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HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap, cated the use of the word abdication by quotations from Gro-—tius and Brissonius, Spigelius and Bartolus. When he waschallenged to show any authority for the proposition thatEngland could be without a sovereign, he produced the Par-liament roll of the year 1399, in which it was expressly setforth that the kingly office was vacant during the interval be-tween the resignation of Richard the Second and the enthron-ing of Henry the Fourth. The Lords replied by producingthe Parliament roll of the first year of Edward the Fourth,from which it appeared that the record of 1399 had been so-lemnly annulled. They therefore maintained that the pre-cedent on which Somers relied was no longer valid. Trebythen came to Somers’s assistance, and brought forth the Par-liament roll of the first year of Henry the Seventh, which re-pealed the act-of Edward the Fourth, and consequentlyrestored the validity of the record of 1399. After a colloquyof several hours the disputants separated.* The Lords as-sembled in their own house. It was well understood that theywere about to yield, and that the conference had been a mereform. The friends of Mary had found that, by setting her upas her husband’s rival, they had deeply displeased her. Someof the Peers who had formerly voted for a Regency had deter-mined to absent themselves or to support the resolution of theLower House. Their opinion, they said, was unchanged: butany government was better than no government, and thecountry could not bear a prolongation of this agony of sus-pense. Even Nottingham, who, in the Painted Chamber, hadtaken the lead against the Commons, declared that, though hisown conscience would not suffer him to give way, he was gladthat the consciences of other men were less squeamish. Se-veral Lords who had not yet voted in the Convention had beeninduced to attend; Lord Lexington, who had just hurried overfrom the Continent; the Earl of Lincoln, who was half mad;the Earl of Carlisle, who limped in on crutches; and theBishop of Durham, who had been in hiding and had intendedto fly beyond sea, but had received an intimation that, if he

* See the Lords’ and Commons’ Journals of Feb. 6. 168|, and theReport of the Conference.

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