[235] Rot. Parl. 5 H. IV. p. 541. [236] The clergy had got a little precedence in this. An act passed 8 H. VI. c. 1, granting privilege from arrest for themselves and servants on their way to convocation. [237] Rot. Parl. vol. iv. p. 357. [238] vol. v. p. 374. [239] Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 239; Hatsell's Precedents, p. 29. [240] Upon this subject the reader should have recourse to Hatsell's Precedents, vol. i. chap. 1. [241] Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 337; W. Worcester, p. 415. Mr. Hatsell seems to have overlooked this case, for he mentions that of Strickland, in 1571, as the earliest instance of the crown's interference with freedom of speech in parliament. vol. i. p. 85. [242] This parliament sat at Gloucester. [243] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 611. [244] A notion is entertained by many people, and not without the authority of some very respectable names, that the king is one of the three estates of the realm, the lords spiritual and temporal forming together the second, as the commons in parliament do the third. This is contradicted by the general tenor of our ancient records and law-books; and indeed the analogy of other governments ought to have the greatest weight, even if more reason for doubt appeared upon the face of our own authorities. But the instances where the three estates are declared or implied to be the nobility, clergy, and commons, or at least their representatives in parliament, are too numerous for insertion. This land standeth, says the Chancellor Stillington, in 7th Edward IV., by three states, and above that one principal, that is to wit, lords spiritual, lords temporal, and commons, and over that, state royal, as our sovereign lord the king. Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 622. Thus, too, it is declared that the treaty of Staples in 1492 was to be confirmed per tres status regni Angliæ ritè et debitè convocatos, videlicet per prelatos et clerum, nobiles et communitates ejusdem regni. Rymer, t. xii. p. 508. I will not, however, suppress one passage, and the only instance that has occurred in my reading, where the king does appear to have been reckoned among the three estates. The commons say, in the 2nd of Henry IV., that the states of the realm may be compared to a trinity, that is, the king, the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons. Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 459. In this expression, however, the sense shows that by estates of the realm they meant members, or necessary parts, of the parliament. Whitelocke, on the Parliamentary Writ, vol. ii. p. 43, argues at length, that the three estates are king, lords, and commons, which seems to have been a current doctrine among the popular lawyers of the seventeenth century. His reasoning is chiefly grounded on the baronial tenure of bishops, the validity of acts passed against their consent, and other arguments of the same kind; which might go to prove that there are only at present two estates, but can never turn the king into one.