Will anyone contend that there is anything of constitutional principle in this? If the Par liament had said °We demand to know what your foreign policy is, and that it is in accord ance with our views before we vote supply? there would have been constitutional principle involved. But over and over again the Com mons disclaimed any such idea. If James was antiquated in his devotion to the Tudor ideal of prerogative the Parliament was just as anti quated as he in their devotion to it, for they distinctly admitted his view, and when they joined issue with him it was on the minor point and on the lower plane of parliamentary privi lege.
A remarkable change, however, though transitory as it proved, came over the scene as James' reign came to a close. For some unex plained reason his powers decayed whilst he was still young, though he died at the age of 59. Whether it was due to this premature decay, or to his own intense chagrin at the failure of his long negotiation with Spain, we cannot say. But certain it is that for the last two years of his reign he was a mere tool in the hands of Buckingham. Had it not been, for this senility it is certain that the astounding constitutional departure which marked the career of his last Parliament would never have been enacted. James met that Parliament with the practical confession that his foreign policy had been a failure, and he invited their co-operation in the evolving of a policy to take its place. He in formed the Houses that his secretaries would tell them the whole story of the marriage treaty with Spain. After they had heard the story, he continued °I shall entreat your good and sound advice . . . . I assure you you may freely advise me, seeing of my princely fidelity you are invited thereto? The marvelous thing about this sudden and revolutionary surrender of prerogative by James is that it sprang from the dictates of Buckingham. But more extraordinary still was the sequel. Following the dictates of the im perious favorite as tamely as a sheep, James, after receiving the advice of both Houses, in formed them that if they made him a grant for a war they might appoint their own treasurers to see to the spending of the money, and fur ther «I promise you on the word.of a king that although war and peace he the peculiar pre rogative of kings, yet as I have advised with you in the treaties on which war may ensue, so I will not treat nor accept of a peace without first acquainting you with it and having your advice? (8 March 1624).
Accordingly when 12 days later the Com mons voted three subsidies and three-fifteenths, the money was ordered to be paid to treasurers appointed by Parliament and not into the Ex chequer; and at the same time the Houses in an address to the king plainly laid down the object for which the money was voted.
In the whole course of 17th century history, including the civil war and regicide, there is no more revolutionary incident than this complete, sudden, uninvited surrender of prerogative on the part of James. Had it happened as the re sult of deliberate thought, and whilst James was still in his prime, it would have shortened by more than a century the birth throes of modern constitutionalism, and have saved the Stuarts from exile.
But it did not so happen. It was a moment ary inspiration of Buckingham's, the genesis of which is to be explained by the favorite's own personal position and policy at the time, and it was by him forced upon the feeble king with an impetuosity that swept everything be fore it. But as with all Buckingham's inspira tions, it was no more than a flash and almost as soon over. After the old king's death the versatile but unstable minister made one or two disingenuous efforts to revert to such relations with the Commons. Through the mouth of his creature, Sir John Coke, he submitted to Par liament in July 1625 a rough statement of the expenditure of the subsidies granted in 1624 and again in the following month of August 1625, when the Parliament was sitting at Oxford be cause of the plague, the lord treasurer made a similar statement. But further than this the concession was not carried. From the position which James had adopted in 1624 Charles grad ually receded, not so much from deliberate de sign as from the mere force of circumstance and from a growing perception of the revolu tionary consequences which that position en tailed. The desire on the part of the Commons to inquire into the expenditure of the subsidies led them to utter their opinions on the merits of Charles' foreign policy, and in particular to call into question the advice given to the king by the Council of War as to that expenditure. The moment this was clear to Charles any fur ther surrender of prerogatives was impossible. Backed by the king the members of the Council of War refused to reply to the interrogatories of the Commons. Their resistance proved suc cessful. Before the determined attitude which Charles thus took up the House quickly receded and dropped any further attempt at pressing the interrogatories. (March 1626).