A Short History of Parliament

Preface

. The idea of writing a short history of Parliament was first suggested to me by Mr. F. S. Pulling, of Exeter, who at one time I thought would have shared in the work. Circumstances, however, prevented this, and the book ultimately assumed a somewhat different form from that projected at first. The object with which it was written was the hope of imparting a certain amount of life to the dry bones which are strewn in the way of the constitutional student, and of combining instruction with a certain amount of amusement. Whether the effort has been successful or not the reader must judge for himself. I must here take the opportunity to render my acknow ledgments to Mr. F. York Powell, Mr. C. H. Carmichael, and Mr. A. B. Beaven for the kind assistance which they have rendered me — especially the latter, who undertook the laborious task of revising the whole of the MS. dealing with the period after 1660.

I am indebted to the kindness of Sir George Sitwell for a very early illustration of parliamentary corruption — an isolated evidence but sufficiently pregnant of meaning. Extract from the will of Nicholas Stathum, Esq., of Preface. IV Morley, co. Derby, dated 15 July, 1472, and proved on the fifth of August in the same year in the prerogative court Canterbury. "Item, I received \os. of . . . Bemont a worshippful Squier of the West Country by the hands of Page in the last Parleament. I did nothing there . . and if I did, it is against my conscience for so moche as I was one of the Parleament and should be indifferent in every matter of the Parleament, I will he have it ageyne." Oxford, 1SS6.

Chapter I. Formation Of Parliament

Section i. — Folk-moots and Witena-gembts. THE earliest form of National Assembly known to English History differed very considerably in character from the modern Talking Machine which sills so many columns of the daily papers with its proceedings. Yet the connection between the Parliament and the Anglo-Saxon tribal meetings of freeholders (Folk-moot) is so intimate that the historian is justified in declar ing that the former is but the latter transfigured and glorified almost beyond all recognition. Generations of different architects have built, restored, improved on the original design with untiring perseverance and zeal, have reared a huge square keep in the centre, have girdled it with successive circles of ramparts, bas tions, and towers, have faced it with vast earthworks of the most approved modern construction, and dug deep ditches to bar the onset of the rude invader.

Yet, though lost to sight, almost to memory, buried deeply amid the medley of later forms and styles, there lies somewhere in the centre the solid Saxon masonry of the original foundation from which the completed structure has really sprung. The history of the British Parliament is in fact a record of continual growth, of wise and judicious pruning and training, of constantly increasing energy and strength at each successive development. i; It possesses therefore a curious interest, not merely for those who desire to study the most important and most interesting branch of the history of their country, but also for the intelligent historical student of every age and race. For it is unique in the annals of the nations. Diets and Dietines, Things, States-General, Estates of every kind and tongue, which may be regarded as foreign equivalents for some form of a Parliament, have existed at different times in most of the European countries, and, springing from the same origin as the Saxon Folk-moot, were gradually dwarfed by the growth and stifled by the baleful shadow of des potic monarchies or aristocracies, till they drooped and died pre maturely, or survived ingloriously to draw on a wasted, shrunken existence in an unhealthy atmosphere that was fatal to whole some life.

The present century, it is true, has witnessed a great outburst or renaissance of constitutional forms and representative assemblies on the Continent ; but they have sprung full-grown from the heads of their creators, they are in no sense the result of natural development, and in most cases they were directly borrowed, with suitable or unsuitable modifications, from the English Parliament itself. The modern form of the English Par liament is, however, essentially the result of growth, and of growth in a favourable atmosphere under natural conditions. Its history therefore possesses the unique attraction and advantage, that it retraces its way step by step, without a single stop or break, right back to the very origin of the English nation, and far beyond, till it fades faintly away in the dim mists of prehistoric time.

It will be enough, however, for the purpose at present in view if we content ourselves with a very brief sketch of the earlier assemblies, as a slight introduction to the more important chapters of parliamentary history which follow. The Anglo-Saxon Witena-gemdt, or Meeting of the Wise Men, in its historical form, was an assembly of the important officials of the kingdom, summoned by special invitation from the king to meet at the place where he might happen to be staying. Their business was to advise him with regard to the government of the kingdom ; and they probably expressed their opinions pretty freely on all subjects, though it by no means follows that it produced much effect. It was an understood rule, that no new laws, and nothing affecting a man's life or property, should be imposed without the consent of the people, which was obtained in later days by consulting a fairly large assembly of the freeholders ; but, as a rule, the king's opinion had very considerable weight in the more ordinary administrative business, as perhaps was natural.

Of course, all this must have varied considerably with the character and personal authority of individual kings ; in the weak reign of Edward the Confessor, for instance, the king's opinion was not by any means so much thought of as that of powerful and popular nobles like Godwine, Leofric, and Siward. There was one right, however, which the Witan were always par ticular about— the appointment ofthe heir to the Crown. Some times this was done during the king's lifetime, at his special request ; but the usual thing was to wait till his death, and then elect his eldest son, if of age and capable, or, if not, some one else from the royal family — generally the late king's younger brother. The rights of the Witan tended to become pure formalism after the Conquest, for the Norman kings were practically absolute, and they legislated, taxed, and ruled at pleasure, unchecked by any thing save the fear of rebellion.

The forms ofthe Saxon Constitu tion were preserved, it is true, and during the Conqueror's reign the Witan met about three times a year. But they did not do much ; they were far more like a court or levee, for purposes of display than a business-like affair, though ' they undoubtedly^/ transact business now and then. The actual government of the country, however, was carried on by a much smaller body, which consisted roughly of the principal barons and bishops and some professional assistants, and was known by various names, such as the Ordinary Council, or the King's Court. But it is important to remember that under every form and title it was regarded simply as representing the Witan ; the rights which it exercised were the rights of the Witan, its members were all members of the Witena-gemdt as well, and its powers and existence merged wholly in those of the Witan when the latter assembled.

The fiction, in short, was, that the Witan governed the country ; the fact was, that this permanent commis sion did. The importance of this fiction was, however, unusually great, for it enabled the National Council to preserve powers which it must otherwise have infallibly lost, and to reassert its authority later without any difficulty when it became stronger. After the death of the Conqueror, the regular yearly meetings of the Witan appear to have been dropped ; but we really know very little on the subject till the reign of Henry IL, when there was a great advance. The Witan were frequently summoned, and were consulted on business of every kind ; for Henry, conscious of his real power, and fully realizing the advantage he derived from the advice of prac tical men, never hesitated to ask for counsel when he required it.

Their legislative powers, however, were still very shadowy ; and the legal regulations or ordinances of Henry II. (Assizes) were as much due to the absolute will of the monarch solely, as the charters of the Norman kings were. The most decided advance is on the question of taxation, and this takes the form of an, as yet, extremely misty theory, that a man should not be taxed with out his own consent It is true that the king still initiates all fresh taxation ; that there is no record of a debate on finance till the reign of Richard I., and that individual opposition was no doubt, as a rule, overcome by force. But there are a few cases of distinct and successful refusal to contribute their share on the part of men high in office — such refusals being based simply on disapproval of the nature or objects of the tax ; but it seems probable that in such cases the only result of individual action was the exemption of the individual from the operation of the tax in question.

At the end of the twelfth century, therefore, the English Government was still practically a despotism, though its despotic character was considerably veiled by the constant use of con stitutional forms. The natural consequence, however, of the overwhelming strength of the Government, was the growth of a spirit of opposition, which as yet only manifested itself occasionally in isolated instances ; but might, under unusual pressure, develop into a powerful constitutional force. The misgovernment of John supplied the necessary pressure, and united the whole nation in a stern determination to place some restrictions on the power which had been so grossly abused. John was compelled to set his seal to a declaration which implies throughout that the royal power was not absolute, but limited by custom and the rights of the people.

This document is known as Magna Carta. The clauses dealing with the National Council were not, how ever, very extensive in scope. One of them declared that the Great Council was to consist of all the tenants-in-chief, the greater tenants being summoned by special writs addressed to them personally, the lesser by general writs addressed to the sheriffs, thus fixing the widest form of the Council as the legal one. The second clause prescribed that no aid or scutage, — a form of feudal taxation which hitherto had been levied purely at the pleasure of the king, — should be raised for the future without the consent of the National Council. Certain special classes of aids, which were recognised as within the king's right, but could only be levied on three definite occasions in each reign, were ordered to be taken at a reasonable rate.

Scanty as these pro visions were, they implied more than appeared on the sur face ; and though they were put in abeyance in the re-issues of the Charter, the principles they embodied survived. It was re cognised that taxation was not a right exercised by the king, but a concession granted by the people ; and this view was con firmed by a clause in the re-issue of 1225, stating that the king granted the rights contained in the Charter on consideration of a gift of money. Additional weight, moreover, was lent to this principle by the growth of taxation on movables, which affected all, and which could be based on no feudal fiction of an aid due to the lord. Abundant evidence, moreover, exists of the reality of this principle in the frequent debates on taxation which occur during the reign of Henry III., and numerous positive refusals on the part of the barons to grant money, on the ground of extravagance and misgovernment.

The theory, however, that consent was necessary to taxation, stopped short as yet at the tenants-in-chief. The feudal council still insisted on its right to bind the realm ; and if the king occasionally consulted the shire courts on taxation, it was only in the hope of gaining more by private bargain with them than had been granted by the Council. The reign of Henry III. was, in fact, one long struggle becween the king and the barons, on the subject of taxation and the appointment and position of ministers — the former endeavouring to reassert the old view, that money could be raised at the royal pleasure, the latter striving to maintain the modern theory, that it could not be levied without the consent of the National Council, and yet yielding again and again to the insatiate demands of the king.

At last, however, continued misgovernment and over taxation culminated in a crisis similar to that which had produced Magna Carta. The barons in the Parliament of Oxford, 1258, under the leadership of the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester demanded from the king a long list of reforms, including the appointment of a small permanent ministerial council, to which was to be entrusted the entire management of the government and control of taxation. To this demand the king was obliged to assent. The new system, however, was bad in itself; it narrowed con siderably the already too narrow limits of the legislative and financial council ; it reduced the royal authority almost to a shadow ; and it handed over almost all power to a small com mittee of a particular class, who had had no experience as yet in government, and must infallibly quarrel among themselves.

It is not singular, therefore, that it fell to pieces almost im mediately. Section 2. — Simon de Montfort. Simon de Montfort, the second son of the Simon de Montfort renowned in the Albigensian Crusade, was by accident of birth a foreigner, though descended in the female line from English nobles. The elder Simon had inherited from his mother certain claims to the English earldom of Leicester, which by special arrangement were transmitted to his second son. During his early career the younger Simon gave little promise of fulfilling the part of patriot and statesman which he subsequently assumed. He was high in favour with Henry III. He even incurred the resentment of the barons by a secret marriage with Henry's sister Eleanor. But the king was fickle and changeable. He quarrelled with Montfort as he had quarrelled with Hubert de Burgh before, equally without reason ; only, however, to as suddenly and unaccountably restore him to favour in a very brief space of time, conferring on him the government of Gascony.

Skill and severity combined enabled Simon to restore temporary order to this turbulent province ; but, at the same time, created for him many enemies, and gave Henry a fresh opportunity of showing his ingratitude and folly. Giving ear to the complaints of the Gascons — his own enemies and Simon's — he dismissed the earl with bitter insult, only to find himself compelled shortly after to supplicate his assistance as the one hope of preserving Gascony to the English Crown. From the return of Simon to England in 1254, he played an important, though at first unconspicuous, part in the history of this country. His merits were beginning to be recognised ; and his rise, though slow and almost unobserved, was steady and sure. He had many claims to be ranked as a leader. In Gascony he had shown himself a statesman and general of no ordinary skill.

Past history proved that in the pursuit of right he would go far and fearlessly, even in defiance of the royal will. Above all, it was felt that he could be trusted, that he would remain firm to the very death in the course he had chosen, that not all the terrors of this world or the next would turn him from his plighted word. It was natural therefore that he should take a prominent part in the crisis of 1258, though in the settlement arranged at Oxford his views were overborne by the ambition and interest of the other barons. It seems impossible that he could have approved of the oligarchy they proposed to establish ; it is even stated by one authority that he expressed his dis approval with considerable vigour. When therefore it became evident that the views of his colleagues were purely personal, that, satisfied with having obtained the government, they would not proceed to reforms, that their incapacity and selfishness would enable the king to reassert his old position, then Simon broke with them entirely, and stood forth as the champion of con stitutional reform.

This split in the baronial camp was followed by a complete rearrangement of parties. Many of the barons joined the king forthwith ; some few only remained faithful to Simon. His greatest strength, however, lay in the towns ; and it was their assistance alone which enabled him to resist the growing power of Henry, who was supported by the majority of the baronage, the excommunications of {he Pope, and the favour of the King of France. Civil war broke out at last ; but, over matched as he was, Earl Simon contrived by superior generalship to inflict a severe defeat on the royal army at Lewes, May 14, 1264, which gave the king into his hands as a prisoner, and made him master of the kingdom. A new scheme of government was at once drawn up, with the assistance of a Parliament assembled at London, at which representatives of the counties were present.

The supreme power was still to reside in the king, but he was to exercise it only with the consent of a Permanent Council of nine, nominated at first, and to be supervised for a while, by Three Electors, of whom the Earl of Leicester was naturally one. These councillors were to hold office during good behaviour. In theory this form of government was excellent, in practice it would have worked badly ; for the electors were all partisans of Earl Simon, the councillors were merely his nominees, and the government was thus committed into the hands of a small party, to the exclusion of the great majority of the realm. That part of the scheme, however, which marks the most decided advance in constitutional principles was the enlargement of the limits of the National Council. To the Parliament of 1265, in addition to his baronial and ecclesiastical partisans, Montfort summoned two knights from every shire through the sheriffs, and two burgesses from every borough through the officers of the borough, not merely for the grant of taxation, but for the general discussion of public business.

It was no doubt the scanty numbers of his baronial supporters, and the sturdy assistance furnished to him by the democracy, which supplied the motive more than any definite plan of political science; but the fact invests the assembly of 1265 with unusual importance as a broad landmark in constitutional and parlia mentary history. Not that there was anything new in the idea of representation ; the representative system had long been in use in the local courts of the nhires and hundreds for the transaction of business, or in the calling of representatives to the National Council; they had occasionally been summoned before during this century, though at long intervals, chiefly with a view to a grant of money. The importance of this assembly lies in the distinction definitely drawn between shire and borough as political units, and in the recognition of the right of the people, not merely to be consulted on their own taxation, but also to share, however faintly, in the general government of the kingdom.

The first definite enunciation of this important constitutional doctrine is the real boon which England owes, to Simon de Montfort ; for it survived and proved fruitful in influence long after he and the Constitution he had sought to establish were ruined and destroyed. The fact, however, that this assembly was not a general convention of the tenants-in-chief or the three estates, destroys its title to be considered the first Parliament in the eyes of Dr. Stubbs Events moved rapidly in 1265. Quarrels broke out among the baronial leaders. Ambition, envy, personal hatred, returning loyalty, discontent, treachery, and headstrong rashness, all whirled together in a mad walpurgis dance, which ended in the rout at Evesham and the death of Earl Simon. Henry III. reascended his throne in triumph, and for a while it seemed as though the great patriot had lived and died in vain.

Perhaps, however, it was best for his own fame, and best for England, that he died when he did. He could not have ruled better than Edward I., and he might have ruled far worse. He had all the experience which Edward brought in later years to the government of the country, but he could never have ruled independently of party, and he must in the long run have relied chiefly upon force to maintain his position against the royalists. Section 3. — The First Parliament. In the case of Earl Simon the good that he did lived after him, the evil only was buried with his bones. The weaker parts of his Constitution fell to pieces at his death, the stronger alone survived him. He had set an example and fostered a growing principle. They remained, working steadily and silently on the expectation of the people, and waiting for the new generation, to whose eyes they would come unsoiled by the passions and the bloodshed of the civil war.

It is scarcely rash to assert that, when Edward I. ascended the throne, the principle was indisputably established that no man ought to be taxed without his own con sent, though there were almost insuperable difficulties in the way of maintaining this right if the king chose to ignore it ; and that the most convenient and satisfactory way of obtaining the consent of the realm on the subject of taxation was by summoning some form of representative council on the model of that assembled by Earl Simon in 1265, though the exact form was as yet a matter of considerable uncertainty. Thus it is evident that it depended in no small measure on the character of the king whether the principle would be allowed any active vitality. It was therefore extremely fortunate that Edward I. was essentially a lawyer, with a lawyer's respect for forms and precedents, a man utterly in tolerant of any uncertainty or vagueness in legal matters, with a real delight in his necessary task of defining and fixing, and, so to speak, crystallizing the formless, almost half-liquid, institutions of which the administrative system was composed, preferring to act invariably in a regular and formal manner, and considering himself as much bound by his own acts as any modern judge of the Queen's Bench would-be by his own decisions.

It is difficult to praise him much without really over-rating him, and yet to de cry or depreciate him is to do him less than justice. He intended undoubtedly to fix the Constitution on a firm basis, he intended to build up a strong and good government ; but he certainly did not intend the government he actually created, far less to impose so many restrictions on the royal power. It seems almost as though he had a hobby for arranging things in boxes and pigeon holes, with dockets and labels, hardly realizing that he was deal ing, not with inert masses of matter, but with chemical bodies, which, if rashly brought together, would perhaps unite to form a new substance of unknown properties that might destroy its own creator, if incautiously handled. Therefore, while fully crediting Edward with the great work that he actually completed — namely, the formation of a constitutional monarchy — it is impossible to admit that he intended to create more than an orderly despotism.

Circumstances, however, were too strong for him. Men and in stitutions refused alike to obey his will to the full ; sometimes they moved farther than he had designed, sometimes they stopped half-way, and stood, like Atlas, unremoved, defiant of coercion. So in the end he found perhaps, with some faint tinge of the feeling which oppressed the unhappy Frankenstein, that instead of the mere machine he had projected, he had created an organic being, instinct with vigorous life, which could act independently of its creator's will with superhuman strength that mocked his own. As might be expected, Edward did not long leave the National Council in the uncertain, shapeless state in which he found it, halting undecidedly between the Constitutions of 1215 and 1265. Like everything else which he handled, he soon impressed it with a definite stamp, which, with slight modifications, it still bears at the present day.

It is this which entitles Edward to the credit of the formation of Parliament. At first, however, matters are terribly vague. It is not till 1282 that we can speak with any certainty, and then it becomes clear that Edward has at last realized the convenience of sum moning representatives from the country to speak in the name of the people and grant him money. This tardy awakening was due to the large expenses of the Welsh war and the utterly in adequate amount of the ordinary feudal revenue. It became necessary to ask for a general grant on movable property, and this could be best done in some really representative National Council. The result was, that between 1282-94, Edward devised a variety of experiments, none of which appear to have satisfied him so well as that which is recorded in the year 1295, the result being that the latter ultimately formed the model on which future Parliaments were moulded.

The first experiment was of an extremely singular nature. In 1282 the National Council met in three divisions at three different places ; and each division acted, to all intents and purposes, independently of the others. This expedient was prompted partly by necessity, partly by convenience, partly no doubt by the hope of lessening the chances of resistance. The barons, in fact, were with the king in Wales ; it was therefore impossible for them to be present at a Parliament held in England ; it was equally im possible to hold it at the seat of war. By appointing two meeting places for the rest of the realm, the king certainly lessened the inconvenience and expense for those summoned to attend ; while by dividing the resistance, he undoubtedly diminished at once the probability and the strength of it.

The towns appointed in the summons were York and Northampton; and to them were summoned the higher clergy, the representatives of the lower clergy, four knights from each shire, and two representatives from each borough and market town. In this Parliament we get a glimpse of an idea which was peculiarly Edward's own — the representation of the lower clergy in Parliament — but which was destined to failure owing to the stubborn opposition of the clergy themselves. In 1283 another anomalous assembly was summoned to Shrewsbury, including the barons, prelates, two knights from each shire, and two representatives apiece from twenty-one speci fied cities and boroughs ; the representatives of the lower clergy were not summoned on this occasion. In 1290 a purely feudal assembly of bishops and barons was summoned to impose an aid which fell solely on the tenants-in-chief, and therefore might be supposed to lie within the competence of such a council.

Later in the year, however, it was reinforced by the addition of two knights from each shire, no doubt in order that it might confer a more general grant of a fifteenth of all movables. There is no distinct record that representatives were present at the Parliaments of 1292, 1293, though they may have been. In 1294, however, to a great Parliament assembled in October at Westminster, Edward summoned, in addition to the magnates, four knights from each shire. In 1295, however, he went further. Stating definitely as the grounds of his action that "what affected all should have the consent of all," he called together a complete representative assembly of all the estates of the realm, based primarily on the model of the Council of 1265. The barons and higher clergy were summoned individually by special writs addressed to each personally.

The bishops' summons wound up with an injunction (the premunienles clause) that they should cause the lower clergy to elect proctors to represent them in Parliament. General writs, moreover, were addressed to the sheriffs, ordering them to pro cure the election of two knights for their shire, and two citizens, or burgesses, for every city or borough within their shire. This assembly differed materially from all that had preceded it ; it formed a model on which subsequent Parliaments were based ; and it is this fact which has earned for it the name of the Model Parliament. For though many anomalous assemblies were held at intervals after this date, and the parliamentary representation of the lower clergy became in a very short time a dead letter ; yet the assembly of 1295 undoubtedly was a pattern to which the later custom of Parliament conformed, as a rule, in all essential points of summons, constitution, and forms of proceeding.

In the opinion of Dr. Stubbs, that year established such a precedent that no assembly subsequent to that date can be regarded as a Parliament at all unless it conforms in the minutest details to the rules then laid down. It is as well to notice, however, that though the fiat of the Bishop of Chester has fixed the date of the first Parliament at the year 1295, yet the term " Parliament " itself is far older than that date, and had no special technical meaning to contemporary his torians. To them it simply meant a palaver, or talking assembly, and was a word of Italian origin, used as the translation of colloquium. It was frequently employed by the chroniclers of the thirteenth century to designate assemblies far different in constitution from a Parliament in the legal sense of the term, and among others it was applied to the council appointed by the barons at Oxford, 1258.