member for Lancaster, and in the first two years of the reign of Charles the First, for Great Bedwin, in Wiltshire. He was one of the committee for forming articles of impeachment against the Duke of Buckingham, and was appointed one of the managers at his proposed trial. He was one of the firmest and most distinguished opposers of the unconstitutional measure of levying money on the authority of the prerogative, and pleaded for Hampden, who had been imprisoned for refusing to pay the ship-money. It was now that his opposition to the corruptions of the government took a decided form; and, on all important discussions in parliament, he was looked up to, and listened to, with the greatest reverence. In consequence of the weight of his opinion with the house, and the influence of his speeches on their decisions, the government found it expedient to take measures to prevent his attendance; and, in consequence, a charge of having uttered seditious expressions was preferred against him, and he was committed to the Tower in

March, 1628.

A

When he had been imprisoned some months, it was proposed that he should be discharged on giving security for his future good conduct; but this he would not accede to, and was therefore removed to the King's Bench prison. prosecution in the Star Chamber was soon after commenced against him for the publication of an alleged libel, this was a work written by Sir Robert Dudley, in the reign of James, under the title of 'A Proposition for his Majesty's Service, to Bridle the Impertinence of Parliaments.'. By the favour of some powerful friends his imprisonment was commuted for a nominal confinement in the Gatehouse, Westminster; which enabled him to retire into the country for about three months; he was then again committed to the King's Bench, and remained there until May, 1631, when he was admitted to bail, and continued to be bailed, from term to term, till July, 1634, when he was finally discharged without trial, having repeatedly pressed for a writ of Habeas Corpus without effect. During this period

the fruits of his literary occupations were four very learned treatises on Ancient Jewish Law.

The writers of the opposite party, though they do not dare openly attack a character like that of Selden, which is invulnerable to the stings of malice, yet they insinuate that he was a rebel, and that he for some time suppressed his invaluable and celebrated treatise, Mare Clausum seu de Dominio Maris,' out of pique for the affronts and persecutions he had suffered at the hands. of government. There does not appear to be any foundation for this assertion; as, before he was discharged, he took an active part in the management of the masque presented by the inns of court before the king and queen on Candlemas night, 1633; thus paying an agreeable compliment to them, and countenancing the king against the calumnies of the fanatical Prynne, who had fulminated in his Histriomastix against all dramatic representations, and had particularly inveighed against court masques and revelry; this was the more marked, as Prynne

was a great favourite with his party. In the year 1635, he published, at the king's express desire, his Mare Clausum,' written many years before in answer to Grotius, who, in his 'Mare Liberum,' had contended for the right of the Dutch to trade to the Indies, and to fish in the British seas; so important was the work esteemed to the interests of the kingdom, that 'Sir William Beecher, one of the clerks of the council, was sent with a copy of it to the barons of the exchequer, in the open court, that it might be by them laid up as a most inestimable jewel among the choice records which concerned the crown.' The court now looked upon him as a person worth the gaining; he was from this time a frequent and welcome guest at Lambeth house, and it was then generally believed that he might have chosen his own preferment in the state, had not his political opinions and practice remained inflexibly unchanged.

In the parliaments of 1640-1, he represented the University of Oxford, and was among the most distinguished of those in

opposition to the court; he joined in the measures for the prosecution of the Earl of Strafford, and Archbishop Laud; for this last part of his conduct he has been censured by some of his biographers, as disdaining the ties of private gratitude; it is true he had been in habits of intimacy with the prelate, but what were the obligations he had received from him, that should make him forget what he considered his duty to his country, we are not told.

In 1642, Charles wished to have made Selden Lord Chancellor, but he declined it upon the plea of ill health. This overture created a suspicion that he might be tampering with the royal party, and he was even accused of being privy to the design of Waller the poet, to deliver London into the hands of the king. But Waller being questioned whether Selden, Pierpoint, Whitelocke, and others, were acquainted with that plot; he answered, that they were not; but that he came one evening to Selden's study, where Pierpoint and Whitelocke then were with Selden, on purpose to impart it to them