(46) The fact that James the First, a King who came in with no title whatever but what was given him by an Act of Parliament passed after his coronation, was acknowledged without the faintest opposition is one of the most remarkable things in our history. Hallam (i. 294) remarks that “there is much reason to believe that the consciousness of this defect in his parliamentary title put James on magnifying, still more than from his natural temper he was prone to do, the inherent rights of primogenitory succession, as something indefeasible by the legislature; a doctrine which, however it might suit the schools of divinity, was in diametrical opposition to our statutes.” Certainly no opposition can be more strongly marked than that between the language of James’s own Parliament and the words quoted above from 13 Eliz. c. 1. But see the remarks of Hallam a few pages before (i. 288) on the kind of tacit election by which it might be said that James reigned. “What renders it absurd to call him and his children usurpers? He had that which the flatterers of his family most affected to disdain—the will of the people; not certainly expressed in regular suffrage or declared election, but unanimously and voluntarily ratifying that which in itself could surely give no right, the determination of the late Queen’s Council to proclaim his accession to the throne.” (47) Whitelocke’s Memorials, 367. “The heads of the charge against the King were published by leave, in this form: That Charles Stuart, being admitted King of England, & therein trusted with a limited power, to govern by, & according to the Laws of the Land, & not otherwise, & by his trust being obliged, as also by his Oath, & office to use the power committed to him, for the good & benefit of the people, & for the preservation of their Rights and Privileges,” etc. At an earlier stage (365) the President had told the King that the Court “sat here by the Authority of the Commons of England: & all your predecessours, & you are responsible to them.” The King answered “I deny that, shew me one Precedent.” The President, instead of quoting the precedents which were at least plausible, told the prisoner that he was not to interrupt the Court. Earlier still the King had objected to the authority of the Court that “he saw no Lords there which should make a Parliament, including the King, & urged that the Kingdom of England was hereditary, & not successive.” The strong point of Charles’s argument undoubtedly was the want of concurrence on the part of the Lords. Both Houses of Parliament had agreed in the proceedings against Edward the Second and Richard the Second.