Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/113

 1920 RELATIVE TO MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 105 proceedings had been transferred to the journals. Further- more, there is evidence of laxity in the custody of the clerk's documents prior to 1597.^ The words of the lord chancellor on 2 December might have led one to look for the narrative of 1586 upon the normal roll of the session containing the acts which were passed in the second meeting from 15 February to 23 March. The separate enrol- ment was possibly due to the treatment of the autumn meeting as a full session. D'Ewes calls attention to this error, but his criticism is inadequate.^ From October to December the parlia- ment was engaged upon extraordinary business ; its procedure, in so large a measure by committees, was unprecedented ; and on 2 December it was adjourned until 15 February with much of the formality that accompanied the closing of a session. Perhaps in consequence, it was taken by both parliamentary clerks to be a session. The original acts of the second meeting still bear the first endorsement of 29 Elizabeth — altered later to 28 ; ^ and bills which were read in the commons in the autumn appear to have lapsed in the interval before reintroduction.^ The engrossing of the normal parliament roll as 28 Elizabeth, the one act of the clerk of the parliaments which indicates that he ultimately treated the two meetings as a single session, was probably delayed until a considerable time after the termination of the parliament.^ The new roll adds to our knowledge of the parHamentary proceedings against Mary Queen of Scots, despite its close relation to the Lords' Journal, for it is a fuller and a finished narrative. The manuscript Lords' Journal has, indeed, every appearance of being an incomplete draft. D'Ewes refers to a whole day's proceedings which are crossed out in the original, and which, rightly, he reproduces,^ but he omits any entry or comment in a similar case on 8 November, and makes no mention of the frequent emendations and obliterations in the manuscript. From the roll's proceedings on 2 December it appears that the promulga- tion of the sentence against Mary Queen of Scots was conceded and announced on that day as an answer to the parliament's petition.' This fact, conjoined with the fuller version of Elizabeth's answer- ansioerless speech given below,® modifies our conception of the relation between Crown and parliament in 1586. J. E. Neale. ' These are kept in the Victoria Tower at Westminster. 413 a is probably without weight) ; and bill for Curriers, ibid., pp. 395 a, 415 a. ' Cf. Scottish Col. ix. 182. Froude is unaware of this fact, ed. 1870, xii. 294. « Infra, p. 112, n. 1.
 * Cf. Letter prefixed to MS. Lords* Journals, vol. i.
 * D'Ewes, Journals, p. 382.
 * Thus the bill for Orford Haven, D'Ewes, pp. 395 a, 412 b (D'Ew s's comment on
 * Ante, p. 104, n. 4. « D'Ewes, Journals, p. 379 b.