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Show 332 ATROCIOUS JUDGES. [A. D.1GS7. council, and the wonder is that he did not follow the example of Sunderland and other renegades, who at this time to please the king, professed to change tl1eir religion, and were reconciled to the church of l"{ome. Perhaps, with l1i · peculiar sagacity, J efii·eys thought it would be a greater sacrilice in the king' eyes to appear to be daily wounding his con ·cience by ubmitting to n1easurcs which he must be suppo eel inwardly to condemn. A a grand coup d'etat, he undertook to obtain a solemn deci ~ion of the judges in favor of the di;;;pen ing power,* and for this purpose a fictitious action was brought again t Sir Edward Ilales, the lieutenant of the Tower, an avoweu Roman ~atholic, in the name of his coachman, for holding an ofnce 111 the army without having taken the oath of supremacy, or received the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England, or signed the declaration against transub. tantiation. Jeffr ys had put the great seal to letters patent, authorizing hin1 to hold the office without these tests, "non obstante" the act of Parliament. 1-,his dispensation was pleaded iu bar of the action, and upon a demurrer to the plea, after a ham argtunent by counsel, all the judges except one (Baron Street) held the plea to be sufficien t, and I renounced juc1gment for the defendant. It was no\v proclai1ned at court that the law was not any longer an obstacle to any scheme that might be thought advisable. * This " dispensi " 1 · . ng power c a1mcd by Jeffreys and the English judges for James II. was but a t1·'.fle · d · · ·· cently chimed l>y l compm e to the "d1spensmcr power" re- SOI11e of A · · ~:> our mcncan lawyers and Judcrcs for acts of Congress. All that was claimed for James was power to::> clisprnse with acts of Parliament wh'le A · · ' . . far as io claim f·o r ' CongI 1· our mencan 1m·p rovcrs up. on this doctnne go so laws of God.-Ed. . ess a power to d1spense w1th and supersede the A. D.l687.] GEORGE JEFFREYS. 333 The Earl of Cn tlcmaine ·1vas sent to Rome, regularly commissioned as amba ador to his holines" tl1c pope, a papal nuncio being reciprocally rccei ved at St. Jam '. . But assuming that religion was not embraced in the negotiations between the two court .. , however impolitic ihe proceeding might be, I do not think that the king and the chancellor arc liable to be blmned, as they have bet'n by rcrent hi "' torians, for having in thi in tnncc Yiolated act· of Parliament. If all those are examined which had pa sed fro1n the commencement of the reformation down to the " Bill of' Hight~," it will probably be founu that none of them can be applied to a mere diplomatic intercourse with the pope, however stringent their provisions may be again t receiving bulls or doing any thing in derogation of the king's upren1acy.* There can be no doubt of the illegality of the next mea ure of the king and the chancellor. The Court of IIigh Commission was revived with some slight n1odiflcation, although it had been abolished in the reign of Charlo"' I. by an act of Parliament, which forbade the erection of any sim ilar court; and Jeffreys, having deliberately put the great cal to the patent creating thi nevv arbitrary tribunal, undertook to preside in it. The commis ioners were ve ted with unlimited jurisdiction over the ehureh of England, and were empowereu, even in cases of · u~picion, to proceed incruisitoria11y, like the abolished court, "notw£tlzstand£ng any la·w or statute to the contrary." The object was to have all ecclesiastics under • Whether diplomatic intercourse with the pope is now forbidden, depends upon the construction to be put upon the word , "shall hold con.~rnunion with the see or church of Rome" in the Bill of Rights. This seems to refer to spirit·ual communion only, or the queen would hold communion with the successor of Mahomet by appoint~ng an ambassador to the sublime porte. |
