336 HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

chat. grant a pardon to Danby; and , in order totxvu. screen the chancellor from all attacks by theI679 - commons, he had taken the great seal into hisown hands , and had himself affixed it to theparchment. He told the parliament , that , asDanby had acted in every thing by his orders,he was in no respect criminal; that his pardon,however, he would insist upon; and if it shouldbe found any wife defective in form, he wouldrenew it again and again , till it should be ren-dered entirely complete: But that he was resolv-ed to deprive him of all employments, and toremove him from court.

The commons were nowise satisfied with•this concession. They pretended, that no pardonof the crown could be pleaded in bar of animpeachment by the commons. The prerogativeof mercy had hitherto been understood to bealtogether unlimited in the king; and this pre-tension of the commons, it must be confessed,was entirely new. It was however not unsuitableto the genius of a monarchy, strictly limited;where the king’s ministers are supposed to befor ever accountable to national assemblies, evenfor such abuses of power as they may commitby orders from their master. The present emer-gency, while the nation was so highly inflamed,was the proper time for pushing such popularclaims ; and the commons failed not to availthemselves of this advantage. They still insistedon the impeachment of Danby. The peers, incompliance with them, departed from their former

scruples,