others that he sees denied them, but it is now his very own that is threatened; his own life is in the way of the tyrant who has concluded to murder him, rather than comply with his promise to give him the lands and movables of the earl of Hereford, for his assistance in the criminal elevation he had risen to. Buckingham cannot now seek justice, after denying it to others and must suffer loss of his own life by the same foul "corrupted injustice" he had dealt out to others.1

Sec. 331. Swords as laws.-Under Richard's reign.— "K. Rich. Conscience is but a word that cow

ards use,

Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe;

Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law."2 In keeping with the whole course of Richard's career, and the criminal instinct, which has as a basis, the disregard of law and others rights, the Poet here sums up the whole total of Richard's character. He had, from the first, known no law, but his own ambition and greed; the rights of others were to him, but as an obstacle to be overcome, when in the way of gratification of his own ambition; devoid of conscience, he used the strong arm of the kingdom, to further his own self-interests and knew no law, but that of the sword. A fitting close, is this summing up of the character of this kingly outlaw, who decried the law and the rights of his fellows; ridiculed conscience, and in lieu thereof, advocated nought but "strong arms" and "swords" for "our law."

1 An act is said to be corruptly done, when it is done with the intent to give some advantage inconsistent with official duty or the lawful rights of others. Bouvier's Law Dictionary.

.

Replying to the entreaties of the Cardinals to place her cause in the King's hands, Queen Katherine said: "Q. Kath. Heaven is above all yet; there sits a Judge, that no king can corrupt." (Henry VIII, Act III, Scene I.)

2 King Richard III, Act V, Scene III.

Sec. 332.

333.

334.

CHAPTER XXV.

"KING HENRY THE EIGHTH."

Privity.

Wasting manors in military preparations.

Buckingham's trial for treason.

335. "Come into Court."

Sec. 332. Privity.—

"Buck. Why the devil,

Upon this French going-out, took he upon him,
Without the privity o' the king, to appoint

Who should attend on him?"i

Privity, in the law, is the mutual or successive relation

ship to the same rights of property. There is privity of

'King Henry VIII, Act I, Scene I.

2 Bouvier's Law Dictionary.

contract, which is the relation existing between two contracting parties,' and the privity of estate, which is the relationship existing between those being interested in the same lands, as landlord and tenant.2

Buckingham uses the word in the popular, rather than the legal meaning, of consent or concurrence, meaning to say that the Cardinal, in this instance, had acted without the concurrence or consent of the King.

Sec. 333. Wasting manors in military preparations.
"Buck. O, many

Have broke their backs with laying manors on 'em
For this great journey. What did this vanity
But minister communication of

A most poor issue."

The subject of discussion here is the unprofitable result of the recent war with France and Abergavenny observes that he had kinsmen

three at least, that have

By this so sicken'd their estates that never
They shall abound as formerly."

Buckingham replies, with a play on the legal term "manor," meaning that many of the English lords had assumed such military authority and preparations as to squander their estates, or waste their manors in the war with France.

A manor, in English law, is a freehold estate, held by the lord of the manor, who is entitled by immemorial custom, to maintain a tenure between himself and the copyhold tenants, whereby a feudal relation is maintained

1 Viner, Abr.; Lawson, Contracts (2d ed.), 276, 305. Tiedeman, R. P. (3d ed.), secs. 138, 157.

The Friar, in describing the causes of the death of Juliet and Romeo, said: "All this I know, and to the marriage, Her nurse is privy." (Act V, Scene III.)

'King Henry VIII, Act I, Scene I.

between them. But as sub-infeudation was abolished, in England, by the statute qui emptores, and no manor could arise by operation of law, since that date, it follows that all existing manors must trace their existence to a time preceding the enactment of this statute.3

Sec. 334. Buckingham's trial for treason.-
"1 Gent.
The great duke

Came to the bar; where, to his accusations,
He pleaded still not guilty, and alleg'd
Many sharp reasons to defeat the law.
The king's attorney, on the contrary,
Urg'd on the examinations, proofs, confessions
Of divers witnesses; which the duke desir'd
To him brought, viva voce, to his face:

At which appear'd against him, his surveyor;

Sir Gilbert Peck, his chancellor; and John Court
Confessor to him; with that devil monk,

Hopkins, that made this mischief.

All these accused him strongly; which he fain
Would have flung from him, but, indeed, he could

not:

And so his peers, upon this evidence,
Have found him guilty of high treason.
He spoke, and learnedly, for life: but all
Was either pitied in him, or forgotten.

Much

When he was brought again to the bar,-to hear
His knell rung out, his judgment,-he was stirr'd
With such an agony, he sweat extremely,
And something spoke in choler, ill and hasty:
But he fell to himself again, and, sweetly,
In all the rest show'd a most noble patience.'

774

This narration of the trial of the duke of Buckingham, for treason, is the same as the histories of the trial give

'Tiedeman, R. P. (3d ed).

'This statute was passed during the reign of Edw. I. Tiedeman, R. P. supra.

'King Henry VIII, Act II, Scene I.

it. The conviction of the Duke occurred in the tenth year of the King's reign, upon the most flimsy pretexts, such as the charge that he had declared all the acts of Henry VII to be improperly done. To encompass the conviction, the Chief-Justice held that "if one intend the death of the king it is high treason, for that he is the head of the commonwealth," though no act be done, and the guilty intent to commit the treason, was established by words alone. History records that the execution of this Duke was obtained by the pressure of the royal power, without a pretence of legal cause, and certain it is that no act since the commencement of this reign, when the tyranny of the Star Chamber was inaugurated, to coerce and overrule the peers and members of parliament, so aroused and terrified the populace and made the way for the arbitrary power, which later culminated in the King's divorces and trampling under foot the sacred laws of both church and state, and the terrorizing of the people, to accomplish his arbitrary will, as this execution of the duke of Buckingham, in the name of law.*

Sec. 335. "Come into Court."

3

"Scribe. Say, Henry, king of England, come into the

court.

Scribe. Say, Katherine, queen of England, come into

court.

Crier. Katherine, queen of England," etc."

The practice was founded by the Normans, in England, of having a "crier" to make the various proclamations in court, under the direction of the judges or scribes, and the duty of this officer, as presented in this verse, was to

1 Year-Book, 13 Hen. VIII, fol. 12.

2 Ante idem.

"Finlason's note, to IV Reeve's Hist. Eng. Law, p. 275. 'Mackintosh's Hist. Eng., vol. II, c. 3.

5 King Henry VIII, Act II, Scene IV.