proper for her to do in
a thing of so great concern. They voted all the lawyers, who had pleaded
on the return of the _habeas-corpus_ in behalf of the prisoners, guilty
of a breach of privilege, and ordered them to be taken into custody.
They likewise ordered the prisoners to be removed from Newgate into the
custody of their serjeant-at-arms, lest they should have been discharged
by the queen's granting writs of error. The prisoners, finding
themselves at the mercy of the exasperated commons, petitioned the lords
for relief. The upper house passed six different resolutions against the
conduct of the commons, as being an obstruction to justice, and contrary
to Magna Charta. The lower house demanded a conference, in which they
insisted upon the sole right of determining elections: they affirmed
that they only could judge who had a right of voting, and that they
were judges of their own privileges, in which the lords could not
intermeddle.

THE PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED.

The upper house demanded a free conference, which proved ineffectual.
New resolutions were taken by the commons, diametrically opposite to
those of the peers; who, on the other hand, attended the queen with
along representation of all the particulars relating to this affair.
They affirmed that the proceedings of the house of commons against
the Aylesbury men, were wholly new and unprecedented: that it was the
birthright of every Englishman, who apprehended himself injured, to seek
for redress in her majesty's courts of justice: that if any power could
control this right, and prescribe when he should, and when he should
not, be allowed the benefit of the laws, he ceased to be a freeman, and
his liberty and property were precarious. They requested, therefore,
that no consideration whatever should prevail with her majesty to suffer
an obstruction to the known course of justice, but that she would be
pleased to give effectual orders for the immediate issuing of the writs
of error. The queen assured them that she would have complied with their
request, but finding an absolute necessity for putting an immediate end
to the session, she knew there could be no further proceedings on that
matter. On the very day, which was the fourteenth of March, she went to
the house of lords and passed the bills that were ready for the royal
assent. Then she thanked the parliament for having despatched the public
business: she warned them to avoid the fatal effects of animosit