intended and like to be settled by way of contract, which burden lighted most upon persons of quality and honour, who thought themselves above ordinary oppressions, and were therefore likely to remember it with more sharpness.' Clarendon, Hist.

i. 105.

This grievance was finally put an end to by the Act of 1640, 'that from henceforth the Meets, Meers, Limits, and Bounds of all and every the Forests shall be adjudged and taken to extend no further respectively than the Meets, Meers, Limits, and Bounds in the several counties respectively, wherein the said Forests were commonly known, reputed, used, or taken, in the 20th year of the reign of the late king James and not beyond, &c.' Rushworth, Collections, iii. 1386.

1. 10. parliament men 3° Caroli] Whitelocke in his Memorials for this year speaks of 'Warrants of the Council issued for Hollis, Selden, Hobert, Elliot, and other Parliament men to appear before them; Hollis, Curriton, Elliot, and Valentine appeared, and refusing to answer out of Parliament, they were committed close prisoners to the Tower, and a Proclamation for apprehending others went out, and some of their studies were sealed up. All the judges were contented that the prisoners should be bailed, but they must also find sureties for their good behaviour. This, at Selden's instance, they refuse to do, and are remanded to the Tower.' Memorials, pp. 13 and 14.

EXCURSUS C.

THE KING'S CHAPEL ESTABLISHMENT: p. 92. sec. 4.

1. 12. 'Twas the old way &c.] In the Ordinances for the Government of the Royal Household (1790, 4o), there are frequent references to the King's Chapel establishment. In the household of Henry VI it consisted of 1 dean, 20 chaplains and clerks, and 7 children, p. 17. In the Liber Niger Domûs Regis Edw. IV, the duties, &c. of the dean, chaplains, yeomen and children of the chapel are set out, pp. 49, 50. The whole subject is treated at length in the Ordinances made at Eltham in 1526. 'The King's pleasure is that at all times when his Highness shall lie in his castle of Windsor, his Manors of Bewlye, Rich

mond, and Hampton Court, Greenwich, Eltham or Woodstock, his hall shall be ordinarily kept and continued, and at all such times of keeping the said hall, the King's noble chapel to be kept in the same place. Nevertheless, forasmuch as... it would not only be a great annoyance, but also excessive labour, travell, charge and pain, to have the King's whole chapel continually attendant upon his person . . . specially in riding journeys and progresses it is... ordained that the master of the children, and six men with some officers of the vestry, shall give their continual attendance in the King's court. for which purpose no great carriage either of vestments or books shall be required,' p. 160. See, too, Jebb, Choral Service of the Church (1843), pp. 147, 148.

1. 14. In St. Stephen's Chapel &c.] On the 6th of August, 1348, 22 Edward III, that King, by his royal charter recited, 'that a spacious chapel, situate within the palace of Westminster, in honour of St. Stephen, protomartyr, had been nobly begun by his progenitors and had been completed at his own expense-which he appointed to be collegiate; and that there should be established therein a dean, twelve secular canons, with the same number of vicars and other sufficient ministers, to celebrate divine service for the King, his progenitors and successors for ever.' A statement follows of the endowments successively granted to the above-named dean, canons, and college. 'Canon Row, since by corruption called Channel Row, belonged also to the said dean and canons, where they had sometimes lodged.' This college was suppressed and surrendered in 1 Edward VI. The chapel was soon afterwards fitted up for the meeting of the House of Commons, which had before usually assembled in the Chapter House of the Abbey of Westminster. Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 1348-49. The chapel was burnt in the fire of 1835.

EXCURSUS D.

LORDS BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT : p. 106. sec. 2.

1. 4. The Prior of St. John &c.] The Lord Prior here' (i. e. of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem near Clerkenwell)

'had precedence of all the lay barons in Parliament, and chief power over all the Preceptories and lesser Houses of this order throughout England.' Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 799.

In Camden's Britannia (Gough's trans.), the list of abbots who were barons of Parliament ends with 'the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem, commonly called Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, and claiming to be the first baron of England.' Introduction, cap. on Orders in England.

In the sixteenth century, this claim had certainly been admitted. In the Journals of the House of Lords, giving a list of the Lords present at each Parliament in the reign of Henry VIII, the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem appears always among the temporal peers, immediately after the Earls and higher nobles, and above the Barons. This order is invariably observed down to 1536, the date at which the Priory was suppressed, after which the Prior's name disappears from the lists. In 1556 (4 & 5 Phil. and Mary) it reappears in its old place, the Priory having been restored by the Queen, and it finally disappears in the course of 1558 after the accession of Elizabeth. Conf. Journals of the House of Lords, vol. i.

At an earlier date, the Prior's position is not thus fixed. In the Parliamentary Roll of 13 Edward III his name comes last but one in the list of spiritual peers; the Abbot of Westminster is below him. Conf. Rotuli Parliamentorum, printed by order of the Lords. In the writ of summons to Parliament of 23 Edward I it is clear that the Prior was then included among the spiritual peers. Conf. Dugdale: A perfect copy of all the summonses of the nobility, p. 8 (ed. 1685). In 13 and 49 Henry VI, he is the last of the spiritual barons, and he is addressed as they are in the summons to Parliament-in fide et dilectione quibus nobis tenemini; the form for the temporal barons being in fide et homagio, p. 161. But, as the head of a military order, his office must at all times have been lay rather than clerical. 'The Templars and Hospitalers,' says Selden, 'were devout soldiers only. . . . Their prayers or devotions in private were not the services expected from them in the Church, but their swords and valour only gave the desert.' Hist. of Tythes, vol. iii. p. 1140.

EXCURSUS E.

Presbytery, sec. 4. When the queries were sent to the Assembly.

The questions sent (April 1646) were as follows:'The House of Commons desires to be satisfied by the Assembly of Divines in the questions following:

'I. Whether the Parochial and Congregational Elderships, appointed by ordinance of Parliament, or any other Congregational or Presbyterial Elderships are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ? and whether any particular Church Government be jure divino? and what that government is?

'2. Whether all the members of the said Elderships, as members thereof, or which of them, are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'3. Whether the superior Assemblies or Elderships, viz. the Classical, Provincial, and National, whether all, or any of them, and which of them are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'4. Whether the appeals from Congregational Elderships to the Classical, Provincial, and National assemblies, or any of them, and to which of them are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'5. Whether Ecumenical assemblies are jure divino? and whether there be appeals from any of the former assemblies to the said Ecumenical, jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'6. Whether by the Word of God the power of judging and declaring what are such notorious and scandalous offences, for which persons guilty thereof are to be kept from the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and of conventing before them, trying, and actual suspending from the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper such offenders accordingly, is either in the Congregational Eldership or Presbytery, or in any other Eldership, Congregation, or persons; and whether such powers are in them only, or any of them, and in which of them, jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ?

'7. Whether there be any certain and particular rules expressed

in the Word of God to direct the Elderships or Presbyteries, Congregations, or persons, or any of them, in the exercise and execution of the powers aforesaid, and what are those rules?

'8. Is there anything contained in the Word of God that the supreme magistracy in a Christian State may not judge and determine what are the aforesaid notorious and scandalous offences, and the manner of suspension for the same; and in what particulars concerning the premisses is the said supreme magistracy by the Word of God excluded?

'9. Whether the provision of Commissioners to judge of scandals not enumerated (as they are authorized by the ordinance of Parliament) be contrary to that way of government which Christ has appointed in his Church, and wherein are they so contrary?

'In answer to these particulars, the House of Commons desires of the Assembly of Divines their proofs from Scripture, and to set down the several texts of Scripture in the express words of the same and there were orders added that every Minister present at the debate of any of these questions, shall put his Christian name to the answer, in the affirmative or negative; and that those who dissent from the major part shall set down their positive opinions, with express texts in proof of them.' Rushworth, Collections, vi. 260.

Selden, who had had a hand in framing these queries, was well aware that search as they would, they would never find answers to them in the text of Scripture.

EXCURSUS F.

ERRORS IN FORMER TEXTS.

I APPEND some instances of obvious blunders in former texts, which have been corrected in this edition on the authority of the Harleian MSS. In 'Holy-Days,' for example, the old reading is: 'Yet that has relation to an Act of Parliament which forbids the keeping of any Holy-days in time of popery.' There is no such Act, and the alleged prohibition is, on the face of it, absurd. The reading, as restored from the MS., is: 'Yet that has relation to an Act of Parliament which forbids the keeping of any other Holy-days. The ground thereof was the

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