The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 by Charles Duke Yonge
page 59 of 556 (10%)
page 59 of 556 (10%)
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can only be adequately dealt with if the ministers of the crown have the
courage to take such steps as are necessary, whether by the suspension of a law or by any other expedient, on their own responsibility, trusting in their ability to satisfy the Parliament, instantly convoked to receive their explanation, of the necessity or wisdom of their proceedings; and in the candor of the Parliament to recognize, if not the judiciousness of their action, at all events the good faith in which it has been taken, and the honest, patriotic intention which has dictated it. The establishment of the obligation instantly to submit the question to the judgment of Parliament will hardly be denied to be a sufficient safeguard against the ministerial abuse of such a power; and the instances in which such a power has since been exercised, coupled with the sanction of such exercise by Parliament, are a practical approval and ratification by subsequent Parliaments of the course that was now adopted.[23] The next year a not very creditable job of the ministry led to the enactment of a statute of great importance to all holders of property which had ever belonged to the crown. In the twenty-first year of James I. a bill had been passed giving a secure tenure of their estates to all grantees of crown lands whose possession of them had lasted sixty years. The Houses had desired to make the enactment extend to all future as well as to all previous grants. But to this James had refused to consent; and, telling the Houses that "beggars must not be choosers," he had compelled them to content themselves with a retrospective statute. Since his time, and especially in the reigns of Charles II. and William III., the crown had been more lavish and unscrupulous than at any former period in granting away its lands and estates to favorites. And no one had been so largely enriched by its prodigality as the most grasping of William's Dutch followers, Bentinck, the founder of the English house of |
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