[*] In 1566, the speaker said to Queen Elizabeth, that
without her allowance the election of the house was of no
significance. D'Ewes's Journal, p. 97. In the parliament
1592, 1593, the speaker, who was Sir Edward Coke, advances a
like position. D'Ewes, p. 459; Townshend, p. 35. So that
this pretension of the commons seems to have been somewhat
new; like many of their other powers and privileges.
Seymour was deemed a great enemy to Danby; and it was the influence of
that nobleman, as commonly supposed, which had engaged the king to
enter into this ill-timed controversy with the commons. The impeachment,
therefore, of Danby was on that account the sooner revived; and it
was maintained by the commons, that notwithstanding the intervening
dissolution, every part of that proceeding stood in the same condition
in which it had been left by the last parliament; a pretension which,
though unusual, seems tacitly to have been yielded them. The king had
beforehand had the precaution to grant a pardon to Danby; and, in order
to screen the chancellor from all attacks by the commons, he had taken
the great seal into his own hands, and had himself affixed it to the
parchment.
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