Conititntional IUstorn.
2Ç0
Instances of
its exercise.
Construc-
tive trea-
sons.
[chap.
ferred on the earl Rivers in 1467, and on Iiis death Tiptoft was
again invested with them. It was by this supreme and irre-
sponsible judicature that so many of the Lancastrians were
doomed. The earl of Oxford and his son and four others were
tried by the law of Padua1, of which Tiptoft was a graduate,
and beheaded in 1462. Twelve of the prisoners taken at Hex-
ham in 1464 were condemned and executed in the same sum-
mary fashion at York2. Sir Ralph Grey, the defender of
Alnwick, was the same year tried by Tiptoft and beheaded in
the king’s presence 3. Lord Rivers, from whom better things
might have been hoped, disposed of two of the defenders of
Harlech by the same process4. It was the application of
martial law to ordinary cases of high treason. The military
executions on both sides, the massacre of prisoners, the illegal
reprisals of Warwick and Clarence in 1469 and 1470, were
alike unjustifiable, but in the commission and jurisdiction of
these two constables England saw a new and unconstitutional
tribunal avowedly erected in contempt of statute and usage.
But, even where the forms of the common law were followed,
the crushing policy of the government made itself felt. The
doctrine of constructive treasons was terribly exemplified in
the cases of Burdett, Stacy, and Walker. Yet these men were
and in which he vested in him all powers which the constable enjoyed in
and since the reign of William the Conqueror : ‘ad Cognoscendum ct pro-
cedendum in omnibus et singulis causis et negotiis de et super erimine
Iaesae Maj'estatis seu ipsius occa⅛ne, Caeterisque causis quibuscunque,
per praefatuɪn comitem ut ConstabuIariuni Angliae, seu coram eo, ex officio,
sen ad instantiam partis qualitercunque motis, ιnovendis, seu pendentibus
.... causasque et negotia praedicta, cum omnibus et singulis suis emeɪ -
gentibus incidentibus et connexis, audienduɪn, examinandunι et fine debɪto
terminaιιdum, etiam Summarie et de piano sine Strepitu et figura judiei`,
sola facti veritate inspecta, ac etiam manu regia si Oportunum visum foret,,
eidenι Johanni, consanguineonostro,vices nostras, appellatione remota, ex
mero motu et certa Scientia nostra praedicta, similiter COminiserimus plc-
nariain potestatem, cum cuj'uslibet poenae, mulctae et alterius Cohertionis
Iegitimae, executionisque rerum quas in ea parte decerneret, facilitate, &c.
. . . Statutis, Ordinationibus, actibus et restrictionibus in Contrarium edi lb,
Caeterisque Contrariis non obstantibus quibuscunque ; ’ Bymer, xii. 5S1,
654. Well may Coke say that this is directly against the common law ;
4 Inst. p. 127.
t ‘ By Iawe Padowe ; ’ Warkwortli, p. 5. 2 W. W orc. p. 782.
3 lb. p. 7S3 ; Chron. White Kose, p. Ixxxix. 4 W. Wore. p. 791.
5 Blaekstone, Comm. iv. 79; IIale, Placita Coronae, i. ιτ5 ; Keeves,
Hist. Engl. Law, iv. 109 ; Stow, Chr. p. 430.
Legal Severities.
XVIIT.]
291
tried, with all the ceremonies of law, and by special commissions
consisting of the judges and chief men of the land1. Clarence,
when he wished to punish the suspected poisoner of his wife,
had the prisoner tried before an unimpeachable tribunal, yet
the act was recognised as violent and illegal2. But the trial Legal
and execution of Clarence himself and the conduct of Edward
in that trial were not more repugnant to English constitutional
beliefs than was the treatment of the men who had fallen
victims to their common and rival ambitions. The execution of
lord Welles and Sir Thomas Dymock in 1470 was an extra-
judicial murder3. That of Buckingham in 1483 was strictly
legal. Henry IV in the beheading of Scrope and Mowbray,
and Henry V in the execution of Cambridge, Scrope, and Grey,
had set a fruitful example ; but if they sowed the wind their
posterity reaped the whirlwind.
Notwithstanding the energy which marked the earlier years Nosound
of Edward’s reign, and the sincere endeavour, with which on ttɪehouse
any view of his character he must be credited, to restore
domestic peace and enforce the law, the country enjoyed under
him scarcely more security than it had under his predecessor.
The statutes of liveries and maintenance, of labourers and 1
artificers, the enactments against rioters and breakers of truce,
were very insufficiently enforced ; the abuses which had sprung
up in the more disturbed districts of the north were not put
down by mere legislation, nor did they disappear even under
the strong and crushing policy of repression ; more perhaps
was done by the personal influence of Richard in Yorkshire
than by any administrative reforms ; yet the evil remained.
The surviving baronage had not learned wisdom from the ex-
tinction of its lost members, and the revived feudalism, typified
by the practices of livery and maintenance, was, in all districts
where the Yorkist party was supreme, allowed its full play.
Thus notwithstanding Edward’s attempts to maintain the law
1 Baga de Secretis, 3rd rep. Dep. Keeper, App. ii. p. 213. Stacy is said
to have been tortured and made to betray Burdett ; Cont. Croyl. p. 561 ;
but of course before the trial.
2 Baga de Secretisj p. 214 : Rot. Parl. vi. 173.
3 Above, p. 213.