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Home King James I and Domestic Affairs The King and Parliament The King and Parliament; Part 2 |
The King and Parliament; Part 2We have no space to enter into the details of James's relations with his Parliaments, but we may take, as an example of his tactlessness, an incident which occurred at the opening of his first Parliament (1604). The King's court had disallowed the election to the House of Commons of a man called Godwin, on the ground that he was an outlaw, and that James in a proclamation had said that no outlaws were to be elected. The House of Commons declared that it was their privilege to settle disputed elections. James answered that their privileges were his grant and ought not to be quoted against him, and a controversy at once ensued as to the origin of parliamentary privileges and the king's power to abrogate them. In the end James allowed the House of Commons to settle the matter of the election; but it was not an auspicious beginning (“The state of monarchy", James said to his Parliament in 1611, "is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God Himself they are called Gods; as to dispute what God may do is blasphemy, so it is sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power." This is another example of the king's loquacious tactlessness).In the first Parliament of James I, also, an extremely important question of taxation was brought up. The ordinary revenue of the king was derived partly from independent sources, such as crown lands and feudal dues, bringing in about £250,000 a year; and partly from a duty on all imports called tunnage and poundage (So called because a certain sum was paid on every tun of wine and pound of merchandise imported), a duty which was granted to the king on his accession for the term of his life, and which brought in about £150,000 a year. Two or three years after his accession, James began to impose, on certain articles, extra duties over and above what he was allowed to impose by tunnage and poundage. A merchant called Bate refused to pay the extra duty on currants—one of these articles—but the judges decided that he must pay on the ground that the ports belonged to the king, and that therefore the king might impose what duties he liked on goods coming into England (1606). The result of this decision was that the Government imposed extra duties upon a whole mass of other articles as well. Consequently the king's revenue was largely augmented. These extra duties, known as "impositions", were, of course, strenuously opposed by this and every succeeding Parliament, and were a constant source of contention. |
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