274
Constitutional JIistorij.
[chap.
Audit of
accounts
insisted on
Secured.
General
conclusion
fιom these
facts.
The rule of
the house of
Lancaster
•ft as consti-
tutional.
inheritance, showed a perception of the entire unfitness of a
legislative assembly for entertaining such impeachments. But
the practice was too strong to be met by weak legislation, and
had, with all its cruelty and unfairness, some vindication in
the lesson which it could not fail to impress on unworthy
ministers.
The rule of insisting on a proper audit of accounts was a
corollary from the practice of appropriating the supplies to
particular purposes. It was one which was scarcely worth
contesting. In 1406 the commons, who objected to making a
grant until the accounts of the last grant were audited, were
told by Henry that ‘ kings do not render accounts ; ’ but the
boast was a vain one; the accounts were in 1407 laid before
the commons without being asked for ; and the victory so
secured was never again formally contested. The statement
laid by Lord Cromwell before the parliament of 1433 shows
that the time was past for any reticence on the king’s part
with regard to money matters ɪ.
In this attempt to enumerate and generalise upon the chief
constitutional incidents of a long period, it is not worth while at
every point to pronounce a judgment on the good faith of the
crown or the honesty of the commons ; or to discuss the question
whether it was by compulsion or by respect to the terms of
their coronation engagements that the Lancastrian kings were
actuated in their overt acceptance and maintenance of consti-
tutional rules. It is upon the fact that those rules were
observed and strengthened by observance, that they were not
broken when the king was strong, or disingenuously evaded when
he was weak, that the practical vindication of the dynasty
must turn. Henry IV, as has been said more than once, was a
constitutional politician before he became king, and cannot be
charged with hypocrisy because when he became king he acted
on the principleswlιich he had professed as a subject. Henry V
in all that he did carried with him the heart of his people.
Henry VI was honest ; he had been brought up to honour and
abide by the decisions of his parliament ; the charge of falseness,
1 Above, pp. 55, 121.
χvπι.] Misfortune and Misgovernance. 275
by which the strong so often attempt to destroy the last refuge
which the weak find in the pity and sympathy of mankind, is
nowhere proved, and very rarely even asserted, against him.
But the case in favour of these kings does not depend on
technicalities. By their devotion to the work of the country, ι⅛stsi⅛of
by the thorough nationality of their aims, their careful protec- ter rule
tion of the interests of trade and commerce, their maintenance
of the universities, the policy of their alliances, their attention
to the fleet as the strongest national arm1, the first two
Henries, Bedford, Beaufort, and in a less degree Henry VI and
Gloucester, vindicated the position they claimed as national
ministers, sovereign or subject.
372. There is another side to the question. The Lancastrian Misfoitunes
reigns were to a great extent a period of calamity. There were Lancaster
pestilences, famines, and wars : the incessant border warfare of ɪθ gns'
the reign of Henry IV tells not only of royal poverty and
weakness, but of impolicy and of disregard for human suffering.
The war of Henry V in France must be condemned by the Mischief
judgment of modern opinion ; it was a bold, a desperate under- the ɪ`ong y
taking, fraught with suffering to all concerned in it ; but it is 'ar'
as a great national enterprise, too great for the nation which
undertook it to maintain, that it chiefly presents itself among
the prominent features of the time. It is common and easy to
exaggerate the miseries of this war ; its cost to England in
treasure and blood was by no means so great as the length
of its duration and the extent of its operations would suggest.
The French administration of Bedford was maintained in great
measure by taxing the French2, rather than by raising supplies
1 The Libel of English Policy, whether addressed to Cardinal Beaufort
or to Kemp, Stafford, or Hungerford before 1436, in a very ɪemarkable
way presses the safeguard of the sea and the development of commerce
upon the ministers ; it shows however that some such pressure was
needed ; quoting the saying of Sigismund, that Dover and Calais were the
two eyes of England, and looking back with regret on the more efficient
administration of Henry V. It is printed in the Political Poems, vol. ii.
PP∙ J5∕-205 ; and recently in Germany, edited by Hertzbeig, with a
preface by Pauli. There is a tract of Sir John Fortescue to the same
puιpose, Opp. i. p. 549. See too Capgrave, Ill. Henr. p. 134.
2 £20,000 a year however was paid by Henry VI to the Duke of York
as lieutenant of France ; Old. v. 171.
T 2