1921 497 Parliament and the Succession Question in 1562/3 and 1566 WE owe not a little of the interest of Elizabethan parlia- mentary history to the spirited messages and speeches of the queen, and so it is as fortunate as it is unexpected to discover a neglected manuscript in the queen's own hand in the British Museum, which deserves a place with the best-known passages of the reign, both for its historical interest and the vigour of its style , l Its setting is in the struggle between Elizabeth and the house of commons in 1566 over the question of her marriage and the nomination of a successor. To Hallam ' the most serious disagreement on record between the crown and the commons since the days of Richard II and Henry IV ', 2 this struggle is to us a premonition, one of the first and one of the clearest of which we have knowledge, of the great contest that was to follow in Stuart times. It was an important experiment in that apprenticeship to corporate action that the commons were serving during the Tudor period, and although few such experiments were then completely successful and some were apparent failures, even the failures contributed to the fund of experience which made the maturer action of Stuart parlia- ments possible. It is unsatisfactory that the fullest account of so important a session should be Froude's, with its errors and overstatements ; and consequently I take this opportunity of reviewing the succession struggle in 1566 and its preliminaries in the session of 1562/3. i Elizabethans were for more than thirty years vexed by the fear that, at the death of the queen, the uncertainty of the succes- sion and the contentions of rival parties would plunge the country into anarchy. Beginning in 1562/3 their agitation in parliament '-■ for the nomination of a successor was finally stifled by the I imprisonment of Peter Went worth in 1592/3, by which time arguments had led some, and dread of the queen's wrath had coerced others, into accepting her view that it was inadvisable to discuss or determine the matter. Even so, the fear still haunted 1 Appendix, below, no. iii. 2 Constitutional History (10th ed.), i. 251. VOL. XXXVI. — NO. CXLIV. Kk
