The English, however, unlike Americans, refuse to survey with unconcern the spectacle of chaotic officialdom. They are a fault-finding people, and have expressed their dissatisfaction since the days of King John and the Magna Carta. They were no more encouraged to find fault than were other European commonalties that kept silence, or spoke in whispers. The Plantagenets were a high-handed race. The hot-tempered Tudors resented any opinions their subjects might form. Elizabeth had no more loyal servant than the unlucky John Stubbs, who lost his right hand for the doubtful pleasure of writing the “Gaping Gulf.” Any other woman would have been touched when the culprit, raising his hat with his left hand which had been mercifully spared, cried aloud, “God save the Queen!” Not so the great Elizabeth. Stubbs had expressed his views upon her proposed marriage to the Duke of Anjou, and it was no business of his to have views, much less to give them utterance; while his intimation that, at forty-six, she was unlikely to bear children was the most unpardonable truth he could have spoken. The Stuarts, with the exception of the second Charles, were as resentful of candour as were the Tudors. “I hope,” said James the First to his Commons, “that I shall hear no more about liberty of speech.” The Hanoverians heartily disliked British frankness because they heartily disliked their unruly British subjects. George the Third had all Elizabeth’s irascibility without her power to indulge it. And Victoria was not much behind either of them--witness her indignation at the “Greville Memoirs,” “an insult to royalty,” and her regret that the publishers were not open to prosecution. It was no use. Nothing could keep the Englishman from speaking his mind. With him it was not only “What is there that a man dare not do?” but “What is there that a man dare not say?” Many a time he paid more for the privilege than it was worth; but he handed it down to his sons, who took care that it was not lost through disuse. When Sorbière visited England in 1663, he was amazed to find the “common people” discussing public affairs in taverns and inns, recalling the glories as well as the discomforts of Cromwell’s day, and grumbling over the taxes. “They do not forbear saying what they think of the king himself.” In the “Memoirs” of the publisher, John Murray, there is an amusing letter from the Persian envoy, Mirza Abul Hassan, dated 1824, and expressing his opinion of a government which permitted such unrestrained liberty. Englishmen “do what they like, say what they like, write what they like in their newspapers,” comments the Oriental with bewildered but affectionate contempt. “How far do you think it safe to go in defying your sovereign?” asked Madame de Pompadour of John Wilkes, when that notorious plain-speaker had taken refuge in Paris from his incensed king and exasperated creditors. “That, Madame,” said the member from Aylesbury, “is what I am trying to find out.”