of the House. The original question of the succession was lost in the larger one of privilege, and the address which they had previously drawn seemed no longer distinct enough for the occasion. The council implored Elizabeth to consider what she was doing. As soon as her anger cooled she felt herself that she had gone too far, and not caring to face a conference, 'foreseeing that thereof must needs have ensued more inconvenience than were meet,' she drew back with temper not too ruffled to save her dignity in giving way. Her intention had been to extort or demand the sanction of the House for the prosecution of Dalton. Discovering in time that if they refused she had no means of compelling them, she would not risk an open rupture. The prisoner was released without further question or trial,' and on the 25th she sent orders to the Speaker to relieve the House of the burden of her commandment.' She had been assured, she said, that they had no intention of molesting her, and that they had been 'much perplexed' by the receipt of her order; she did not mean to prejudice any part of the laudable liberties heretofore granted to them;' she would therefore content herself with their obedient behaviour, and she trusted only that if any person should begin again to discuss any particular title, the Speaker would compel him to be silent.1 The Commons were prudent enough to make the 1 Note of the words of the Queen to the mons: Domestic MSS., Elizabeth, vol. xli. 27: MS. Ibid. Speaker of the House of Com- Queen's retreat an easy one. Having succeeded in resisting a dangerous encroachment of the crown they did not press their victory. The message sent through the Speaker was received by the House 'most joyfully, with most hearty prayers and thanks for the same,'1 and with the consent of all parties the question of Parliamentary privilege was allowed to drop. Yet while ready to waive their right of discussing further the particular pretensions of the claimants of the crown, the Commons would not let the Queen believe that they acquiesced in being left in uncertainty. Two months had passed since the beginning of the session, and the subsidy had not been so much as discussed. The succession quarrel had commenced with the first motion for a grant of money, and had lasted with scarcely an interval ever since. It was evident that although Elizabeth's objection to name a successor was rested on general grounds, it applied as strongly to Lady Catherine as to the Queen of Scots, and had arisen professedly from the Queen's own experience in the lifetime of her sister; yet the Commons either suspected that she was secretly working in the Scottish interest, or they thought at all events that her procrastination served only to strengthen that interest, and that Mary Stuart's friends every day grew more numerous. The Money Bill was reintroduced on the 27th. The House was anxious to compensate by its liberality for 1 Commons' Journals, 8 Elizabeth. the trouble which it had given on other subjects, and the Queen was privately informed that the grant would be made unusually large. Elizabeth, determined not to be outdone, replied that although for the public service she might require all which they were ready to offer, 'she counted her subjects, in respect of their hearty good will, her best treasurers;' and 'she therefore would move them to forbear at that time extending their gift as they proposed.' The manner as well as the matter of the message was pointedly gracious, yet the Commons would have preferred her taking the money and listening to their opinions; and the bribe was as unsuccessful as the menace, in keeping them silent. They voted freely the sum which she would consent to take. It amounted in a rough estimate to an income tax of seven per cent. for two years; but an attempt was made to attach a preamble to the Bill which would commit the Queen in accepting it to what she was straining every nerve to avoid. Referring to the promise which she had made to the Committee, 'the Commons humbly and earnestly besought her with the assistance of God's grace, having resolved to marry, to accelerate without more loss of time all her honourable actions tending thereto;' while submitting themselves to the will of Almighty God, in whose hands all power and counsel did consist, they would at the same time beseech Him to give her Majesty wisdom well to foresee, opportunity speedily to consult, and power with assent of the realm sufficiently to fulfil without unnecessary delay, all that should be needful to her sub jects and their posterity in the stablishing the succession of the crown, first in her own person and progeny, and next in such persons as law and justice should peaceably direct-according to the answer of Moses : The Lord God of the spirit of all flesh set one over this great multitude which may go out and in before them, and lead them out and in, that the Lord's people may not be as sheep without a shepherd.' 1 The meaning of language such as this December. could not be mistaken. All the political advantages of the Scottish succession would not compensate to the Lord's people' for such a shepherd as the person into whose hands they seemed to be visibly drifting. It was a grave misfortune for the Protestants that they could produce no better candidate than Lady Catherine Grey, who had professed herself a Catholic when Catholicism seemed likely to serve her turn; and to whom, notwithstanding her legal claim through the provisions of the will of Henry the Eighth, there were so many and so serious objections. The friends of the Queen of Scots had set in circulation a list of difficulties in the way of her acknowledgment, the weight of which fanaticism itself could not refuse to admit.2 1 Preamble for the Subsidy Bill: Domestic MSS., vol. xli. Rolls House. 2 Whatever be said, it is notorious that when Sir Charles Brandon married the French Queen he had a wife already living. "The Lady Katherine is therefore illegitimate. Even if this were not so, yet such hath been her life and behaviour, and so much hath she stained herself and her issue, as she is to be thought unworthy of the crown. It is uncertain whether the preamble was ever forced on Elizabeth's attention. The draft of it alone 'Next as to King Henry's will:— He had no power to bequeath the crown, except so far as Parliament gave him leave; and Parliament could only give him leave so far as the power of Parliament extended. The words of the statute give him no absolute or unlimited power to appoint an unfit person to the crown, not capable of the same -as unto a Turk, an infidel, an infamous or opprobrious person, a fool or a madman. ་ But again, he had power to order the succession, either by Letters Patent, or by his will, signed with his own hand. 'He has not done it by Letters Patent; of that there is no doubt. His will, there are witnesses sufficient, and some of them that subscribed the same testament can truly and plainly testify, that he did not subscribe. 'Afterwards, she by dalliance fell to carnal company with the Earl of Hertford, which was not descried till the bigness of her belly bewrayed her ill hap. The marriage between them was declared unlawful by the Bishop who examined it. The stamp might be appended "The mother wicked and lasci- when the King was void of memory, vious; the issue bastarded. or else when he was deceased, as indeed it happened, as more manifestly appeared by open declaration made in Parliament by the late Lord Paget and others, that the King did not sign it with his own hand, and as it is plain and probable enough by the pardon obtained for one William Clerke for putting the stamp to the said will after the King was departed. If she were next in the blood royal, her fault is so much the more to have so foully spotted the same. She can have no lawful children. Deut. xiii. 23:-It is written, 'a bastard and unlawful-born person may not bear rule in the church and commonweal:' a law devised to punish the parents for their sins, so that such a mother ought in no case to be allowed to succeed. 'As to the enrolment in Chancery, |