[422] D'Ewes, 433. [423] _Id. 440 et post._ [424] _Id._ 470. [425] D'Ewes, 474; Townsend, 60. [426] _Id._ 62. [427] See the letter in Lodge's _Illustrations_, vol. iii. 34. Townsend says he was committed to Sir John Fortescue's keeping, a gentler sort of imprisonment. P. 61. [428] D'Ewes, 470. [429] Birch's _Memoirs of Elisabeth_, i. 96. [430] Strype has published, from Lord Burleigh's manuscripts, a speech made in the parliament of 1589 against the subsidy then proposed. _Annals_, vol. iii. Append. 238. Not a word about this occurs in D'Ewes's Journal; and I mention it as an additional proof how little we can rely on negative inferences as to proceedings in parliament at this period. [431] D'Ewes, 547. [432] Their joy and gratitude were rather premature, for her majesty did not revoke all of them; as appears by Rymer, xvi. 540, and Carte, iii. 712. A list of them, dated May 1603 (Lodge, iii. 159), seems to imply that they were still existing. [433] D'Ewes, 619, 644, etc. The speeches made in this parliament are reported more fully than usual by Heywood Townsend, from whose journal those of most importance have been transcribed by D'Ewes. Hume has given considerable extracts, for the sole purpose of inferring from this very debate on monopolies, that the royal prerogative was, according to the opinion of the House of Commons itself, hardly subject to any kind of restraint. But the passages he selects are so unfairly taken (some of them being the mere language of courtiers, others separated from the context, in order to distort their meaning), that no one who compares them with the original can acquit him of extreme prejudice. The adulatory strain in which it was usual to speak of the sovereign often covered a strong disposition to keep down his authority. Thus when a Mr. Davies says in this debate: "God hath given that power to absolute princes, which he attributes to himself--Dixi quod dii estis;" it would have been seen, if Hume had quoted the following sentence, that he infers from hence, that justice being a divine attribute, the king can do nothing that is unjust, and consequently cannot grant licences to the injury of his subjects. Strong language was no doubt used in respect of the prerogative. But it is erroneous to assert, with Hume, that it came equally from the courtiers and country gentlemen, and was admitted by both. It will chiefly be found in the speeches of Secretary Cecil, the official defender of prerogative, and of some lawyers. Hume, after quoting an extravagant speech ascribed to Sergeant Heyle, that "all we have is her majesty's, and she may lawfully at any time take it from us; yea, she hath as much right to all our lands and goods as to any revenue of her crown," observes that Heyle was an eminent lawyer, a man of character. That Heyle was high in his profession is beyond doubt; but in that age, as has since, though from the change of times less grossly, continued to be