be
consulted as to the decision upon it. The judges timidly, though firmly,
repudiated such a right as unknown to the law. To a king whose notions
of law and of courts of law were drawn from those of Scotland, where
justice had for centuries been a ready weapon in the royal hand, such a
protest was utterly unintelligible. James sent for them to the royal
closet. He rated them like schoolboys till they fell on their knees and
with a single exception pledged themselves to obey his will. The one
exception was the Chief Justice, Sir Edward Coke, a narrow-minded and
bitter-tempered man, but of the highest eminence as a lawyer, and with a
reverence for the law that overrode every other instinct. He had for
some time been forced to evade the king's questions and "closetings" on
judicial cases by timely withdrawal from the royal presence. But now
that he was driven to answer, he answered well. When any case came
before him, he said he would act as it became a judge to act. Coke was
at once dismissed from the Council, and a provision which made the
judicial office tenable at the king's pleasure, but which had long
fallen into disuse, was revived to humble the common law in the person
of its chief officer. In November 1616, on the continuance of his
resistance, he was deprived of his post of Chief Justice.

[Sidenote: The Crown and the Law.]

No act of James seems to have stirred a deeper resentment among
Englishmen than this announcement of his resolve to tamper with the
course of justice. The firmness of Coke in his refusal to consult with
the king on matters affecting his prerogative was justified by what
immediately followed. As James interpreted the phrase, to consult with
the king meant simply to obey the king's bidding as to what the
judgement of a court should be. In the case which was then at issue he
summoned the judges simply to listen to his decision; and the judges
promised to enforce it. The king's course was an outrage on the growing
sense of law; but his success was not without useful results. In his
zeal to assert his personal will as the source of all power, whether
judicial or other, James had struck one of its most powerful instruments
from the hands of the Crown. He had broken the spell of the royal
courts. If the good sense of Englishmen had revolted against their
decisions in favour of the prerogative, the English reverence for law
had made men submit to them. But now that all show of judicial
independen