PART II. PERSONAL ANECDOTES. SIR THOMAS MORE. (1480-1535.) The King Thwarted by a "Beardless Boy." More was returned to the House of Commons in 1504, and he is recorded as the first member of that assembly who gained celebrity by public speaking, and who, as a successful leader of opposition, incurred the enmity of the Court. Henry VII. was entitled (says Lord Campbell) according to the strictest feudal law to a grant on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Margaret with James IV. of Scotland; but he thought it a favourable opportunity for gratifying his avarice, and he required a much greater sum than he intended to bestow on the Scottish queen. When the consent of the Lower House was demanded, Sir Thomas, making a grave speech, pronounced such urgent arguments why these exactions were not to be granted, that thereupon all the King's demands were crossed, and his request denied; so that Mr. Tyler, one of the King's Privy Chamber, went presently from the House and told his Majesty that a beardless boy had disappointed him of his expectations. More, however, was twenty-four years of age when he made this effective speech. Wolsey's Attempt to Overawe the Commons.-Roper has the following in his "Life of More:" At Parliament (1523) Cardinal Wolsey found himself much aggrieved with the burgesses thereof, for that nothing was so soon done or spoken therein, but that it was immediately blown abroad in every alehouse. It fortuned at that Parliament a very great subsidy to be demanded, which the Cardinal fearing would not pass the Commons' House, he determined, for the furtherance thereof, to be there present himself. Before his coming, after long debating there, whether it was better but with a few of his lords, as the most opinion of the House was, or with his whole train royally to receive him,-" Masters," quoth Sir Thomas More (the Speaker), "forasmuch as my lord Cardinal lately, ye wot well, laid to our charge the lightness of our tongues for things uttered out of this House, it shall not in my mind be amiss to receive him with all his pomp, with his maces, his pillars, his poll-axes, his hat, and great seal too; to the intent that if he find the like fault with us hereafter, we may be the bolder from ourselves to lay the blame on those whom his grace bringeth here with him." Whereunto the House wholly agreeing, he was received accordingly. After he had, by a solemn oration, by many reasons proved how necessary it was the demand then moved to be granted, and further showed that less would not serve to maintain the prince's purpose, he, seeing the company sitting still silent, and thereunto nothing answering, and, contrary to his expectation, showing in themselves to his request no towardness of inclination, said to them, "Masters, you have many wise and learned men amongst yon, and sith I am from the King's own person (Henry VIII.) sent hitherto unto you, to the preservation of yourselves and of all the realm, I think it meet you give me some reasonable answer." Whereat every man holding his peace, then began Wolsey to speak to one Master Marney, afterwards Lord Marney. "How say you,” quoth he, "Master Marney?" who making him no answer neither, he severally asked the same question of divers others, accounted the wisest of the company; to whom, when none of them all would give so much as one word-being agreed before, as the custom was, to give answer by their Speaker-"Masters," quoth the Cardinal, "unless it be the manner of your House, as of likelihood it is, by the mouth of your Speaker, whom you have chosen for trusty and wise (as indeed he is), in such cases to utter your minds, here is, without doubt, a marvellously obstinate silence." And thereupon he required answer of Mr. Speaker; who first reverently, on his knees, excused the silence of the House, abashed at the presence of so noble a personage, able to amaze the wisest and best learned in a realm, and then, by many probable arguments, proved that for them to make answer was neither expedient nor agreeable with the ancient liberty of the House; in conclusion for himself showed that though they had all with their voices trusted him, yet except every one of them could put into his own head their several wits, he alone in so weighty a matter was unmeet to make his grace answer. Whereupon the Cardinal, displeased with Sir Thomas More, that had not in this Parliament in all things satisfied his desire, suddenly arose and departed. Of One Mind.-When the short session of Parliament (just referred to) was closed, Wolsey, in his gallery of Whitehall, said to More, "I wish to God you had been at Rome, Mr. More, when I made you Speaker." "Your grace not offended, so would I too, my lord," replied Sir Thomas, "for then should I have seen the place I long have desired to visit." More turned the conversation by saying that he liked this gallery better than the Cardinal's at Hampton Court. But the Cardinal secretly brooded over his revenge.-Mackintosh's "Life of More." LORD BACON. (1561-1626.) Depopulation.-Bacon was returned to the Parliament that met in 1597, when he introduced two bills against " enclosures and the depopulation of towns." In his speech introducing his bills he said, "I should be sorry to see within this kingdom that piece of Ovid's verse prove true— Jam seges abi Troja fuit: In England nought but green fields, a shepherd, and a dog."-Parliamentary History. A Repentant Patriot.-Bacon (says Macaulay) tried to play a very difficult game in politics. "He wished to be at once a favourite at court and popular with the multitude. Once, however, he indulged in a burst of patriotism which cost him a long and bitter remorse, and which he never ventured to repeat. The Court asked for large subsidies and for speedy payment. The remains of Bacon's speech breathe all the spirit of the Long Parliament. The gentlemen,' said he, must sell their plate, and the farmers their brass pots, ere this will be paid; and for us, we are here to search the wounds of the realm, and not to skin them over. The dangers are these. First, we shall breed discontent, and endanger her Majesty's safety, which must consist more in the love of the people than their wealth. Secondly, this being granted in this sort, other princes hereafter will look for the like; so that we shall put an evil precedent on ourselves and our posterity; and in histories, it is to be observed, of all nations the English are not to be subject, base, or taxable.' The Queen and her ministers resented this outbreak of public spirit in the highest manner. Indeed, many an honest member of the House of Commons had, for a much smaller matter, been sent to the Tower by the proud and hot-blooded Tudors. The young patriot endeavoured to make the most abject apologies, and never offended in the same manner again." Exemplary Oratory. Ben Jonson writes of Bacon, in his "Discoveries made upon Men and Matter"-"There happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, when he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end." SIR EDWARD COKE. Compliments from the Chair.-Coke, having been elected Speaker of the House of Commons in 1593, was presented at the bar of the House of Lords, when he disqualified himself to Queen Elizabeth, saying, "As in the heavens a star is but opacum corpus until it have received light from the sun, so stand I corpus opacum-a mute body-until your Highness's bright shining wisdom hath looked upon me and allumed me. How unable I am to do this office my present speech doth tell." In his speech at the close of the session he compared Elizabeth to the queen-bee, sine aculeo.-Parliamentary History. Reciting a Collect in the House.-Hatsell mentions that after the House had passed the resolution of adjournment from the 4th of June to the 14th of November, 1621, Sir Edward Coke, then upwards of seventy years of age, standing up, with tears in his eyes, recited the Collect for the King (James I.) and his children, and desired the House to say after him, adding only to it, "and defend them from their cruel enemies." Parliament and "the King's Word."-On the 1st of May, 1628 (4th Charles I.), Secretary Cooke delivered a message, asking whether they would rely on the King's word. This question was followed by a long silence. Several speeches are reported in the letters of the times. Sir Nathaniel Rich observed that, "confident as he was of the royal word, what did any indefinite word ascertain ?" Pym said, “We have his Majesty's coronation oath to maintain the laws of England; what need we, then, take his word ? " He proposed to move," Whether we should take the King's word or no." This was resisted by Secretary Cooke: "What would they say in foreign parts, if the people of England would not trust their King?" He desired the House to call Pym to order; on which Pym replied, "Truly, Mr. Speaker, I am just of the same opinion I was-viz., that the King's oath was as powerful as his word." Sir John Eliot moved that it be put to the question, "because they that would have it do urge us to that point." Sir Edward Coke on this occasion (May 6) made a memorable speech. "We sit now in Parliament, and therefore must take his Majesty's word no otherwise than in a parliamentary way; that is, of a matter agreed on by both Houses-his Majesty sitting on his throne in his robes, with his crown on his head and sceptre in his hand, and in full Parliament; and his royal assent being entered upon record, in perpetuam rei memoriam. This was the royal word of a King in Parliament, and not a word delivered in a chamber, and out of the mouth of a secretary, at the second hand. Therefore I motion that the House of Commons, more majorum, should draw a petition de droict to his Majesty; which, being confirmed by both Houses and assented unto by his Majesty, will be as firm an act as any. Not that I distrust the King, but that I cannot take his trust but in a parliamentary way." In this speech of Sir Edward Coke we find the first mention, in the legal style, of the ever-memorable "Petition of Right," which two days after was finished. - Isaac D'Israeli. 66 'Magna Charta will have no Sovereign."-The addition which the Lords proposed to be made to the Petition of Right (May 17, 1628) contained the words, "with due regard to leave entire that sovereign power wherewith your Majesty is trusted for the protection, safety, and happiness of your people." On this Sir Edward Coke (according to Rushworth) spoke as follows: "This is magnum in parvo. This is propounded to be a conclusion of our petition. It is a matter of great weight, and, to speak plainly, it will overthrow all our petition. It trenches to all parts of it; it flies at loans, and at the oath, and at imprisonment, and billeting of soldiers: this turns all about again. Look into all the petitions of former times, they never petitioned wherein there was a saving of the King's sovereignty. I know that prerogative is part of the law, but sovereign power is no parliamentary word. In my opinion it weakens Magna Charta and all our statutes, for they are absolute without any saving of sovereign power: and shall we now add it? We shall weaken the foundation of law, and then the building must needs fall. Take we heed what we yield unto. Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.” SIR JOHN ELIOT. A Parliamentary Martyr.-Sir John Eliot was foremost of the champions of popular liberty in the Parliament which met in March, 1628 (the third under Charles I.), and which drew up the Petition of Right. He had been conspicuous in the previous Parliament for his persistence and ability in opposing the high-handed measures of the King and his favourite adviser, the Duke of Buckingham, and in 1626 was committed to the Tower for an attack upon the Duke; but the warm resentment of the House of Commons at this infringement of its liberties (p. 21) compelled the King to release him, after an imprisonment of eight days. After the last sitting of the Parliament in 1629, Sir John Eliot was summoned to the Council, accused of uttering certain words in the Lower House, committed, and his papers seized. The attorney-general laid an information against him in the King's Bench, to which he pleaded, denying jurisdiction, but he was sentenced to be imprisoned during the King's pleasure, and, as the greatest offender and ringleader in Parliament," to pay a fine of 20007. Being shut up in the Tower, his health gradually declined, and he died there on the 27th of November, 1632, permission to remove his body to the family seat in Cornwall being denied to his relatives. When Parliament next assembled after a long interval, the recollection of what Eliot had suffered was fresh in the minds of Pym and many of his associates, and doubtless helped to render the Commons implacable against Strafford and others. A Desperate Case.-On the 3rd of June, 1628, the King having sent an answer to the Petition of Right which was not deemed satisfactory, Sir John Eliot got up, and in a long speech entered upon the public grievances, and what he called the "desperate case" of the nation. He commenced by saying, "We sit here as the great council of the King, and in that capacity it is our duty to take into consideration the state and affairs of the kingdom." He then went into a review of the mismanagement of the national affairs both at home and abroad, and brought his speech to a conclusion with the following passage:* “For the next, the ignorance and corruption of our Ministers, where can you miss of instances? If you survey the court, if you survey the country, if the church, if the city be examined, if you observe the bar, if the bench, if the courts, if the shipping, if the land, if the seas-all these will render you variety of proofs, and in such measure and proportion as shows the greatness of our sickness, that if it have not some speedy remedy our case is most desperate. Mr. Speaker, I fear I have been too long in these particulars that are past, and am unwilling to offend you, therefore in the rest I shall be shorter, and in that which concerns the impoverishing of the King no other arguments will I use than such as all men grant. The Exchequer you The report is taken from the volume edited by Thomas Fuller (1657), previously quoted on p. 22. |