Ho seldom
speaks.
Speeches of
Edward HI.
His parting
speech.
Speeches of
Richard II.
496 Constitutional Histori/. [chap.
of the parliament read on the last day of the session as the
king’s answer. It was very seldom that he spoke, or was
recorded to have spoken ; and when it is recorded it is with
exceptional solemnity. The imperfection of the records of the
reigns of Edward I and Edward II makes it impossible to
speak positively with regard to them ; Edward I however had
probably learned to guard against the garrulity which made
his father ridiculous, and Edward II seldom cared even to face
his subjects. In 13161 we are told that it was by the king’s
order that William Inge opened the parliament, but even this
slight indication is generally suppressed; and the statement
that ‘ de par le roi ’ such and such ministers spoke cannot be
understood to mean that he gave a verbal direction. Under
Edward III, whose popular manners and constant association
with his barons make the appearance of silence still more
strange, the same course was observed; it is in 1363 2, after
he has been more than thirty years on the throne, that we first
distinctly find him making his will known to the commons by
his own mouth ; they thank him for having done this in the
last parliament, from which we infer that he had spoken on
the occasion of the dissolution. The Parliament of 1362 was
that in which the use of English in legal transactions was
ordered; that of 1365 was opened with an English speech; it
may be inferred that, in giving the estates leave to depart,
Edward himself had spoken in English, and that, where in
other cases the address of thanks is not said to have been
spoken by the chancellor, it was spoken by the king. In the
last interview which he had with his parliament, at Sheen in
1377, the parting words are put in his mouth ,. The days of
serene supremacy passed away with Edward III ; Richard II
is more than once said to have uttered haughty words in
parliament. In 1386 he protested ‘par sa bouche demesne’
that his prerogative was not impaired by what had taken place
in the session; in 1388 he had to declare openly in full par-
liament that he believed his uncle the duke of Gloucester to be
loyal; in 1390 he thanked the lords and commons for their
1 Rot. Parl. i. 350. 3 Ibid. ɪi. 276. 3 Ibid. ii. 364.
XX.] The King in Parliament. 497
advice and grants. In 1397, in the discussion on Haxey’s bill,
he allowed, the chancellor to complain on his behalf to the
lords, but, when that was done, administered a reproof and
stated his determination in his own words, and in the same
way pardoned the commons when they had made their humble
apology. But in this and the following parliament Bichard
played the part of a politician rather than that of a consti-
tutional sovereign ; he discussed in a long speech to the com-
mons the foreign policy which he had adopted, and acted as
his own minister ɪ. In the next session he spoke several times
on the accusation against Arundel, and in vindication of his
own friends, but these utterances were perhaps judicial : in his
last revolutionary session at Shrewsbury he followed the same
course, stating with his own mouth at the dissolution that he
would annul his pardon recently granted unless the newly
voted grants were collected without impediment2.
The succeeding kings took a still more prominent part in Speeches <,i
parliament. Henry IV, whose claim to the crown, spoken in Henry lv,
English3, made the occasion an era of constitutional progress,
not only signified his wishes to the parliament, but deigned to
argue with the commons ; he laid himself open to the good
advice of the speaker, and condescended on various occasions
both to defend himself and to silence his interlocutor : he soon Discussions
learned that his dignity would not survive too great familiarity, Vlththo
and had to reprove the loquacity of the speaker. It is one of bpeaker∙
the notable features of his policy that he stood, notwithstanding
his difficulties, always face to face with his subjects. The re-
cords of the next reign are too meagre to illustrate this point ;
Henry V seems however to have conversed as freely as his
father had done with the lords, and perhaps maintained his
dignity better. In the minority of his son, the dukes of
Gloucester and Bedford are found stating their own quarrels,
notwithstanding their dignified place of protector and chief
counsellor, and the boy king was very early made to play his
part in the formal solemnities of the session. Edward IV, who
1 ltot. Parl. iɪɪ. 338, 339.
s Ibid. iii. 351, 353, 369. 1 See above, p. 12.
Kk
VOL. III.