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TO HER SACRED MAJESTY.

I DO here most humbly present and dedicate to your Majesty a sheaf and cluster of fruit of that good and favourable season, which by the influence of your happy government we enjoy. For if it be true that silent leges inter arma, it is also as true, that your Majesty is in a double respect the life of our laws; once, because without your authority they are but litera mortua; and again, because you are the life of our peace, without which laws are put to silence. And as the vital spirits do not only maintain and move the body, but also contend to perfect and renew it, so your sacred Majesty, who is anima legis, doth not only give unto your laws force and vigour, but also hath been careful of their amendment and reforming. Wherein your Majesty's proceeding may be compared, as in that part of your government, (for if your government be considered in all the parts, it is incomparable,) with the former doings of the most excellent princes that have reigned, who have ever studied to adorn and honour times of peace with the amendment of the policy of their laws.

Of this proceeding in Augustus Cæsar the testimony remaineth:

Pace data terris, animum ad civilia vertit
Jura suum; legesque tulit justissimus auctor.

Hence was collected the difference between gesta in armis and acta in toga, whereof he disputeth thus:

Ecquid est, quod tam propriè dici potest actum ejus qui togatus in republica cum potestate imperioque versatus sit quam lex? quære acta Gracchi: leges Semproniæ proferentur. Quare Syllae: Cornelia. Quid? Cn. Pompeii tertius consulatus in quibus actis consistit? nempe in legibus. A Caesare ipso si quæreres quidnam egisset in urbe et toga: leges multas se responderet, et præclaras tulisse.

The same desire long after did spring in the emperor Justinian, being rightly called ultimus Imperatorum Romanorum; who, having peace in the heart of his empire, and making his wars prosperously in the remote places of his dominions by his lieutenants, chose it for a monument and honour of his government, to revisit the Roman laws, and to reduce. them from infinite volumes and much repugnancy into one competent and uniform corps of law. Of which matter himself doth speak gloriously, and yet aptly, calling it proprium et sanctissimum templum Justitiæ consecratum: a work of great excellency indeed, as may well appear, in that France, Italy, and Spain, which have long ago shaken off the yoke of the Roman empire, do yet nevertheless continue to use the policy of that law: but more excellent had the work been, save that the more ignorant and obscure time undertook to correct the more learned and flourishing time. To conclude with the domestical example of one of your Majesty's royal ancestors: King Edward I. your Majesty's famous progenitor, and principal lawgiver of our nation, after he had in his younger years given himself satisfaction in the glory of arms,

by the enterprise of the Holy Land, having inward peace, (otherwise than for the invasions which himself made upon Wales and Scotland, parts far distant from the centre of the realm,) he bent himself to endow his state with sundry notable and fundamental laws, upon which the government ever since hath principally rested.1

Of these examples, and others the like, two reasons. may be given; the one, because that kings, which, either by the moderation of their natures, or the maturity of their years and judgment, do temper their magnanimity with justice, do wisely consider and conceive of the exploits of ambitious wars, as actions rather great than good; and so, distasted with that course of winning honour, they convert their minds rather to do somewhat for the better uniting of human society, than for the dissolving or disturbing of the same. Another reason is, because times of peace, drawing for the most part with them abundance of wealth and fineness of cunning, do draw also, in further consequence, multitude of suits and controversies, and abuses of laws by evasions and devices; which inconveniences in such times growing more general, do more instantly solicit for the amendment of laws to restrain and repress them.

Your Majesty's reign having been blest from the

1 The Cambridge MS. here adds:- "And lastly, the King Your Majesty's father had this royal design in such regard and so deeply looked into the state of his laws, as it is to be seen that he made more statutes (not speaking of penal laws, but such as were in amendment of the common laws) than all the Kings between him and the same King Edward I. and that specially in the 32nd year of his reign, what time this kingdom flourished in peace."

A less courtly or more mature judgment of Henry VIII.'s merits as a lawgiver is found in the Offer of a Digest of the Laws of England.

Highest with inward peace, and falling into an age wherein, if science be increased, conscience is rather decayed; and if men's wits be great, their wills be more great; and wherein also laws are multiplied in number, and slackened in vigour and execution; it was not possible but that not only suits in law should multiply and increase, whereof always a great part are unjust, but also that all the indirect and sinister courses and practices to abuse law and justice should have been much attempted and put in ure: which no doubt had bred greater enormities, had they not, by the royal policy of your Majesty, by the censure and foresight of your Council table and Star-chamber, and by the gravity and integrity of your Benches, been repressed and refrained for it may be truly observed, that, as concerning frauds in contracts, bargains, and assurances, and abuses of laws by delays, covins, vexations, and corruptions in informers, jurors, ministers of justice, and the like, there have been sundry excellent statutes made in your Majesty's time, more in number, and more politic in provision, than in any your Majesty's predecessors' times.1

2 But I am an unworthy witness to your Majesty of

1 It may be worth noting that this praise of the Council and Star Chamber are not in the earlier draft. The Camb. MS. in lieu of this whole paragraph commencing "Your Majesty's reign" has: But your Majesty's time, coming so soon after the reforming of so many imperfections in the common laws as were by the statutes of the King your father removed, needed the less to add further correction to them by way of statutes. frauds in contracts, bargains, and assurances, and abuses of laws by delays, covins, vexations and corruptions in informers, jurors, ministers of justice, and the like, which do now most call for redress, wherein there have been sundry excellent statutes &c.

It is

2 The variation here in the Camb. MS. seems to fix its date. It has: "Above all the rest, I cannot forget your Majesty's most regal and famous intention, compounded both of justice and clemency, which was published by your Chancellor in full Parliament from your royal mouth in the 35th

a higher intention and project, both by that which was published by your Chancellor in full parliament from your royal mouth, in the five and thirtieth of your happy reign; and much more by that which I have since been vouchsafed to understand from your Majesty, importing a purpose for these many years infused in your Majesty's breast, to enter into a general amendment of the state of your laws, and to reduce them to more brevity and certainty; that the great hollowness and unsafety in assurances of lands and goods may be strengthened; the snaring penalties that lie upon many subjects removed; the execution of many profitable laws revived; the judge better directed in his sentence; the counsellor better warranted in his counsel; the student eased in his reading; the contentious suitor that seeketh but vexation disarmed; and the honest suitor that seeketh but to obtain his right relieved. Which purpose and intention, as it did strike me with great admiration when I heard it, so it must be acknowledged to be one of the most chosen works, of highest

of your happy reign, of purging and removing the multitude of unnecessary penal laws which now lie upon your people as the rain whereof the Psalm speaks, Pluet super eos laqueos, to their infinite [interest] and peril. and besides doth breed another inconvenience as ill as the former, in that the cessation and abstinence to execute these unnecessary laws doth mortify the execution of such laws as are wholesome and most meet to be put in execution both for your Majesty's profit and the universal benefit of the realm. Which intention as it was no doubt a precious seed sown in your Majesty's heart by the Divine hand that holdeth it, so I hope in the maturity of your Majesty's own times will come up and bear fruit, being as a tree of Balsamum to cure and salve the wounds and dangers of your subjects. Wherefore, observing" &c.

This first draft, therefore, was written when his knowledge of any intended legal reform was confined to the Lord Keeper's speech and the debate (in which he took a part and used some of the same topics which here appear) 35° Elizabeth: the later form belongs to a time when he had personal communications with the Queen or her ministers.

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