Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/635

 ENGLAND 623 land for a time as well as king. His ecclesiasti- cal supremacy was exactly what the words mean; but this was owing to circumstances and to his personal character, and his system died with him. When the Anglican church was finally established under Elizabeth, the sacerdotal character of the sovereign was dis- claimed ; but she held a vast power over the church, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the crown being complete. " The act of supre- macy," says Hallam, "empowered the queen to execute it by commissioners appointed under the great seal, in such manner and for such time as she should direct ; whose power should extend to visit, correct, and amend all heresies, schisms, abuses, and offences what- ever, which fall under the cognizance and are subject to the correction of spiritual authority." After several temporary commissions had sat under this act, the high commission court came into existence in 1583. A more arbitrary tri- bunal never existed. Burleigh opposed the procedure under it, but, influential as he was, Ms opposition availed nothing. The house of commons was hostile to the high ecclesiastical party, and its opposition was not that of a ser- vile body. "The regiment of England," said Aylmer, afterward bishop of London, " is not a mere monarchy, as some for lack of consideration think, nor a mere oligarchy, nor democracy, but a rule mixed of all these, wherein each one of these has or should have like authority. The image whereof, and not the image but the thing indeed, is to be seen in the parliament house, wherein you shall find these three estates : the king or queen which repre- senteth the monarchy, the noblemen which be the aristocracy, and the burgesses or knights, the democracy. If the parliament use their priv- ileges, the king can ordain nothing without them ; if he do, it is his fault in usurping it, and their fault in permitting it. Wherefore, in my judgment, those that in King Henry VIII.'s days would not grant him that his pro- clamation should have the force of a statute, were good fathers of the country, and worthy commendation in defending their liberty." This was written in 1559, the first year of Elizabeth and the 74th of the Tudor rule ; and it is not possible that it could have been writ- ten had England been despotically governed by the Tudors. To the same purport are the observations of a far greater writer of the Elizabethan time, made in its last days. " I cannot choose," says Hooker, " but commend highly their wisdom, by whom the foundation of the commonwealth hath been laid ; wherein, though no manner of person or cause be un- subject unto the king's power, yet so is the power of the king over all and in all limited, that unto all his proceedings the law itself is a rule." The contest that commenced when the house of Stuart succeeded to that of Tudor, the opening scene of the English revolution, was the work of the government, and the revolutionary party consisted of that govern- 296 VOL. vi. 40 ment and its adherents. The " country party," as the opposition came to be called, was in the strictest sense of the word a conservative party ; and if, in the course of the long strug- gle of 86 years, it had occasional resort to acts apparently revolutionary, it was because the security of liberty was found compatible only with the removal of that government which would have overthrown the last survivor of those constitutions of which there had former- ly been so many in Europe. The divine right theory, which was so zealously preached in the reign of James I., was meant to prepare the way for the subjugation of the people, and for the concentration of all power in the hands of the central authority. Charles I. was bent upon not being a Venetian doge, and some able modern writers have written as if they believed there was a close resemblance be- tween a king of England, who had only to rule according to law and his oath, and the shadowy phantom that did not even play at ruling on the Adriatic. A great power has always been wielded even by the most constitutionally in- clined English monarchs, and popular feeling has often been with such kings against the aristocracy, but always on the condition that the king ruled according to law, a fact that it was impossible for Charles I. to comprehend. The contest was for power over the purse; which secured, power over the sword followed as of course. The third parliament of Charles I. passed the petition of right, an instrument superior to Magna Charta itself, and to which the king gave his consent. In it are pointed out the breaches that had been made in the law, the constitutional rights of Englishmen are declared, and the king is prayed to rule le- gally. Even if there had been a despotism in England previous to 1628, it ought then to have come to an end, after king and parliament had solemnly agreed upon the terms on which the government should thereafter be carried on. Yet the king violated the petition of right in the most flagrant manner, and did riot call a parliament for 11 years, which was unprece- dented. During that time England was as ar- bitrarily governed as France by Kichelieu, with- out any of that glory which Eichelieu's foreign policy was gaining for France. The machinery of despotism was found to be perfect within certain and by no means narrow limits. The jurisdiction of the court of star chamber was very great, and the proceedings in that court were more numerous and violent than they had been under the Tudors. The objects aimed at appear to have been to accustom the people to the administration of justice by a court direct- ly dependent upon the king, and uncontrolled by law or precedent, and to increase the royal revenue by penalties and forfeitures. The cruel, atrocious punishments inflicted by the star chamber are as well known as the senten- ces passed at the bloody assizes. The council of the north, which had been created by Henry VIII., but which for 96 years had compara-