Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/377

 era; it is really business-like and humdrum, the work of men who welcomed legislation only just so far as it helped them to get on steadily in the course, the quiet course which they had marked out for themselves. There is nothing, moreover, in the record, either of the financial or legal proceedings, that suggests any political struggles in the parliament itself; the story that Sir Thomas More in a parliament in 1502, prevented the Commons from granting an aid for the marriage of Margaret, although told on good authority, falls to the ground, for the good reason that no parliament was held in 1502 and that in 1504 the grant was actually made. More probably was instrumental in limiting the sum. Outside of the circle of attainders and restorations very little was done which was likely to excite opposition or obstruction; and as to the little that was done at all, it seems that Lord Bacon's dictum is too much to say for it: that such was the excellency of the king's laws that he may be justly celebrated for the best Lawgiver to this nation after King Edward I. It is not well to analyse the words of an express panegyric, but Bacon's theory of government must have been, to say the least, peculiar, if he overlooked the great statutes of Edward III on taxation and on church liberties, not to speak of the elaborate legislation of the next reign. Richard II was, however, no great lawgiver, and Edward III's good laws were mainly concessions to popular demands; if the words I have quoted refer to the king's possible personal agency in legislation, they may have a meaning, otherwise not. I have already mentioned Blackstone's very different opinion, that all the laws were calculated for the benefit of the exchequer.

I must now pass on to the foreign transactions and negotiations of the reign, which are most important and most tedious; most important because they are closely connected with the opening of the new drama, the equipment of England for her part on the stage; most tedious because they go on without crisises [sic] and without issues, like a game at chess which has a charm only for an adept, or a well contested game at croquet which never comes to an end. If I cannot help being tedious about this, I will at all risks be brief.