| Copyright | ||
|
Home King James I and Domestic Affairs The King and Parliament The King and Parliament; Part 3 |
The King and Parliament; Part 3The king dissolved his first Parliament in 1611, and for the next ten years there was no Parliament except in 1614, when one sat for two months; it is known in history as the " Addled Parliament" because no laws resulted from it. But in 1621 the loss of the Palatinate by Frederick, and the possibility that England might be engaged in a war for its recovery, led James to call his third Parliament. This Parliament was very important. In the first place the House of Commons revived its right of impeachment, its right to prosecute the king's ministers or office holders before the House of Lords. This was a weapon of tremendous power which had not been used since 1449; and it was a weapon which later on was to be used with great frequency. The House of Commons began by impeaching some holders of monopolies. It went on to accuse the Lord Chancellor, Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, of receiving bribes. Suitors in those days often used to give presents to judges. But there is no doubt also that Bacon had in some cases, probably through carelessness, received presents before he had given his decision, and that these presents were given with a corrupt intention; there is no proof, however, that Bacon received them as bribes or that they in any way influenced his decision. We may agree with Bacon's own judgement "I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years. But it was the justest censure in Parliament that was these two hundred years." Bacon was deprived of his chancellorship and died shortly afterwards.In the second place, this House of Commons upheld its liberty of speech. The House of Commons was strongly, almost fanatically, anti-Catholic and anti-Spaniard, and it met at the time that James was proposing a marriage between Charles and a Spanish princess with a view to the restoration of the Palatinate. It accordingly drew up a petition to be presented to the king, in which it begged that Charles might marry one of "our own religion", and expressed with some bluntness its opinion of the Pope and his "dearest son " the King of Spain. Such a petition coming in the crisis of his negotiations with Spain was, from the king's point of view, exceedingly embarrassing; and James wrote an angry letter against the "fiery and popular spirits" in the House of Commons who had dared " to argue or debate publicly matters far above their reach and capacity ", and forbade the House " henceforth to meddle with anything concerning our Government or deep matters of State". Fortunately for English liberty, the House of Commons maintained its courage; and in the candle light on a dark December day, it drew up a Protestation declaring its freedom of speech. The king thereupon dissolved the Parliament, imprisoned some of its members, and sending for the journal book of the House of Commons tore the Protestation out of it with his own hands (1622). But, nevertheless, the House of Commons had shown there was one place in the kingdom where an Englishman might say what he liked. In the fourth Parliament (1624) we pass into smooth waters, for Parliament had got the war with Spain which it desired. Moreover, Buckingham and Prince Charles supported the House of Commons in their impeachment of Middlesex, the Lord Treasurer. Shortly afterwards James died (1625). This brief summary will have shown that the rift had begun between the Crown and Parliament in the reign of King James. The House of Commons had made a decided advance; it had revived impeachment, upheld its privileges, and protested against impositions. James's character, it must be admitted, had been peculiarly fitted to open dangerous questions; in the reign of his successor they would have to be answered. |
Chronology |
| copyright by www.uuo-ununoctium.info |