Nicholas Fullo 751 early in October, 1607.^ In one sense it deprived the Commission of authority, in another it fully recognized the whole of its conten- tions. The Commission was authorized to proceed " with all due and proper speed according to your ecclesiastical authority against the schism, heresy, impious error or pernitious opinions of the aforesaid Nicholas Fuller ". In truth, although these phrases seemed to deny power to proceed in the present instance against Fuller, who was indeed accused of slander and contempt and not of heresy and error, they nevertheless did sanction action by the Com- mission, for several charges concerning heresy and schism had been included (probably by chance) among the counts of the indictment. In any case, if the commissioners were the sole legal interpreters of the language of the consultation, it would have been plain enough from their standpoint that Fuller's views were, to sav the least, " pernicious opinions ". The gist of the consultation contained, therefore, nothing to hinder the Commission's action. Having finished the usual form of consultation, the judges added several sentences in the nature of explanations and qualifications. " Nor is there any question by us made, of the authority or validity of the letters patents to you and to others directed, nor of the ex- position of the statute of i Elizabeth, nor of certain scandals or other matters which by the Common Law and the Statutes of this Realm of England are to be punished or concluded." Technically of course these phrases were not part of the consultation and were merely declaratory of the opinions of the judges. The innuendo therefore in the last clause insinuating that Fuller could be tried only at common law even for the slander of the High Commissioners was of no legal eft'ect, and if it might have been, the two preceding clauses com- pletely nullified it, inasmuch as they declared valid the letters patent 'The consultation will be found in Latin in Lansdowne MSS., 11 72, f. 97. The wording in the text is an attempt to render it freely in the legal English of the period. It was certainly issued late in September or early in October before Fuller's conviction by the Commission (it must be borne in mind that he had been simply arraigned in July) and not, as Dr. Gardiner states, in November after his conviction. Dr. Gardiner also treats the document printed in 12 Coke's Reports, f. 41, as the actual consultation. In an article in the English Historical Review for October, 1903, the present writer has stated his reasons for regarding as highly suspicious anything in that volume of the Reports which does not fully agree with the evidence from other sources. But in this case the document is so long and rambling and so devoid of legal form that it can hardly be credited as against the one in' the Lansdowne MSS. It is not on the face of it a consultation, but an argument why the consultation should contain certain limiting clauses. There is no proof that it was more than a private memo- randum of Coke's own ideas, and there is no reason at all to suppose that it was ever meant to have legal effect. There is just enough similarity between it and the Lansdowne paper to make it reasonably certain that both refer to the same event-
