The Na ment gradually wins back an active con trol over all the nation. CHAPTER VIII. GROWTH OF PARLIAMENT. (1295-1399.) 23 EDWARD I.; EDWARD II.; EDWARD III.; RICHARD II. WE have seen that under Edward I. the Commune Concilium tional Parlia- Regni, which for a time, after the Norman Conquest, had been absorbed into the feudal Curia Regis, again emerged as a really national Parliament, in which all the political elements of the nation were present either in person or by representation. But the affairs of although complete in its representative character, Parliament had yet, as a whole, to make good its powers; and the newly admitted Commons to vindicate their right to an equal, and ultimately to a preponderating, share in the government of the country. The king was at all times in theory bound to act with the "counsel and consent " of the great Assembly of the Nation. But by the overthrow of the old feudal party under Henry II., and the break-up of the new National combination which, until the death of De Montfort, had successfully opposed the misgovernment of Henry III., the king had in reality acquired and exercised, through the medium of his Continual or Ordinary Council, a power little less than despotic. In the growth of Parliament, from the date of its definite establishment under Edward I., we shall trace the process by which the National Council gradually won back that active control over all the affairs of the nation, which the ancient Witenagemot always, and even the feudal Great Councils at times, had undoubtedly exercised.1 Parliament divided into two Houses. The exact date of the division of Parliament into two Houses is not quite clear, but it was completely effected before the middle 1 The comprehensive functions of the Witan have already been discussed, supra, pp. 26, 27. Freeman (Norm. Conq., ii. 90) cites an instance of a debate in the Witenagemot under Edward the Confessor, on a question of war or peace. An early instance of control by the national council over the public expenditure had occurred a few years previously, in 1237, when the thirtieth granted to the king as the price of one of his numerous confirmations of the Charter had been paid into the hand of four of the barons to be expended at their discretion "for the benefit of the king and kingdom."-Matt. Paris, 581, 582. Commons, voted with the bur of the fourteenth century.1 It must be borne in mind that the Two eleCommons consisted of two elements, the knights of the shire and ments of the the burgesses. The knights belonged socially to the same class knights and as the barons, and had, moreover, originally possessed an equal burgesses. The knights right with them to attend in person. On the introduction of at first delicounty representation the knights of the shire, although elected berated and not merely by the immediate tenants of the king, but by all the the barons, freeholders of the county, naturally continued to sit, deliberate, apart from and vote with the greater barons. But the representatives gesses. of boroughs, belonging to a lower social grade, and entering Parliament in virtue of a newly acquired right, formed from the first a distinct assembly, deliberating and voting apart. Whether they sat in a separate chamber, or at the bottom of Westminster Hall, while the lords and knights occupied the upper end, is a matter of little importance. The separation of the burgesses is evident from the grants of subsidies which, 1 The first mention in the Rolls of Parliament of a separate session occurs in 1332 (Rot. Parl., ii. 66). From 1339 the division may be regarded as permanent. In 1352 the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey was the Chamber of the Commons (Rot. Parl., ii. 237; Stubbs, Const. Hist., iii. 444, 445). The advantages of the "Bi-cameral system as a guarantee for orderly and permanent government have been forcibly stated by the American writers, Kent, Story, and Lieber, and by Jeremy Bentham and Bowyer in our own country. A brief summary of them is given in Sir Edward Creasy's Eng. Const., 198. But it should be noted that it was only the accidental circumstance of the withdrawal of the clergy from all interference in secular legislation that prevented us from having, as was generally the case in continental constitutions, three houses of Nobles, Clergy, and Commons. (Supra, pp. 201, 202). Stubbs (Const. Hist., ii. 198) points out that there was even at one time a possibility that the lawyers and the merchants might have been grouped in separate sub-estates. [On the Division of Parliament into two Houses," cj. Gneist, Hist. Engl. Const., 376, seq.; Hallam, M. A., vol. iii. p. 38; Hannis Taylor, Origin of Engl. Const., 479; and L. O. Pike, Const. Hist. of House of Lords, p. 322, who says: Various opinions have been advanced in relation to the time at which the Lords and Commons began to sit in two separate Houses. " It is difficult to prove when a permanent physical barrier was set between the two Houses it is easy to show that the two assemblies were always distinct."-ED.] 2 [The late Editor, Mr. Carmichael, took exception at this statement; it seems, however, likely that the knights of the shire were often at Parliament in a twofold capacity, and deliberated as gentz du conseil du roi and actually often voted with the barons. Cf. the following extract from Gneist, Hist. Engl. Const., p. 379, note: In 6 Edward III. it was laid down that the clergy deliberates for itself, the earls, barons, and other grantz for themselves. The ordinances which had been proposed (for the maintenance of the peace) were approved by the king, the prelates, earls, barons, and other grantz, and by the knights and gentz du commun. But thereupon the commons and the clergy are dismissed; the prelates, earls, barons and gentz du conseil du roi remain behind, as the king requires their advice on important matters (Peers' Report, i. 304). In the following Parliament, 6 Edw. III., the prelates deliberate alone; the earls, barons, et autres grauntz alone and the knights of the shire alone. Then the money grant is taken; prelates, earls, barons, et autres grauntz and then the knights of the shire et tote la coe (Rep. App., iv. 411). Cf. also Clifford, Private Bill Legisl., i. 275.—ED.] Union of knights and burgesses in one House. Important consequences of this union. A nobility, but no noble caste in England. for many years after the introduction of the Commons, were voted in different proportions by (1) the earls, barons, and knights, (2) the clergy, and (3) the citizens and burgesses.1 There is reason to believe that the knights, even while still voting apart, occasionally joined with the burgesses in petitions. In the 8th of Edward II. (1315) "the Commons of England [in another part of the record they are termed "le people "] complain to our lord the king and his council;" and there are several other petitions in the 19th of the same king, from the body of the Commons in Parliament (voz liges gentz... pur tote la Com[m]une, les gentz de la Com[m]une de vostre Roialme). At length, in 1347, we find the Commons, without distinction, granting two-fifteenths from the cities, boroughs, ancient demesnes of the Crown, and the counties. The complete fusion of the two elements of the Lower House into one assembly,the result of one of those unions of happy accident and practical wisdom to which the English Constitution owes so much— was fraught with the most important consequences. The knights, who represented the landed property of the country, gave to the House of Commons, from the first, stability, weight, and permanence, and obtained for it a respect which the citizens and burgesses alone could not have commanded, in a country so permeated with feudal ideas as England then was. Without the knights of the shire the burgesses would have been mere deputies to consent to taxation and advise on matters of trade; united with them on equal terms, they were enabled at once to claim a voice in the government of the nation, and to defend the liberties of the people against both king and nobles. The commingling of the knights and burgesses in a single House was rendered possible by the existence in the English Constitution of a peculiarity which most prominently and honourably distinguished it from nearly every kindred Constitution in Europe,— the absence of an exclusive noble caste. In most of the Continental States the nobles formed a distinct class, distinguished, by privileges inherent in their blood, from ordinary freemen, and transmitting their privileges, and in some countries their 1 In 1296, the barons and knights and the clergy gave each a twelfth, the burgesses an eighth; in 1305 the barons and knights and the clergy gave a thirtieth, the burgesses a twentieth; in 1308 the barons and knights gave a twentieth, the clergy and the burgesses each a fifteenth. In the 6th of Edward III. (1333) the rates were for the barons and knights and the clergy a fifteenth, for the burgesses a tenth; but on this occasion the knights and burgesses deliberated, although they did not vote, in common. In 1345 the knights granted two-fifteenths, the burgesses one-fifth, while the lords promised to follow the king in person and granted nothing.—Parl. Hist., i. 206; Rot. Parl., ii. 66. 2 Rot. Parl., i. 439. 3 "C'est là," remarks M. Guizot, "le grand fait qui a décidé la destinée politique de l'Angleterre. Il y eut un grand corps de nation indépendant et du roi et des grands seigneurs."-Hist. du Gouvern., Rep. ii. 276. titles also, to all their descendants in perpetuity. The words "nobleman" and "gentleman" were strictly synonymous; the Estate of the Nobles (wherever the system of estates obtained) represented in the National Assembly not only the high nobility, but the class who in England formed the "landed gentry," and the Commons, the Tiers Etat, consisted almost exclusively of citizens and burgesses. In England, on the contrary, the privileges of nobility have always, except perhaps in the days of the ancient Eorlas, been confined to one only of the family at a time, the actual possessor of the peerage. The sons of peers are commoners, and on a perfect equality, as regards legal and political privileges, with the humblest citizen. Even the eldest son, the heir to the peerage, though he may bear a title by courtesy, is still, so long as his father lives, a commoner like his younger brothers.1 No restraint seems ever to have lain upon the free intermarriage of all ranks. The highest offices of the State were always legally open to all freemen. All ranks, Civil moreover, have at all times borne a share of the public burthens equality of without claiming any of those unjust exemptions from taxation below the which the Continental noblesse habitually enjoyed. Few things are more important in our early Constitution, or have exercised a more potent and beneficial influence upon the political and social condition of the people, than this civil equality of all ranks below the peerage. Had it been otherwise, the House of Commons could scarcely have become what it is at the present day. "The knight of the shire was the connecting link between the baron and the shopkeeper. On the same benches on which sat the goldsmiths, drapers, and grocers, who had been returned 1 "As the Law of England knows all classes of men except peers and commoners, it follows that the younger children of the king-the eldest is born Duke of Cornwall-are, in strictness of speech, commoners, unless they are personally raised to the peerage. I am not aware that either case has ever arisen, but I conceive that there is nothing to hinder a king's son, not being a peer, from voting at an election, or from being chosen to the House of Commons, and I conceive that, if he committed a crime, he would be tried by a jury."-Freeman Growth of Eng. Const., 193, 195. [As against this statement of Prof. Freeman, it is necessary to point out that while members of the blood royal may not be " peers " in the sense of "lords of Parliament," yet they were pares " by reason of their birth. Gneist, Const. Hist., p. 353, remarks: "The precedence of the royal house and the higher dignities could not possibly be disputed by the lower ranks of the peerage."-ED.] 2 "It was regarded as no disparagement for the daughter of a duke, nay, of a royal duke, to espouse a distinguished commoner. Thus Sir John Howard married the daughter of Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, Sir Richard Pole married the Countess of Salisbury, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence. Good blood was indeed held in high respect; but between good blood and the privileges of peerage, there was, most fortunately for our country, no necessary connection. There was therefore here no line like that which in some other countries divided the patrician from the plebeian. Our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the world."-Macaulay, Hist. Eng., i. 30, 31. all ranks peerage. Gradual growth of the powers of the Commons. Edward II. 1307-1327. The Lords to Parliament by the commercial towns, sat also members who, But the growth of the powers of the Commons has been very gradual. At first the burgesses deferred to their aristocratic associates, the knights of the shire, and these naturally followed the lead of the barons. Under Edward II., jealousy of the successive favourites, Gaveston and the Spencers, threw the baronage into chronic opposition to the king; and on two occasions, in 1312 and again in 1321, drove them into open revolt. The ultimate deposition of the king was also mainly the work of the barons acting in concert with the queen. But it is noteworthy that in all these proceedings the sanction of Parliament was always regarded as necessary to legalise them; and the Commons, while acting in subservience to the Lords, were in reality gradually consolidating their own power. The appointment of the "Lords Ordainers" (twenty-one in number), in 1310, like the previous appointment of similar committees in the reigns of John and Henry III., and of the subsequent commissions of reform under Richard II., was an extraordinary and revolutionary remedy to meet exceptional circumstances. At the time when kings governed as well as reigned, their personal character was of the utmost importance. The practical effect to the nation was much the same 1 "It was decided by votes of Parliament, both in the reign of Henry VIII. and in that of Elizabeth, that the eldest son of the Earl of Bedford was entitled to sit in the House of Commons."-Earl Russell, Eng. Gov. and Const., II. 2 Macaulay, Hist. Eng., i. 38. the 3 May, Const. Hist., ii. 83; see also Freeman, Growth of Eng. Const., 96. The difference between the House of Commons as representing whole community of England and the House of Lords as representing only themselves, is strongly insisted upon by the writer of the " Modus Tenendi Parliamentum." The date of this treatise is uncertain, but it "is found in manuscripts of the 14th century, and is shown by contemporary writs and records to be a fairly credible account of the state of Parliament under Edward II." (Stubbs, Select Chart., 492--502.) 4 Bp. Stubbs (Const. Hist., ii. 342, n. 2]) says: "Hallam was mistaken in supposing that the Commons co-operated" in the appointment. |