THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I, 291 



but to prevent sudden mischiefs arising wherein the law hath not 

 provision^ until a parliament can provide." But what was this sen- 

 timental talk ? A mere gilding of the greater grievance of his set- 

 ting up the civil above the common law — of prohibiting that which 

 was not prohibited — of making no difference " between Middlesex 

 and Morocco" — and, as Clarendon pointedly remarks, of " urging 

 reasons of state for elements of law." Little did James think how 

 indignantly, in the next reign, this kind of distinction would pass 

 for a thing to be loathed by one half of the peers who then, per- 

 haps, assented to it, being a thing so hateful to the common law. 

 " Sergeant Ashley was committed to the Tower,* by the House of 

 Lords, only for asserting in argument that there was a law of state 

 different from the common law: and the "ship-money judges" were 

 impeached, first, for conceiving it might be fitly and safely held, 

 that state necessity would justify the raising money without consent 

 of parliament, and secondly, that the king was judge of that neces- 

 sity ; while the article against Sir William Berkeley was for saying 

 there was a rule of law and a rule of government."t 



In his very first parliament, indeed, James showed himself to be 

 utterly indifferent to the policy and justice of maintaining a consti- 

 tutional government, by attempting to over-rule the electors of the 

 Commons. But this house was not so controllable by his will, or 

 subservient to his designs, as he fondly anticipated, since they were 

 fast progressing in political knowledge. Sir Francis Qodwin had 

 been chosen member for Buckinghamshire. His fitness, however, 

 for a legislator, not assimilating with the pattern for that function 

 given by James in his proclamation, the Court of Chancery declared 

 his seat vacant, and, in obedience to its fiat, the county selected 

 another representative. But James, though he may have bowed the 

 spirit of his subjects, had not broken it. For his sturdy Commons 

 set at nought the mandate of the Chancery Court, and persisted in 

 the eligibility of Sir Francis; while, in return for his majesty's 

 most absurd and illegal proclamation, they sent him a remonstrance, 

 the following sentences of which should have served as a beacon and 

 warning to James that their eyes were not so easily to be hood- 

 winked as he imagined, in matters pertaining to their constitutional 

 rights and privileges. " That, until the reign of Henry the Fourtli^ 

 all parliament writs were returnable into parliament ; and that, 

 though Chancery was directed to receive returns, this was only to 



• 3, CaroL I. 



f See llushwortli's Collect., vol. ii., p. GOa. 



VOL. VII., NO. XXII. pp 



