Accused persons not heard in their defence. Act giving the King's tions the To obviate all danger of refutation or of unpleasant disclosures, Cromwell, by the King's express command, enquired of the Judges whether, if Parliament should condemn a man to die for treason without hearing him in his defence, the attainder could ever be disputed. They replied that it would form a dangerous precedent; that Parliament should rather set an example to inferior courts by proceeding according to justice; but that the court of Parliament being supreme, an attainder in Parliament could never, under any circumstances, be subsequently questioned in a court of law. By the irony of fate, Cromwell was himself the first to perish by an Act of Attainder hurried through Parliament without hearing him in his defence. A remarkable example of the way in which Henry VIII. contrived Proclama- to unite the exercise of practically absolute power with respect for force of law: Constitutional forms-to play the despot by the co-operation of his Parliament,-is afforded by the Act giving the King's Proclamations the force of law. The King having issued certain Royal Proclamations, the Judges held that those who disobeyed them could not be punished by the Council. The King then appealed to Parliament to give to his Proclamations the force of statutes. This request was complied with, but not without 'many large words.' The Act recites the contempt and disobedience of the King's Proclamations by some 'who did not consider what a King by his royal power might do,' and then, in order that the King might not be driven to extend his royal supremacy' enacts that Proclamations made by him, with the advice of a majority of his Council, should, under the penalty of fine and imprisonment, have the force of statutes, but so that they should not be prejudicial to any person's inheritance, offices, liberties, goods and chattels, or infringe the established laws. It was moreover specially declared that such Proclamations should derive all their force 'from the authority of this Act,' and that no persons should 'by virtue of this Act suffer any pains of death;' but from this provision against capital punishment there was a formidable exception of such persons as 'should offend against any proclamation to be made by the King's highness, his heirs or successors, for or concerning any kind of the same stages as any other Act of Parliament. It may be introduced in either the Lords or Commons, and after passing through both Houses receives the Royal assent. No evidence is necessarily adduced to support it. It is analogous to a bill of pains and penalties, and was originally intended for the punishment of those who fled from justice. The earliest notable instance of its employment was in the banishment by Parliament of the two Despencers. father and son, in the 15th Edward II. A.D. 1321.-(Proceedings against the Despencers, 1 St. Tr. 23, 38.) See supra, p. 267, note 4. 1 Coke, Inst. iv. 37. testimony heresies against Christian doctrine." The fact that the King was a striking obliged to obtain this statute, and the considerable limitations with to the free constitution which it was granted, afford 'a striking testimony to the free constitu- it infringed. tion it infringed, and demonstrate that the prerogative could not soar to the heights it aimed at, till thus impelled by the perfidious hand of Parliament.'" Crown in. the assump siastical dissolution We have seen how the despotism of Henry was rendered possible Power of the by the decay and intimidation of the nobility and by the obsequious creased by ness of the Commons. His arbitrary rule was still further augmented to the by the assumption of the Ecclesiastical supremacy, and the practical Eccletransfer to the Crown of the immense power which the Church had supremacy; hitherto wielded. The dissolution of the monasteries not only supplied by the Henry with vast wealth with which to bribe the Temporal Peerage of the into implicit conformity with his will, but at the same time by de- monasteries; priving twenty-six Parliamentary abbots and two Parliamentary priors of their seats in the House of Lords, reduced, from a majority to a minority, the Spiritual Peerage, who alone were likely to be sufficiently independent to offer a serious opposition. The religious disputes of and by the the Reformation also contributed in no small degree to sustain the disputes. influence of the Crown. The two great parties into which the nation was divided were too jealous of each other, too intent upon winning the favour of the King in order to crush their adversaries, to offer any real resistance to the encroachments of Royal power. religious of Henry Notwithstanding his many vices, Henry VIII. was on the whole Popularity popular with the mass of his subjects. The times were peculiarly viii. favourable for the exercise of a strong paternal government. Henry secured to the people that domestic peace for which they so ardently longed; and recognising the spirit of the age as antagonistic to the tyranny of the Church, wisely headed the movement, and adroitly made use of it to secure his own personal ends, and to establish the tyranny of the Crown. His wars were uniformly successful, and if the maintenance of the balance of power between the Emperor Charles V. 131 Hen. VIII., c. 8. Tne Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 35. By the Act 31 Hen. VIII. c. 8, transgressors against the King's Proclamations were to be tried and punished by certain persons enumerated therein, consisting of the usual officers of the Privy Council, together with some Bishops and Judges, in the star-chamber and elsewhere.' prescribed number proving inconveniently large, another Act was passed in 1544 (34 Hen. VIII. c. 23) by which the jurisdiction was given to a tribunal of nine Privy Councillors. In the Parliament which met, after the dissolution of the monasteries, in 1539, there were present 41 Temporal Peers and only 20 Spiritual Peers -Henry, Hist. Eng. xii. 151. To the 21 old bishoprics Henry VIII. subsequently added 6 new ones,-Westminster, suppressed in 1550, and Bristol, Chester, Gloucester, Oxford, and Peterborough, which still exist. Consolida tion of the Kingdom. Wales: and Francis I. of France was productive of no material advantage, it flattered the pride' of the English people, and exalted them in the estimation of the European nations. During the earlier portion of his reign at least, he displayed a frank, affable, and generous temper; he was no mean scholar; expert in all manly exercises; of noble presence and elegant bearing; and he at all times devoted a large portion of time to the arduous duties of personal government. Amidst the perils and dangers, foreign and domestic, to which the nation was on several occasions exposed during Henry's reign, men felt that in him they possessed an able vigorous, and thoroughly national administrator.1 The consolidation of the kingdom with respect to both Wales and Ireland, was considerably advanced under Henry VIII. By the Statutum Walliae (12 Edward I. A.D. 1284) the land of Wales and its inhabitants, theretofore only feudally subject to the kings of England, had been wholly annexed and united to the English crown. But, although many material alterations were at the same time made in the Welsh laws, the conquered people still retained several provincial immunities and disabilities. They preserved their ancient rule of inheritance, similar to the English Gavelkind, by which lands were divided equally among all the issue male, instead of descending to the eldest son alone; but on the other hand, with the exception of two Parliaments of Edward II. in 1322 and 1326, to which 24 members were summoned as representatives of South, and other 24 as representatives of North Wales, the Welsh people had continued without any representation in the House of Commons. By the statute 27 Henry VIII., c. 26 (1536), Wales was thoroughly incorporated into and united with England; all persons born in the Principality were admitted to enjoy and inherit all the freedoms, liberties, rights, privileges and laws of England; and lands in Wales were declared to be inheritable after the English tenures and rules of descent. By a [divided into subsequent statute (34 & 35 Henry VIII., c. 26), Wales was divided into 12 counties,3 each empowered to send one knight to Parliament; [not represented in Parliament till 1543) counties, 1543-1 For all that can possibly be said in Henry VIII.'s favour see Froude, Hist. Eng., vols. i-iv. It is unnecessary, in order to recognise the abilities and greatness of Henry, that we should, with Mr. Froude, regard him as a virtuous and beneficent ruler, which he certainly was not. 2 Rymer, ii. 484, 649; Lingard, iii. 328. 3 This was exclusive of Monmouthshire, which, though formerly part of Wales, had been made, by the 27 Hen. VIII. c. 26, before mentioned, one of the counties of the realm of England, and as such entitled to return two knights of the shire to Parliament. Under the statute 34 & 35 Hen. VIII. c. 26 (1542-3), superior courts of justice called Courts of Great Session were established, with a jurisdiction independent of the process of Westminster Hall. These continued to administer law and equity in Civil cases, and also Criminal matters arising within the Principality, down to the year 1830, when the courts were abolished by statute [Cheshire and every borough, being a shire town, was to send one burgess. In the same year (1543), the County Palatine of Chester was admitted to and Chester Parliamentary representation, two knights for the county, and two bur- enfrangesses for the city of Chester.' chised, 1543-1 During the Wars of the Roses, the authority of the English crown Ireland. over Ireland had sunk to a very low ebb. At the accession of Henry VIII. his rule was practically limited, with the exception of the principal scaports, to the English Pale, consisting of the eastern half of the five counties of Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, and Wexford. The western half of these counties was a march land, more disorderly, if possible, than the rest of the island, which was divided among a large number of petty chieftains, mairly of Irish but partly of English origin, who governed the inhabitants of their respective territories and made war upon each other with the freedom of independent princes. Under the strong government of the Tudor kings the English ascendency in Ireland was re-asserted and placed upon a firmer basis than it had occupied since the days of Henry II. In the contest between the rival houses of York and Lancaster, the Anglo-Irish had for the most part espoused the cause of the White Rose, and they readily gave their support to the two pretenders who successively put in jeopardy the throne of Henry VII. It was with the view of reducing to subjection the settlers within the Pale, that in 1495 was passed the celebrated Poynings's Law, as the statute of Drogheda was styled from Peynings's Law, 1495 Sir Edward Poynings, the deputy of young Henry, Duke of York (afterwards Henry VIII.), who at the age of four years had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. This statute contained a variety of provisions for restraining the power of the great lords within the Pale, and strengthening the Royal authority. Its two most important enactments were: (1) All statutes 'lately made in England, and belonging to the public weal of the same,' should have the force of law in Ireland. (2) No Parliament should in future be holden in Ireland till the King and his Council had been informed by the Lieutenant of the necessity of the same, and of the Acts proposed to be passed in it, and the Royal licence and approbation had been previously obtained. By securing the initiative power to the King and (1 Will. IV. c. 70), and it was enacted that Assizes should be held in the Principality for the trial of all matters Criminal and Civil in like manner and form as had been usual for the counties in England. 1 34 & 35 Hen. VIII. c. 13. Lambert Simnel was undoubtedly an impostor. It is a question of much uncertainty who the young man really was who called himself Richard, Duke of York, son of Edward IV., and who is generally styled by historians Perkin Warbeck. The evidence is not conclusive either way, but the balance seems to incline in favour of his pretensions. C.H. Y EDWARD 1553. 1553-1558. their Civil government. his English Council, a check was placed upon the action of every Irish Parliament, and upon the lord-deputies, sometimes powerful Irish nobles 'whom it was dangerous not to employ, but still more dangerous to trust.' 'Whatever might be its motive,' says Hallam, 'it proved, in the course of time, the great means of preserving the subordination of an island, which, from the similarity of constitution, and the high spirit of its inhabitants, was constantly panting for an independence which her more powerful neighbour neither desired nor dared to concede.' The stern and systematic despotism of Henry VIII., coupled with the intimidation produced by his relentless vengeance against the powerful family of Fitzgerald, had still greater effect in reviving the Royal authority. From a Lordship,-the title which it had hitherto borne under the successors of Henry II..-Ireland was [restored] to the higher rank of a kingdom; the native chiefs came in and submitted; peerages were sought and obtained, not only by the AngloIrish, but by some of the most powerful of the old Irish families:3 and although still far from secure, the English government in Ireland assumed during the last years of Henry VIII. a much more settled aspect than it had borne for very many years previously. The Ecclesiastical changes under EDWARD VI. and MARY, as well as those effected by Henry VIII., will be treated of in the succeeding MARY, chapter on the 'Reformation in England.' In their Civil aspect the Character of reigns of Edward VI. and Mary were scarcely, if at all, less despotic, than that of their father, although we shall see some signs that the House of Commons was beginning to recover a little of its ancient independence. The youth of Edward VI. precluded him from exercising any but a very slight influence upon affairs, the Royal power being practically vested first in the Protector Somerset and afterwards in John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. New treasons abolished? One of the first acts of the young King's advisers was to endeavour to propitiate the nation by abrogating some of the sanguinary and unconstitutional laws of Henry VIII. By a statute of Edward's first Parliament all new treasons and felonies created during the last reign were abolished; and the Act of Edward III. again became the stan 1 Const. Hist. iii. 362. Henry assumed the style of King of Ireland. January 23, 1542, under an Irish Statute, 33 Hen. VIII. c. I. The change was confirmed in 1544 by an English Act of Parliament, 35 Hen. VIII. c. 3. ' William Bermingham was created Lord Carbery in 1541; Con O'Neill and his son Matthew, respectively Earl of Tyrone and Lord Dungannon, in 1542; Morogh O'Brien was made Earl of Thomond, Ulick de Burgh, Earl of Clanricarde, and Donough O'Brien, Lord Ibracken, in 1543. |