is reign. These were upon the whole nearly the same in their
operation. It must be owned there was a more extensive sway virtually
given to the lords now appointed, by the penalties imposed on any who
should endeavour to obstruct what they might advise; the design as well
as tendency of which was no doubt to throw the whole administration into
their hands during the period of this commission.

Those who have written our history with more or less of a Tory bias
exclaim against this parliamentary commission as an unwarrantable
violation of the king's sovereignty, and even impartial men are struck
at first sight by a measure that seems to overset the natural balance of
our constitution. But it would be unfair to blame either those concerned
in this commission, some of whose names at least have been handed down
with unquestioned respect, or those high-spirited representatives of the
people whose patriot firmness has been hitherto commanding all our
sympathy and gratitude, unless we could distinctly pronounce by what
gentler means they could restrain the excesses of government. Thirteen
parliaments had already met since the accession of Richard; in all the
same remonstrances had been repeated, and the same promises renewed.
Subsidies, more frequent than in any former reign, had been granted for
the supposed exigencies of the war; but this was no longer illuminated
by those dazzling victories which give to fortune the mien of wisdom;
the coasts of England were perpetually ravaged, and her trade destroyed;
while the administration incurred the suspicion of diverting to private
uses that treasure which they so feebly and unsuccessfully applied to
the public service. No voice of his people, until it spoke in thunder,
would stop an intoxicated boy in the wasteful career of dissipation. He
loved festivals and pageants, the prevailing folly of his time, with
unusual frivolity; and his ordinary living is represented as beyond
comparison more showy and sumptuous than even that of his magnificent
and chivalrous predecessor. Acts of parliament were no adequate barriers
to his misgovernment. "Of what avail are statutes," says Walsingham,
"since the king with his privy council is wont to abolish what
parliament has just enacted?"[161] The constant prayer of the commons in
every session, that former statutes might be kept in force, is no slight
presumption that they were not secure of being regarded. It may be true
that Edward III.'s gover