Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/693

Rh that is, the authority claimed by the Stuarts of exempting certain persons from the penalty of the law by a royal edict.

All of these provisions now became inwrought into the English Constitution, and from this time forward were recognized as part of the fundamental law of the realm.

Settlement of the Revenue.—The articles of the Bill of Rights were made effectual by appropriate legislation. One thing which had enabled the Tudors and Stuarts to be so independent of Parliament was the custom which prevailed of granting to each king, at the beginning of his reign, the ordinary revenue of the kingdom during his life. This income, with what could be raised by gifts, benevolences, monopolies, and similar expedients, had enabled despotic sovereigns to administer the government, wage war, and engage in any wild enterprise just as his own individual caprice or passion might dictate. All this was now changed. Parliament, instead of granting William the revenue for life, restricted the grant to a single year, and made it a penal offence for the officers of the treasury to pay out money otherwise than ordered by Parliament.

We cannot overestimate the importance of this change in the English Constitution. It is this control of the purse of the nation which has made the Commons—for all money bills must originate in the Lower House—the actual seat of government, constituting them the arbiters of peace and war. By simply refusing to vote supplies, they can paralyze instantly the arm of the king.

James attempts to recover the Throne: Battle of the Boyne (1690).—The first years of William's reign were disturbed by the efforts of James to regain the throne which he had abandoned. In these attempts he was aided by Louis XIV., and by the Jacobites (from Jacobus, Latin for James), the name given to the adherents of the exiled king. The Irish gave William the most trouble, but in the decisive battle of the Boyne he gained a great victory over them, and soon all Ireland acknowledged his authority.

Plans and Death of William.—The motive which had most