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excesses of the prerogative , however just and politic such proceedings might be , were not sanctioned by the Constitution as it then stood , and that James and his son , in resisting such pretensions , were merely supporting the privileges which they had derived from their predecessors . In Mr . Havana ' s pages , however , the unfounded nature of the royal assumptions at this period is fully exposed , and justice is done to the character of those wise and
energetic men who resisted , from the commencement , the arbitrary designs of the Stuarts . Nothing less consistent with the idea of a free state can be imagined than the language which James was accustomed to hold to his Parliaments ; and had his power been equal to his good-will , there is no doubt that the democratical part of our Constitution would have been abolished under his sceptre . The reign of this King was , in fact , the period , when the English Constitution began , as it were , to settle , and to
assume that more steady and confirmed form which it has since borne . Up to this period great occasional irregularities in the exercise of the functions of Government had ' existed ; irregularities at variance with the well-being of a free state . The power of the Commons was becoming sufficient for the correction of such abuses , and hence that struggle between their well-grounded claims and the lofty pretensions of the Court arose ,
which was not terminated till the Revolution of 1688 . The age of James I . may , therefore , be regarded as one of the most important in our annals , and it is treated by Mr . Hallam in a manner equal to the subject . The character which he has drawn of the King is at once candid and just . We may be allowed here to observe , that in ^ his part of his History Mr . Hallam pays a well-merited compliment to the entertaining and instructive " Memoirs " by Miss Aikin .
The history of the earlier portion of the reign of Charles I ., up to the year 1642 , occupies the three last chapters of the first volume of Mr . Hallam ' s work . In these pages he has traced with a masterly pen the progress of the great struggle between the court and the country , and has with much industry and skill laid bare the motives and conduct of Charles and his advisers . After the dissection which the characters of the Royal Martyr and his friends have undergone by the hands of Mr . Brodie , Mr . Godwin ^
and lastly , of Mr . Hallam , the question as to their merits must surely be considered as at rest . The authority of Hume and his brother apologists is at last finally destroyed , not by contradictory theories , not by unsupported denials , not by hazardous conjectures as to the designs and motives of the parties , but by a mass of historical evidence of the highest and most unquestionable authority , which it will be difficult even for the most prejudiced supporter of English prerogative to deny . In this portion of his work Mr . Hallam has collected much curious information relative to the ecclesiastical
history of the time , and especially as to the supposed attempt to reconcile the Church of England with the See of Rome . That Laud was much disposed to assimilate the Anglican form of worship with that of the Roman Catholic Church cannot be doubted ; and it is probable that he designed a more intimate reconciliation . We find in Rushworth ( Vol . II . p . 450 ) a
strpng proof of the existence of this feeling in the archbishop , which is not noticed by the author before us . By a decree of the Star Chamber , no person was permitted to publish any book or pamphlet whatsoever , unless the same should be first licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury , &c . Under this decree , licences for the republication of many popular works were denied by Laud , and in , this Index Expurgatorius we find even . Fox ' s
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Review . —Hallam '' $ Constitutional History of England . \ 69
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1828, page 169, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2558/page/25/
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