ABSTRACT
James clashed at once with the House of Commons. In 1604 he ordered the Court of Chancery to declare the election of Sir Francis Goodwin from Buckinghamshire null and void, alleging that he was ineligible as an outlaw. James’s action was not unprecedented, for Chancery had decided disputed election returns in Elizabeth’s reign. It was the Commons who acted in a radical manner by declaring Goodwin lawfully elected and by demanding the right to decide their own election returns. James exacerbated the
quarrel by telling the Commons that they derived their privileges from him. is provoked them to draw up The Form of Apology and Satisfaction, in which they declared that they held their privileges by right, not by the grace of the King, and that they, not Chancery, were to decide election returns. e Commons never actually presented the Apology to James, but they did, aer much bargaining, persuade him to agree that the House of Commons was a proper judge of its own returns, thereby acknowledging a principle important to the independence of any legislative body.
