uced the most despotic tyranny, and must have proved
fatal to the liberties of this kingdom, had it not been luckily repealed
in the minority of his successor, whom he elsewhere calls an amiable
prince--all our young princes, we discover, were amiable! Blackstone has
not recorded the subsequent attempt of the lord chancellor under James
the First, which tended to raise proclamations to the nature of an ukase
of the autocrat of both the Russias. It seems that our national freedom,
notwithstanding our ancient constitution, has had several narrow
escapes.

Royal proclamations, however, in their own nature are innocent enough;
for since the manner, time, and circumstances of putting laws in
execution must frequently be left to the discretion of the executive
magistrate, a proclamation that is not adverse to existing laws need not
create any alarm; the only danger they incur is that they seem never to
have been attended to, and rather testified the wishes of the government
than the compliance of the subjects. They were not laws, and were
therefore considered as sermons or pamphlets, or anything forgotten in a
week's time!

These proclamations are frequently alluded to by the letter-writers of
the times among the news of the day, but usually their royal virtue
hardly kept them alive beyond the week. Some on important subjects are
indeed noticed in our history. Many indications of the situation of
affairs, the feelings of the people, and the domestic history of our
nation, may be drawn from these singular records. I have never found
them to exist in any collected form, and they have been probably only
accidentally preserved.[244]

The proclamations of every sovereign would characterize his reign, and
open to us some of the interior operations of the cabinet. The despotic
will, yet vacillating conduct of Henry the Eighth, towards the close of
his reign, may be traced in a proclamation to abolish the translations
of the scriptures, and even the reading of Bibles by the people;
commanding all printers of English books and pamphlets to affix their
names to them, and forbidding the sale of any English books printed
abroad.[245] When the people were not suffered to publish their opinions
at home, all the opposition flew to foreign presses, and their writings
were then smuggled into the country in which they ought to have been
printed. Hence, many volumes printed in a foreign type at this period
are found in our collections. The k