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III. Government and Liberty Under James I1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

R. W. K. Hinton
R. W. K. Hinton
Affiliation:
Fellow of Peterhouse
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Extract

James I succeeded to the English throne not by act of parliament, not by election, not by the will of his predecessor, but by the will of God in making him an heir. The right by which he ruled was accordingly not less than divine. Further, partly by the circumstances of his succession but in greater measure by the tradition of English public law, he exercised his rule as the absolute king of a free monarchy. On this all Englishmen were agreed. They seem to have taken great pride in the fact that their king had no superior on earth. They shared, as his free subjects, in his greatness. At this time most Europeans did not belong to politically independent nations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , 1953 , pp. 48 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1953

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References

2 McIlwain, C. H., Constitutionalism Ancient and Modern (New York, 1940)Google Scholar, especially chapters 5 and 6. For the derogatory remarks about the Stuarts see p. 132.

3 Especially De Jure Majestatis or Political Treatise of Government, ed. Grosart, (London, 1882)Google Scholar, and The Monarchie of Man, ed. Grosart, (London, 1879)Google Scholar. Broadly speaking, the former deals with powers and the latter with purposes of government.

4 De Jure Majestatis, pp. 86 ff.

5 Monarchie of Man, ii, pp. 32–64.

6 Ibid, ii, p. 63.

7 Monarchic of Man, ii, pp. 22–30. De Jure Majestatis, pp. 174–5.

8 De Republica Anglorum, ed. Alston, (Cambridge, 1906), p. 48Google Scholar.

9 E.g. De Jure Majestatis, p. 99.

10 Monarchie of Man, ii, pp. 70–2.

11 Maitland, F. W., Selected Essays, ed. Hazeltine, (Cambridge, 1936)Google Scholar, ‘The Crown as Corporation’.

12 Monarchic of Man, ii, p. 35.

13 He could not otherwise have adopted the position in De Republica, pp. 9–10, that ‘that which the part which doth rule, doth define and command according to the form of the government, is taken in every common wealth to be just and law’ (the reading amended from Appendix C).

14 Monarchic of Man, ii, p. 69.

15 ‘Thither come complained the miseries of the poor, the oppressions of the rich, all public frauds, robberies and corruptions, which most commonly have their confidence in the ignorance of the prince.’ Monarchie of Man, ii, p. 73.

16 A[cts of the] P[rivy] C[ouncil], 1616–1617.

17 Random examples from A.P.C. 1616–1617, see pp. 27, 70–1, 138–9, 153, 181, 223–4, 245–6, 342. Examples from a single business, that of the Eastland trade, in 1620–3: the Eastland company's petition with remedy, passed to referees and reported on, P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice], S.P. 14/115/111; their privileges confirmed and extended, T[udor] and S[tuart] Procl[amations] (ed. Steele, Bibliotheca Lindesiana), no. 1333; exceptions made on complaint of other parties, A.P.C. 1621–1623, pp. 342, 502–503, and A.P.C. 1623–1625, pp. 7–8.

18 Summarized from P.R.O. S.P. 39/5/3–4. This document, although written very small, is 27 inches wide and takes up 139 lines; to extract its full sense is the most part of a day's work; and this literal obscurity alone helps to explain the sort of government described above, in which the crown did not know, until it was reminded, what it had done two or three years previously.

19 P.R.O. S.P. 14/158/63.

20 De Jure Majestatis, pp. 109–10.

21 Ibid. pp. 162–3.

22 Ibid. p. 165.

23 Ibid. p. 116.

24 Ibid. pp. 109, 117–18. As a general comment, Eliot's attitude to making and altering law is complicated for us by his evident belief in degeneration. This, however, does not alter the fact that he thought new measures ought to be taken if they were necessary; and the necessity is even greater under degeneration than under progress. Pp. 79–80 show him standing out against too much change, but note the double-edged argument on p. 79: ‘if the law tend to the good of the state, he must be so far from altering it, that if it were not made, he is bound to make it, sith he is tied thereunto both by the law of God and man, and the duty of his place.’

25 Ibid. pp. 60, 61–2.

26 Ibid. p. 117.

27 Dejure Majestatis, pp. 152–6.

28 Ibid. p. 13.

29 Ibid. p. 67.

30 Tanner, J. R., Constitutional Documents of the Reign of James I (Cambridge, 1930)Google Scholar; p. 14.

31 Printed for the most part by Tanner, op. cit. pp. 148–56. The full text is in Petyt, William, Jus Parliamentarium or the Ancient Power, Jurisdiction, Rights and Liberties of the most High Court of Parliament, revived and asserted (London, 1739), pp. 321–36Google Scholar.

32 Tanner, op. cit. pp. 153–4.

33 Tanner, op. cit. p. 155.

34 The count is made from T. and S. Prod.; on dogs, no. 1018.

35 Petyt, op. cit. pp. 328–9.

36 T. and S. Prod, (starch) 1046, 1062, (building) 969, 1011, 1049, 1063, (wool) 992.

37 Petyt, op. cit. pp. 331–5.

38 James I,A Declaration of His Majesties Royall Pleasure…in matter of Bountie (London, 1610Google Scholar; reprinted by J. W. Gordon, 1897).

39 Chrimes, S. B., ‘The constitutional ideas of Dr John Cowell’, English Historical Review, lxiv (1949), pp. 461–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Interpreter was published at Cambridge in 1607. Chrimes prints the unpopular articles. He seems to regard this constitutional affair in parliament as secondary to political issues. For Cowell on law-making, see ‘King’, ‘Law’, ‘Magna Charta’.

40 Tanner, op. cit. pp. 154–5.

41 They were the first grievance in the petition of grievances. Ibid. p. 150.

42 E.g. Tanner, op. cit. p. 248.

43 In a petition about their right to debate the king's right to impose, preceding the petition of grievances. Ibid. pp. 246–7.

44 Gardiner, S. R. (ed.) [Parliamentary] Debates [in 1610] (Camden Society, 1862)Google Scholar, shows the course of debate. Salisbury's defence of impositions, Appendix B.

45 Petyt, op. cit. pp. 335–6.

46 Tanner, op. cit. p. 149.

47 Gardiner, Debates, p. 15.

48 Ibid. pp. 32, 34–5, 40. Tanner, op. cit. p. 246.

49 Gardiner, Debates, pp. 35–6, 112–14.

50 Gardiner, History of England (London, edn. of 1883), ii, pp. 238–41.

51 E.g. American Historical Review, xxvii, pp. 752–4.

52 Bodin, J., The Six Books of a Commonweale (trans. Knolles, Richard, London, 1606), pp. 90Google Scholar (incorrectly printed as 84), 109–10, 665, 96.

53 Tanner, op. cit. p. 149.