and, when satisfaction was denied them or delayed, their only remedy was to refuse proceeding upon the king's business. So little conception had our ancestors of the monstrous doctrines now maintained concerning privilege, that, in the reign of Elizabeth, even liberty of speech, the vital principle of a deliberative assembly, was restrained by the queen's authority to a simple aye or no: and this restriction, though imposed upon three successive parliaments[1], was never once disputed by the house of commons.
I know there are many precedents of arbitrary commitments for contempt; but, besides that they are of too modern a date to warrant a presumption that such a power was originally vested in the house of commons,—fact alone does not constitute right. If it does, general warrants were lawful.—An ordinance of the two houses has a force equal to law: and the criminal jurisdiction assumed by the commons in 1421, in the case of Edward Lloyd, is a good precedent to warrant the like proceedings against any man who shall unadvisedly mention the folly of a King,
- ↑ In the years 1593—1597—and 1601.
