The History of England, Volume IV Elizabeth A parliament, 1589
by David Hume
[1589. 4th Feb.] Soon after the defeat and dispersion of the Spanish Armada, the queen summoned a new parliament; and received from them a supply of two subsidies and four fifteenths payable in four years. This is the first instance that subsidies were doubled in one supply; and so unusual a concession was probably obtained from the joy of the present success, and from the general sense of the queen’s necessities. Some members objected to this heavy charge, on account of the great burthen of loans, which had lately been imposed upon the nation.NOTE [AA]
Elizabeth foresaw, that this house of commons, like all the foregoing, would be governed by the puritans; and therefore, to obviate their enterprizes, she renewed, at the beginning of the session, her usual injunction, that the parliament should not, on any account, presume to treat of matters ecclesiastical. Notwithstanding this strict inhibition, the zeal of one Damport moved him to present a bill to the commons for remedying spiritual grievances, and for restraining the tyranny of the ecclesiastical commission, which were certainly great: But when Mr. Secretary Woley reminded the house of her majesty’s commands, no one durst second the motion; the bill was not so much as read; and the speaker returned it to Damport, without taking the least notice of it.g Some members of the house, notwithstanding the general submission, were even committed to custody on account of this attempt.h
The imperious conduct of Elizabeth appeared still more clearly in another parliamentary transaction. The right of purveyance was an ancient prerogative, by which the officers of the crown could at pleasure take provisions for the household from all the neighbouring counties, and could make use of the carts and carriages of the farmers; and the price of these commodities and services was fixed and stated. The payment of the money was often distant and uncertain; and the rates, being fixed before the discovery of the West-Indies, were much inferior to the present market price; so that purveyance, besides the slavery of it, was always regarded as a great burthen, and being arbitrary and casual, was liable to great abuses: We may fairly presume, that the hungry courtiers of Elizabeth, supported by her unlimited power, would be sure to render this prerogative very oppressive to the people; and the commons had, last session, found it necessary to pass a bill for regulating these exactions: But the bill was lost in the house of peers.i The continuance of the abuses begat a new attempt for redress; and the same bill was now revived again, and sent up to the house of peers, together with a bill for some new regulations in the court of exchequer. Soon after the commons received a message from the upper house, desiring them to appoint a committee for a conference. At this conference, the peers informed them, that the queen, by a message, delivered by lord Burleigh, had expressed her displeasure, that the commons should presume to touch on her prerogative. If there were any abuses, she said, either in imposing purveyance, or in the practice of the court of exchequer, her majesty was both able and willing to provide due reformation; but would not permit the parliament to intermeddle in these matters.k The commons alarmed at this intelligence, appointed another committee to attend the queen, and endeavour to satisfy her of their humble and dutiful intentions. Elizabeth gave a gracious reception to the committee: She expressed her great inestimable loving care towards her loving subjects; which, she said, was greater than of her own self, or even than any of them could have of themselves. She told them, that she had already given orders for an enquiry into the abuses attending purveyance, but the dangers of the Spanish invasion had retarded the progress of the design; that she had as much skill, will, and power to rule her household as any subjects whatsoever to govern theirs, and needed as little the assistance of her neighbours; that the exchequer was her chamber, consequently more near to her than even her household, and therefore the less proper for them to intermeddle with; and that she would of herself, with advice of her council and the judges, redress every grievance in these matters, but would not permit the commons, by laws moved without her privity, to bereave her of the honour attending these regulations.l The issue of this matter was the same that attended all contests between Elizabeth and her parliament.m She seems even to have been more imperious, in this particular, than her predecessors; at least, her more remote ones: For they often permitted the abuses of purveyanceNOTE [BB] to be redressed by law.o Edward III., a very arbitrary prince, allowed ten several statutes to be enacted for that purpose.
In so great awe did the commons stand of every courtier, as well as of the crown, that they durst use no freedom of speech, which, they thought, would give the least offence to any of them. Sir Edward Hobby shewed in the house his extreme grief, that, by some great personage, not a member of the house, he had been sharply rebuked for speeches delivered in parliament: He craved the favour of the house, and desired that some of the members might inform that great personage of his true meaning and intention in these speeches.p The commons, to obviate these inconveniencies, passed a vote, that no one should reveal the secrets of the house.q
[NOTE [AA]] Strype, vol. iii. p. 542. Id. append. p. 239. There are some singular passages in this last speech, which may be worth taking notice of; especially as they came from a member who was no courtier: For he argues against the subsidy. “And first,” says he, “for the necessity thereof, I cannot deny, but if it were a charge imposed upon us by her majesty’s commandment, or a demand proceeding from her majesty by way of request, that I think there is not one among us all, either so disobedient a subject in regard of our duty, or so unthankful a man in respect of the inestimable benefits which, by her or from her, we have received, which would not with frank consent, both of voice and heart, most willingly submit himself thereunto, without any unreverend enquiry into the causes thereof. For it is continually in the mouth of us all, that our lands, goods, and lives are at our prince’s disposing. And it agreeth very well with that position of the civil law, which sayeth, Quod omnia regis sunt. But how? Ita tamen ut omnium sint. Ad regem enim potestas omnium pertinet; ad singulos proprietas. So that although it be most true, that her majesty hath over ourselves and our goods, potestatem imperandi; yet it is true, that until that power command (which, no doubt, will not command without very just cause) every subject hath his own proprietatem possidendi. Which power and commandment from her majesty, which we have not yet received, I take it (saving reformation) that we are freed from the cause of necessity. And the cause of necessity, is the dangerous estate of the commonwealth, &c.” The tenor of the speech pleads rather for a general benevolence than a subsidy: For the law of Richard III. against benevolence was never conceived to have any force. The member even proceeds to assert, with some precaution, that it was in the power of a parliament to refuse the king’s demand of a subsidy. And that there was an instance of that liberty in Henry III.’s time, near four hundred years before. Sub fine.
[g] D’Ewes, p. 438.
[h] Strype’s Life of Whitgift, p. 280. Neal, vol. i. p. 500.
[i] D’Ewes, p. 434.
[k] D’Ewes, p. 440.
[l] Ibid. p. 444.
[m] Si rixa est, ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum. Juven.
[NOTE [BB]] We may judge of the extent and importance of these abuses by a speech of Bacon’s against purveyors, delivered in the first session of the first parliament of the subsequent reign, by which also we may learn that Elizabeth had given no redress to the grievances complained of. “First,” says he, “they take in kind what they ought not to take; secondly, they take in quantity a far greater proportion than cometh to your majesty’s use; thirdly, they take in an unlawful manner, in a manner, I say, directly and expressly prohibited by the several laws. For the first, I am a little to alter their name: For instead of takers, they become taxers: Instead of taking provisions for your majesty’s service, they tax your people ad redimendam vexationem; imposing upon them and extorting from them divers sums of money, sometimes in gross, sometimes in the nature of stipends annually paid, ne noceant, to be freed and eased of their oppression. Again, they take trees, which by law they cannot do; timber trees, which are the beauty, countenance, and shelter of men’s houses; that men have long spared from their own purse and profit; that men esteem, for their use and delight, above ten times the value; that are a loss which men cannot repair or recover. These, do they take, to the defacing and spoiling of your subjects mansions and dwellings, except they may be compounded with to their own appetites. And if a gentleman be too hard for them while he is at home, they will watch their time when there is but a bailiff or a servant remaining, and put the ax to the root of the tree, ere ever the master can stop it. Again, they use a strange and most unjust exaction in causing the subject to pay poundage of their own debts, due from your majesty unto them: So as a poor man, when he has had his hay or his wood, or his poultry (which perchance he was full loath to part with, and had for the provision of his own family and not to put to sale) taken from him, and that not at a just price, but under the value, and cometh to receive his money, he shall have after the rate of twelve pence in the pound abated for poundage of his due payment upon so hard conditions. Nay farther, they are grown to that extremity (as is affirmed, though it be scarce credible, save that in such persons all things are credible) that they will take double poundage, once when the debenture is made, and again the second time, when the money is paid. For the second point, most gracious sovereign, touching the quantity which they take far above that which is answered to your majesty’s use; it is affirmed unto me by divers gentlemen of good report, as a matter which I may safely avouch unto your majesty, that there is no pound profit, which redoundeth unto your majesty in this course, but induceth and begetteth three pound damage upon your subjects, beside the discontentment. And to the end they may make their spoil more securely, what do they? Whereas divers statutes do strictly provide, that whatsoever they take shall be registered and attested, to the end that by making a collation of that which is taken from the country and that which is answered above, their deceits might appear, they, to the end to obscure their deceits, utterly omit the observation of this, which the law prescribeth. And therefore to descend, if it may please your majesty, to the third sort of abuse, which is of the unlawful manner of their taking, whereof this question is a branch; it is so manifold, as it rather asketh an enumeration of some of the particulars than a prosecution of all. For their price, by law they ought to take as they can agree with the subject; by abuse, they take at an imposed and enforced price: By law they ought to make but one apprizement by neighbours in the country; by abuse, they make a second apprizement at the court-gate, and when the subjects cattle come up many miles lean and out of plight by reason of their travel, then they prize them anew at an abated price: By law, they ought to take between sun and sun; by abuse, they take by twilight and in the night-time, a time well chosen for malefactors: By law, they ought not to take in the high-ways (a place by her majesty’s high prerogative protected, and by statute by special words excepted); by abuse, they take in the highways: By law, they ought to shew their commission, &c. A number of other particulars there are, &c.” Bacon’s works, vol. iv. p. 305, 306.
Such were the abuses, which Elizabeth would neither permit her parliaments to meddle with, nor redress herself. I believe it will readily be allowed, that this slight prerogative alone, which has passed almost unobserved amidst other branches of so much greater importance, was sufficient to extinguish all regular liberty. For what elector, or member of parliament, or even juryman, durst oppose the will of the court, while he lay under the lash of such an arbitrary prerogative. For a farther account of the grievous and incredible oppressions of purveyors, see the Journals of the house of commons, vol. i. p. 190. There is a story of a carter, which may be worth mentioning on this occasion. “A carter had three time been at Windsor with his cart to carry away, upon summons of a remove, some part of the stuff of her majesty’s wardrobe; and when he had repaired thither once, twice, and the third time, and that they of the wardrobe had told him the third time that the remove held not, the carter, clapping his hand on his thigh, said, Now I see, that the queen is a woman as well as my wife. Which words being overheard by her majesty, who then stood at the window, she said, What a villain is this? and so sent him three angels to stop his mouth.” Birch’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 155.
[o] See the statutes under this head of purveyance.
[p] D’Ewes, p. 432, 433.
[q] An act was passed this session, enforcing the former statute, which imposed twenty pounds a month on every one absent from public worship: But the penalty was restricted to two thirds of the income of the recusant. 29 Eliz. cap. 6.
