Every one who served abroad was allowed to alienate his lands without paying any fees.[v] A general permission was granted to dispose of land by will.[v*] The parliament was so little jealous of its privileges, (which indeed were, at that time, scarcely worth preserving,) that there is an instance of one Strode, who, because he had introduced into the lower house some bill regarding tin, was severely treated by the stannery courts in Cornwall: heavy fines were imposed on him; and upon his refusal to pay, he was thrown into a dungeon, loaded with irons, and used in such a manner as brought his life in danger: yet all the notice which the parliament took of this enormity, even in such a paltry court, was to enact, that no man could afterwards be questioned for his conduct in parliament.[v**] This prohibition, however, must be supposed to extend only to the inferior courts: for as to the king, and privy council, and star chamber, they were scarcely bound by any law.
There is a bill of tonnage and poundage, which shows what uncertain ideas the parliament had formed both of their own privileges and of the rights of the sovereign.[v***] This duty had been voted to every king since Henry IV., during the term of his own life only: yet Henry VIII.
had been allowed to levy it six years, without any law; and though there had been four parliaments assembled during that time, no attention had been given either to grant it to him regularly, or restrain him from levying it.

At last the parliament resolved to give him that supply; but even in this concession, they plainly show themselves at a loss to determine whether they grant it, or whether he has a right of himself to levy it.

They say, that the imposition was made to endure during the natural life of the late king, and no longer: they yet blame the merchants who had not paid it to the present king: they observe, that the law for tonnage and poundage was expired; yet make no scruple to call that imposition the king's due: they affirm, that he had sustained great and manifold losses by those who had defrauded him of it; and to provide a remedy, they vote him that supply during his lifetime, and no longer.

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding this last clause, all his successors for more than a century persevered in the like irregular practice; if a practice may deserve that epithet, in which the whole nation acquiesced, and which gave no offence.

But when Charles I.
attempted to continue in the same course which had now received the sanction of many generations, so much were the opinions of men altered, that a furious tempest was excited by it; and historians, partial or ignorant, still represent this measure as a most violent and unprecedented enormity in that unhappy prince.
* Herbert.
** Hall, fol.234.Stowe, p.515.Holingshed, p.