constitution, first, that it is not correct to say that the judges of the land, who were entitled to sit there, held their offices during pleasure; as it was reserved for Charles I., in whose vindication the learned historian so eagerly makes the statements, to alter the patents of the judges from quamdiu se bene gesserint, during good behaviour, to durante bene placito, during pleasure:-We shall have occasion to give instances of integrity in Elizabeth's judges in opposition to the Court, which cast a deeper stain upon the reign of Charles I. 2dly, That there never occurred an instance of any king arrogating a right to exercise the judicial function in this court, till James I., with the pedantic pretensions peculiar to him, embraced an opportunity to exhibit there his Solomon-like * powers; and even he never attempted it a second time. In the next place, it is extraordinary indeed, to find this learned author assuming it as an introvertible point, that such a court necessarily put an end to all regular, legal, and exact plans of liberty, when, within a few years of the period he is now treating of, the plans of liberty adopted by parliament proved fatal to the prince. The true answer to his question-" Who durst set himself in opposition to the crown and ministry, or aspire to the charac

Solomon was the designation which the courtiers of that monarch bestowed upon him. Williams, in the funeral oration for James, makes a long parallel between the king of Israel and the English king. James is said also to have attempted to preside in the King's Bench; but he was informed by his judges, that he could not deliver an opinion. Blackst. vol. iii. p. 41, Note.

ter of being a patron of freedom, while exposed to so arbitrary a jurisdiction ?" is-Elliot, Hampden, and the rest who did it. When this part of Mr. Hume's work is compared with that where he represents Charles I. as in so miserable a plight, from the encroachments of parliament on his prerogative, one would be apt to conclude, that the powers of the court of Star-Chamber had either ceased, or been abridged, whereas they were vastly extended, and the court had entirely lost the very decency and appearance of justice which had characterised it under the Tudors. "The slavish speech of whispering," says even Hudson, "was not heard to come from the noble spirit of those times, in that honourable presence, and not familiarly introduced there, till a great man of the common law, and otherwise a worthy justice, forgot his place of session, and brought it in this place too much in use*."-" The slavish punishment of whipping," says another writer, "was not heard to come from the noble spirits in those times sitting in that honourable presence." (This is not exactly correct, but nearly so.)-" When once this court began to swell big, and was delighted with blood, which sprung out of the ears and shoulders of the punished, and nothing would satisfy the revenge of some clergymen, but cropt ears, slit noses, branded faces, whipt backs, gag'd mouths, and withal to be thrown into dungeons, and some to be banished, not only from their na

* Hudson, p. 36.

tive country to remote islands, but by order of that court to be separated from wife and children, who were by their order not permitted to come near the prisons where their husbands lay in misery; then began the English nation to lay to heart the slavish condition they were like to come to, if this court continued its greatness *."

But it is not easy to conceive what Mr. Hume meant, by questioning whether any of the absolute European monarchies, in his time, contained so despotic a tribunal. Had he never heard of the Inquisition? Was he a stranger to the existence of the Bastile, and to the very issuing of lettres de cachett, to immure within its dungeons, without a hope either of trial or reprieve, all who were obnoxious, not only to the executive, but even to the mistresses and minions of the court? Nay, had he never heard that those lettres de cachet were notoriously sold by the minions or mistresses of the court, in order that the purchasers might gratify revenge, or accomplish some sinister object by oppression ?—The very best French institution was worse than the court of Star Chamber; for, the general excellency of the English institutions operated as a check upon this, where all proceedings were public, while in France the judgment-seats were sold, and every

* Bushworth, vol. ii. p. 475. The account of the court of Star Chamber is extracted by him from a manuscript.

"I have been assured," says Blackstone, " upon good authority, that, during the mild administration of Cardinal Fleury, above 54,000 lettres de cachet were issued, upon the single ground of the famous bull unigenitus. Com. vol. i. p. 135, Note.

Court of High Commission.

tribunal held out, by its example, an encouragement to an arbitrary course in all the rest.

The next subject that demands attention is the Court of High Commission, which was founded upon a clause of the act that restored the supremacy to the crown, in the 1st of Elizabeth. The words are these: "The queen and her successors shall have power, by their letters patents under the great seal, to assign, name, and authorise, when and as often as they shall think meet and convenient, and for as long time as they shall please, persons, being natural born subjects, to exercise, use, occupy, and execute, under her and them, all manner of jurisdiction, privileges, and preeminences, in any wise touching or concerning any spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction, within the realms of England and Ireland, and to visit, reform, redress, order, correct, and amend all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, contempts, of fences, and enormities whatsoever, which, by any manner spiritual, or ecclesiastical power, authority or jurisdiction, can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended: Provided that they have no power to determine any thing to be heresy, but what has been adjudg ed to be so by the authority of the canonical scripture, or by the first four general councils, or any of them; or by any other general council, wherein the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of canonical scripture; or such as shall hereafter be declared to be heresy by the high court of Parliament, with the assent of the clergy

in convocation." This statute confers no power whatever to fine, imprison, or inflict corporal punishment; and when the court transgressed its limits, the remedy was always in the power of the injured, by applying to the ordinary courts for a prohibition. The real object was to correct the heresies of the clergy, by suspension and deprivation; and surely, if there be a national establishment, all, that enjoy functions under it, ought to conform to its rules. Were it otherwise, the office might be converted to a very different purpose; and here it may be remarked, that the numerous suspensions and deprivations in this reign, (their number, by the way, may be fairly doubted,) afford no ground for charging the government with tyranny, since the doctrine and conduct of the ecclesiastics were irreconcilable to the establishment under which they accepted of livings. At this day the same consequences would follow.-Various commissions were issued by this princess; and, in 1584, she granted one to forty-four individuals, by which she empowers them to inquire into all misdemeanors, not only by the oath of twelve men, and by witnesses, but by all other means and ways they can devise. Mr. Hume, following Mr. Neal, says, that this included the rack, torture, inquisition, imprisonment: But, besides that the rack never was attempted, the other clauses distinctly shew that it never was contemplated. The very next clause distinctly appoints them to punish all who obstinately absent themselves from church, &c. by censure, or any other lawful ways and means, and to