The commons, alarmed at this intelligence, appointed another committee to attend the queen, and endeavor 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 inquiry 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 neighbors; that the exchequer was her chamber, consequently more near to her than even her house’ bold, 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 honor attending these regulations.[*] The issue of this matter was the same that attended all contests between Elizabeth and her parliaments.[**] 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 purveyance[***] [31]to be redressed by law.[****] Edward III., a very arbitrary prince, allowed ten several statutes to be enacted for that purpose. * D’Ewes, p. 444. ** Si rixa est, ubi tu pulsus, ego vapulo tantum. Juv. *** See note EE, at the end of the volume. **** See the statutes under the head of Purveyance. 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 showed 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 favor of the house, and desired that some of the members might inform that great personage of his true meaning and intention in these speeches.[*] The commons, to obviate these inconveniencies, passed a vote that no one should reveal the secrets of the house.[**] * D’Ewes, p. 432, 433. ** An act was passed this session, enforcing the former statute, which imposed twenty pounds a month on everyone absent from public worship: but the penalty was restricted to two thirds of the income of the recusant. 29 Eliz. c. 6.