146] Nevertheless, the commons repeated it in their schedule of pet.i.tions; and received an evasive answer, referring to an ordinance made in the first parliament of the king, the application of which is indefinite. Rot. Parl. p. 82.

[147] p. 73. In Rymer, t. viii. p. 250, the archbishop of York's name appears among these commissioners, which makes their number sixteen. But it is plain by the instrument that only fifteen were meant to be appointed.

[148] Rot. Parl. 5 R. II. p. 100.

[149] Rot. Parl. 5 R. II. p. 104.

[150] The commons granted a subsidy, 7 R. II., to support Lancaster's war in Castile. R. P. p. 284. Whether the populace changed their opinion of him I know not. He was still disliked by them two years before. The insurgents of 1382 are said to have compelled men to swear that they would obey king Richard and the commons, and that they would accept no king named John. Walsingham, p. 248.

[151] Walsing. p. 290, 315, 317.

[152] Rot. Parl. 5 R. II. p. 100; 6 R. II. sess. 1, p. 134.

[153] p. 145.

[154] Rot. Parl. 9 R. II. p. 209.

[155] Ib. p. 213. It is however a.s.serted in the articles of impeachment against Suffolk, and admitted by his defence, that nine lords had been appointed in the last parliament, viz. 9 R. II., to inquire into the state of the household, and reform whatever was amiss. But nothing of this appears in the roll.

[156] Knyghton, in Twysden x. Script. col. 2680.

[157] Upon full consideration, I am much inclined to give credit to this pa.s.sage of Knyghton, as to the main facts; and perhaps even the speech of Gloucester and the bishop of Ely is more likely to have been made public by them than invented by so jejune an historian. Walsingham indeed says nothing of the matter; but he is so unequally informed and so frequently defective, that we can draw no strong inference from his silence. What most weighs with me is that parliament met on Oct. 1, 1387, and was not dissolved till Nov. 28; a longer period than the business done in it seems to have required; and also that Suffolk, who opened the session as chancellor, is styled "darrein chancellor" in the articles of impeachment against him; so that he must have been removed in the interval, which tallies with Knyghton's story. Besides, it is plain, from the famous questions subsequently put by the king to his judges at Nottingham, that both the right of retiring without a regular dissolution, and the precedent of Edward II., had been discussed in parliament, which does not appear anywhere else than in Knyghton.

[158] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 219.