f principle in this matter also.[371] With the
advice of the Lord Chancellor and the Council James had declared
himself King of Great Britain, and had expressed the wish that the
names of England and Scotland might be henceforth obliterated; but his
Proclamation was not considered sufficient without the assent of
Parliament; and in this case the judges took the side of the
Parliament. The dynastic ideas with which James had commenced his
reign could not but serve to resuscitate the claim of Parliament to
the possession of the legislative power. At other times the precedents
adduced by the Lord Chancellor in the debate on the 'post-nati' might
have controlled their decision: at the present time they no longer
made any impression. The opposition of political ideas came to the
surface in this matter as in others. The King held the strongly
monarchical view that the populations of both countries were united
with one another by the mere fact of their being both subject to him.
To this the Parliament opposed the doctrine that the two crowns were
distinct sovereignties, and that the legislation of the two countries
could not be united. They wished to fetter the King to the old legal
position which they were far more anxious to contract than to expand.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1613.]

The consequences must have been incalculable, if the Earl of Salisbury
and the Lord Chancellor had succeeded in carrying out their
intentions. A common government of the two countries would have held
in all important questions a position independent of the two
Parliaments, and the person of the sovereign would have been the
ruling centre of this government. If besides an adequate income had
been definitely assigned to the crown independent of the regularly
recurring assent of Parliament, what would have become of the rights
of that body? Not only would Elizabeth's mode of government have been
continued, but the monarchical element which could appeal to various
precedents in its own favour would probably have obtained a complete
ascendancy.

But for that very reason these efforts were met by a most decided
opposition. It is plain that these rival pretensions, and the motive
from which they sprang, paved the way for controversies of the most
extensive kind.

The scheme of the contract was as little successful as that of the
union of the two kingdoms. The parties were contented with merely
removing the occasion for an immediate rupture; and after some s