It is the law gives jurisdiction to the House of Lords; and it is the law limits the jurisdiction of the House of Commons.

That if the ecclesiastical court exceed their jurisdiction, a prohibition will lie; and even the king's acts, if contrary to law, are void. He insisted that the lord Banbury's case was a great authority for him.

He petitioned the House of Lords to sit, and also to have the king's leave. The lords determined he was not a lord; yet when he was brought up on an indictment by the name of Charles Knowles, esq. he here pleaded and insisted that he was a peer; which plea was allowed and he was not tried.

Though the Lord Chief Justice was so clear in his judgement, yet the other three judges being of a contrary opinion, the majority prevailed; and the prisoners were remanded to Newgate.

May it please your majesty;

In obedience to your majesty's command, we have considered of the Petition hereunto annexed; and we are humbly of opinion that a Writ of Error in this case ought to be granted of right, and not of grace. But we give no opinion whether a Writ of Error does lie in the case; because it is proper to be determined in parliament, where the writ of error and record are returned and certified.

In obedience to your majesty's command, we have considered of the petition hereunto annexed; and we are humbly of opinion that your majesty is not of right and justice obliged to grant a Writ of Error in this case.

PRICE

SMITH.

The judges all attended the queen at the cabinet1 on the 25th February, and delivered these their several resolutions to her majesty, in the presence of the prince and many of the principal members of the Council.

(S.T. xiv. 862.)

1 The expression might be pressed as an instance of the presence of the Sovereign at a meeting of the Cabinet, in which Anne was accustomed to sit, but it is probably here used loosely for the Privy Council.

VI

(On the commitment of the five Aylesbury men, the Lords drew up an elaborate Representation and Address, March 14, 1705, the substance of which is given in the concluding paragraphs.)

We humbly beg pardon of your majesty for this long and melancholy Representation, which we could not avoid without being guilty of treachery to your majesty and to our native country. The five persons immediately concerned are but poor men; but we well know your majesty's justice and compassion extends itself to the meanest of your subjects.

The matters in dispute are of the highest consequence: Your majesty's prerogative, the reverence due to laws, and the liberties and properties of all the people of England are concerned and at stake, if these encroachments prevail.

We do not pretend to solicit your majesty to put a stop to these innovations, your own wisdom will suggest the most proper methods: We have endeavoured to do our duty by laying the whole matter before you.

We humbly beg leave as far to resume what has been said, as to present to your majesty a short view of the unhappy condition of such of your subjects, as have right of giving votes for chusing members to serve in parliament, which has hitherto been thought a great and valuable privilege: but by the late proceedings of the House of Commons, is likely to be made only a dangerous snare to them, in case they who may hereafter be chosen to serve in parliament, shall think fit to pursue the methods of this present House of Commons.

If they refrain from making use of their right in giving their Votes, they are wanting in duty to their country, by not doing their parts towards the chusing such representatives as will use their trust towards the good of the kingdom, and not for the oppression of their fellow subjects.

If the officer, who has the right of taking the suffrages, refuse to admit them to give their Votes, they must either sit down by it, and submit to be wrongfully and maliciously deprived of their rights; or if they bring their actions at law, in order to assert their rights, and recover damages for the injury (as all other injured men may do in like cases) they become liable to indefinite imprisonment, by incurring the displeasure of those who are elected.

If, being thus imprisoned, they seek their liberty by Habeas Corpus, (the known remedy of all other subjects) they do not only

tie their own chains faster, but bring all their friends and agents, their solicitors and counsel, into the same misfortune with themselves.

If they think themselves to have received injury by the judgement upon the Habeas Corpus and seek relief by Writ of Error, (the known refuge of these who suffer wrong by any wrong judgement) all that assist them in that matter are likewise to lose their liberties for it, and they themselves will be removed to new prisons, in order to avoid the justice of the law.

We humbly conclude with acquainting your majesty, that we have been informed by the petition of two of the prisoners, that they have been long delayed, though they have made their applications in due manner for Writs of Error: We are under a necessary obligation, for the sake of justice, and asserting the judicature of Parliament, to make this humble Address to your majesty, that no importunity of the House of Commons, nor any other consideration whatsoever, may prevail with your majesty to suffer a stop to be put to the known course of justice, but that you will be pleased to give effectual orders for the immediate issuing of the Writs of Error.

THE QUEEN'S ANSWER

To which her majesty was pleased, the same day, to return the following most gracious answer.

"My Lords: I should have granted the Writ of Error desired in this Address: But finding an absolute necessity of putting an immediate end to this session, I am sensible there could have been no further proceeding upon that matter."

VOTE OF THANKS

Ordered by the Lords spiritual and temporal in parliament assembled, that the humble thanks of this House be presented to her majesty, for her most gracious Answer, in which she has expressed so great a regard to the judgement of this House, so much compassion to the petitioners, and such tenderness to the rights of the subject.

The same day the Queen came to the House and put an end to the session, and the lord keeper prorogued the parliament to Tuesday the 1st of May, which put an end to this affair.

XII

THE IMPEACHMENT OF HENRY SACHEVERELL

9 Anne, 1710.

[Henry Sacheverell, D.D., had preached two sermons (a) "The Communication of Sin," on August 5; (b) "The Perils of False Brethren both in Church and State," on November 15, 1709, both of which were subsequently printed and sold in large numbers; and for the sentiments expressed in these, as tending to deny the principles of the Revolution, the Whig Government with considerable reluctance decided to impeach him. Articles of impeachment were agreed on in the House of Commons on January 12, 1710. The trial commenced before the Lords on February 27, and on March 23 the Lords found him guilty (69 to 52), and the judgment was: (1) Sacheverell should be suspended from preaching for three years; (2) the two sermons in question were condemned to be burnt on March 27 by the common hangman. The proceedings in the Lords and the judgment occasioned several numerously signed protests (see Rogers, P.L. i. 189-198). Burke, in his Appeal from the new to the old Whigs, was of opinion that the trial furnished the best statement of the doctrine and counter-doctrine of the Revolution of 1688, and the extracts given are intended to illustrate this view. See Hallam, C.H. ch. xvi.; Lecky, H.E. i.; S.T. xv. 1-522; Burke, op. cit.; Wyon, History of Queen Anne's Reign, ii.; Sandersom, A Complete History of Dr. Sacheverell.]

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HENRY

SACHEVERELL

I. He, the said Henry Sacheverell, in his said Sermon, preached at St. Paul's, doth suggest and maintain, That the necessary means used to bring about the said happy Revolution, were odious and unjustifiable: That his late majesty, in his Declaration, disclaimed the least imputation of Resistance: And that to impute Resistance to the said Revolution, is to cast black and odious colours upon his late majesty and the said Revolution.

II. He, the said Henry Sacheverell, in his said Sermon preached at St. Paul's, doth suggest and maintain, That the foresaid Toleration granted by law is unreasonable, and the allowance of it unwarrantable: And asserts, That he is a false brother with relation to God, religion or the Church who defends Toleration and Liberty of Conscience; That Queen Elizabeth was deluded by archbishop Grindall, whom he scurrilously calls A False Son of the Church, and a Perfidious

Prelate, to the toleration of the Genevan discipline: And that it is the duty of superior pastors to thunder out their ecclesiastical anathemas against persons intitled to the benefit of the said Toleration, and insolently dares, or defies any power on earth to reverse such

sentences.

III. He, the said Henry Sacheverell, in his said Sermon, preached at St. Paul's, doth falsely and seditiously suggest and assert, That the Church of England is in a condition of great peril and adversity under her majesty's administration; and in order to arraign and blacken the said Vote or Resolution of both Houses of Parliament, approved by her majesty as aforesaid, he, in opposition thereto, doth suggest the Church to be in Danger: and, as a parallel, mentions a Vote, That the person of king Charles the first was voted to be out of danger, at the same time that his murderers were conspiring his death; thereby wickedly and maliciously insinuating, that the members of both Houses, who passed the said vote, were then conspiring the ruin of the Church.

IV. He, the said Henry Sacheverell, in his said Sermons and Books, doth falsely and maliciously suggest, That her majesty's administration, both in ecclesiastical and civil affairs, tends to the destruction of the constitution: And that there are men of characters and stations in Church and State who are False Brethren, and do themselves weaken, undermine and betray, and do encourage, and put it in the power of others, who are professed enemies, to overturn and destroy the constitution and establishment: and chargeth her majesty, and those in authority under her, both in Church and State, with a general mal-administration: And, as a public incendiary, he persuades her majesty's subjects to keep up a distinction of factions and parties; instils groundless jealousies, foments destructive divisions among them, and excites and stirs them up to arms and violence: And that his said malicious and seditious suggestions may make the stronger impression upon the minds of her majesty's subjects, he the said Henry Sacheverell doth wickedly wrest and pervert divers texts and passages of Holy Scripture.

Attorney General (Sir J. Montague). And to shew his little liking of the great work which was begun to be wrought on that day by the arrival of his late majesty, the chief turn of his discourse is, to cry up Non-Resistance and Passive Obedience.

And to make it most evident, that what he said of Non-Resistance, was to cast black and odious colours upon the Revolution; he lays down a general position, 'That it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to make Resistance to the supreme power'; which

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