Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/34

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io<- s. n. JULY 9, im.

On word being brought to him of this extension of the king's mercy he is reportec to have exclaimed : tl God forbid the king should use any more such to any of my friends, and God bless all my posterity from such pardons!" (J. A. Manning's 'The Speakers of the House of Commons,' 1851, p. 171.)

A very usual case for the gran ting of a pardon in Tudor times was for violation of an Act of Parliament, or as a dispensation from obedience to a statute (Dicey, 'The Law of the Constitution,' p. 61), and instances abound, as they do also of officials who had committed some technical irregularity in the discharge of their office, or thought they had done so.

As a general assertion it is true to say that the sovereign may pardon all offences against the Crown or the public, but the statement is subject to the exception that, by the Habeas Corpus Act (31 Car. II., c. 2), to commit a man to prison out of the realm is an offence unpardonable by the king. A restriction also exists as to pleading a pardon in the case of Parliamentary impeachments, the Act of Settlement (12 & 13 Will. III., c. 2) enacting that "no pardon under the Great Seal of England shall be pleadable to an impeach- ment by the Commons in Parliament" (cf. Reg. v. Boyes, 1 B. & Smith, 311), although from a date as early as the fiftieth year of Edward III. it was acknowledged by the Commons and asserted by the sovereign that there was vested in the latter the prerogative to pardon delinquents convicted in impeach- ments (see Rot. Parl. 50 Ed. III., n. 188, quoted in Steph. ' Com.,' vol. iv. ch. xxi.).

In the time of King John the following may be taken as a form of pardon :

"Know ye, that for the love and upon the petition of our beloved and faithful A. B., we have pardoned, as much as in us lies, C. D. for having (committed a certain crime). We therefore inform you that he is in our firm peace, and in testimony thereof we have caused these Letters Patent to be made for him. Witness," &c.

A modern form of pardon is much longer ; an example may be seen in the report Reg. v. Boyes (1 B. & Smith, 311).

A recent decision shows that the royal pre- rogative may be delegated, and the power of granting a pardon vested in the governor of a^colony, who can exercise the power during his tenure of office, so long as the commission appointing him contains nothing to restrict his exercise of this portion of the prerogative (In the matter of a special reference from the Bahama Islands, P.C., 1893, A.C., 138).

Pardons are entered in most cases on the Patent Rolls : many are also to be found on

the Close Rolls, as well as among the Privy Seal Warrants and the Signet Bills; and there is also a series of Pardon Rolls from 22 Ed. I. to 2 Jac. I. Among the State Papers there are, too, many sign manuals for grants of pardons (Jac. I., Car. I.). All these are preserved at the Public Record Office.

H. W. UNDERDOWN.

HISTORY OF PROVERBS.

HAS any attempt been made to illustrate the history of proverbs by a systematic study of the stores of what may be termed colloquial literature, which are constantly in these times being increased by such publications as the reports of the Historical Manuscripts Com- mission 1 ? The student of this interesting social and literary phase will find in the Cecil MSS. alone, so far as they have as yet been made available, a striking crop of such, some of which may be given in illustration : " Prevention is the daughter of intelligence." " Hatred are the cinders of affection." Both these appear in a letter of 10 May, 1593, from Sir Walter Raleigh to Sir Robert Cecil ; while on 7 August of the same year Sir Henry Cpcke, writing to Cecil, made this contribution to the history of proverbs :

"Queen Elizabeth, King Edward IV. 's wife, in the Sanctuary, said of King Richard III., when (by the Cardinal) he required the Duke of York, her second son, that ' the desire of a kingdom had no pity'"

a scene, by the way, which Shakspere seems to promise, but does not give.

A foreign proverb is supplied in a letter From Sir Thomas Challoner to the Earl of Essex from Florence, 24 January, 1596/7: "The common proverb is in every man's mouth, Omne malum ab Hispania ; omne bonum ab Aquilone? And an ancient saying is revived in one from Sir John Holies to the Lord Treasurer Burghley of 25 June, 1597, defending himself from the imputation of naving sprung from trade, others having done the like : " These many answer with Iphi- crates, 'Let them who are noble from the Deginning reprove others' unnobleness.' " An obviously English saw is that of Sir George Jarew, when writing to Sir Robert Cecil
 * rom "aboard the St. Matthew, St. Helen's-

Point, 10 September, 1597" :

"Myself would have been my messenger, but [ have many munitions on board to account for,, and in harbour sailors' fingers are limed twigs" ; while an undated letter of Archibald Douglas of the same period notes that " there is a proverb that says, the bargain is ill made where neither of the parties doth gain." Sir Edward Hoby, on 14 October, 1597,