Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/205

.] to them that there had been a dangerous conspiracy carried on for raising a rebellion in Scotland, and invading that kingdom with French power, in order to subvert her majesty's government and bring in the pretended prince of Wales, and that they were of opinion that nothing had given so much encouragement to this conspiracy as the Scots not coming into the Hanover succession as fixed in England. They therefore besought the queen to procure the settlement of the crown of Scotland on the princess Sophia, and when that was done they would use all their influence for a union of the two kingdoms.

Anne expressed her entire concurrence in these views, and the lords then presented another address in answer to the second address of the commons. They charged the commons with manifesting a want of zeal for the queen's safety, and with showing a strange reluctance that the particulars of the plot should be brought to light, obstructing all through, as much as in them lay, the necessary inquiry; and fresh fuel was immediately furnished to the flame already blazing betwixt the two houses. One Matthew Ashby, a freeman of Aylesbury, brought an action against William White and others, the constables of Aylesbury, for preventing his exercising his franchise at the last election. This was an unheard-of proceeding, all matters relating to elections being from time immemorial referred to the house of commons itself. The circumstances of the case, however, furnished some reason for this departure from the established rule. It appeared that four constables made the return, and were well known to bargain with a particular candidate, and so manage that the election should be his. In appeals to the house of commons the party which happened to be in power had in a most barefaced manner always decided in favour of the man of their own side. Ashby, therefore, sought what he hoped would prove a more impartial tribunal. He tried the cause at the assizes, and won it; but it was then moved in the Queen's Bench to quash these proceedings as novel and contrary to all custom. Three of the judges were opposed to hearing the case, the matter belonging notoriously to the house of commons; and they argued that, if this practice were introduced, it would occasion a world of suits, and make the office of returning members a very dangerous one. The lord chief justice Holt alone was in favour of it. He contended that there was a great difference betwixt the election of a member and a right to vote. The decision of the election undoubtedly belonged to the commons, but the right to vote being founded upon a forty shilling freehold, upon burgage land, upon a prescription, or the charter of a borough, was clearly establishable by a court of law. The judges at length permitted the trial, but, being three against one, the decision was for the constables. This aroused the indignation of the whole whig party, and the cause was removed by a writ of error to the house of lords. The lords, after a full hearing, and taking the opinions of the judges, confirmed the judgment given in favour of Ashby at the assizes.

The commons now took up the affair with great warmth. They passed five resolutions, namely, that all matters relating to elections and the right of examining and determining the qualifications of electors belonged solely to them; that Ashby was guilty of a breach of their privileges, and they denounced the utmost weight of their resentment against all persons who should follow his example and bring any such suit into a court of law, as well as against all counsel, attorneys, or others who should assist in such suit. They ordered these resolutions to be affixed to the gates of Westminster Hall. The lords took instant measures to rebut these charges. They appointed a committee to draw up a statement of the whole case, resolved upon its report "that every person being wilfully hindered from exercising his right of voting might seek for justice and redress in common courts of law against the officer by whom his vote had been refused; that any assertion to the contrary was destructive of the property of the subject, against the freedom of election, and manifestly tending to the encouragement of bribery and corruption; and finally that the declaring Matthew Ashby guilty of a breach of privilege of the house of commons was an unprecedented attempt upon the judicature of parliament in the house of lords, and an attempt to subject the law of England to the will and votes of the commons."

They ordered the lord keeper to send copies of the case and their votes to all the sheriffs of England, to be by them communicated to all their boroughs in their respective counties. The house of commons was greatly enraged at this, but it had no power to prevent it, and it had the mortification to see that the public feeling went entirely with the lords, who certainly were the defenders of the rights of the subject, whilst the commons, corruptly refusing a just redress to such appeals, endeavoured to prevent the sufferers obtaining it anywhere else.

We now come to one of the most striking and meritorious acts of the reign of Anne—the grant of the first-fruits and tenths of church livings to the poor clergy. The tenths amounted to about eleven thousand pounds a year, and the first-fruits to about five thousand pounds. These monies had been collected by the bishops since the reformation and paid over to the crown. They had never, says Burnet, "been applied to any good use, but were still obtained by favourites for themselves and friends, and in king Charles's time went chiefly amongst his women and children. It seemed strange that, whilst the clergy had much credit at court, they had never represented this as sacrilege unless it were applied to some religious purpose, and that during archbishop Laud's favour with king Charles I., or at the restoration of king Charles II., no endeavours had been used to appropriate this to better uses, sacrilege was charged on other things on very slight grounds, but this, which was more visible, was always forgot." But it was too convenient a fund for favourites to get assignations upon. It is much to the credit of Burnet that he managed to divert this desecrated fund from the impure clutches of courtiers and mistresses, to the amelioration of the condition of the unhappy working clergy. He proposed the scheme first to William, who listened to it readily, being assured by Burnet that nothing would tend to draw the hearts of the clergy so much towards him, and put a stop to the groundless clamour that he was the enemy of the clergy. Somers and Halifax heartily concurred in the plan; but the avaricious old Sunderland got an assignation of it upon two dioceses for two thousand pounds a year for two lives, which frustrated the advance of the business. Burnet, however, succeeded better with Anne. He represented that there