judiciously distributed, promised to establish the present dynasty beyond the fear of fall. Though this view has not been ascribed to Henry, some parts of his conduct, as well as the proposals of the Commons, which were afterwards more systematically made, indicate that he had entertained it, and only protected the church when he perceived the impracticability of plundering it. There had been a statute or ordinance passed in the 46th of Edward III. A. D. 1372*, to render lawyers ineligible to the Lower House, on the ground that they procured and caused to be brought into Parliament, many petitions in the name of the Commons, which in no wise related to them, but only to the private persons with whom they were engaged;" but it does not appear to have been acted upon till Henry, upon summoning the parliament in question, directed the writs, with a clause of nollumus, against the election of that class, alleging that, at the previous parliament, the lawyers had needlessly protracted the business t. However the See late Pub. of St. of the Realm. Prynne was at pains to prove that statutes and ordinances are synonimous. But it was unnecessary, as both are acts of the legislature. + This parliament was styled in derision the Parliamentum Indoctorum. Wals. Hist. p. 371. Ypod. Neus. 563. Walsingham mentions only the shires in speaking of the clause of nollumus; but Holinshed mentions cities and towns also, Vol. 2d. p. 526. Sir Ed. Coke, 4th Inst. p. 10, alleges that Walsingham was deceived, for that there is no such clause in the writs; and that the matter was accomplished by letters directed to sheriffs, &c. by pretext of an ordinance in the Lord's House, 46th Ed. III. But Prynne, by quoting the words of the writs, proves that Walsingham was correct; and he properly shews, at the same time, that the 46th Ed. III. was not an ordinance of the Lords, but an act of the legislature. It interests of the clergy, and of the legal profession, might occasionally clash, there were many strong bonds of connection between them. The extent of the church property, under the dominion of a body who were actuated by the spirit of a corps, gave the clergy great influence over the lawyers, in the way of employment, during an age in which there was so limited a field for talent and enterprize. In more ancient times, many of the clergy not only acted as barristers *, but is curious, however, to observe, that while Prynne is mercilessly correcting Coke, he has fallen himself into a very strange blunder, for he ascribes the taxa insolita et tricabilis to the Parliamentum Indoctorum; and, after citing Walsingham's words about excluding the lawyers, he proceeds thus, " to which he subjoins in his Ypodigma Neustriæ, this observation: In hoc parliamento concessa fuit regi taxa insolita, &c." Now the passage in the Ypodigma is an exact transcript of one in the history upon that very subject; and had Prynne done more than just turn up the book for this insulated point, it is inconceivable that he should not have observed this, and also that the unusual tax was granted by a parliament held at London or Westminster, while the tax by the lack-learned parliament (which was held at Coventry) is quite an ordinary one, and distinctly specified. Prynne's error is the more strange, that Holinshed and other historians who transcribe from Walsingham, do not fall into it. But it is curious that Whitelock had committed the same mistake in a speech which he has preserved in his Memorials, p. 431: As his object was, however, by that speech to dissaude the long parliament from rendering lawyers ineligible, it is possible that the error was a voluntary one. He states that Henry adopted the measure because he knew that the lawyers would oppose any extraordinary grant of money; but that class are not commonly so very patriotic. I presume that Prynne derived his error from Whitelock; or that, as Prynne's works are numberless, Whitelock may have scraped it from some of them. N. B. The part of Prynne's works alluded to is his preface to Cotton's Abridgment of the Records. * Henry, Vol. VIII. p. 189. This author ascribes the statute 46 E. III. which rendered lawyers ineligible to Parliament, to the disgrace into members of that profession were frequently promoted to the various judicial departments *, while the greatest legal office was still invariably bestowed upon an ecclesiastic †. Independently of these circumstances, it was, obviously, the interest of the lawyers to protect the church, in order that they might, by its assistance, occupy a respectable ground against the aristocracy-particularly, as from their own inability to serve the prince in a military capacity, they could not expect to derive any advantage from the ruin of the establishment. Hence a strong inference arises that Henry was anxious, on account of their predilection, to exclude them from a voice in the decision of so important a point. When, along with this, it is considered that he heard the proposals of the Commons with apparent assent, the idea acquires great confirmation. But, then, the church was powerful enough to make a desperate struggle, and the temporal peers having been alarmed into a junction with the spiritual, the measure could not have been attempted without the most tremendous convulsion, nor, as the upper house refused its assent, without violence to the first principle of the government. With Henry's situation, half-measures were incompatible, and having declared against a measure which the profession was brought by the chivalrous spirit of the age, so that few men of probity and credit would enter into it, Vol viii. p. 148. For this he quotes Cart. Vol. ii. p. 482. But a very different reason is assigned for their exclusion in the statute itself; and the very circumstance of their having been so often elected, is the most irrefragable proof of their general respectability. * 2d Inst. p. 264. VOL. I. + Henry, Vol. x. p. 76. Vol. xii. p. 227. F which appeared to have been visionary, he endeavoured to conciliate the clergy, and affected to testify his abhorrence at the project, by persecuting the Lollards *. But the failure of one attempt, and the conduct of the king, did not deter the Commons from a second, in the eleventh of the same reign, when the project was reduced to a more regular form, In their bill, introduced by Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobbam, a proceeding which created such animosity against him on the part of the clergy as afterwards brought him to the stake †, the Commons set forth that, while the laity sustained the burthens and dangers of the wars, the revenues of the church were lewdly spent by bishops, abbots, and priors, &c, but that those revenues might be converted to better purposes, and ought, therefore, with that view to be transferred to the king ;-that out of them fifteen earls, fifteen hundred knights, and six thousand two hundred esquires might be created with ample revenues, while, from the same source fifteen thousand parish priests, who would more regularly perform the duties of their sacred function than the present clergy, might be adequately supported, and a clear revenue besides of L.20,000 per annum be reserved by the Crown. This attempt was equally unsuccessful with the former, and Henry is said to have gratified the clergy by checking the Commons for their sacrilegious project, and refusing a bill for the abrogation, or, at least, mitigation of the statute passed * Fox's Martyr. Vol. I. + Parl. Hist. Vol. i. p. 310. in the 2d of his reign against heretics, declaring that he wished the law to be more severe; and also another to have clerks convicted of crimes committed to the king's prison instead of the bishop's, from whence they were often allowed to escape *. In spite of this second failure, the Commons made a third and last attempt in the next reign,-only four years posterior to their former. Their pertinacity, together with the suspicions which the clergy entertained of the young king's propensities, dreadfully alarmed that body: "the fat abbotes swet,' says Halle, "the proude priors frouned, the poore friers cursed, the sely nonnes wept, and al together wer nothyng pleased nor yet content t." To di Hol. Vol. ii. p. 536. *Wals. Hist. p. 379. Ypod. Neust. 570. Fabian's Chron. 3d part. p. 189. Kennet, p. 298. p. 309. In this last, an error of Rapin is corrected, who says that 150 instead of 15 earls were specified as capable of being created from that fund; and it is observed that Rapin quotes Walsingham for his authority, who distinctly states fifteen, and that the funds were totally inadequate to 150 at the rate proposed. But the fact is, that Holinshed fell into the same error, and that Rapin had derived his information from him instead of the original. In giving an account of the bill brought into parliament in the 2d Hen. V. however, Holinshed correctly states fifteen. ↑ Halle, H. 5. fol. 4. This author is too severe upon the monkish ecclesiastics. "You must understande," says he, "that these monasticall persones, lerned and unliterate, better fed than taught, toke on them to wryte and regester in the boke of fame, the noble actes, the wyse doynges, and politike governaunces of kynges and prynces, in whiche cronographye, yf a kinge gaue to them possessions, or graunted them liberties, or exalted them to honor and worldly dignitie, he was called a saynct, he was praised without any desert aboue the moone, hys genealogie was written, and not one iote that might exalt his fame was ether forgotten or omitted. But if a Christian prince had touched their liberties, or claimed any part justly of their |