Part 12 (1/2)

[159] Articles had been exhibited by the chancellor before the peers, in the seventh of the king, against Spencer, bishop of Norwich, who had led a considerable army in a disastrous expedition against the Flemings, adherents to the anti-pope Clement in the schism. This crusade had been exceedingly popular, but its ill success had the usual effect. The commons were not parties in this proceeding. Rot. Parl. p 153.

[160] Rot. Parl. p. 221.

[161] Rot. Parl. p. 281.

[162] The judgment against Simon de Burley, one of those who were executed on this occasion, upon impeachment of the commons, was reversed under Henry IV.; a fair presumption of its injustice. Rot. Parl. vol.

iii. p. 464.

[163] Rot. Parl. 14 R II. p. 279; 15 R. II. p. 286.

[164] Rot. Parl. 13 R. II. p. 258.

[165] 17 R. II. p. 313.

[166] Rymer, t. vii. p. 583, 659.

[167] Hume has represented this as if the commons had pet.i.tioned for the continuance of sheriffs beyond a year, and grounds upon this mistake part of his defence of Richard II. (Note to vol. ii. p. 270, 4to. edit.) For this he refers to Cotton's Abridgment; whether rightly or not I cannot say, being little acquainted with that inaccurate book, upon which it is unfortunate that Hume relied so much. The pa.s.sage from Walsingham in the same note is also wholly perverted; as the reader will discover without further observation. An historian must be strangely warped who quotes a pa.s.sage explicitly complaining of illegal acts in order to infer that those very acts were legal.

[168] The church would perhaps have interfered in behalf of Haxey if he had only received the tonsure. But it seems that he was actually in orders; for the record calls him Sir Thomas Haxey, a t.i.tle at that time regularly given to the parson of a parish. If this be so, it is a remarkable authority for the clergy's capacity of sitting in parliament.

[169] Rot. Parl. 20 R. II. p. 339. In Henry IV.'s first parliament the commons pet.i.tioned for Haxey's restoration, and truly say that his sentence was en aneantiss.e.m.e.nt des custumes de la commune, p. 434. His judgment was reversed by both houses, as having pa.s.sed de volonte du roy Richard en contre droit et la course quel avoit este devant en parlement. p. 480. There can be no doubt with any man who looks attentively at the pa.s.sages relative to Haxey that he was a member of parliament; though this was questioned a few years ago by the committee of the house of commons, who made a report on the right of the clergy to be elected; a right which, I am inclined to believe, did exist down to the Reformation, as the grounds alleged for Nowell's expulsion in the first, of Mary, besides this instance of Haxey conspire to prove, though it has since been lost by disuse.

[170] This a.s.sembly, if we may trust the anonymous author of the Life of Richard II., published by Hearne, was surrounded by the king's troops.

p. 133.

[171] Rot. Parl, 21 R. II. p. 347.

[172] 21 R. II. p. 369.

[173] 13 R. II. p. 256.

[174] This proceeding was made one of the articles of charge against Richard in the following terms: Item, in parliamento ultimo celebrato apud Salopiam, idem rex proponens opprimere populum suum procuravit subtiliter et fecit concedi, quod potestas parliamenti de consensu omnium statuum regni sui remaneret apud quasdam certas personas ad terminandum, dissoluto parliamento, certas pet.i.tiones in eodem parliamento porrectas protunc minime expeditas. Cujus concessionis colore personae sic deputatae processerunt ad alia generaliter parliamentum illud tangentia; et hoc de voluntate regis; in derogationem status parliamenti, et in magnum incommodum totius regni et perniciosum exemplum. Et ut super factis eorum hujusmodi aliquem colorem et auctoritatem viderentur habere, rex fecit rotulos parliamenti pro voto suo mutari et deleri, contra effectum consensionis praedictae. Rot. Parl.

1 H. IV. vol. iii. p. 418. Whether the last accusation, of altering the parliamentary roll, be true or not, there is enough left in it to prove everything I have a.s.serted in the text. From this it is sufficiently manifest how unfairly Carte and Hume have drawn a parallel between this self-deputed legislative commission and that appointed by parliament to reform the administration eleven years before.

[175] Rot. Parl. p. 372, 385.

[176] Besides the contemporary historians, we may read a full narrative of these proceedings in the Rolls of Parliament, vol. iii. p. 382. It appears that Mowbray was the most offending party, since, independently of Hereford's accusation, he is charged with openly maintaining the appeals made in the false parliament of the eleventh of the king. But the banishment of his accuser was wholly unjustifiable by any motives that we can discover. It is strange that Carte should express surprise at the sentence upon the duke of Norfolk, while he seems to consider that upon Hereford as very equitable. But he viewed the whole of this reign, and of those that ensued, with the jaundiced eye of Jacobitism.

[177] Rot. Parl. 1 H. IV. p. 420, 426; Walsingham, p. 353, 357; Otterburn, p. 199; Vita Ric. II. p. 147.

[178] It is fair to observe that Froissart's testimony makes most in favour of the king, or rather against his enemies, where it is most valuable; that is, in his account of what he heard in the English court in 1395, 1. iv. c. 62, where he gives a very indifferent character of the duke of Gloucester. In general this writer is ill-informed of English affairs, and undeserving to be quoted as an authority.

[179] Rot. Parl. p. 423.

[180] If proof could be required of anything so self-evident as that these a.s.semblies consisted of exactly the same persons, it may be found in their writs of expenses, as published by Prynne, 4th Register, p.

450.

[181] 2 R. II. p. 56.