ejected. The dignity and authority of
the commons are strongly insisted upon in this remonstrance; and it
is there said, that their submission to the ill treatment which they
received during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, had proceeded
from their tenderness towards her age and her sex. But the authors are
mistaken in these facts: for the house received and submitted to as bad
treatment in the beginning and middle of that reign. The government
was equally arbitrary in Mary's reign, in Edward's, in Henry VIII. and
VII.'s. And the further we go back into history, though there might
be more of a certain irregular kind of liberty among the barons, the
commons were still of less authority.]

[Footnote 47: NOTE UU, p. 398. This parliament passed an act of
recognition of the king's title in the most ample terms. They recognized
and acknowledged, that immediately upon the dissolution and decease of
Elizabeth, late queen of England, the imperial crown thereof did, by
inherent birthright and lawful and undoubted succession, descend and
come to his most excellent majesty, as being lineally, justly, and
lawfully next and sole heir of the blood royal of this realm. I James
I. cap. 1. The Puritans, though then prevalent, did not think proper
to dispute this great constitutional point. In the recognition of Queen
Elizabeth, the parliament declares, that the queen's highness is, and in
very deed and of most mere right ought to be, by the laws of God and
by the laws and statutes of this realm, our most lawful and rightful
sovereign, liege lady, and queen, etc. It appears, then, that if King
James's divine right be not mentioned by parliament, the omission
came merely from chance, and because that phrase did not occur to the
compiler of the recognition; his title being plainly the same with that
of his predecessor, who was allowed to have a divine right.]

[Footnote 50: NOTE XX, p. 405. Some historians have imagined, that the
king had secret intelligence of the conspiracy, and that the letter to
Monteagle was written by his direction, in order to obtain the praise
of penetration in discovering the plot. But the known facts refute this
supposition. That letter, being commonly talked of, might naturally have
given an alarm to the conspirators, and made them contrive their escape.
The visit of the lord chamberlain ought to have had the same effect. In
short, it appears that nobody was arrested or inquired after for some
days, til