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as it is not with us at this day), he only replied, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me? He says nothing against their smiting him, in case he had been guilty of speaking evil, that is, blasphemy, and they could have proved it against him. They that put this law in execution were called zealots; but afterwards they committed many villanies.

1. 7. afterwards they committed many villanies] See Josephus, Wars of the Jews, bk. iv. chs. 4, 5, 6, 7, for an account of the wholesale murders and robberies which they committed during the great war with the Romans.

APPENDIX

EXCURSUS A.

EXCOMMUNICATION : p. 66.

Note on sec. 4. The evidence for this is found in a rescript, &c.

CONSTANTINE in this rescript states it as law, that in every cause the judgment pronounced by bishops is to hold good absolutely and without appeal, that either of two disputants may carry the case to the bishop's court, whether his opponent wishes it or not; and further, that the evidence of any one bishop is to be accepted as final, and that when a bishop has given his testimony, no other witness is to be heard.

That there is fraud or error attaching to this rescript seems certain, for it is found inserted in the later Codex Theodosianus, which contains laws wholly inconsistent with it. These show that if it was written by Constantine-and this is a disputed point-the law which it recites must have been abrogated some fifty years before the Codex Theodosianus was compiled. Sirmondi, however, includes it in his Appendix Codicis Theodosiani. Selden, here and in his treatise De Synedriis Veterum Ebraeorum (Works, i. 956), accepts it as Constantine's, but he insists that it was fraudulently inserted in the Codex Theodosianus, of which it could not possibly have formed part. See Works, ii. 830 and 1067. Godefroy, in his edition of the Codex, prints it under the heading, Extravagans seu subdititius titulus de Episcopali Judicio, and he gives reasons (endorsed by Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xx. sec. 4, note) for rejecting it as an entire forgery, vol. vi. 303-308 (ed. 1665 fol.). Haenel does not include it in his edition of the Codex, but he prints it at the end of his volume as forming part of Sirmondi's

Appendix, and he prefaces the Appendix with a discussion of his own, concluding in favour of the rescript as the genuine work of Constantine, but rejecting it from the Theodosian Code. He adds also a list of the various authorities who may be consulted on the above points.

The rescript runs thus: 'Sanximus namque, sicut edicti nostri forma declarat, sententias episcoporum, quolibet genere latas, . . . inviolatas semper incorruptasque servari, scilicet ut pro sanctis semper ac venerabilibus habeatur quicquid episcoporum fuerit sententiâ terminatum. . . . Quicunque itaque litem habens, sive possessor sive petitor erit, . . . judicium eligit sacrosanctae legis antistitis, illico sine aliquâ dubitatione, etiamsi alia pars refragatur, ad episcopum cum sermone litigantium dirigatur. .. Omnes itaque causae, quae vel praetorio jure vel civili tractantur, episcoporum sententiis terminatae, perpetuo stabilitatis jure firmentur, nec liceat ulterius retractari negotium, quod episcoporum sententia deciderit. Testimonium etiam, ab uno licet episcopo perhibitum, omnes judices indubitanter accipiant, nec alius audiatur cum testimonium episcopi a qualibet parte fuerit repromissum.' Constitutiones Sirmondi, Appendix, cap. I. On the other hand, conf. e. g. a law of Arcadius and Honorius, which was certainly part of the Codex: 'Quoties de religione agitur, episcopos convenit agitare; ceteras vero causas, quae ad ordinarios cognitores, vel ad usum publici juris pertinent, legibus oportet audiri.' Codex, lib. xvi, tit. xi. sec. I.

The Novels of Valentinian III, of later date than the Codex, are not less conclusive. 'Constat episcopos forum legibus non habere, nec de aliis causis (secundum Arcadii et Honorii divalia constituta) praeter religionem posse judicare.' Tit. xxxiv.

EXCURSUS B.

INCENDIARIES: p. 83.

1. 9. They that first set it on fire &c.] The King's chief advisers in the matters which brought about the conflict with the Parliamentary party were, or were assumed to have been, the Duke of Buckingham, the High Treasurer, Sir Richard Weston, the Earl of Strafford, and Archbishop Laud. It is

not clear to what time Selden is referring, when he says that they had now 'become regenerate'; it is perhaps to the early part of the second Parliament of 1640, when the punishment of Strafford and Laud had already been taken in hand, and when it was clear that the Commons were in no temper to be trifled with. The Duke of Buckingham and Sir Richard Weston were both dead-unregenerate in Selden's sense of the word. On the death of the High Treasurer, Laud had been made one of the Commissioners of the Treasury and Revenue, which (says Clarendon) he had reason to be sorry for, because it engaged him in civil business and matters of state, wherein he had little experience and which he had hitherto avoided. Hist. vol. i. 152.

The charge by the same 'He (Laud)

It appears, however, from Whitelock's Memorials, that he had long before this been credited with interfering in matters of state. On the imprisonment of the members (3tio Caroli), 'the people were discontented. Libels were cast abroad especially against Bishop Laud, and Weston the Treasurer.... My father (i. e. Justice Whitelock) said that if Bishop Laud went on in his way, he would kindle a flame in the nation,' p. 13. of being an incendiary is urged again in 1640, authority, on general and on special grounds. was more busy in temporal affairs and matters of state than his predecessors of later times had been. My father, who was anciently and thoroughly acquainted with him and knew his disposition, would say, "He was too full of fire, though a just and good man; and that his want of experience in state matters, and his too much zeal for the Church, and heat, would set this nation on fire."

'By his council chiefly (as it was fathered upon him) the Parliament being dissolved,' &c. Whitelocke, Memorials, p. 34. Curiously, too, in the same year, we find the term 'incendiary' used about him by the Scotch Commissioners, and a charge brought by them in the Upper House in proof of it. Laud's Works, iii. 238.

1. 9. Monopolies] How numerous these monopolies had been will appear from the King's proclamation (April 15, 1639) revoking some of them. See also Sir John Culpeper's speech in the Parliament which met on November 3, 1640: 'I have but one grievance more to offer unto you, but this one comprizeth

many. It is a nest of wasps or swarm of vermin which have overcrept the land. I mean the monopolies and polers of the people; these, like the frogs of Egypt, have gotten possession of our dwellings, and we have scarce a room free from them. They sup in our cup. They dip in our dish. They sit by our fire. We find them in the Dye-fat, Wash-bowl, and Powdringtub. They share with the butler in his box. They have marked and sealed us from head to foot. Mr. Speaker, they will not bate us a pin. We may not buy our own cloaths without their brokage. These are the leeches that have sucked the commonwealth so hard that it is almost become hectical,' &c. Rushworth, Collections, ii. 915–917.

Clarendon, like Selden, traces the troubles of his day to the arbitrary and unwise proceedings in the early years of Charles's reign. 'And here I cannot but let myself loose to say that no man can shew me a source from whence those waters of bitterness we now taste have more probably flowed, than from these unreasonable, unskilful, and precipitate dissolutions of Parliaments ... And whoever considers the acts of power and injustice of some of the ministers in those intervals of parliament, will not be much scandalized at the warmth and vivacity of those meetings.' Clarendon, Hist. vol. i. p. 6.

These points, with many others, are referred to in the 'Remonstrance' of 1641. They reproached his Majesty 'with the enlargements of forests, and compositions thereupon; the ingrossing gunpowder and suffering none to buy it without licence; with all the most odious monopolies of soap, wine, salt, leather, sea-coal and the rest.' They remembered 'the dissolution of the Parliament in the fourth year of his reign . . . the imprisoning divers members of that Parliament after the dissolution, and detaining them close prisoners for words spoken in Parliament; sentencing and fining them for those words.' Clarendon, Hist. i. 492, 493.

1. 9. forest business] This was the extortion in 1630 and subsequent years of large sums of money on account of alleged encroachments on the royal forests, although the lands thus reclaimed for the King had been held without dispute under an adverse title dating back for three or four centuries. In 1630, Clarendon says, 'the old laws of the forest were revived, by which not only great fines were imposed, but great annual rents

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