mined in Parliament, which can best provide for the satisfaction of all men who are concerned.

And we do further declare, that we will be ready to consent to any Act or Acts of Parliament to the purposes aforesaid, and for the full satisfaction of all arrears due to the officers and soldiers in the army under the command of General Monk; and that they shall be received into our service upon as good pay and conditions as they now enjoy.

Given under our Sign Manual and Privy Signet,

14

at our Court at Breda, this / day of April, 1660, in the twelfth year of our reign.

(Parliamentary History, ed. cit., XXII, 238.)

172. Reception of the Declaration of Breda by Parliament Parliamentary Intelligencer

Parliament's enthusiastic, if not servile, reception of the communication from Charles II. is in strong contrast to the actions of that body in the preceding decade. It may be questioned whether either body faithfully expressed the will of the majority of the people; but it was evident that the Commonwealth had proved a failure and that there was in the popular mind a strong loyalty to the House of Stuart. A king was the only means of reconciling the warring factions and Parliament recognized at once its necessity and opportunity.

RECEPTION OF THE DECLARATION OF BREDA BY THE LORDS

(May 1, 1660)

Whitehall, Tuesday. The House of Lords being informed that Sir John Grenville attended at the door with a letter from his Majesty, the earl of Manchester, speaker to the House of Lords, went down near the clock to receive it of him. The letter with a declaration enclosed was read in the House, and thanks ordered to be given to Sir John Grenville for bringing the gracious letter.

commons.

The House resolved that they do own and declare that according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the government is and ought to be by king, lords, and That the lords having a deep sense of the miseries and distractions that the kingdom hath been involved in since the violent attempts to dissolve the established government, do desire that some way may be considered how to make up these breaches; and to obtain the king's return again to his people.

(Parliamentary Intelligencer, no. 19, pp. 291, 292)

Resolved

BY THE COMMONS

nemine contradicente. That a committee be appointed to prepare an answer to his Majesty's letter, expressing the great and joyful sense of House of his gracious offers and their humble and hearty thanks to his Majesty for the same, and with professions of their loyalty and duty to his Majesty, and that this House will give a speedy answer to his Majesty's gracious proposals.

A committee was appointed accordingly. nemine contradicente.

Resolved

That the sum of £50,000

be presented to his Majesty by the House.

Tuesday afternoon. Resolved that this House doth agree with the lords and do own and declare, that according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the government is and ought to be by king, lords, and commons.

(Parliamentary Intelligencer, no. 19, p. 293.)

173. The Commons thank Sir John Grenville for Bringing the Declaration (May 3, 1660)

Mercurius Publicus

The words of the Speaker of the House of Commons merely voiced the thought of the nation. Beneath the exuberance of language lies the true spirit of loyalty. Throughout the period of the Commonwealth, the majority of Englishmen had clung to the hope that the king would yet come to his own.

THE COMMONS THANK SIR JOHN GRENVILLE FOR BRINGING THE DECLARATION

Thursday. The House being informed that Sir John Grenville was at the door, he was called in to receive the thanks of the House, which Mr. Speaker delivered, as followeth :

Sir John Grenville, — I need not tell you with what grateful and thankful hearts the Commons now assembled in Parliament have received his Majesty's gracious letter, res ipsa loquitur: you yourself have been auricularis et ocularis testis de rei veritate. Our bells and our bonfires have already begun the proclamation of his Majesty's goodness and of our joys. We have told the people that our king, the glory of England, is coming home again, and they have resounded it back again in our ears that they are ready and their hearts are open to receive him; both Parliament and people have

cried aloud in their prayers to the King of Kings, Long live king Charles the second!

(Mercurius Publicus, no. 19, p. 292.)

174. Resolutions of Parliament urging the King to Return . (May 8 and 9, 1660)

Tuesday. At the House of Commons. Resolved, That the king's Majesty be desired to make a speedy return to his Parliament, and to the exercise of his kingly office.

Wednesday. Ordered by the Lords and Commons that general Montague do receive the commands of the king's Majesty for the disposal of the fleet in order to his Majesty's

return.

The Lords agreed to the vote for his Majesty's return to the Parliament and kingly office

(Mercurius Publicus, No. 19, p. 304.)

175. The Beginning of Cabinet Government

(1672)

Historian's Guide, Crook

The beginnings of Cabinet Government in England are to be found in the history of the secret council, popularly called the Cabal, from the initials of the surnames of its members. The selections next following will serve to awaken interest in the development of the Cabinet.

SHAFTESBURY, AS HEAD OF CABAL, TAKES GREAT SEAL

Nov. 4, 1672.

Sir Orlando Bridgeman, late Lord Keeper, having resigned by reason of his great age and a continual indisposition of body, the Great Seal went into the hands of his Majesty. Nov. 17.

His Majesty was pleased to deliver the keeping of it to the Right Honourable Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, with the title of Lord Chancellor of England.

(Crook, W., Historian's Guide, Lond. 1679.)

176. Opinion of French Court concerning Members of Cabal Secret History of Whitehall

The ministers of this Court are not only the most inquisitive persons in the world into the affairs of other Courts, but even in the persons who manage them; whose natures, dispositions, religion, natural and acquired abilities, as well as respective infirmities, they endeavour to sift out

to the quick so that they may use them or shun them as they find occasion: and for this reason it is that they make some remarks upon them in their minutes, as well as upon the affairs transacted by them. And therefore since the five persons who made up the Cabal in England..., and who your lordship may remember were the dukes of Buckingham and Lauderdale, the earls of Shaftesbury and Arlington, and the Lord Treasurer Clifford, were very distinguishable for the stations they filled, the offices they held and the parts each of them acted in the government; I find this character given of them: for the duke of Buckingham, as he was the king's favourite, so he really deserved to be so, as being very capable to be a minister of state if his application to business had been answerable to his talents; if his mind, which was furnished with excellent endowments, had not been distracted by libertinism, which was in him to an extreme degree; and by a love to his pleasures, which made one of those persons in the world that was fittest for great and solid things vain and frivolous. Of the duke of Lauderdale there is little or nothing said but that he is a great and quaint politician, and no question but he has merited that character at their hand. Of my lord Clifford they are as profuse in their praises, as I doubt they have been too of their money; saying he was a person who wanted nothing but a theatre where virtue and reason had been much more in use than it was in his country in the age wherein he lived, for to be superior to and overtop the rest. My lord of Arlington they make to be a person of meaner capacity, and a more limited genius than any of the five, but say his experiences supply the defect, and have acquired him especially a very great knowledge of foreign affairs. Last of all, they bring in Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the renowned earl of Shaftesbury; of whom they say he was by far the fittest person of any of them to manage a great enterprise, and so was as the soul to all the rest, being endued with a vast capacity, clear judgment, bold nature, and subtle wit, equally firm and constant in all he undertook; a constant friend but an implacable enemy; with many other expressions, such as his not being terrified either with the greatness or the multitude of crimes he judges necessary for his own preservation, or the destruction of others much to his lordship's dishonour, which is a clear argument he was not for their interest, and for which he is much beholden to them.

(Letter in the Secret Hist. of Whitehall, Lond., 1717, vol I., pp. 78, 79.)

177. The Habeas Corpus Act

(31 CAR. II, c. ii, 1679)

Statutes of the Realm

In the 39th and 40th clauses of the Magna Charta "are clearly contained the Habeas Corpus and the Trial by Jury, the most effectual securities against oppression which the wisdom of man has hitherto been able to devise." For centuries before, as for centuries after, the Great Charter, the abuses of judicial processes by the Crown led to complaint and discontent, which finally culminated in open rebellion. Again and again the kings broke their promises to abide by the law and to measure out that even-handed justice which the great documents of English history sought to secure for the people. At last, in 1679, the great Habeas Corpus Act was passed. It had radical defects, but these were remedied by the Bill of Rights (No. 190) and by an Act for More Effectually Securing the Liberty of the Subject (1812). The Habeas Corpus Act remains the basis of all legislation on its subject throughout English-speaking states.

An Act for the better securing the Liberty of the Subject, and for Prevention of Imprisonments beyond the Seas.

Whereas great delays have been used by sheriffs, gaolers, and other officers, to whose custody any of the king's subjects have been committed for criminal or supposed criminal matters, in making returns of writs of Habeas Corpus to them directed, by standing out an Alias and Pluries Habeas Corpus, and sometimes more, and by other shifts to avoid their yielding obedience to such writs, contrary to their duty and the known laws of the land, whereby many of the king's subjects have been and hereafter may be long detained in prison, in such cases where by law they are bailable, to their great charges and vexation:

II. For the prevention whereof, and the more speedy relief of all persons imprisoned for any such criminal or supposed criminal matters; be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority thereof, that whensoever any person or persons shall bring any Habeas Corpus directed unto any sheriff or sheriffs, gaoler, minister, or other person whatsoever, for any person in his or their custody, and the said writ shall be served upon the said officer, or left at the gaol or prison with any of the under-officers, under-keepers or deputy of the said officers or keepers, that the said officer or officers, his or their under-officers, underkeepers or deputies, shall within three days after the service