第41章 Letter XI(1)

Sir,If it was possible for any man,who hath the least knowledge of our constitution,to doubt in good earnest whether the preservation of public freedom depends on the preservation of parliamentary freedom,his doubts might be removed,and his opinions decided,one would imagine,by this single,obvious remark,that all the designs of our princes against liberty,since Parliaments began to be established on the model still subsisting,have been directed constantly to one of these two points,either to obtain such Parliaments as they could govern,or else to stand all the difficulties,and to run all the hazards of governing without Parliaments.The means principally employed to the first of these purposes,have been undue influences on the elections of members of the House of Commons,and on these members when chosen.

When such influences could be employed successfully,they have answered all the ends of arbitrary will;and when they could not be so employed,arbitrary will hath been forced to submit to the constitution.This hath been the case,not only since,but before that great change in the balance of property,which began in the reigns of Henry the Seventh,and Henry the Eighth,and carried a great part of that weight into the scale of the commons,which had lain before in the scale of the peers and clergy.

If we look back as far as the close of the fourteenth century,an era pretty near to that when Parliaments received their present form,we shall find both these means employed by one of the worst of our kings,Richard the Second.That he might obtain his will,which was rash,he directed mandates to his sheriffs (officers of the crown,and appointed by the crown;for such they were then,and such they still are)to return certain persons nominated by himself:and thus he acquired an undue influence over the elections.In the next place,he obliged the persons thus returned,sometimes by threats and terror,and sometimes by gifts,to consent to those things which were prejudicial to the realm:and thus he acquired an undue influence over the House of Commons.So that,upon the whole,the arbitrary will of a rash,headstrong prince,and the suggestions of his wicked ministers,guided the proceedings of Parliament,and became the law of the land.I might pursue observations of the same kind through several succeeding reigns;but to avoid lengthening these letters,which are grown perhaps too long already,let us descend at once to the reign of King Charles the Second,for in that we shall find examples of all the means which a court that hath common sense,and a prince who will not set his crown on the cast of a die,can take to undermine the foundations of liberty,either by governing Parliaments,or by governing without them.

Now the first attempt of this kind,which King Charles made against the constitution,was this:he improved and managed the spirit of the first Parliament he called,so as to render the two houses obsequious to his will,almost in every case;and having got the triennial bill repealed,he kept the same Parliament in being for many years by prorogations,which crept into custom long before his time,but were still a modern invention with respect to the primitive institution of Parliaments,and wholly repugnant to the ancient practice.Thus he established a standing Parliament,which is,in the nature of it,as dangerous as a standing army,and may become,in some conjunctures,much more fatal to liberty.When the measures of his administration grew too bad,and the tendency of them too apparent to be defended and supported,even in that parliament,and even by a party spirit,he had recourse to a second attempt,that is,to corruption;and Clifford first lifted a mercenary band of friends to the government against the constitution.--Let us observe on this occasion,and as we pass along,that a national party,such a party as the court adopts,in contradistinction to such a party as it creates,will always retain some national principles,some regard to the constitution.

They may be transported,or surprised,during the heat of contest especially,into measures of long and fatal consequence.They may be carried on,for a certain time and to a certain point,by the lusts of vengeance and of power,in order to wreak one upon their adversaries,and to secure the other to themselves.But a national party will never be the instruments of completing national ruin.They will become the adversaries of their friends,and the friends of their adversaries,to prevent it;and the minister who persists in so villainous a project,by what name soever he may affect to distinguish himself and his followers,will be found really at the head of a faction,not of a party.But the difference between one and the other is so visible,and the boundaries where party ceases and faction commences,are so strongly marked,that it is sufficient to point at them.

I return therefore,and observe that when the spirit of party failed King Charles,and the corruption he employed proved ineffectual,he resolved to govern for a time without Parliaments,and to employ that time,as soon as he had checked the spirit of one party,by inflaming that of another,in garbling corporations.He had found by experience,that it was impossible to corrupt the stream in any great degree,as long as the fountain continued pure.He applied himself therefore to spread the taint of the court in them,and to poison those springs,from whence the health and vigour of the constitution flow.This was the third,the last,and by much the most dangerous expedient employed by the friends of the government,in the reign of King Charles the Second,to undermine our liberties.The effect of it he did not live to see,but we may easily conjecture what it would have been.