“To wit—­”

Here the Clerk raised his voice.

“Sidney Earl Godolphin.”

The Clerk bowed to Lord Godolphin.  Lord Godolphin raised his hat.

The Clerk continued,—­

“Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery.”

The Clerk bowed to Lord Pembroke.  Lord Pembroke touched his hat.

The Clerk resumed,—­

“John Holles, Duke of Newcastle.”

The Duke of Newcastle nodded.

The Clerk of the Crown resumed his seat.

The Clerk of the Parliaments arose.  His under-clerk, who had been on his knees behind him, got up also.  Both turned their faces to the throne, and their backs to the Commons.

There were five bills on the cushion.  These five bills, voted by the
Commons and agreed to by the Lords, awaited the royal sanction.

The Clerk of the Parliaments read the first bill.

It was a bill passed by the Commons, charging the country with the costs of the improvements made by the Queen to her residence at Hampton Court, amounting to a million sterling.

The reading over, the Clerk bowed low to the throne.  The under-clerk bowed lower still; then, half turning his head towards the Commons, he said,—­

“The Queen accepts your bounty—­et ainsi le veut.”

The Clerk read the second bill.

It was a law condemning to imprisonment and fine whosoever withdrew himself from the service of the trainbands.  The trainbands were a militia, recruited from the middle and lower classes, serving gratis, which in Elizabeth’s reign furnished, on the approach of the Armada, one hundred and eighty-five thousand foot-soldiers and forty thousand horse.

The two clerks made a fresh bow to the throne, after which the under-clerk, again half turning his face to the Commons, said,—­

“La Reine le veut.”

The third bill was for increasing the tithes and prebends of the Bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry, which was one of the richest in England; for making an increased yearly allowance to the cathedral, for augmenting the number of its canons, and for increasing its deaneries and benefices, “to the benefit of our holy religion,” as the preamble set forth.  The fourth bill added to the budget fresh taxes—­one on marbled paper; one on hackney coaches, fixed at the number of eight hundred in London, and taxed at a sum equal to fifty-two francs yearly each; one on barristers, attorneys, and solicitors, at forty-eight francs a year a head; one on tanned skins, notwithstanding, said the preamble, the complaints of the workers in leather; one on soap, notwithstanding the petitions of the City of Exeter and of the whole of Devonshire, where great quantities of cloth and serge were manufactured; one on wine at four shillings; one on flour; one on barley and hops; and one renewing for four years “the necessities of the State,” said the preamble, “requiring to be attended to before the remonstrances