Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/762

 752 R. G. Usher and the commissioners' exposition of the statute of i Elizabeth, both of which contained ample authority to try slanders of all descriptions whether against the Commission or not/ In fact the consultation contained so many mutually contradictory phrases and so many antagonistic claims that it could hardly be considered to have placed a limitation upon the Commission's powers. By refusing to support Fuller's appeal and assume jurisdiction of the case themselves, the judges had abandoned him to the discretion of the High Commission. Despite the confused phrasing of the writ, the ecclesiastical authorities attempted to follow its letter and spirit, in order to give Fuller and the judges themselves no cause for complaint. They therefore arraigned him for schism and erroneous opinions and probably on October 20 or 21 convicted him, fined him £200, and sentenced him to imprisonment during pleasure. " But Fuller had by no means exhausted the resources of the common law, and found the judges ready to assist him in pushing the matter still further. His counsel applied to the King's Bench for a habeas corpus^ which should force the keeper of the prison where Fuller lay to produce him at the bar of the King's Bench and state his authority for detaining him. The habeas corpus issued in the first week of November, raised a new question for the judges to decide : was the unquestionably regular process of commitment used by the High Commission legal by strict law? The argument over the prohibition had debated the respective rights of the Commission and the King's Bench to punish Fuller for his slander of the former court which he had uttered in a pleading before the latter. Now ' Just at this time the common law courts were trying to draw all cases of slander from the ecclesiastical judges to their own tribunals. 2 12 Retorts, 44. This happened before November 14. because on that date Fuller's fine was granted to John Patten of the king's closet. State Papers Domestic, Docquet, November 14, 1607. On October 19 the King wrote to Salisbury to bear in mind Fuller's case (Hatfield MSS., 134, f. 126.) and on October 23 Lake wrote to Salisbury that the King was " exceedingly well pleased " about "the prohibition". (Hatfield MSS., 122. f. 150.) When Fuller's case came up again it was on a habeas corpus. Hence this trial would seem to have come on October 20 or 21. ^ Dr. Gardiner here inserts the famous altercation between Coke and the King in which the chief justice told James that he was not fitted to understand the law of England by the ordinary rules of reason, and that the King himself was in fact protected by the law. The present writer has attempted to show in the English Historical Reviezf for October 1903: (i) that the date in 12 Coke's Ref'orts is a year out of the way; (2) that the account he gives of the affair is at least partially wrong, if we can judge from the holograph notes in Lans- downe MSS., 160, taken by Sir Julius Caesar while the debate took place; as well as from other contemporary letters; (3) that the whole question at issue was that of the legal status of tithes. The affair therefore did not grow out of Fuller's case and had nothing to do with it.