ext to the said Earl of Richmond.[5]
There appears to have been no limit to the authority of the Crown
in granting honours, titles, dignities, and offices, excepting
only that it could not grant new offices with fees annexed,
because that would be a tax upon the subject, which can only be
imposed by Act of Parliament. Assuming, then, that such was the
extent of the prerogative previously to the 31st of Henry VIII.,
the next question is, Whether it was restrained by that statute;
and if it was, within what limits it was thenceforward confined?
The preamble asserts the prerogative of the Crown in the
strongest terms; probably for the express purpose of guarding
against any inference that it was thereby abridged or restrained.
It is difficult to believe that, in passing the Act entitled 'for
placing the Lords,' Henry VIII. felt any doubt as to the
possession, or scruple as to the exercise, of the prerogative of
his progenitors, and still less that he had the remotest idea of
divesting himself of an iota of his own. The despotic temper of
the King, the subservient character of his Parliaments, and his
habitual employment of them as the most obsequious instrument of
his will, make it probable that he adopted this, merely as the
easiest and most convenient mode of settling a difficult and
complex question, but without the slightest misgiving as to his
own power, or any notion of restraining himself from granting any
privilege or precedence it might at any subsequent period be his
pleasure to bestow. The circumstances under which the provisions
of this Act were carried into operation were remarkable, and give
it much more the appearance of a decree of the King, or a
resolution of the Lords, than of an Act of the Three Estates. The
assent of the Commons seems to have been assumed as a matter of
course, and as soon as it had passed the Lords (which it did very
hastily), it was immediately put in force, 'Concerning the
passing it, it is observable, that on Monday, 1st May, the Lord
Chancellor quandam introduxit billam concernentem assignationem
locorum, &c., which was that day read twice; the next day it had
a third reading, and on Friday a fourth; on the morrow, the Lord
Cromwell is placed before the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the
others are placed according to the Act, being before placed
without regard to their offices, but it was not returned from the
House of Commons with their assent till the Monday following.'[6]