■tf y& HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT OF 1688-9 PASSING OF THE REFORM BILL, in 1832. W. CHARLES TOWNSEND, Esq., A.M., RECORDER OF MACCLESFIELD. VOLUME I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1843. london : harrison and co., printers, st. martins' lane. j PREFACE. A popular History of the House of Commons, fur- m nishing biographical notices of those members who have - been most distinguished in its annals, and describing | the changes in its internal economy, powers, and privi- -' leges, appears to be still wanting in our literature. In vain we look for many a likeness in the national por- trait-gallery of senators who have achieved greatness within the walls of St. Stephen's Chapel; — the long • array of Speakers, lawyers, country gentlemen, and men of the sword, marshalled in the procession of England's worthies, seems far from complete. How little is comparatively known of those who claimed 5 precedence as first commoners in the land ! The name 2 of Powle, to whom belonged the peculiar honour of £! presiding over the Convention, sounds almost strangely oin our ears; Sir John Trevor is chiefly remembered by the erroneous statement of Granger, that he put the question to the vote on his own expulsion; of the virulent declaimer Foley, the scheming Lyttleton, the " one Smith," who occupied the chair of the first Par- liament of Great Britain, — scarcely more than a few | empty titles and barren dates are recorded! Nor have the great lawyers, who informed the debates with their constitutional knowledge, and whose a 2 IV PREFACE. merits are deeply graven in the statute-bonk, been more fortunate in obtaining an " honest chronicler." The venerable trimmer, Serjeant Maynard, exhibiting, in his eighty-eighth year, the very impersonation of Chaucer's portraiture of A Serjeant-at-law wary and wise, That oft had been at the pervise, There was also ; full of rich excellence, Discreet he was, and of great reverence; the " gentle Somers," who redeemed his learned bro- thers from the charge, too common in that age, of universal corruption; the tainted learning of Sawyer and Williams; the stout-hearted Price, who rescued by his eloquence so fair a portion of the principality from the prodigal gifts of King William; the black-letter Jacobite Sir Bartholomew Shower; the impetuous Lechmere, who harangued the House immediately on taking the oaths, and was facetiously objected to by a country gentleman, as not having a right to speak, not being at the time a sitting member; the much-quizzed Sir Joseph Jokyll, " that good old neutral member," — Who never changed his politics or wig, — deserve to be better known. Even the most exalted in professional rank, Cowper, Ilarcourt, King, Parker, have been consigned to the tender mercies of genea- logists, and compilers of peerages, instead of having their names written in characters that may be read in the Fasti of their country. Tin- history of the House itself is not less con- cealed from the popular gaze, locked up, as it were, in its voluminous Journals, State Trials, Parliamentary Debates, and Precedents of Ilatsell. Yet even by a PREFACE. V lover of light reading how much interest and amuse- ment may be found in a review of its former privileges; some obsolete, or retrenched, and some forgotten; of those hard-won rights to personal and deliberative freedom, which the progress of constitutional principles has sanctioned and matured; of its large powers both to reward and to punish ; of its power of impeachments, that ponderous instrument of the vengeance of the Commons, blunted by frequent and injudicious use; of its former vindictive expulsion of members, and tyranni- cal sentences on offenders kneeling at the bar! What singular changes have been wrought by Time, the great innovator, in the internal economy of the House — in the hours of meeting — in the frequency of attendance — in the length and importance of de- bates — in the number of members who take part in discussions — in the age of entering Parliament, in the increased intelligence of our legislators — in the order and decorum of proceedings — in the temper and tone of oratory — in its electrical power upon public opinion — in the crowded strangers' gallery — in the extent and variety of petitions ! The improved good sense of the grand inquest of the nation as a corporate body must be admitted by those who contrast the present wonders of reporting with the debates within closed doors, when all publica- tion of what passed was strictly forbidden, and Somers jotted down in pencil the heads of discourse upon the vote of abdication; or who compare the modern pub- licity of the short-hand writer with the stealthy notes taken by Cave and "Woodfall behind the gallery clock, and published, after an interval of six months, under Vi PREFACE. the disguise of Roman names. The well-regulated communication between the king and parliament — the subsidence of disputes and jealousies between the two branches of the legislature, once oscillating against each other — the reforms in our civil code — those anecdotes of legislation which illustrate manners — the course of criminal jurisprudence widening and deepen- ing, and becoming ensanguined in its hue, till arrested by a wise humanity — the decided improvement as a class in the representatives of the people, and their title to rank as the first assembly of gentlemen in Europe, — can scarcely fail to interest all who delight in literature, unless, indeed, the historian be unworthy of his theme. To fuse together these rich materials into one complete memorial, and present a graphic History of the Commons' House of Parliament is the design of the present work. It would have been too discursive, and occupied an inconvenient space, had it recounted at length the first struggles of " Goodman Burgess" with the Tudors, and his bold defiance of the Stuarts. A more recent period has therefore been selected? commencing with the Convention Parliament of 1688, and ending with the second parliament of King William IV., which suffered a total change in its constitutional character and constituency, when the royal assent was given to the Reform Bill. Within these two strongly-marked metes and bounds, the noble introduction and eventful close to modern parliamentary records, there is compre- hended a space of 144 years, which may be again subdivided into three distinguishing ceras. The first PREFACE. Vil includes a space of 39 years, from the abdication of James to the death of George I. in 1727, charac- terized by master spirits, critical events, and stirring debate. The second sera, a sort of mezzo-termino, comprehends the reign of George II., when men in office were corrupt, and public morals low, and the general topics of discourse resembled parish vestry discussions, but still a prosperous reign, the sound common sense of Walpole promoting, even by inglo- rious arts, the national welfare, and Chatham's genius rescuing the age from mediocrity. The regular publication of the debates, and troubles in America, usher in the last and most glorious epoch, the days of North and Burke — of Pitt and Fox — of Windham and Canning — of Tier- ney, and Brougham, and Peel, illustrated by oratory enduring as the language, and with memories of statesmen that can never die. This volume is dedicated to the first of these periods; a model of the House of Commons, as it was at the close of the seventeenth century — a monu- ment, however imperfect, to the sayings and deeds of those patriotic legislators, who framed the Bill of Rights, conquered France in her height of pride, established the Union with Scotland, secured the Protestant faith by the Act of Settlement, and with the Septennial Act confirmed the independence of the representatives of the people. Ergo ipsos quamvis angusti terminus sevi Excipiat neque enira plus septuma ducitur aetas At genus immortale manet, multosque per annos Stat Fortuna domus et avi numerantur avorum. Vll] PREFACE. A few sentences as to the execution of the first volume. The lives of all the speakers and lawyers have been recomposed, and in the decided majority of instances are new, a circumstance which may atone for some omissions and mistakes. It is hoped that the memoirs of Harley and Somers will not be considered even relatively too long by those who bear in mind how completely the one swayed the parlia- ments of King William, and the other those of Queen Anne. As we approach more closely to our own times, the characters of eminent statesmen are too well known and too ably recorded to require or justify similar diffuseness. The author has searched in vain no less for a complete history of the obsolete privileges of the House, than for a narrative, illustrated by examples, of the manner in which freedom of person and of speech has been impugned, advanced, and confirmed. He is far from flattering himself that he has supplied the deficiency, but for the attempt solicits indulgence. W. C. T. Toriungton Square, February, 1843. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. Tago A Retrospective History of the Speakers of the House of Commons who preceded the Revolution — Sir Thomas Hungerford — The first Parlour — Notices of Sir Peter de la Mare, Thorpe, and Sir John Tiptoft — Names not his- torical till the reign of Henry VII. — The chair then usurped hy lawyers — Dudley — Sir Thomas More — Sir Edward Coke — Formal excuses introduced under Henry V. — Ceremonial speeches marked by Eastern adulation and abject insincerity — Specimens of orations, pedantic and hollow, in Sir Richard Onslow and Serjeant Yelverton — Character of Lenthall — Slight respect paid to the Speaker under the military regime — Notices of Sir Harbottle Grimston, Sir Edward Turner, Sir Edward Seymour — Rank and emoluments of the Speaker — Increase of con- sideration . . . . . .1 CHAPTER II. Life of the first Speaker in the reign of William and Mary, Mr. Henry Powle; a leader of the country party in the Par- liaments of Charles II. — Specimens of his eloquence — One of the few Commoners in the king's first Privy Council — A manager of Lord Strafford's impeachment — Pensioner of Louis XIV. — Member of the Royal Society — At the Revolution unanimously chosen Speaker — Retirement to the Rolls and Death — Life of Sir John Trevor — Anecdotes of this servile and corrupt courtier — Justly expelled the House— Continued judge notwithstanding, till his death — A very good lawyer — Life of Mr. Paul Foley — Elected Speaker by a lucky accident — An artificer of grievances and bold declaimer — Life of Sir Thomas Littleton — Brought up to trade — One of the good old jobbing whigs — A complacent treasurer of the navy, and excellent man of business . . . . , .33 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. Tage Life of Robert Harley Earl of Oxford and Mortimer — Of a good family, inclined to Presbyterianism — Entered tbe House as an independent Member — An excellent Financier, the Speaker of three Parliaments, Secretary of State — Intrigued against and cashiered by his Colleagues — Dexte- rously supplanted them — Stabbed into favour — Earl and Treasurer the same week — Within three years the most popular and most unpopular man in England — Unduly extolled in his life-time — Unjustly disparaged since — Had great faults as a Minister of State, dilatory, the constant dupe of the morrow — Fond of finesse and insincere — A trimmer and trickster by policy — Hated by the Duke of Marlborough and by Lord Bolingbroke — Responsible for a portion of this hatred — Too eager for, and too retentive of power. . . . . . .87 CHAPTER IV. Life of Speaker Harley, continued — The favourable features of his public and private character delineated — Magnanimous in disgrace — Of unshaken constancy in the tower — No Jacobite — Frugal of the public money — Incorrupt — Tolerant — Moral — Domestic — Devoted to literature, and the friend of literary men — A firm ally of the Church of England — An excellent companion — Patron of Defoe, Parnell, Congreve, and Steele — The playful associate of Sir Christopher Wren, Prior, Pope, Arbuthnot, and Swift — Founder of a noble library — Patriots may find much to blame in Lord Oxford, but scholars must revere the collector of the I Iarleian Manuscripts. . . .121 CHAPTER V. Life of the Speaker described by Evelyn as " one Mr. John Smith" — A staunch whig — The whipper-in of his party — Presided over the first Parliament of Great Britain — Instances of his sophistry — Life of Sir Richard Onslow — Succeeded Mr. Smith at his request — Sir Richard a sorry rhetorician — His family have returned three Speakers to the House — Anecdotes of his grandfather, Speaker and Solicitor-General to the Queen — Nick-named " stiff Dick" CONTENTS. XI Tage by the tories — A great stickler for minute forms — Anec- dote of his contest with the black rod — Laden with honours at the succession of George I. — Ennobled repartee of his son — Life of Mr. William Bromley, twenty-six years M.P. for the University of Oxford — Wrote remarks on the Grande Tour of France and Italy — Extracts from the book — Maliciously criticised by the whigs — Favourably contrasted with Addison's tour — Mr. Bromley factious against Marlborough — Eager against the dissenters — The champion of high church commits a sad blunder as Speaker — Letters to Sir Thomas Hanmer — His pet name " the squire" — An excellent specimen of the English country gentleman . . . . .160 CHAPTER VI. Life of Sir Thomas Hanmer — The model of Sir Charles Grandison — Marries the Duchess of Grafton — Anecdotes of that lady — Sir Thomas author of the bill for qualifying members by estate — Complimented by Steele on his election to the chair — Correspondence with Steele on his expulsion — Rhymed against for his independence — Prior's letter to the ex-Speaker— His unhappy second marriage — Recrea- tions in gardening and literature — Letters on subjects of science — Edits Shakespeare — Niched into the Dunciad — Assailed by Johnson, and Warburton, and Hervey — Han- mer's rejoinder — Death and superb epitaph — Spencer Compton the first Speaker who held his post for one entire reign — A formal and solemn Speaker — A good balancer of periods — Defective disciplinarian — Chosen premier by George II., but resigned from incompetency — Raised to the peerage three steps atonce — Earl of Wilmington fawned upon by Bubb Doddington — On Walpole's resignation First Lord of the Treasury — Satirized in verse and prose by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams — A frigid patron of Young and Thomson — Termed by Walpole after his death " an arrant nobody" . . . • .196 CHAPTER VII. The obsolete and extinct privileges of members reviewed — The wages formerly given to knights and burgesses — Curious Xii CONTENTS. Tago anomalies in the writs de expends — Origin of the custom of wages — Abuse — Pensioner Parliament ashamed of their hire — Andrew Marvell the last recipient — Impolicy of reviving salaries to senators — Abuse of written protections designed originally for menial servants, granted to friends and needy retainers — Anecdotes from the journals of the extent to which these unreasonable protections were carried — Complaints of members for breaches of privilege in the persons of their servants — End of these sins and follies — Inconvenience and injustice of the privileges claimed by members on their own behalf of exemption from all actions and suits — Instances of the wrongs inflicted in consequence — The personalty of members formerly privi- leged even against the crown — Members of Parliament real gainers by divesting themselves of these vexatious immunities ..... 240 CHAPTER VIII. Freedom of speech the quintessence of the four essences, accord- ing to Coke, how battled for under the Plantagenets, and impugned by the Tudors and Stewarts — Fierce conflict of its champions with Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. — Sir John Eliot and the other "vipers" illegally punished for alleged seditious speeches in the House, and fearfully avenged — The Long Parliament inimical to free discussion — Attacked after the Restoration by personal violence — Debate on the mutilation of Sir John Coventry for a sharp jest — License still indulged at the expense of Charles II. — Abjectly abandoned by the Parliament of James II. — Freedom of speech an article of the Bill of Rights — Excessive liberties taken with the name and person of King William- — Taunting reflections of Sir Charles Sedlcy, Sir William L. Gower, John How, Gran- ville, and Sir John Knight — The Commons indulged an equal latitude of remark at the expense of the Upper House and individual peers, but would not allow a murmur against the sweet voices of the majority — Offensive phrases arbitrarily noticed and punished — Examples in Manlcy, Caesar, Windham, and Shippcn — The House at length ashamed of its capricious tyranny — The privilege has been long well understood and acted upon . . . 268 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER IX. Page Petition for privilege from arrest first included in the prayer of Sir John Cheney — Importance to electors of this freedom from personal restraint — Its gradual extension to all civil process — Case of Ferrers — Of Sir Thomas Shirley and Asgill — The advantages and attendant inconveniences of this protection discussed — Mr. Baring's bill to take away exemption from arrest for judgment debts of doubtful ex- pediency — An independent House of Commons must be free in every particular — The privilege of franking letters traced to an ignoble origin — Anecdotes of its convenience and abuse — Attempts of Lord North and Mr. Pitt to abate it — This last feather in the plume of privilege at length torn away. . . . . .315 CHAPTER X. Lawyers the most early and resolute champions of privilege — Sir Edward Coke, Selden, and Hyde — The fears of usurp- ing Kings the best homage to their merits — Excluded from the "lack-learning Parliament" — Objects of jealousy to the Crown, to churchmen, country gentlemen, and courtiers — Causes of this general unpopularity — Lawyers in the House not numerically formidable — Their import- ance and deserts — The chief artificers of the happy revolu- tion — Memoirs of the most eminent lawyers in the House during the reigns of William, Anne, and George I., com- mencing with Serjeant Maynard, the Father of the Bar for forty-eight years, a member, and first Commissioner of the Great Seal at eighty-seven — Anecdotes of his shrewdness and appetency of gain — A manager of the im- peachment of Strafford and Laud — Impeached himself — Pleaded for the life of Charles I. — Afterwards the Pro- tector's Serjeant — Pleaded against Cavaliers to the death — Swore fealty to Richard Cromwell — Welcomed the abjured Stuart on his restoration — Refused a judgeship as interfering with his gains — Anecdotes of his craft, parsi- mony, and adroit trimming — Excellent at repartee — A clever but prejudiced debater — Quoted Syriac in the House — Conducted the conference with the Lords at the Revolution, and drew strange analogies from the Old Xiv CONTENTS. Page Bailey — The ruling passion strong in death — Too astute to be venerable — too learned for a pettifogger . • 332 CHAPTER XI. Life of the "gentle Somers" — A "weakly boy" — Anecdotes of his youth — Friend of the young Duke of Shrewsbury — Among the mob of gentlemen who translated Plutarch — Junior counsel to the Bishops at thirty-seven, then compa- ratively unknown — Returned to the Convention for Wor- cester — Specimens of his eloquence in the House — Solici- tor and Attorney-General — Lord Keeper in 1693 — His celebrated judgment in the Bankers' case — Too pliant a courtier — Injudiciously yielded to his Sovereign's wishes in the first Partition Treaty — Impeached for granting powers under the Great Seal, leaving blanks for names — Made a vigorous defence at the bar of the House — The King compelled to sacrifice the keeper of his conscience — Com- posed the last and memorable royal speech of William — Obnoxious to the Prince of Denmark — Dismissed from the Privy Council — President of the Royal Society — Reconciled to Queen Anne on the death of her husband — Bland and conciliating in his manners — Hated by the Duchess and disliked by the Duke of Marlborough — Com- manded to resign his staff of office, 1710 — Bowed down by sickness, but, even when imbecile, the oracle of the Whigs — Anecdotes of his old age — The blemishes in his moral character — Noted libertinism — Love of money and insin- cerity — The tributes of the wise and good, both in prose and verse, to his excellence, of Swift and Addison, of Mackintosh and Lord J. Russell, of Garth and Warton — The name of Somers an heir-loom to his country . 362 CHAPTER XII. Lives of two other great lawyers in the Convention Parlia- ment, but wanting moral worth, Sir Robert Sawyer and Sir William Williams — Mr. Sawyer " a great practiscr in the Exchequer" — Speaker of the House in 1678 — Attor- ney-General from 1681 to 1687, six years stained with blood — History of his hunting to the death, College, Lord William Russell, Algernon Dudley, and Sir Tho- CONTENTS. XV Tage mas Armstrong- — Dismissed from office by James II. for his attachment to the Church of England — Leading counsel for the seven bishops — Specimen of his jejune oratory in their defence — Returned to the Convention for the University of Cambridge — Expelled for his participa- tion in the judicial murder of Armstrong — Died in 1692 — Anecdotes of the youth of his rival, Sir Wm. Williams — A railing and homely Speaker of the House of Commons — Specimens of his vituperative eloquence to Sir Francis Wythens and Sir Robert Peyton — Fined £10,000 for publishing, as Speaker, Dangerfield's narrative, implicating the Duke of York — This illegal fine never repaid to Wil- liams — Defended with vigour and ability many state pri- soners in Charles II.'s reign — Suddenly apostatized to the court of James II. — His petulant prosecution of the bishops — Anecdotes of his demeanour at the trial — Instant to abandon his abdicated Sovereign — A ready debater in the Parliament of William III. — Close of his versatile and turbulent life — Happy in one circumstance, the being founder of an illustrious race . . . .397 CHAPTER XIII. Life of the exemplary Tory lawyer Robert Price — Anecdotes of his youth and travels — His opposition to the grant of several lordships in the principality to the Earl of Portland — Specimens of his speech, published under the title of " Gloria Cambriae" — Appointed a Baron of the Exchequer on the accession of Queen Anne — Instance of his incorrupt opposition as Judge to the personal wishes of George I. — Curious history of his eldest son, the member for Weobly — Life of the fiery Jacobite Sir Bartholomew Shower, un- noticed in Biographical Dictionaries — Extracts from his common-place book — Devoted champion of high church — Wrote virulent pamphlets against King William — Specimens of his writings and speeches in defence of prisoners for high treason — Intrepid counsel for Lord Banbury and Sir John Fenwick — Carried otf by fever in 1700 — Life of an equally impetuous Whig lawyer, Lord Lechmere — His exploits as barrister, and on taking his seat — Leader of the House and Attorney-General at the accession — His me- XVI CONTENTS. Page movable prosecution of Matthews, for printing' a treason- able libel — Accused of corruption by the Solicitor-General, Sir William Thompson — History of that singular charge — His triumphant acquittal — Quarrels with Walpole — Anec- dotes of his dissensions, restiveness, and precipitancy — Called up to the House of Lords — Amusing interview with George II. — Died of apoplexy in June, 1727 . 428 Illustration. Interior of the House of Commons in 1690 . . Frontispiece. HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. CHAPTER I. The first speakers of the House of Commons were chosen from belted knights and commoners of distinc- tion, the choice being made by the House, but in accordance with the previous nomination of the king. Sir Thomas Hungerford, 51 Henry III., in the year 1376, is the first named as speaker in the parliament roll, and termed parlour, or mouth of the House. But, as the ancient parliament-rolls recorded only the acts that passed between both Houses, and the laws that were made, omitting all matters of form and ceremony, it may be conjectured that the antiquity of the office is coeval with the sitting of the Commons apart from the Lords. In the 44th year of Henry Ill's, reign, their refusal to suffer the recall of Adomar, the Bishop of Winchester elect, from banishment, is signed by Petrus de Mounteforti, vice communitatis. The head of these ambulatory parliaments, meeting one year at Winchester, another at Rutland, now sum- moned to Kenilworth, and anon to St. Edmondsbury, for the mere purpose of granting supplies, and re- VOL. I. B 2 HISTORY OF THE stricted to two or three weeks, as the commonalty kept a sharp reckoning of the wages due to " Good- man Burgess V could not but share in their original insignificance. His person was not always sacred from violence, nor his authority from contempt. Sir Peter de la Mare was committed close prisoner to Nottingham Castle for having spoken too freely of the royal favourite, Alice Pierce\ When Sir John Pickering declared, in the name of the Commons, that the late King Edward III. had promised to dis- charge them of all tallages for a long time, the steward of the household, Sir Richard-le-Scroop, replied that, " saving the honour and reverence due to the king and Lords, what the Commons said was not true." The floor of the House of Lords would have been covered with gauntlets, had the audacious steward ventured such an aspersion on their veracity, but the Nether House (as they were termed, nor was the term misapplied) heard in silence, and made no sign of anger, or remonstrance. Further humiliation was heaped upon the speaker in the reign of this petulant monarch, Richard II. A member having ventured to bring in a bill for avoiding the extravagant expenses of the king's household, he commanded the Duke of Lancaster to charge Sir John Bussey, the speaker, on his allegiance, to acquaint him who it was that brought such an impudent pro- posal before parliament. With an abject humility, characteristic of the times, and of the slight estimation in which both the office of speaker and the privileges of the House were then held, Sir John Bussey gave up the bill and the name of the person who had intro- ■ Elsynge's Mode of Holding Parliaments. b Parliamentary History, vol. i. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 6 duced it, Thomas Haxey, clerk. The poor clerk was condemned to die the death of a traitor, for having taken such an unwarrantable license, but was after- wards pardoned, and his attainder in the next reign reversed. The succeeding speaker, Thomas Thorpe, whose name has acquired great celebrity from the privileges of the House being broken in his person, met with a more tragical fate. During his speakership, we are told by D'Ewes c , " there were repeated prorogations and adjournments of parliament. Richard, Duke of York, having gained the ascendant of the king, pre- pared habiliments of war in the palace of the Bishop of Durham. Thorpe, being speaker, by command of the king, seized the arms, whereupon the duke brought his action of trespass in the Exchequer against Thorpe, and upon trial that term recovered 1,000/. damages, and thereupon Thorpe was com- mitted to the prison of the Fleet in execution." In vain the whole House petitioned to have their speaker restored, urging his privilege, " by common custom, time out of memory of man, and ever afore these times, used in every of the parliaments of the king's noble progenitors." Their just petition was unheeded. The Duke of York stood up in his place in the Lords' House, and declared that Thorpe, having been cast in an action of trespass, for carrying away his goods, lay now in prison in execution, where he (the duke) prayed that he might remain. His prayer was in the nature of a command, for we find in six weeks the duke installed Protector. The peers of parliament accordingly resolved that the speaker should remain in execution, notwith- standing his privilege, and required the Commons to c Sir Symonds D'Ewes' Journal. B 2 4 HISTORY OF THE elect a new speaker, which they did as directed. The unhappy Thorpe, being compelled to pay these exor- bitant damages, fled to the king, was taken prisoner at Nottingham field, and sent to Newgate, thence committed to the Marshalsea, and at last beheaded at Haringay Park, in Middlesex. The change of dynasty was fortunate, however, for the privileges of the Com- mons, whose rising spirit and increased importance appear to have been engrafted on the usurpations of the government. The first speaker in the parliament of Henry IV., Sir John Tiptoft, though he excused himself on account of bis youth and want of discretion, and expressed sur- prise at his excuse not being received, told the monarch plainly, in open parliament, that his house was far more chargeable, yet less honourable, than that of any of his progenitors' 1 . Other remarkable instances of this juvenile speaker's audacity are recorded. He required that the castle of Manlion, the key of the three kingdoms, which was kept by a foreigner, should be kept in future by Englishmen only, and assured the king that the report of the Commons having talked of his person otherwise than beseemed them was untrue, which assurance Henry IV. said he believed. Anxious to conciliate, that monarch not only bore with, but rewarded, a freedom of speech which his predecessor had punished in Haxey as trea- sonable. " Ille crucem tulit, hie diadema." Sir John Tiptoft was amply requited for his happy daring with a rich grant of forfeited lands, with a patent of nobi- lity as Earl of Worcester, and (strange specimen of regal bounty) with the goods and chattels of Peter Priswick, carpenter, a felon, amounting to £150. The bold language of this lucky speaker was too dan- " Prynne, cited by Hatsell. HOUSE OF COMMONS. ."> gerous to be drawn into a precedent. The king in person told his successor, Sir Thomas Chaucer, when making the common protestation "that he expected the Commons would speak no unbecoming words, or attempt anything that was not consistent with decency." At this period, the speaker elect made no set oration, refrained from all mock excuses, prayed for no privi- leges, but contented himself with a protestation, that what he had to say came from the whole House ; therefore requesting that, if he should haply speak anything without their consent, the same might be amended before his departure from that place. With Sir Richard Walsgrave, 5 Richard II., com- menced the prayer to be excused, but only for some real or supposed reason, and not as a mere matter of etiquette 6 . When Sir John Popham was presented to the king for his approval, 28 Henry YL, he desired to be excused on account of his age, and that a new choice might be made, to which the king assented. If the speaker elect displeased his brother members by any ill-advised address during his inauguration, he was cashiered with little ceremony. In the 1 st year of Henry IV., we read of Sir John Cheney being- presented by the Commons for their speaker, accepted by the king, and making the usual protestation. The next day, Sir John, with the Commons, sought a second interview of the sovereign, to announce that, by reason of a sudden disorder, he was unable to serve, and that they had elected in his stead Sir John Dorewood, who was approved. This sudden disorder, which still permitted the speaker to make his excuse in person, may not improbably have existed in the body corporate. At the beginning of the next reign, Mr. William e Elsynge. 6 HISTORY OF THE Stourton, having made an indiscreet speech, which gave offence to the House, was compelled to resign in favour of a more wary prolocutor, John Dorewood, Junior, who told his majesty that William Stourton lay sick in his bed, and was not able to execute the office f . " It should seem," says Elsynge, " that Stourton lay sick for grief, and note, the king was not acquainted with their choice of a new speaker before they presented him." This laborious inquirer into the privileges of the House has mooted two important questions upon the election of speaker. First, if the Commons might choose their speaker, whether the king commands them or not ; and second, whether the election be in their own absolute choice. He answers the first question in the negative; as the charge to choose their speaker has been continued from the 2 Henry IV., the long use hath made it so material, that, without the king's commandment, or leave, they cannot choose their speaker. The second query he resolves in favour of the Commons' absolute choice, contrary to the opinion of Sir Edward Coke, when elected to the office in 1592, who declared it to be no election " until your majesty giveth allowance and approbation," to which doctrine Blackstone assents. It may be doubted whether a valuable privilege was not drawn into question by the great lawyer's vague use of courtly language, whether the presenting of their speaker by the Commons was any more than a public notification of their choice. The precedent in Charles II. 's reign, when Mr. Seymour was refused by the king, and, after a sharp dispute, set aside by tacit consent, militates against this right. Upon certain points of practice, there can be no dis- pute that the member must be present who is put in Ilutst'll's Precedents. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 7 nomination for the office of speaker, and that he should hold a seat which is uncontested g . The names of the speakers possess little historical interest till we come down to the reign of Henry VII. Their number is large, as they only presided over one, or, at most, two parliaments, with the exception of Roger Flower, Esq., the first below the degree of knighthood appointed to the office, who, though only ''entitled to write himself down Armigero," performed the duties of speaker with such applause, as to be four times elected. The first on whom devolved that most grateful task, the returning thanks for eminent- ser- vices, was Roger Hunt, who, in the presence of the king and nobles, complimented the Duke of Bedford, " nomine totius communitatis," for his warlike achieve- ments and notable deeds in France 11 . It was a sad degradation for the House when, instead of the knightly De la Mare commending the feats of chivalry, by wdiose decay the honour of the realm did, and would, daily decrease, the pettifogging lawyer Dudley, a tool of Henry the Seventh's extor- tions, vaulted into the seat of dignity. Bacon remarks in his history of that reign, that a man may easily guess how absolutely the king took himself to be with his parliament, when his creature, Dudley, who was so odious to the public, was made speaker. As some vindication of the wounded dignity of the Commons,, it should be borne in mind that Dudley, however odious, was still a gentlemen by birth, and a counsel of eminence in his profession ; that, having committed acts worthy of a felon's fate, the former speaker did not disgrace in the manner of his death the dignity attached to his late office, but suffered the penalties s Parliaments and Councils of England. h Parliamentary History, vol. i. 8 HISTORY OF THE of high treason, of which he was as innocent as of the sin of witchcraft. To wipe off such a deep stain upon the purity of their order, the House was permitted, in the reign of Henry VIII. , to choose for speaker Sir Thomas More, the first great man, and still the greatest, of his race 1 ; the first English gentleman, who signalised himself as an orator ; the first writer of prose, which is still intelligible; the first layman, Chancellor of England, that celebrated magistracy, which has rarely been filled by a more learned, never by a better, man. In pleading his disabilities, when formerly pre- sented for his royal master's acceptance, he intro- duced, with classical taste, the story of Phormio lecturing Hannibal on the art of war. " If I were to presume to speak before his majesty of learning, and the well-ordering of the government, or such like matters, the king, who is so deeply learned, such a master of policy, might say to me, as Hannibal to Phormio, ' that he was an arrogant fool to presume to teach one already master of chivalry and all the art of war.'" During his speakership, Cardinal Wolsey came into the House with all his pomp, " with his maces, with his pillars, his pole-axes, his crosse, his hatte, and the great seal tooj," to require a subsidy of the fifth part of every man's goods, to be paid in four years. The House was silent, and the speaker, falling on his knees, excused their silence, " abashed at the sight of so noble a personage who was able to awe the wisest and most learned men in the realm." To gloze with the tongue seems to have been such 1 Mackintosh's History of England, vol. ii. J Roper's Life of Sir T. More. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 9 an essential attribute of the speaker, that even the pure-minded More could not escape this degradation. "Masters," quoth the cardinal, "unless it be the manner of your House, as of likelihood it is, by the mouth of your speaker, whom you have chosen for trusty, and wise (as indeed he is), in such cases to utter your minds, here is without doubt a marvellous silence." "And thereupon," adds Roper, in his life of Sir Thomas More, " he required answer of Master Speaker." He increased the anger of the high cardinal by suggesting that, unless all the members present could put their several thoughts into his head, he alone was unable, in so weighty a matter, to give his grace a sufficient answer, and that it was neither expedient, nor agreeable with the ancient liberty of the House, to make instantaneous reply. Wolsey suddenly arose and withdrew, frustrated of his object, nor Avould the Commons afterwards vote more than two shillings in the pound subsidy. On resigning the chair for the woolsack, Sir Thomas More was succeeded by another lawyer, Sir Thomas Audley, to whom he afterwards gave up the seals k . From this period the chair was, by tacit consent, yielded to the gentlemen of the long robe, and held by them in succession (except in the solitary instance of Mr. Seymour) till after the Revolution, their know- ledge of precedents and constitutional information being justly deemed most essential in asserting the privileges and maintaining the rights of the House 1 . k Parliaments and Councils of England. 1 " Robert Brooke, recorder of and member for tbe city of London, elected speaker in the second year of Queen Mary, 1554, is the first instance of a speaker not a knight of the shire.' — Old- field's Representative Histdry. 10 HISTORY OF THE With professional precision, they introduced the cus- tom of praying expressly for three things — access to the king, freedom of speech, and freedom from arrest™ 1 . Previously, their privileges had been enjoyed, except in periods of tumult and anarchy, without any specific claim or mention. Sir Thomas Hungerford proved his access to the king, 51 Edward III., by announcing that he had moved his majesty, then sick at Eltham, to pardon all such as were unjustly convicted in the last parliament. As soon as the privilege of access began to be sought in the way of petition, the crown took occasion to cavil at and curtail it. " With regard to your first prayer for access," replied the lordly Elizabeth, " her highness is well contented that, in convenient time, and for convenient causes, in convenient place, and without importunity, as free access she granteth you, as any other hath had 11 ." In the same reign, the Speaker Williams petitioned, with old-fashioned bluntness, " that the assembly of the Lower House may have frank and free liberties to speak their minds without any con- trolment, blame, grudge, menaces, or displeasure, according to the ancient form." It would have been well if the lawyers had not also imported from West- minster Hall formal apologies and tedious harangues. Elsynge notices this invention of prolixity, not reform. ' ' The speaker's excuses at this day are merely formal, and out of modesty ; anciently, they were both hearty and real, or else no excuse at all was made. We may gather from the parliament-rolls that anciently the speaker delivered nothing but what the House gave him in charge to speak ; but, at this day, it is in the speaker's power to deliver in his speech what shall ■ Elsyngo and Prynne. " Sir Symonds D'Ewcs' Journal. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 11 best please himself. Anciently, the privileges of the Commons, though enjoyed, were never petitioned for by the speaker." In the courtly presence of Henry VIII., who dazzled his abashed Commons with the purple pomp and stately splendours of the field of the cloth of gold, the speaker first degraded the House by strains of servile flattery and eastern adulation. Sir Thomas Ingiefield, in presenting the money bills, contented himself with enlarging on " the youthful monarch's promising valour, wonderful tem- perance, divine moderation in justice, and avowed desire of clemency." Richard Rich, the speaker in 1537, not to be outdone by his predecessor, compared the king " for justice and prudence to Solomon, for strength and fortitude to Samson, for beauty and comeliness to Absolom." This bad example infected, with contagious facility, the future race of speakers* who vied with each other alike in exaggerating the merits of the sovereign, and depreciating their own. Nothing could equal the height of their panegyric, or the depth of their humility, except its utter hollow- ness and falsehood. Some of the proceedings, as faithfully reported in D'Evves, are very amusing. The Lord Keeper Bacon, 5 Elizabeth, thus harangues the Commons : " My masters all, for that the Nether House, being so many together, must of necessity have one to be a mouth, aider, or instructor unto them, for the opening of matters, which is called the speaker, there- fore go and assemble yourselves together and elect one, a discreet, wise, and learned man." The Com- mons returned with Mr. Williams, who, among divers authors of good laws, with rare pedantry enumerated ° Parliamentary History, vol. i. 12 HISTORY OF THE to the queen ; first, " Palestina, the queen, reigning before the deluge, who made laws as well concerning peace as war: second, Ceres, the queen, which made laws concerning evil-doers : and third, Marc, wife of Bathilacus, mother to Stillicus the king, who enacted laws for the maintenance of well-doers." This rhetoric was so well approved that, at the next parliament, Mr. Comptroller having proposed " Mr. Thomas Williams, Esq.," one of the fellows of the Inner Temple, the whole House, with one entire voice, cried " Mr. Williams, Mr. Williams !" So little were the privileges of the House and its head settled and defined, even at this advanced period in parliamentary annals, that they seemed wholly at a loss how to proceed, inopes concilii, on any sudden emergency. The speaker, "Mr. Thomas Williams, Esq.," as he is throughout styled in the journals, to show peculiar respect, having died during his year of office 11 , a committee was appointed to wait upon the Lords, to have their aid for the information of the casualty to her majesty, and to know her pleasure upon it. Her majesty's pleasure was, that the Com- mons should resort to their usual place, and choose a new speaker, after the accustomed manner, upon which her solicitor-general, Mr. Richard Onslow (ancestor to the famous speaker, Arthur Onslow), was proposed. As the queen's solicitor must necessarily attend on the House of Lords, his nomination gave such umbrage to the independent members, that they proceeded to a division against electing him, such an unprecedented course, as to be termed a dissevering of the House. The numbers are not recorded ; but the queen's party of course prevailed' 1 . i* Parliamentary History, vol. i. *> Mr. Fulk Onslow was clerk of the crown, and elder brother to HOUSE OF COMMONS. 13 The learned solicitor- general was both military and metaphorical in his excuses. " For that I would not be obstinate, I am forced to wound myself with their sword, which wound, being yet green and new, your majesty, being the perfect physician, may ease, in disallowing that which they have allowed. If the members for great carefulness would often inculcate it into my dull head to signify the same unto your high- ness, yet my memory is so slippery by nature and sickness, that I should likely lose it by the way." The Commons having set their hearts upon the queen's marriage, that politic princess evaded their uncivil importunity with courteous, but deceptive answers. In returning their thanks, the speaker drew a strange illustration from the Old Testament : " For that your highness inclineth your mind unto marriage, God grant us that, as your majesty hath defended the faith of Abraham, you may have his desire when he said ' Lord, what wilt thou give me when I go child- less !' " It was agreed, upon the motion of this bib- lical speaker, that a prayer should be said every day by himself, such as he should deem fittest for the time. The next speaker, Sir Richard Bell, did not resign his office on being appointed chief baron, but died before the ensuing session. Many supposed that his place of speaker was made void by this appointment, the chief baron being a necessary attendant on the upper house. As he was dead, the majority agreed to go to the Lords to make petition for their mediation to her majesty for license to choose a speaker, the place being vacant, first, by the making Sir. R. Bell lord chief baron, and, secondly, by his death. Sir Richard. It is said, in the journals, that he was clerk sitting in his place at the table, at the time of his younger brother's election. 14 HISTORY OF THE Though privy-councillors had been introduced into Parliament by Cardinal Wolsey, instead of the royal will being delivered by a message at the hand of a cabinet minister, the speaker still continued the direct organ of communication with the House. When a bill relating to rites and ceremonies in the church had been read three times, the speaker was commissioned to declare the queen's pleasure that, from henceforth, no bills concerning religion should be preferred or received, unless the same should be first considered and approved of by the clergy. The increased deference paid to their speaker is strongly marked in a resolution which the House adopted at this period. A motion was made, 1580, "That Mr. Speaker, and the residue of the House of the better sort of calling, would always, at the rising of the House, depart, and come forth in comely and civil manner for the reverence of the House, in turning about with a low courtesie, like as they do make at their coming into the House, and not so unseemly and rudely to thrust and throng out, as of late times hath been disorderly used ;" which motion, made by Sir James Croft, Knight, was very well liked and allowed 1 '. Passing over Mr. Wray, who treated the queen to a speech of two hours, and Sergeant Snagg, of unfor- tunate name, we come to the second greatest speaker in the long catalogue, Sir Edward Coke. This erudite lawyer, but pedantic and sorry rhetorician, could not of course resist the temptation of arraying himself in tropes and figures. " Although, as in the heavens," said the lawyer to Queen Elizabeth, " a star is but opacum corpus until it have received light from the sun, so stand I corpus opacum until your highness' r Sir Symonds d'Ewes. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 15 bright, shining wisdom hath looked upon me and allowed me. In this House are many grave, many learned, many deep, wise men, and those of ripe judgments; but I am untimely fruit, not yet ripe, but a bud scarcely blossomed, so as I fear me your majesty will say, amongst so many fair fruit ye have plucked a shaken leaf." The following scene, some years later, most gra- phic in its description of the homely members and their modest head, is painted to the life s . Meeting to go through the form of choosing a speaker with all proper solemnity, "the comptroller of the household, 39 Elizabeth, Sir William Knolls, said, ' I will deliver my opinion unto you who is most fit for this place, being a member of this House, and those good abili- ties which I know to be in him' (here he made a little pause, and the House hawked and spat, and, after silence made, he proceeded). ' Unto this place of dig- nity and calling, in my opinion' (here he stayed a little) ' Mr. Sergeant Yelverton' (looking upon him) ' is the fittest man to be preferred' (after which words Mr. Yelverton blushed, and put off his hat, and after sat bareheaded), ' for I know him to be a man wise and learned, secret and circumspect, religious and faithful, no way disable, but every way able to supply this place.' He then sat down, hoping for a general consent, " The whole House cried, ' Aye, aye, aye, let him be,' and the master comptroller made a low reverence and sat down ; and, after a little pause and silence, Mr. Sergeant Yelverton rose, and, after a very humble reverence, said : ' Whence your unexpected choice of me to be your mouth, or speaker, should proceed, I s Sir Symonds d'Ewes and Townsend. 16 HISTORY OF THE am utterly ignorant. If from my merits, strange it were that so few deserts should purchase suddenly so great an honour. Nor from my ability doth this your choice proceed, for well known it is to a great number in this place now assembled, that my estate is nothing correspondent for the maintenance of this dignity ; for my father dying left me a younger brother, and nothing to me but my bare annuity. Then growing to man's estate, and some small practice of the law, I took a wife, by whom I have had many children, the keeping of us all being a great impoverishment to my estate, and the daily living of us all nothing but my daily industry. Neither from my person nor nature doth this choice arise, for he that supplieth this place ought to be a man big and comely, stately and well spoken, his voice great, his courage majestical, his nature haughty, and his purse plentiful and heavy ; but, con- trarily, the stature of my body is small, myself not so well spoken, my voice low, my carriage lawyer-like and of the common fashion, my nature soft and bash- ful, my purse thin, light, and never yet plentiful.' " It is pleasant to see any attempt made at checking this tone of fulsome insincerity. When, after the destruction of the Spanish Armada, the Speaker Crooke asserted that the peace of the kingdom had been defended by the mighty arm of their dread and sacred queen, the bluff Queen Bess instantly answered : " No ; but by the mighty hand of God, Mr. Speaker !" Her majesty preferred a style of honest truth, the more especially when, at the time of using it, she could administer what she loved as well — a sharp rebuke. His harangue, on returning thanks to the queen for revoking her grants of monopolies, resem- bles the abject sycophancy of barbarian prostrations, HOUSE OF COMMONS. 17 rather than the bold speech of the representative of freemen. "All of us, in all duty and thankfulness, do throw down ourselves at the feet of your majesty, do praise God and bless your majesty. Neither do we present our thanks in words of any outward thing, which can be no sufficient retribution for so great goodness, but, in all duty and thankfulness, prostrate at your feet, we present our most loyal and thankful hearts, even the last drop of blood in our hearts, and the last spirit of breath in our nostrils, to be poured out, to be breathed up, for your safety.' Then, after three low reverences made, he with the rest kneeled down." It is only thus, by making ourselves parties to the servile scene, and., as it were, witnessing the genu- flexions which took place, that we can fully under- stand how inferior our ancestors were, both in habits and phrases of freedom, how erect their descendants stand in comparison, still, in the proud consciousness of independence, paying the fullest and most complete respect to royalty. Our distaste at these passages of degrading form is increased, when we find the same compliments continued to the pedantic James. The king's serjeant, Sir Edward Philips, the first speaker in his reign, poured forth the rich stores of euphuism in " full measure, and running over," upon the de- lighted prince. 4 " This great and important public service requireth to be managed by the absolute per- fection of experience, the mother of prudence ; by the profoundness of literature, the father of true judgment ; and by the fullness and grace of nature's gifts, which are the beauty and ornament of arts and actions : from the virtues of all and every whereof I 1 Parliamentary History, vol. i. VOL. I. C 18 HISTORY OP THE am so far estranged, that, not tasting of Parnassus 's springs at all, nor of that honey left upon the lips of Plato and Pindarus by the bees, birds of the Muses : as I remain touched with the error of the contrary, and thereby am disabled to undergo the weight of so heavy a burthen., under which I do already groan, and. shall both faint and fail, if not by your justice disbur- dened, or by your clemency commiserate." Who could have divined from such inflated fustian that he was speaking in the age of Shakspeare and Haleigh, of Spenser and Bacon, though the reader might, perhaps, from their worst passages, have in- ferred the subjection of English literature to a king, who assured his faithful Commons : " That my inte- gretye is like the whitnes of my roabe, my purety like the mettel of gold in my crowne, my firmness and clearnes like the presious stones I weare, and my affectyones naturalle like the rednes of my harte." But the times were become too critical not to scatter these inanities. The hollow murmurs of dis- content had begun to rise in sullen echoes through the House; the harsh vaunt of prerogative was answered by the cry of privilege ; and the ceremonial speeches of the king, and chancellor, and speaker, drifted on, of as little worth, and prized as lightly, as sea-weed on the surging waters. An improved tone may be discerned in the discourse of the monarch, as if addressing an assembly of freemen, and in their spokesman a dawning consciousness that he knelt in the presence of a constitutional king. With what increased spirit and good sense does the Recorder of London, Sir Heneage Finch, address Charles I., when presented for speaker : u " Since we all stand for u Parliamentary History, vol. ii. HOUSE OF COMMONS, 19 hundreds and thousands, for figures and cyphers, as your majesty the supreme and sovereign auditor shall please to place and value us, and like coin to pass are made current by your royal stamp and impression only, I shall neither disable nor undervalue myself, but, with a faithful and cheerful heart, apply myself, with the best of my strength and abilities, to the per- formance of this weighty and public charge." His successor, Serjeant Glanville, a man, accord- ing to Clarendon, x "very equal to the work, very well acquainted with the proceedings in parliament, of a quick conception, and of a ready and voluble expres- sion,'' evinced his alacrity and firmness, when speaker elect, by chiding the quarter-waiter on his majesty, who came to summon the Commons to the House of Lords, commanding him to tell the gentleman-usher, that it was his duty to have brought the message him- self, and that, but for detaining his majesty, the House would not have attended to a message brought by such a messenger. This assertion of the respect due to the House at so seasonable a time reflected great credit on the young speaker, who, in announcing the Commons' choice to Charles I., proved how well he understood the duties of the office : "Your Commons' House have chosen one of themselves to be the mouth, indeed the servant, of all the rest, to steer watchfully and prudently in all their weighty consultations and debates, to collect faithfully and readily the genuine sense of a numerous assembly, to propound the same seasonably, and to mould it into apt questions for final resolutions, and so represent them and their conclusions, their declarations and petitions upon all * History of the Rebellion, vol. i, C 2 20 HISTORY OP THE urgent occasions, with truth, with right, with life, with lustre, and with full advantage to your most excellent majesty." He at once submitted, when his election had been confirmed, saying, with appropriate grace,, "My profession hath taught me that, from the highest judge and highest seat of justice, there lyeth no writ of error, no appeal." The parliament over which this distinguished orator presided was permitted to continue only one short month, and, when the next House of Commons met in November, 1640, the discontented party had accomplished their plans so effectual ly, that the person whom the king had selected for the post could not obtain a seat. y By a peculiar infelicity, he was constrained to nominate Mr. Lenthall, a disaffected barrister of Lincoln's Inn, whose memorable answer to the monarch, when, for the only time in our annals, he invaded the penetralia of the House, has conferred upon the utterer a species of fraudulent immortality. The question how far the speaker was the servant of the House, or of the king, had been discussed at an earlier period of the reign. Sir J. Elliot and four others had paid the penalties of a constructive riot, for detaining Sir John Finch in the chair by force whilst they read a factious resolution. 2 As the speaker sometimes failed in asserting his independence, the House on their part appear to have been occasionally wanting in the respect due to their head. During the turbulent debates on privilege, which marked the close of the reign of James I., when the nominee of the crown was suspected of being an enemy in disguise, their anger exploded in a sort of tumultuous insurrection against authority. The notes y Forstef's Statesmen. ' State Trials, vol. iii. HOUSE or COMMONS. 21 of the dialogue in fragments, which accompanied this outbreak, are exceedingly curious. "March 9, 1G21. Mr. Mallory will spare none, though they sit in chairs. Mr. Speaker came out of the chair without consent of the House : — Sir R. Phillipes admonisheth the speaker that sometimes he neglecteth his duty to the House in intricating or deferring the question : Mr. Nevyll must a little reflect upon Mr. Speaker, that he hath made plausible motions abortive : Sir H. Manners, ' Mr. Speaker is but a servant to the House, not a master, nor a master's mate:' Sir H. Withrington, 'Mr. Speaker is the fault of all their faults, by preventing them with rising :' Sir W. Herbert, ' he was required to sit still. He must respect the meanest, as well as those about the chair.' Sir Nathaniel, — \ He may never rise out of the House at an inconvenient time, nor at the ordinary time, if the House oppose it without dividing it by question.' " When, in obedience to the king's command, Sir John Finch quitted the chair, having previously refused to put the question, saying, with tears of abject humi- lity, u I will not say I will not put the question ; but I say I dare not," the next House of Commons very properly voted his conduct a breach of privilege. The language of Lenthall, inspired by his fears, when he refused to answer questions off-hand, was far more in accordance with their rights and his duty. When the king had borrowed the speaker's chair, and asked him, as he stood below, whether any of the persons he sought were in the House, whether he saw any of them, and where they were, the moment in which Lenthall fell on his knees and faltered forth his apology was the proudest of his life — a spark struck 22 HISTORY OF THE from rotten wood — the flash of spirit darting up from a life of meanness. His words have become apho- ristic : " May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here ; and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.'' The king's retort, " I think my eyes as good as yours, but the birds are flown," could ill conceal his baffled displea- sure. Yet Lenthall was in truth a poor creature, the tame instrument of a worse and more vulgar tyranny, the buffeted tool of the army and the rump ; subdued to sit or go, to remain at home or return, to find the doors of St. Stephens shut or open, according to the will of his masters, the officers, and at the bidding of Cromwell. His subserviency secured him, at a critical time, April 1642, when the forms and names of old officers seemed to carry weight w 7 ith the people, a vote of £6000 as a voluntary gift, and the promise of a " further thankfulness." This timid time-server fol- lowed, instead of leading, the House during the civil war, a and more respect was paid to the clerk's stool than to the speaker's chair. Assuming the garb of sanctity, he pretended private business, to wit, pre- paring himself for the sacrament, when anxious to escape an inconvenient attendance during the usurpa- tion. Obsequious to power in the ascendant, and forgetful of his memorable saying, he proved at Scot's trial his declaration in parliament, that " he would have his vote, as the king's judge, written on his grave." b The Restoration put an, end to Lenthall's " Whitelocke's Memorials — Ilatsell. b State Trials. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 23 full-blown hopes. Being excepted out of the act of pardon, he wrote to the speaker after the Restoration, to remove the misapprehension which prevailed as to his gains. u The House ordered that I should have £5 of every compounder, but the order was shortly disannulled, so that what I received was inconsider- able. Before his late majesty's going from London, the House took into consideration my great and extraordinary charge and loss, and gave me by vote £6000, but I never to this day received the one half of it ; besides which I never had gift of land or money, nor any part of that £5 per diem which is due to the speaker, as speaker, whilst he so continues.'' Lenthall escaped with impunity, for his vice of compliance was mean and grovelling, when compared with the daring crimes of more aspiring spirits. He died in September 1662, apparently very penitent; but some of the contrition may be ascribed, no doubt, to his fears, and part to the zeal of his confessor. " My trouble is," he said, in his last sickness, " diso- bedience to the pater patriae. I confess with Saul, I held their clothes whilst they murdered him ; but herein I was not so criminal as Saul, for I never con- sented to his death. No excuse can be made for me, that I proposed the bloody question for trying the king ; but I hoped, even then when I put the question, the very putting the question would have cleared him, because I believed there were four to one against it — Cromwell and his agents deceived me." They might, we fear, have retorted, " Qui vult decipi, decipiatur." Under the military regime which the latter fever- ish days of the Commonwealth introduced, when " the 'Parliamentary History, vol. iv. 24 HISTORY OF THE gentlemen in red" usurped the chief seats in the assembly, their speaker seems to have been treated with marked inattention and disrespect. The House divided on a clause, says Burton, d making void all other marriages ; and, the number being equal, 69 to 69, the speaker stood up and reported, and said, " I am a yea — a no, I should say." This caused an alternate laughter all the House over, and some said " he was gone." On another occasion, when the speaker was roughly called upon to report, a member speaking too low for his disorderly audience to catch the drift of his argument, the Master of the Rolls interposed in defence of the chair. " Mr. Speaker is not bound in such cases to report. Every man is bound to speak so high as others may hear, and every man is also bound to attend to what is said." Mr. Speaker added submissively, "he was glad to hear that information, for gentlemen would talk so loudly to one another, that they could not hear another speak, and then called to him to report." To shew his independence of forms, the turbulent demagogue, Sir A. Haslerig, turned from the chair in his address, though there was not even a reporter's gallery to face, and, when the House called upon him to speak to the chair, he said, " I am not bound to look you in the face, like children, to see 'if you have a penny in your forehead.' There was a great noise and horrid confusion. Mr. Young compared it to a cockpit ; Dr. Clargcs excepted against him as using unparliamentary language ; Sir Arthur justified him. This confused noise held for an hour." The reporter, inured to such disorderly scenes, expresses his amaze- ment, when a new speaker endeavoured to introduce d Burton's Diary. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 25 some degree of order, and tighten the lax bonds of discipline. 6 " The chair behaves himself like a Busby among so many schoolboys, and takes a little too much on him but grandly." - With the more courtly times of Charles II. ensued a partial improvement. The following strange dia- logue between a petulant speaker and the old common- wealth soldier. Colonel Birch, shews, however, that much of the republican leaven remained/ The speaker taking notice of Colonel Birch changing his seat to another side of the House, Colonel Birch said, " I wonder the speaker should take notice of my changing sides, when I never took notice of the speaker changing the chair" (alluding to the speaker pretending to be sick, when the court, being displeased at him, put Sir R. Sawyer in the chair). Some time after the speaker told Colonel Birch that it was in- decent for him to brush his beard without a looking- glass ;" to which Birch replied, "You would not think it so if you had a beard to brush !" On another occasion, having to apologize, the speaker said, " he mistook only the forepart of the law about petitions for the latter, and he hopes his mistake will never cost the House so much as Birch's has done" (in something relating to a tax-bill). Colonel Birch retorted, " Whatever his mistake has cost the House, he is sure the marks were not upon the bags" (mean- ing that the speaker had lost money at play, and the king's marks were upon the bags he sent the money in, being the navy bags). The rebukes on his disso- lute manners, addressed by the opposition members to that arrogant young rake, Mr. Edward Seymour, who then dictated his pleasure from the chair, would ' Burton's Diary. f Grey's Debate?. 26 HISTORY OF THE not be tolerated in our more refined days, the House being insulted in the insults offered to their head.s "You expose the honour of the House," said Mr. Harbord, "in resorting to gaming-houses with foreigners, as well as Englishmen, and to ill places." u You are too big for that chair," added Sir Thomas Littleton, " for you, that are one of the governors of the world, to be our servant, is incongruous !" These instances are, however, marked exceptions to the rule, the House in general treating their chief with defer- ence and respect. Immediately on the return of Charles II., the habits of the old regime began to be revived. The members subsided into decorum, and the speaker relapsed into forms and ceremonies, some of which would have been "more honoured in the breach than the observance." In the honeymoon of the Restoration, he stretched his throat to dulcet strains of sycophancy and obse- quiousness. The crabbed old Presbyterian knight, Sir Harbottle Grimston, just absolved from the guilt of rebellion, harangued the king on " the monsters, who had been guilty of blood, precious blood, precious, royal blood, and declared ' we must needs be a happy Parliament, a healing Parliament, a reconciling and peace-making Parliament, a Parliament propter excel- lentiam that may truly be called Parliamentissimum Parliamentum.'' " Well might the royal prodigal, who loved a more familiar style, have retorted " Rise up, old rebel, and speak in plain English like a man ! " but he contented himself with ridiculing the vile rhetorician in private, and expressing his wants in the homely, good-natured, phrase, which went to the heart more nearly than whole sentences of tawdry k Grey's Debates. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 27 declamation, " and that which troubles me most is, to see so many of you come to see me at Whitehall, and to think you must go somewhere else to seek your dinner." 11 The speaker's clumsy attempt at raillery to emu- late the royal style was as ungraceful as a shuffling dance in fetters "that we might with some cheerfulness see your majesty's face, we have brought our brother Benjamin with us. I mean your act of oblivion. I take the boldness to call it yours, for so it is by many titles : your majesty first conceived it at Breda, you helped to contrive and form it here in England, and we must all bear you witness, you laboured, and travailled, till it was brought forth. And since it had a being, some question being made of its legitimacy, your royal heart is not at ease, until it is confirmed." Sir Harbottle was a better presbyter than rhetorician. When a bill was introduced in 1677 for changing the punishment of Romish Priests and Jesuits from death to im- prisonment for life, he indignantly asked ' Is this the way to prevent Popery ? We may as soon make a good fan out of a pig's tail, as a good bill out of this !" There was as little sincerity in these state haran- gues as personal honour in the speaker. When Sir Edward Turner was appointed to the chair,, strangers might have inferred the most boundless national pros- perity, wealth, and greatness from his address. "If the affections of all Englishmen can make you happy, if the riches of this nation can make you great, if the strength of this warlike people can make you con- siderable at home and abroad, be assured you are the greatest monarch in the world : give me leave to double my words and say it again. I wish my voice could k Wallace's History of England. 28 HISTORY OF THE reach to Spain, and to the Indies too : You are the greatest monarch in the world ! " Yet this was the period of the closing of the Exchequer — of the in- glorious war with Holland — of the King of -England sinking into a pensioner of France. Sir Edward Turner, himself convicted of receiving bribes from the East India Company, was translated from the chair to the chief seat in the Exchequer — integrity from bribes being deemed in that arcadian age superfluous on the judgment seat ! Sir Job Charlton, Sergeant, succeeded Sir Edward Turner, but only held his office eleven days, alleging indisposition as an excuse for resigning. 1 Some in- sinuated that the speaker was sick of his post. To purify the system with an infusion of fresh blood, by a happy innovation on the precedents of two cen- turies, a young country gentleman, the proudest of a haughty race, Mr. Edward Seymour, was voted into the chair. By his very haughtiness and pride he con- tributed to reduce a turbulent and unruly House into subjection, enforced respect to his office, and even against order controlled the factious members. At a critical moment, when the House was in committee, and in consequence of some dispute in telling a di- vision, swords had been drawn, and blows struck, he resumed the chair of his own authority, contrary to rule, and instantly reduced the turbulent scene into exact discipline. k When the House had ordered several lawyers into custody for pleading before the Lords, being forbidden by their resolutions, Mr. Seymour, in passing through Westminster Hall, directed the Mace to take Sergeant Pemberton instantly into custody. "He saw me," said ' Grey's Debates. k Hatsell. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 29 the imperious speaker, "and paid me no respect, though I was near him, or very slightly." 1 Mr. Seymour was not free from personal corrup- tion, hut scorned all petty bribes, and gave the fees due to the speaker on private bills to the poor of his parish (St. Giles). Always bearing in mind his descent from a Protector of the realm, that the Duke of Somerset was a member of his family, not he of the Duke's, when summoned to the Privy Council, he walked to the head of the room, and leaning over Charles, whispered too audibly, that he should not prevaricate with himself. Hardened in his pride by age, he treated William the Third with the airs of an equal, if not a superior, and, when dismissed from his place of comptroller of the household by Queen Anne, sent word that he should return his staff by the common carrier ! One instance of his hardihood in the exercise of the duties of speaker is highly to his credit. A message being brought that the king was seated on his throne, and his presence desired to hear the proro- gation of Parliament, he refused to stir, till the Bill of Supply had been returned according to precedent from the House of Lords; and, though again warned that his Majesty was waiting, he declared he would be torn by wild horses sooner than quit the chair. The bill was brought, and the Commons advanced to the Bar of the Lords encouraged by the triumph of their Head. These matters of punctilious observance, how- ever trifling in appearance, are far from insignificant, when considered as tests of the respect which must be paid, or the slight that may be offered with im- punity, to a sensitive and jealous assembly. > Grainger's Biographical History. 30 HISTORY OF THE From a private pique, his re-election as speaker was opposed at court, and, though he abstained from offering any excuse, when presenting himself for the royal approbation, much to his own private rejoicing — for his was not ' the pride that apes humility' — the king peremptorily refused his assent, and compelled the hesitating Commons to make a fresh election. Among other articles of impeachment that were voted against Seymour, there was one for receiving exorbitant pen- sions as Speaker, £3000 a year as Treasurer of the Navy, and £3000 a year in addition from the secret service money, extravagant sums undoubtedly, and which argue corruption. At that period, the yearly salary of the Lord High Treasurer, the highest post in the realm, was but £8000 ; the President of the Council had £1500; the Secretary of State £1950; and the twelve judges £1000 each. In England public functionaries have never been overpaid. The regular income of the Speaker was only £5 a day, in addition to fees on private bills. His salary has been since regulated by Act of Parliament, and made more commensurate with the dignity and importance of his office, the state he must keep, and the household he is expected to maintain : £ 5000 a year forms his present liberal, but not munificent, allowance, over and above which, he is entitled to £1000 of equipment money, and 2000 ounces of plate immediately on his election, two hogsheads of claret, £100 a year for stationery, and the apanage of a handsome residence. "When Charles II. established his right to refuse, though he could no longer nominate, the speaker, the Commons' choice relapsed into the hands of practising lawyers, servile, or corrupt, of Serjeant Gregory, after- wards a puisne judge, and the butt of Jeffries' buffoon- HOUSE OF COMMONS. 31 eries — of Sir Robert Sawyer, and of Sir William Wil- liams, who was denied the protection of privilege, and paid the penalty of the violence exhibited by Charles' last Parliament, in a fine of £10,000, a large portion of which, £8,000, he actually paid for licensing the publication of Dangerfield's criminatory report.™ It was fortunate for the dissolved Parliament that the rapacity and vindictiveness of the royal bro- thers did not fasten on each individual member. For, if their speaker was liable, who acted but by the com- mands of others, and as their minister, how much more would all those have been liable by whose com- mand he acted ? The degenerate line of legal speakers closed with Sir John Trevor, an apt and fitting head to the ignoble House of Commons that was packed by king James, only forty of whom were not to his liking — in other words, proper instruments of tyranny. Mascu- line in bearing, he read to the king with marked emphasis, as if he had felt the force of the passage, the closing sentence of an animated resolution, that " they trusted to the king's word for the safety of the Church of England, which was dearer to them than their lives." Corrupt as adroit, he disgraced for a few years the choice of William the Third, and sullied what would else have been during his reign a compa- ratively pure and honourable succession of speakers. With the Revolution commenced the real import- ance of the speaker, in rank, in character, and con- sideration. "Jam domiti ut pure ant non ut serviant." From that auspicious era, he has occupied his proper station at the head of English gentlemen. Ever since the statute 1 William and Mary c. 21, •» C. W. Wynn's note to the State Trials. 32 HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. he has constantly taken place next to Peers of Great Britain, at all times, hoth in and out of Parliament. In all public commissions he is so ranked, and has the precedence at the Council Table, as a privy councillor. Though on common occasions the speaker gives place to Irish peers, and those, who by courtesy take rank before some peers of the realm, as sons of dukes and marquises, yet in all commissions by act of parlia- ment, he is named before them, and so ought to be on all solemn and national occasions. 11 In the com- mission for the union of England and Scotland, Mr. Smith, the speaker, was named immediately after the peers who were in the commission, and before the Marquises of Hartington and Granby, and signed the treaty before them, next after Lord Somers, the junior baron, and the first of the Commoners. In 1694 it was ordered that in the procession at Queen Mary's funeral, no person do intervene between the speaker and the House of Lords. To secure his perfect in- dependence, and to silence all imputations of leaning to the ministry of the day, he ceased, in George the Third's reign, to hold any of office of profit under the crown ; the great Arthur Onslow setting that excellent example to which his successors have invariably ad- hered. His impartiality and acquaintance with pre- cedents have been insured by a fixed tenure of office, and his arduous duties justly rewarded, at the close of long service, with a coronet. n Hatscll's Precedents. 33 CHAPTER II. We know no higher distinction for a commoner, than to have been the first man in the Convention Parliament. Upon Mr. Henry Powle, then member for Cirencester, was conferred the special honour of being unanimously chosen speaker, greatly to the mortifica- tion of tbe haughty Sir Edward Seymour, who had previously filled the chair with marked ability, and had hoped by his joining the Prince of Orange at Exeter and an ardent display of converted loyalty, to earn again the place, which his pride most coveted, of the foremost gentleman of England. But Mr. Powle produced better credentials, in his abilities as a lawyer, and the fidelity with which he had always espoused the cause of the liberal, and then dominant, party. Sir Edward was a bitter tory, whilst his successful rival had ranked for many years among the chosen leaders of the whigs. Bishop Burnet portraying the characters of some of the principal members of the parliament of 1675, says in his homely style a , "Littleton and Powle were * Burnet's Memoirs, vol. ii. VOL. I. D 34 HISTORY OF THE the men that laid the matters of the House with the greatest dexterity and care. Powle was very learned in precedents and parliamentary journals, which goes a great way in their debates, and, when he had time to prepare himself, he was a clear and strong speaker." His course in the parliament of Charles the Second had been full of turbulence and peril, but conspicuous for many honourable passages of consistent magna- nimity, and his energy as a debater the opposition or country party proved upon several remarkable occa- sions. Even through the mutilated parliamentary reports, which give the reader far less notion of the force and beauty of former eloquence than the frag- ments of the Elgin marbles present to the eye an idea of ancient symmetry, traces of the orator are still visible. "I will not invade prerogative, neither will I consent to the infringement of the least liberty of my country, 15 " was the memorable saying in which he sought to designate his parliamentary policy, nor can it be denied that to the last branch of the alternative he did most rigidly adhere. When Charles in 1672 issued a second declaration of indulgence, expressing his positive will and pleasure to suspend all penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, and assured the House on their meeting, in his speech from the throne, " that he should stick to his declara- tion," the House discussed that part of the royal speech in a tumult of displeasure; Powle said the declaration would suspend at once forty acts of par- liament, and was in fact only a paper order under no seal. An address was voted that penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by act '' Grainger's Biography, Art. Powle. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 35 of parliament, and that an address and petition for satisfaction should be presented to the king. He re- asserted his prerogative. A second address was then drawn up by Powle, " to clear the apprehensions that may justly remain in the minds of your people by your majesty having claimed a power to suspend penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical, which your majesty does still seem to assert to be inherent in the Crown, where we humbly conceive your majesty hath been very much misinformed. We do therefore, with an unanimous consent, become again most humble suitors to. your most sacred majesty, that you would be pleased to give us a full and satisfactory answer to our petition." The king, perplexed at this proof of contumacy, appealed in person to the Lords on the propriety of such an address. Lord Clifford termed it " monstrum, horrendum, ingens," and the Lords voted that his answer was sufficient. But Charles, irresolute, and fearful of his father's fate, should he commence open hostilities against the refractory Commons, yielded, notwithstanding his pledged word, and with his own hand in council cancelled the declaration. In another contest between the speaker and the crown, this energetic leader of opposition w r as less successful. Charles, indignant at an address which dictated an alliance with Holland, commanded the House to attend him presently in the Banqueting House at Whitehall. Some members rising from their seats, and going to the door before the speaker had reported the king's command, Mr. Seymour repri- manded them c : "The burgesses of Newcastle and Leicester are in great haste to be gone before the c Grey's Debates D 2 36 HISTORY OF THE king's message is reported, as if they went to get places at a show or a play." The king spoke very sharply ; told the Commons that by their address they were invading his funda- mental power of making war and peace, and that, if he yielded to the dictation of parliament, he should only think himself the empty sound of a king. " I would have you return to your House, and I require that you immediately adjourn." When they had returned to their own House, where the speaker reported the king's speech, Mr. Powle stood up, but the speaker interrupted him. " I must hear no man speak, now the king's pleasure of adjourning the House is signified." Mr. Powle persisting in his determination to be heard, Mr, Seymour suddenly sprang out of the chair; some cried, " Stop the mace upon the table." Others would have put him again into the chair, or somebody else. But the speaker was soon surrounded by several of his party, and the mace secured, and he went away with it before him, but not without reproachful speeches d . At the commencement of the next session the speaker was severely chidden for undertaking to be bigger than the House, and, upon his own authority, subverting their known rights. In the king's speech, Mr. Powle contendedthat his majesty directed himself to the gentlemen of the House, and not to Mr. Speaker. " How has the speaker then the authority of adjourn- ing the House ? I never yet saw a pocket order of adjourning the House admitted. It may be doubted whether this power is in the crown. I take the Lords' House and the Commons to be but one court in judg- ment of law, and that is the High Court of Parliament. Grey's Debates. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 37 must follow, then, the king must adjourn the whole court. If the king should adjourn the Commons, and leave the Lords sitting, it would breed confusion. But, if the power of adjournment be not in tbe crown, it cannot be in the chair. The speaker is called the mouth and tongue of the House, which speaks the conceptions of the mind. Not that he is to make those conceptions, but pronounce what he has in command from the House. Lenthall, upon an occa- sion known to most, told the late king " he had neither tongue, eyes, nor ears, but what the House gave him." But, though other members of opposition sup- ported his views, Sir Thomas Clarges complaining of Seymour's pattering out of the chair with such extreme precipitancy, and Mr. Waller reminding him "that he was entirely in potestate senatus/' no vote was adventured upon his conduct. After calm reflec- tion, it was admitted that the speaker had acted with due respect to the prerogative, as well as regard to their own privileges, in permitting no debate, when the king's pleasure that they should adjourn them- selves had been once announced 6 . In the following year, Mr. Powle was hurried along by the whirl of political intrigue, in which those factious times revolved, to support the re-election to the chair of the man who had treated him so cava- lierly, but with no real, though seeming, inconsistency, as the struggle still lay for precedence between the Commons and the king. When Mr. Seymour went up to the Lords for his majesty's approval, he declared that he had been chosen by the unanimous vote of the House, but omitted the usual formal plea of modesty, c Hatsell. 38 HISTORY OF THE desiring to be excused, a prayer which it was sus- pected, from the lord treasurer's enmity to Seymour, the chancellor would cheerfully grant. " I am come hither," said the haughty commoner, in a tone of arrogance till then unknown, " for your majesty's approbation, which, if your majesty please to grant, I shall do the Commons and you the best service I can." However disconcerted by this novel boldness, the royal purpose was too firmly fixed to be thus eluded. " The approbation," said the chancellor, after an embarrassed pause, " which is given by his majesty to the choice of a speaker, would not be thought such a favour as it is, and ought to be received, if his majesty were not at liberty to deny as well as to grant it. It is an essential prerogative of the king to refuse as well as approve of a speaker. The king is the best judge of men and things. He knows when and where to employ. He thinks fit to reserve you for other service, and to ease you of this. It is his majesty's pleasure to discharge this choice, and accordingly, by his majesty's command, I do discharge you of this place you are chosen for, and in his majesty's name command the House of Commons to make another choice, and command them to attend here to-morrow, at eleven o'clock*." The members withdrew from the royal presence in a fever of resentment at this contumelious treatment of their head, nor did any fan the flame with more zeal than Mr. Powle. " I have ever," lie said, "taken the record to be, that no man was ever refused being speaker, when presented to the king, but for some disability of body, as in Sir John Popham's case, who 1 Parliamentary History, vol. iv. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 39 desired to be excused from that service by reason of disability of body from wounds lie had received in the wars (28th Henry VI.); and lately Sir Job Charlton, not being able to endure the employment, by reason of disability of body. But nothing of this can be objected against Mr. Seymour ; must any private person inform the king of his unfitness without any cause assigned ? I know not what may come of it. I do protest before God, that I think the greatness of the nation is under the privileges of this House. A people can never heartily support the government that does not protect them. A slavish people can never heartily support the government. Those that come after us here, if we are dissolved upon this point, will speak the same language. I fear not dissolution." The debate having been adjourned to the next day, Mr. Powle moved that an application should be made to the king, that the matter delivered by the lord chancellor yesterday was of such great importance relating to the speaker, that we desire some time to consider of it. An address to this effect was presented, and his majesty consented to a further time, suggest- ing that, as he would not have his prerogative en- croached upon, nor encroach on the privileges of the Commons, a third person might be found out as an expedient. Serjeant Streete after this named Mr. Powle himself as speaker, but he was not suffered to proceed, as it might seem a waiver of their rights. A further resolution was voted, which Mr. Powle, as ringleader of his stubborn parliament, read to the king, who made, on the instant, a short and severe reply. " Gentlemen, all this is but loss of time ; therefore, I command you to go back to your House, and do as I directed you." A prorogation of two days was 40 HISTORY OF THE ordered, and Mr. Seymour required to absent himself, to which evasion that trafficking courtier readily assented. When the House resumed its sittings, though a few of the opposition leaders appeared to be still undaunted, saying that they had had rougher answers than that, the majority remarked, in the quaint phraseology of the day, that in Seymour's absence it was only playing French cockles, and, by virtue of a secret compromise, elected Serjeant Gre- gory, a choice which was immediately ratified by the king. Burnet is mistaken in stating, as the result of this contest^, that the unconditional choice of a speaker was tacitly surrendered to the Commons. All that was, in fact, conceded, appears to have been the barren trophy, that the speaker might be named by one who was not a privy councillor 11 . From these fierce and constantly recurring contests with the court, Powle found himself suddenly trans- lated into a high place of trust. After the dismissal of Lord Danby, Charles had consulted Sir William Temple upon the best method of forming a govern- ment. That theoretical statesman recommended a new privy council, to consist of thirty members, one half of whom should be selected by the king from the officers of his court, and the other chosen by the king's leading antagonists in both houses'. Wealth was to be an essential qualification; that these thirty councillors should command £300,000 in case of exigency, no brilliant amount of money, even if quadrupled to meet the present standard of value. The needy monarch caught at the scheme, and made K Memoirs, vol. ii. b Speaker Onslow, quoted by Hatsell. 1 Courteuay's Life of Sir W. Temple. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 41 Lord Shaftesbury president, still more to propitiate the opposition. Only five commoners did this aristo- cratic estate permit to enter their number, — Lords Russell and Cavendish, Sir Henry Capel, Seymour, and Powle. The malcontents, though thus suddenly heaved into power, as if by some violent convulsion, brought with them the elements of dissolution. They could not cordially coalesce with the other members, were not confided in, and bore the responsibility of measures in which they had not been consulted. Still more annoying was the loss of their credit with the people, — -the popularity of the patriot beginning to wane, as soon as he was detected within the precincts of the palace. "So true is it," says Sir John Reresby, when mentioning the fact, " that there is no wearing the court and country livery together 11 ." At length, when parliament had been prorogued, without any previous intimation to the council, the opposition members repaired to court in a body, and solicited to be excused from further attendance, as they despaired of being able to serve him. The king instantly replied, more sincerely than courteously, "With all my heart!" The vernal promise and equinoctial disappointment were complete. Relapsing into vehement opposition, Powle and his allies agitated petitions from all quarters for the meeting of parlia- ment, and presented the Duke of York to a Middlesex grand jury, by a master-stroke of Shaftesbury's daring genius, as a popish recusant. Chief Justice Scroggs discharged the grand jury before they could make this presentment, and rebuked them sharply for drawing up a petition that parliament might soon meet. To k Sir J. Reresby 's Memoirs. 42 HISTORY OF THE aggravate his iniquities in the eyes of the opposition, he had been active in expressing abhorrence of this tumultuary petitioning. Immediately on the meeting of parliament, Powle arraigned his conduct in a speech full of vindictive energy and of rhetoric bordering on bombast. But great allowance should be made for the bad taste of the reporter 1 . - c The two great pillars of the govern- ment are parliaments and juries : it is this gives us the title of free-born Englishmen, for my notion of free Englishmen is this, that they are ruled by laws of their own making, and tried by men of the same con- dition as themselves. The two great and undoubted privileges of the people have been lately invaded by the judges that now sit in Westminster Hall \ they have espoused proclamations against law ; they have discountenanced and opposed several legal acts that tended to the sitting of this House ; they have grasped the legislative power into their own hands, as in the instance of printing (that printing of news might be prohibited by law) ; they have discharged grand juries on purpose to quell their presentments and shelter great criminals from justice ; and, when juries have presented their opinion for the sitting of this House, they have in disdain thrown them at their feet, and told them they would be no messengers to carry such petitions, and yet, in a few days after, have encouraged all who would spit their venom against the govern- ment ; they have served an ignorant and arbitrary faction, and been the messengers of abhorrences to the king. What we have now to do is to load them with shame who bade defiance to the law ; they are guilty of crimes against nature, against the king, 1 Grey's Debates. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 43 against their knowledge, and against posterity. The whole frame of nature doth loudly and daily petition to God their Creator, and kings, like God, may be addressed in like manner, by petition not command. The judges likewise knew it was lawful to petition: ignorance can be no plea, and their knowledge aggra- vates their crimes ; the children unborn are bound to curse such proceedings, for it was not petitioning but parliaments they abhorred. The atheist pleads against a God, not that he disbelieves a Deity, but would have it so. Tresilian and Belknap were judges too ; their learning gave them honour, but their villanies made their exit by a rope ! The end of my motion there- fore is, that we may address warmly our prince against them ; let us settle a committee to inquire into their crimes, and not fail of doing justice upon those that have prevented it ; let us purge the fountain, and the streams will issue pure." At the conclusion of this animated speech, it was resolved, "That the discharging of a grand jury by any judge, before the end of the term assizes, or sessions, while matters are under consideration and not pre- sented, is arbitrary, illegal, destructive to public jus- tice, a manifest violation of his oath, and is a means to subvert the fundamental laws of this kingdom." The chief justice escaped by an opportune dissolution the consequences of an impeachment. In the frenzied horror of the Popish Plot which covered the nation as with a lurid cloud, overshadow- ing the judgments and darkening the hearts of Eng- lishmen, Powle, with the other leading patriots, strayed widely from the path of political rectitude. Evelyn speaks of his summing up the articles of impeachment in a vehement oration against the Earl of Stafford, 44 HISTORY OF THE murdered under forms of law, though the evidence of Oates, as the good old man wisely and humanely says m , " ought not to have been taken against the life of a clog !" Mr. Powle, in a similar fanatical spirit, passed the watchword of " No Popery" on the slight circum- stance of some troops being required, according to the strict rule of military discipline, to pay a mark of respect to the established religion of the place where they were stationed : " I hear a strange rule, that our forces beyond sea must stand uncovered at the Host passing by in their processions. I would be secured from those forces bringing in popery !" This zealous Protestant champion not only shared with the country party their anti-papistical alarms, but is liable to the reproach, with which nearly all were tainted, of receiving pay and pension from France. On terms of intimacy with Barillon, the celebrated ambassador of Louis, who describes Powle as " a man fit to fill one of the first posts in England,, very elo- quent, and very able," he stooped to accept his mas- ter's bounty, and is put down in that black list, among the first class of pensioners: "A sieur Powle 500 guinees"." Lord William Russell was alone unbribed, and his able descendant, the historian Lord John Rus- sell, has insinuated doubts more specious than solid, of that high-minded nobleman's colleagues being alike free from gifts . " Powle, Littleton, Harbord, Hamp- den, Titus, William Harbord, are put down for 500 guineas ; Sacheverell, Foley, 300 ; Algernon Sydney 500. But it is remarkable, that, of the twenty persons mentioned, not above half were in parliament, and almost all of those were leaders. Now, if any one m Evelyn's Diary, vol. i. " Appendix to Dalrymple. °- Lord John Russell's Life of Lord William Ilussell. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 45 or two obtained money from Barillon for persons to whom they did not distribute it, or if Barillon himself embezzled the money, the names, which would natu- rally appear in his list, would be those of the speakers who had the greatest reputation. But, if the transac- tions were real, it is much more probable that he should have been able to buy the lower and more obscure members than those whose fame stood highest for ability and integrity." The purchase would have been easier assuredly, but would have been scarcely worth the clever Frenchman's notice. We learn from Madame de Sevigne, that Barillon enriched himself by his mission to England, " Cette annee il mangera cinquante mille francs p;" and that the perfect accuracy of his accounts may be questioned where there was no check against peculation. In the present instance, however, there were both checks and vouchers. To confirm his foul impeachment of fair and honourable names, we must admit the generality of the suspicion that French louis d'ors were tinkling in the House of Commons, and the certainty that even detection in venal practices did not, in that degenerate age, entail the disgrace with which the very rumour would overwhelm a modern statesman. Our notions of political honour and integrity would have been deemed prudery in the days of the laughing Charles and Louis le Grand. The memoirs of contemporaries corroborate the revelations of M'Pherson and Dalrym- ple, and leave a stain on his countrymen which the English historian would fain remove, at any cost but that of truth. Upon the evidence it is impossible to return a verdict of acquittal, and not proven is more than, as an honest chronicler, he can safely record. f Sevigne's Letters to her Daughter, 46 HISTORY OF THE When the band of patriots had been overthrown by their own violence, and parliaments were discon- tinued during the dark and evil latter days of Charles and the undisguised despotism of James II. , Mr. Powle appears to have sought shelter in the courts of law, though he had not been regularly educated to the bar, and in the calm pursuits of science. We learn from the following curious letter to Sir Christopher Wren q , that he had been from the first a member of the Royal Society, but we have no other memorial of his taking an active part in their proceedings. " To Sir C. Wren, at All-Sours College, in Oxford. " Sir, — I am commanded by the Royal Society to acquaint you, that his majesty expects you should prosecute your design of making the representation of the lunar globe in solido, and that you should proceed in drawing the shapes of little animals, as they appear in the microscope, and that he doth expect an account of this from you shortly. " I am, Sir, &c. " HENRY POWLE." In observance of the king's command, we are told the globe of the moon in solid work was accurately finished, and presented to his majesty at Whitehall, fixed on a pedestal of lignum vita?, and placed by the king among the curiosities of his cabinet. The advance of the Prince of Orange upon London recalled the whig leader to his political sphere of duty. Lord Clarendon's diary affords a glimpse of the eager- ness with which the contending factions sought an audience of the invader, and of the marked difference i Life of Sir Christopher Wren, by his Son. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 47 displayed in the reception of their overtures 1 ". " De- cember 16th. Sir Robert Howard and Mr. Powle came together to Windsor, and were a long time in private with the prince. Colonel Titus and Sir William Williams were there likewise, but could not be admit- ted to the prince." When all the old parliament men who had sat in the House during the reign of Charles II., together with the lord mayor, aldermen, and sixty common- councilmen of the city of the London s , by way of Corinthian capital to a composite base, were convened at St. James's, Mr. Powle attended the summons at the head of one hundred and sixty members. Upon their return to Westminster, to consider the best method of calling a free parliament, he was chosen chairman, and solved the grave doubt then first started, what authority they had to assemble, by the short answer, " that the request of the prince was a sufficient warrant." The next morning he read their address to his highness, requesting that he would assume the administration of public affairs, and that letters should be issued to summon a convention. Returned for Windsor, with his old correspondent, Sir Christopher Wren, as a colleague, he was voted by a unanimous call to the chair, the 22nd January, 1688-9, and thus attained the highest station to which a statesman could aspire, — speaker of the Convention Parliament. His formal excuse of inability was overruled by the House, and, the throne being vacant, the ceremony of presenting him for approval was omitted*. His elec- tion to the chair forms the second instance, in which neither the form of having the royal permission to r Lord Clarendon's Diary, vol. ii. • Ward's Essay on the Revolution. l Hatsell. 48 HISTORY OF THE proceed to the election of a speaker, nor the still more important form of the king's approbation of the person elected, was observed. The first violation of the royal prerogative had arisen in this instance from absolute necessity, in April 1660, when the Convention Parliament, which met at the Restoration, voted Sir Harbottle Grimston speaker. In lieu of a speech from the throne, Mr. Powle read a letter from the prince, and the House proceeded to business as quietly as if all their solemn rites had been duly performed. It would have been quitting the substance for the shadow had they aimed at more. Of the eloquence and effective energy with which the speaker seconded the prince's wishes for war with France, a striking illustration is given in Ralph u . " Mr. Powle opened the diet with an harangue on the dangerous state of the nation, the fatal conse- quences of anarchy, the deplorable condition of the Protestants of Ireland, the dreadful consequences to England of the loss of that kingdom, the growth of the power of France, the insatiable ambition of the most Christian king, his sworn enmity to the Protest- ant religion and the interests of England ; the neces- sity of putting the nation in such a posture as might not only secure it from any affront, but enable it to subdue France a second time, or at least secure the jirovinces of Normandy and Aquitaine, which were the inheritance of our kings ; and whatever else had a tendency to convince or persuade his audience that their all depended on the Prince of Orange ; and with such great success did he play the orator on this occasion, that the House rang with applause, and in a u Ralph's History of England. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 49 sort of transport all was agreed to that was proposed either for his highness' honour or his interests." A speech that was hailed with such enthusiasm could not deserve Bolingbroke's contemptuous men- tion w . "There is a humdrum speech of a speaker, I think, who humbly desired his majesty to take this opportunity of reconquering his ancient Duchy of Aquitaine. We were soon awakened from these gaudy dreams!" There might be Quixotry in the orator's visions of conquest ; but his object was to infuse a martial spirit into a doubtful and hesitating audience, and their shouts attested the triumph of his art, 'how well he could persuade!' It was a proud day for himself and his country, that 13th day of February, 1688-9, when he stood at the head of the assembled Commons on the left side of the Banquet- ing House, the Marquis of Halifax, speaker of the Lords, with the Peers, on the right, and heard the declaration of rights asserted previously to the tender of the crown. In the magnificent procession that paraded through the streets of London to proclaim William and Mary, the speaker in his carriage took precedence of the Duke of Norfolk, earl marshal, and the other nobles. He was with seven other Commoners summoned to his first privy-council by the new king, and, on the admirable remodelling of the bench of judges, at the time that Holt was appointed chief-justice of the King's Bench, and Sir Robert Atkyns chief- baron, received his patent as master of the rolls. This office, the third station of rank in the law, had been held by several of his predecessors in the chair, Lenthall, w Bolingbroke's Letter to Sir W. Wyndham. VOL. I. E 50 HISTORY OF THE Sir Harbottle Grimston, and others, and at a period when business pressed with lighter weight on both courts, when sessions were short and equity arrears slight, seemed well adapted to be held, as it were in commendam, by the first commoner of England. Independently of this additional income, the stipend of the speaker, though reformed on a liberal scale, would have been scarcely sufficient to maintain his high station. Mr. Powle received £1,000 for the first session of Parliament, an outfit of plate, and perqui- sites amounting to £5 on every private bill. There was sound policy in accumulating the favours of the crown upon one who could play the part of loyal courtier or zealous patriot with equal facility, and on whose private counsels the king implicitly relied for the answers he should publicly return to the addresses of the House. Thus, when the Commons had voted a deputation and a monthly assessment of £420,000, King William, we are told, deferred receiving them until, in concert with the speaker, he had prepared a suitable reply. And when any memorable state occa- sion required it, his eloquence appeared equal to the greatness of the exigency, worthy of a place in the journals. His congratulatory oration to their majes- ties on the coronation, concluded with a felicitous and graceful allusion to the reign, in which parlia- ments met x . " May the lustre of both your names so far out- shine the glory of your predecessors, that the memory of their greatest actions may be forgotten, and your people no longer date the establishment of their laws and liberties from St. Edward's days, but from the * Journals of the Commons, vol. x. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 51 most auspicious reign of King William and Queen Mary." Upon an event equally memorable — presenting the Bill of Rights — the speaker prefaced his offer of the statute for his majesty's gracious acceptance with some well-chosen and judicious sentences. "They have agreed upon a bill for declaring of their rights and liberties, which were so notoriously violated in the late reign, humbly desiring your majesty to give life to it by the royal assent, that so it may remain, not only as a security to them from the like attempts hereafter, but be a lasting monument to all posterity of what they owe to your majesty for their deliver- ance." An address less pleasing to his ungracious royal master, but listened to with delight by his brother Englishmen, was delivered by Mr. Powle, at the close of the session of 1689. The phrase of conquest had been industriously whispered, a prelate had preached upon King William and Queen Mary Conquerors, and there seemed to prevail an overweening sense of the service rendered within the precincts of the court. To lessen this conceit, the speaker introduced an historical reminiscence >'. "It is little more than an age since the most illustrious Prince of Orange, your majesty's great-grandfather, whose name will ever be famous for his love to his country, did, by the assist- ance of the English, redeem those provinces from the like oppressions, which shews how inseparable the interests of these two nations are ; and, since it was the fatal policy of those that laboured our destruction to endeavour to divide us, it ought to be the endea- y Ralph's History. E2 52 HISTORY OF THE vours of all true lovers of their countries to keep us firmly united, in order to our preservation." Mr. Powle displayed equal tact and discretion on still more trying occasions. When James II. wrote to him a letter to present to the House, replete with appeals to their loyalty and feelings, the speaker relieved the country from danger by refusing to open the document. It was confessed by his rival, Sir Edward Seymour, that he kept order excellently well, and escaped censure in the single instance in which the privileges of the House appeared to be invaded, the apprehension of Lord Danby on a charge of treason 2 . His staff of office was broken at the disso- lution of the parliament in 1690. A more unscrupu- lous partizan was required to propitiate in the chair a corrupt and factious majority. Sir John Trevor, — whom he had supplanted at the rolls, the apt speaker of James II. 's solitary House of Commons, — suc- ceeded, and even the seat of the discarded whig was wrested from him on petition. Notoriously partial as election committees then were, they decided that the majority of legal votes had been given in his favour ; but their decision was reversed by the House, who, whilst they excluded their late head from a seat, paid him the tribute of dread, and proved in their iniquity how much they feared him. Mr. Powle retired to the rolls, and maintained the independence of the office by refusing to attend the Lords at their pleasure, asserting that he was an assistant to, but not an attendant upon, the House. He died in November, 1092, and was interred in the village church of Quenington, in Gloucestershire, * Parliamentary History, vol. v. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 53 where he was lord of the manor. Upon a flat stone, within the communion rails, is inscribed the follow- ing too flattering memorial : — "Herelyeth the body of the Right Honorable Henry Powle, Esq., Master of the Rolls, one of the Judges Delegates of the Admiralty, and of his Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council, who departed this life 2 1st of November, 1692, set: 63. 11 Regi et regno fidelissimus, " iEqni rectique arbiter integerrimus, " Pius, probus, temperans, prudens, " Virtutum omnium " Exemplar magnum a ." By his wife Elizabeth, who died long before her husband, July 1672, a daughter of Lord Newport, he had an only child and heiress, Catherine, married to Henry Ireton ; through whom he derived the manor of Williamstrop. His successor, " a bold, bad man b ," was descended from an ancient family in North Wales, which traced its origin to Tudor Trevor, Earl of Hereford, but was reduced to indigence. That wicked gossip, Roger North, gives a curious history of his early rise : c " He was bred a sort of clerk in old Arthur Trevor's cham- bers, an eminent and worthy professor of the law in the Inner Temple. A gentleman that visited Mr. Arthur Trevor, at his going out, observed a strange-looking boy in his clerk's seat (for no person ever had a worse sort of squint than he had), and asked who that youth was : ' A kinsman of mine,' said Arthur Trevor, ' that I have allowed to sit here to learn the knavish part of the law ! ' This John Trevor grew up, and took in with the gamesters, among whom he was a great pro- a Nash's and Sir R. Atkyns' Gloucestershire. b Evelyn. c North's Life "of Chief Justice North. 54 HISTORY OP THE ficient, and, being well grounded in the law, proved a critic in resolving gaming cases and doubts, and had the authority of a judge amongst them, and his sen- tence for the most part carried the cause." But he had the countenance of a more fortunate gambler in the law than even these worthy associates, the execrable Jeffries, his first cousin, and former lover of his second wife. Trevor was patronized by that lucky lawyer, who displayed gleams of good- nature amid ferocious cruelties, and shared in his rapid ascent. Smuggled into the Parliament of Charles II., in 1677, as a retainer of the court, he lost no time in betraying his servile allegiance : " Tis the king's prerogative to make peace or war ; 'tis he that makes it, and he that breaks it. The disciples came to our Saviour in the ship, and said, i Lord, save us or we perish,' and we can say no more to the king d ." The fawning and profane courtier could, however, assume a tone of patriotic virtue when the public mind was frenzied with the terrors of a popish plot, and declaim boldly against the queen, without, of course, the most distant suspicion that the royal voluptuary might not be loath to put her away. " I would satisfy the loyal subjects of England, and pass a vote in plain English, to make an address to the king, that the queen and her family, together with all reputed or suspected papists, may be removed from Whitehall." The vote was passed by acclama- tion, but not carried into effect, for the king had more humanity than his " goodman burgess." The con- venient conscience of this hireling politician was not troubled with a doubt on the guilt of Lord Stafford, and he clamoured for that legal murder in language Grey's Debates. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 55 as choice as the sentiment was pure. " Upon the evidence, I am satisfied clearly that this Lord Stafford is guilty, and so / tvould make no manner of bones to demand judgment. I would have no more delay, but go up and demand judgment." When the vengeance of the vindictive Commons pursued a more worthy victim, and the House debated on an address to the king to remove Sir George Jeffries out of all public offices for his abhorrence of petitions, his cousin pleaded earnestly in his behalf, artfully extolling the merits of the judge, and palliating his immoralities as a man. " I take it, he stands fair as to his carriage relating to the libel and the rape. This gentleman has been Recorder of London many years, and it is a place of great authority, and it is his happiness that there is no evidence against him that he ever packed a jury, or has gone about to clear a person innocent. He has been counsel for the king when persons were indicted for the horrid plot, and behaved himself worthily, and, if I may say so, he was too forward in prosecuting ; if so, that may make some atonement for his forwardness in other matters. I hope in some measure you will take pity of him." The House was deaf to his pathos, and Jeffries, faint-hearted when exposed to danger, however prone to tyrannize over others, resigned his appointment, incurred the scorn of the king, who would sneer at his bullying judge, " as not parliament-proof," e and on his knees at the bar cowered before the severe rebuke of the speaker. During the sanguinarv cam- paign of that determined butcher in the west, Lord Keeper North, and Sir John Churchill, Master of the Rolls, died, and the grateful monarch, when he e Woolryche's Life of Jeffries. 55 HISTORY OF THE had made Jeffries keeper of his conscience, appointed Trevor Master of the Rolls. As a further proof of favour, he was elected, by the court influence, speaker of his first and only parliament in 1685 ; a parliament, according to Evelyn, f composed of the worst mate- rials, and which comprehended even gentlemen's ser- vants, among its members, honourable by courtesy. It is most probable that his remarks were dictated by pique, his brother having lost his election for Surrey, and that he spoke of some who had raised themselves from that menial station, as was the case in later par- liaments with Craggs and Moore. Lord Bolingbroke has vindicated its general respectability, and declares that Bishop Burnet (who asserts that the members were neither men of posts nor estates) speaks of it very indecently, and, I think, very untruly." Be this as it may, the speaker presented a resolu- tion to the king with the Money Bill, that they trusted to the king's word for the safety of the Church of England, which was dearer to them than their lives, and, in a spirit of sturdy boldness, repeated the last emphatic words with a raised voice and marked tone. The king dissembled his displeasure, but seized the opportunity of the intelligence of Monmouth's inva- sion to prorogue his refractory Commons, and when they met again only allowed them to sit for fifteen days. Relegated to the rolls, Sir John Trevor presided over his court with much ability, and relieved the ennui of professional toil by intriguing against his patron. Jeffries had thrown clown the gauntlet by reversing his decrees, discharging his most common orders of course, and setting up officers of his own 1 Evelyn's Diary. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 57 appointment to question the authority of the master, and insult him publicly on the seat of justice. Daring and unprincipled, the master hesitated not in making fierce reprisals, and when the fortunes of the favourite began to waver, from his tenacious adherence to the Church of England, would wrangle with him publicly in Whitehall s. He told the chancellor fearlessly, in Cornish's case, that if he pursued that unfortunate man to execution it would be no better than murder. Jeffries was not the man to grow pale at such a charge, nor would Trevor have preferred it on a prin- ciple of humanity, but his bearing evinced the reck- lessness with which he would fain have tripped up his quondam protector. "Like a true gamester," says North, " he fell to the good work of supplanting his friend, and had certainly done it, if the affairs of King James had stood right up much longer." In July, 1688, he was sworn of the privy council, a circumstance which the Earl of Clarendon has noted in a tone of holy horror h . " July 6th, 1688. Sir John Trevor, master of the rolls, Colonel Titus, and Mr. Vane, Sir Henry Vane's son, were sworn of the privy council. Good God bless us ! What will the world come to !" The privy councillors were scattered with the leaves of autumn, but Trevor had the merit of more fidelity than his fellows, and attended the monarch's levee on his return from Rochester. The result of this council, which the Duke of Hamilton, Lords Berkeley, Craven, Preston, and Godolphin, also attended, was a proclamation for suppressing tumul- tuary outrages, inserted in the Gazette, the last act of sovereignty performed by King James in England. At the revolution, Trevor was displaced from the rolls s Roger North. '' The second Lord Clarendon's Diary. 58 HISTORY OF THE to make room for a more worthy man, Mr. Henry Powle ; but nothing daunted, he resumed his practice at the bar, and was loud and voluble in the House. When it was proposed to disfranchise the borough of Stockbridge for bribery and corruption, and that two members should be added to the county of Southamp- ton instead, having a fellow feeling for such practices, he manfully opposed the measure 1 . "I never heard of boroughs dissolved before. I am afraid, if this question pass, you, Mr. Speaker, and I, shall sit no more in that chair. I have the honour to serve for a borough in Devonshire (Beeral- ston), for which I am obliged to a member of the House (Maynard),, and to the gentlemen of that county. If you break the ancient constitution of elections, I know not the consequence. The security of the nation was ever thought to lie in the mixture of this House. What shall then become of merchants to inform you of trade ? The House stands upon ancient constitutions, and I hope you will not remove old land-marks." The zealous advocate of corruption was not doomed to remain long unrewarded. Appointed first commissioner of the great seal in the room of Maynard, on the meeting of King William's second parliament, in the spring of 1G90, he was unanimously elected speaker, and, on the death of Mr. Henry Powle in the autumn of 1 692, nominated his successor at the rolls. He exhibited in the chair much of the boldfacedness of Bully Bottom, for instance k : ompous preface, he accounts for the spirit of conde- scending scrutiny with which " One of the great admirers of this incomparable author hath made it the amusement of his leisure hours, for many years past, to look over his writings with a critical eye, to note HOUSE OF COMMONS. 215 the obscurities and absurdities introduced into the text, and, according to the best of his judgment, to restore the genuine sense and purity of it. " Since other nations have taken care to dignify the works of their most celebrated poets with the fairest impressions, beautified with the ornaments of sculpture, well may our Shakspeare be thought to deserve no less consideration ; and, as a fresh acknow- ledgment hath lately been paid to his merit, and a high regard to his name and memory, by erecting his statue at the public expense, so it is desired that this new edition of his works, which hath cost some atten- tion and care, may be looked upon as another small monument, designed and dedicated to his honour." The statue thus pompously set up, with the baronet's own name graven on the pedestal, formed a tempting target for the shafts of satirical wit. Horace Walpole, in one of his gossiping letters 1 , tells Sir Horace Mann of a singular emendation, which Sir Thomas Hanmer had made in the text of "Othello." For the passage in which Cassio complains of " being damned in a fair wife," reading — " d d in a fair * phiz.' " The writer was hoaxing his correspondent, but has caught, in his unpoetical fiction, the prevail- ing humour of the day. Pope, with a jealous fear for his own edition of Shakspeare, has niched the rival editor into his " Dunciad." In the procession to do homage to the Goddess of Dulness, he introduces Han- mer under the name of " Montalto," together with his humbler assistant, the plodding Theobald m : — " There moved ^Montalto with supcrioi' air, His stretched out arm displayed a volume fair ; 1 Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Maun. m Pope's Dunciad, part iv. 216 HISTORY OF THE Courtiers and patriots in two ranks divide, Through both he passed, and bowed from side to side ; But, as in graceful act, with awful eye, Composed he stood, bold Benson thrust him by ; The decent knight retired, with sober rage, Withdrew his hand, and closed the pompous page." According to the traditional reports of the village, this portrait of the stately " Montalto " bore a faithful resemblance to the baronet's procession on the Sun- day to and from the parish church, as he paced at the head of his servants through bowing ranks of tenantry, who stood, hat in hand, while the great man went by. On a difference of opinion with Warburton, as to some point of conjectural criticism, that irritable churchman demanded back his letters, which abounded in valuable criticisms on the text of Shakspeare, and recovered them, not without difficulty, as the baronet asserted his right to retain all the documents for which he had paid postage ! To this unhappy strife about the doctrine of lien may be ascribed much of the acrimony of Warburton's strictures ; and his de- preciating spirit seems to have infected Dr. Johnson, who was at that time publishing observations on the tragedy of "Macbeth." " I found," said the doctor, with malicious archness, " that the editor's apprehen- sion is of a cast so different from mine, that he appears to find no difficulty in most of those passages which I have represented as unintelligible, and has, therefore, passed smoothly over them, without any attempt to alter or explain them." His further notice was in the same tone of lofty contempt. " Most of the other emendations which he has endeavoured, whether with good or bad fortune, are too trivial to deserve mention ; for, surely, the weapons of criticism ought to be blunted against an editor who can imagine HOUSE OF COMMONS. 217 that he is restoring poetry, while he is amusing him- self with alterations like these : — for ♦' This is the sergeant, " Who like a good and hardy soldier fought ; " This is the sergeant, who For " Like a right good and hardy soldier fought ; Dismay 'd not this " Our captains Macbeth and Banquo ? yes; " Dismay 'd not this " Our captains brave Macbeth and Banquo ? yes ; such harmless industry may surely be forgiven, if it cannot be praised ; may he therefore never want a monosyllable, who can use it with such wonderful dexterity, ' Rumpatur, quisquis rumpitur, invidia !' The rest of this edition I have not read, but, from the little I have seen, think it not dangerous to declare, that in my opinion its pomp recommends it more than its accuracy. There is no distinction made between the ancient reading and the innovations of the editor ; there is no reason given for any of the alterations which are made ; the emendations of former critics are adopted without any acknowledgment, and few of the difficulties are removed which have hitherto embar- rassed the readers of Shakspeare. " I would not, however, be thought to insult the editor, nor to censure him with too much petulance for having failed in little things, of whom I have been told that he excels in greater ; but I may, without indecency, observe that no man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself; and that those who, like Themistocles, have studied the arts of policy, and can teach a small state how to grow 218 HISTORY OF THE great, should like him disdain to lahour in trifles, and consider petty accomplishments as below their ambition." Eleven years later, in 1756, when Dr. Johnson published his own edition of Shakspeare, the great censor would seem to have felt some compunctious visitings, and to have made an amende honorable to the memory of the Oxford tory. " Our author fell then into the hands of Sir Thomas Hanmer, the Oxford editor, a man in my opinion eminently qualified by nature for such studies. He had, what is the first requisite to emendatory criticism, that intuition by which the poet's intention is imme- diately discovered, and that dexterity of intellect which despatches its work by the easiest means. He had, undoubtedly, read much ; his acquaintance with customs, opinions, and traditions, seems to have been large, and he is often learned without show. He sel- dom passes what he does not understand, without an attempt to find, or to make, a meaning, and sometimes hastily makes what a little more attention would have found. He is solicitous to reduce to grammar what he could not be sure that his author intended to be grammatical. Shakspeare regarded more the series of ideas than of words, and his language, not being designed for the reader's desk, was all that he desired it to be, if it conveyed his meaning to the audience. "Hanmer's care of the metre has been too violently censured. He found the measure reformed in so many passages by the silent labours of some editors, with the silent acquiescence of the rest, that he thought himself allowed to extend a little further the license, which had already been carried so far, without repre- hension y and of his corrections in general it must be HOUSE 0E COMMONS. 219 confessed, that they are often just, and made com- monly with the least possible violation of the text. "But, by inserting his emendations, whether in- vented or borrowed, into the page, without any notice of varying copies, he has appropriated the labour of his predecessors, and made his own edition of little authority. His confidence, indeed, both in himself and others was too great ; he supposes all to be right that was done by Pope and Theobald ; he seems not to suspect a critic of fallibility; and it was but reasonable that he should claim what he so liberally granted. As he never writes without careful inquiry and diligent consideration, I have preserved all his notes,, and believe that every reader will wish for more." The history of the quarrels into which the pro- posals for publishing this splendid edition of Shak- speare involved Hanmer with Warburton, who had entertained a similar design, but who appears to have made but little progress towards the execution of such a work, is too curious not to deserve a more particular mention". " The angry critic found his labours anticipated, and he charged Sir Thomas, in the coarsest manner, with having pilfered and made use of his notes. Both the assertion and the violence served to attach a good deal of temporary interest to this controversy, which is, even now, not unamusing. The literary baronet addressed the fol- lowing letter on the subject to Dr. Smith, Provost of Queen's College, Oxford : — " Mild enh ally near Newmarket, Suffolk, " Dear Sir, October 28th, 1742. " There seems to arise some difficulties with " D'Israeli's Quarrels of Authors. Biographia Britanmca, Art. Hanmer. 220 HISTORY OF THE respect to the design of printing a new edition of Shakspeare, and I beg it may be laid aside, if you are not fully satisfied that some advantage may arise from it to the university, for I have no end in view to myself to make me desire it. I am satisfied there is no edi- tion coming, or likely to come, from Warburton, but is a report raised to support some little purpose or other, of which I see there are many on foot. I have reason to know that Warburton is very angry for a cause, of which I have no reason to be ashamed or he to be proud. My acquaintance with him began upon an application from himself, and at his request, the present Bishop of Salisbury introduced him to me for this purpose only, as was then declared, that, as he had many observations upon Shakspeare then lying by him, over and above those printed in Theobald's book, he much desired to communicate them to me, that I might judge whether any of them were worthy to be added to those emendations, which he understood I had long been making upon that author. " I received his offer with all the civility I could, upon which a long correspondence began by letters, in which he explained his sense upon many passages, which sometimes I thought just, but mostly wild and out of the way. Afterwards, he made a journey hither on purpose to see my books ; he staid about a week with me, and had the inspection of them, and, all this while I had no suspicion of any other design in all the pains he took but to perfect a correct text in Shak- speare, of which he seemed very fond. But not long afterwards the views of interest began to shew them- selves, several hints were dropped of the advantage he might receive from publishing the work thus corrected ; but as I had no thought at all of making it public, so HOUSE OF COMMONS. 221 I was more averse to yield it in such a manner as was likely to produce a paltry edition ; by making it the means only of getting a greater sum of money by it. Upon this he flew into a great rage, and there is an end of the story, with which I have thought it best to make you acquainted, that, as you mention the working of his friends, you may judge the better of what you see and hear from them, and may make what use you please of the truth of facts which I have now laid before you. "As to my own particular, I have no aim to pursue in this affair : I propose neither honour, reward, or thanks, and should be very well pleased to have the books continue upon the shelf in my own private closet. If it is thought they may be of use or plea- sure to the public, I am willing to part with them out of my hands, and to add, for the honour of Shak- speare, some decorations and embellishments, at my own expense. It will be an unexpected pleasure to me, if they can be made in any degree profitable to the university, to which I shall always retain a grati- tude, a regard, and a reverence ; but, that I may end as I began, I beg the favour of you, if, upon more mature consideration among yourselves, you see reason to discourage you from proceeding in this affair, that you will give it over, and not look upon yourselves to be the more obliged to prosecute it, from any steps already taken with, " Sir, " Your most humble and obedient servant, " Thomas Hanmer." The bishop's strictures on this charge, which was to have been printed in the " Biographia Britannica," if the sheet had not been cancelled, do not exhibit much episcopal meekness. 222 history of the " Sir Thomas Hanmer's letter from Mildenliall to Oxford is one continued falsehood from beginning to end ! It is false that my acquaintance began upon an application from me to him. It began on an applica- tion of the present Bishop of London to me, in behalf of Sir Thomas Hanmer, and, as I understood it, at Sir Thomas Hanmer's desire. The thing speaks for itself. It was publicly known that I had written notes on Shakspeare, because part of them were printed ; few people knew that Sir Thomas had ; I certainly did not know ; nor, indeed, whether he was living or dead. The falsehood is still viler, because it skulks only under an insinuation, that I made a journey to him to Mil- denliall without invitation, whereas it was his earnest and repeated request, as appears by his letters, which I have still by me. It is false that the views of interest began to show themselves in me to this disinterested gentleman. My resentment at Sir Thomas Hanmer's behaviour began on the following occasion. " A bookseller in London, of the best reputation, had wrote me word that Sir Thomas Hanmer had been with him, to propose his printing an edition of Shakspeare, on the following conditions : — Of its being pompously printed with cuts (as it afterwards was at Oxford), at the expense of the said bookseller, who, besides, should pay one hundred guineas, or some such sum, to a friend of his (Sir Thomas's), who had transcribed the glossary for him. But the bookseller, understanding that he had made use of many of my notes, and that I knew nothing of the project, thought fit to send me this account. On which I wrote to Sir Thomas, upbraiding him with his behaviour, and demanding out of his hands all the letters 1 had written to him on the subject, which HOUSE OF COMMONS. 223 lit* unwillingly complied with, after cavilling about the right of property in those letters, for -which he had (he said) paid the postage ! When the bookseller would not deal with him upon those terms, he applied to the University of Oxford, and was at the expense of his purse in procuring cuts for his edition, and at the expense of his reputation in employing a number of my emendations on the text without my knowledge or consent ; and this behaviour was what occasioned Mr. Pope's perpetuating the memory of the Oxford edition of Shakspeare in the Dunciad. " W. Warburton. " Gloucester, Jan. 29th, 1761." " The reader," Sir Henry Bunbury well remarks, " will observe that this coarse and furious answer did not issue from the pen of the polemical bishop till fifteen years after the death of Hanmer, when no reply could be made, no documents could be produced, to establish the good faith of the deceased baronet. But looking back at the end of ninety years to the evi- dence which remains, I feel myself convinced that Warburton's posthumous charges were false and calumnious." In his latter days, Sir Thomas Hanmer was much esteemed and highly respected, and he would have gone to his grave happy, as well as honoured, if it had not been for the error before alluded to, in form- ing his second marriage. He and his young wife had been ill suited to each other — "joined, not matched," and his annoyances were not ended by her elopement and death. The book published by Mr. Hervey (which tended to cast a good deal of painful ridicule on the old baronet), and the litigated claims of Lady Hanmer's child, embittered the last years of his life. 224 HISTORY OF THE The correspondence with Warburton was not his sole epistolary vexation. The honourable Mr. Hervey, having procured from his runaway wife all the right she could give him to an estate at Barton, wrote the following extraordinary letter to Sir Thomas after her death, on learning that he was about to sell the timber on the estate :- — " Sir, — Having had an intimation at your door, that it would be of little use to me to multiply my visits, I thought it necessary to give you this trouble. As to your pretended quarrel to me, on my behaviour to your wife, I am proud of having done nothing towards you, but what any man of the strictest honour might have done ; nothing towards her, but what any generous and well-natured man ought to have done ; and you know, as she had sense and spirit enough at last to assert her freedom, you ought to thank heaven that she happened to throw herself into the arms of a son of Lord Bristol ! I waited on you, sir, to ask a piece of justice of you, not a favour ; for of all man- kind you are the last person to whom I would be obliged. I am informed that you have sent orders into Wales to cut down all the timber upon the estate of which I have the reversion, the execution whereof I hoped to respite, by remonstrating to you, that it would have been a little more becoming you as a gentleman to have offered me the refusal of it. Nevertheless, I am still desirous to purchase the wood,'' &c. To this peculiarly cool billet from the seducer of his wife, Sir Thomas wrote the following formal reply :— "Sir, — I little thought I should have been laid under the necessity of denying you admittance to my house, HOUSE OF COMMONS. 225 and of declining any correspondence with you, because I imagined it impossible that you should ever seek either. To hear that called a demand of justice., which you now make the subject of your letter, is another surprise to me, for, I think I have the common right of all mankind to dispose as I please of my own, which right I shall exercise without asking any person's consent, and therefore my answer must be, that I am inclined to deal with others for the wood I have to sell rather than with you. " I am, your humble servant, "Thomas Hanmer." " December 12th, 1741." "I do not wonder," rejoined the impudent libertine, " at your asserting your natural rights with so much warmth, it seems you have so few to spare/' To compensate for such abuse, the literary baronet was fed with "soft dedication" all day long, and propi- tiated by such flattery as the following lines in Broome's epistle to Fenton — " Unhallow'd feet o'er awful Tully tread, And Hyde and Plato join the vulgar dead ; And all the glorious aims that can employ The soul of mortals must with Hanmer die ! " Sir Thomas Hanmer died May 7, 1746, in his 69th year, and was interred with his ancestors in the church of Hanmer, in Flintshire. His epitaph, by Dr. Friend, master of Westminster school, was composed in the lifetime of Sir Thomas, and found in his edition of Shakspeare after his death. The executors inferred from this that it had received his approbation, and accordingly put it on his monument. VOL. I. Q, 226 HISTORY OF THE " Paulatim se a publicis consiliis in otium recipiens Inter literarum amcenitates, Inter anteactae vitae haud insuaves recordations, Inter amicorum convictus et amplexus Honorifice consenuit." No dates are given — he is called with truth et orator gravis et pressus ! " This superb classical inscription was paraphrased in the " Gentleman's Magazine" for May, 1747, by Dr. Johnson, in the following, among other, sonorous lines : " In life's first bloom his public toils began At once commenc'd the senator and man : In business dext'rous, weighty in debate, Thrice ten long years he labour 'd for the state ; In every speech persuasive wisdom flow'd, In every act refulgent virtue glow'd ; Suspended faction ceased from rage and strife, To hear his eloquence and praise his life : Resistless merit fix'd the senate's choice, Who hail'd him speaker with united voice ; Illustrious age ! how bright thy glories shone, When Hanmer fill'd the chair and Anne the throne." With Spencer Compton commenced the perma- nent character of the speaker. Elected unanimously on the accession of George I., he was continued during his entire reign ; the weakness of opposition forbid- ding all hope of obtaining a more favourable president. His rank has been exalted and efficiency promoted by this permanency. With one exception, made under peculiar circumstances (that of Sir Fletcher Norton) there has been no attempt before the Reform Bill to expel even an obnoxious speaker, or anticipate the vacancy which a voluntary resignation might occasion. Mr. Compton was the third son of James, third Earl of Northampton, and born in 1G76. p Returned to p Memoirs of the Kit Cat Club. HOUSE OP COMMONS. 227 Parliament for Eye, when travelling on the continent, in his twenty-second year, he made an early display of worldly wisdom by deserting the principles of his family, which had been for generations tory. He was rewarded by the whigs, in 1705, with the post of chairman of the committee of privileges and elections, and, as a proof of addiction to their politics, was ap- pointed one of the managers of Sacheverell's impeach- ment. In a letter to Walpole, so early as 1704, he shows himself closely identified with the secret counsels of the party : " Not having heard from you since I writ last, I was in hopes to see you in town by this time (October 12th) ; if a letter would not be too great a trouble, I should be glad to know whether you design to be in town at the opening of the session. It is now reported afresh that Harley will quit the chair, that the court will set up the solicitor Harcourt, but that the other tories will try for Mr. Bromley. I do not know whether you will think this contest worth your attendance, but sure some good may be struck out of this division, I hope, therefore, you will not disappoint your friends, who all desire your coming, but none with more earnestness and sincerity than yours, "Sp. Compton." The active whig partizan, with whom he corres- ponded on such terms of political friendship, was soon afterwards a rival for the favour of the crown. Main- wiring writes in January, 1 7 10, q "Mr. Horace Walpole came to us this morning, and says it was an unfortu- nate thing for his brother that he was out of town, for he had found out that Mr. Smith, who, it was generally thought, would have succeeded Sir Thomas Littleton, would not accept the place of treasurer of the q Coxe's Walpole. Q 2 228 HISTORY OF THE navy, and he had reason to believe his brother would be very glad of it, and since the person now most talked of for it was Mr. Compton, he thought there would be no competition between two people, whose merits and late behaviour have been so different, if his brother's inclinations were known." Agreeably to this prediction, Walpole was chosen to the vacancy. It seemed his fate through life to baffle and outstrip the less able competitor, but, as in the race of the hare and tortoise, to be outstripped at the goal. On the accession, Walpole's hopes embraced higher objects of ambition than the speakership, for which indeed his recent expulsion from the House for venality formed no fitting introduction. This formidable antagonist removed, Mr. Compton with unanimous assent was forcibly inducted into the chair. His address of apology, on being presented to the king, he framed according to the old-fashioned receipt of absurd self- depreciation which the good sense of the age had not yet made obsolete, "I have neither memory to retain, judgment to collect, nor skill to guide their debates. " r On announcing his majesty's approval of the Com- mons' choice, the modest speaker turned a compliment with better grace, "that his majesty had thus given proof that he would never deny anything that can be asked of him by his faithful Commons, because it will be impossible for them ever to make a request that could be more reasonably refused." His speech on presenting the money bills deserved the compliment paid to it for its rhetorical skill, of being registered on the journals. It expressed " the Commons' abhorrence of a popish Pretender, concerning whom nothing re- mains unsuspected, but his bigotry to superstition r Journals, vol. xvi. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 229 and his hatred to our holy religion." On occasions of pomp and ceremony, the speaker appears to have rounded his periods with facility and grace. When appointed to return the thanks of the House to the managers of the impeachment against the Earl of Macclesfield for the faithful discharge of their trust, the speaker enlarged upon their merits with a richness of rhetoric that verged on eloquence. " Gentlemen, you have maintained the charge of the Commons with that force of argument, beauty of expression, and strength of reason, as would have gained you the highest applause in the most flourishing of the Grecian republics, and I may add — But I shall not enlarge further on this part of your praise, being sensible that I am not able to express myself in a manner suitable to the dignity of the subject ; your own tongues are only equal to such an undertaking, and, were I able to do it, your modesty would not permit it. You have stopped the cries of orphans, and dried up the tears of the widow, even those who must ever be insensible of the benefits they receive, idiots, and lunatics, (and such only can be insensible of them) will be partakers of the fruits of your labours. " s The whole address was framed in the same elo- quent spirit, and deserves the place in the journals, in which an applausive audience voted its insertion, far more than the set orations of his predecessors. Of another part of his functions, — the duty to maintain order, — the speaker formed (one should imagine, from an anecdote communicated by his successor Onslow) but an inadequate notion.* "It is reported of Sir Spencer Compton that he used to answer a member, who called upon him to make the House quiet, for • Parliamentary History, vol. viii. l Hatsell, Art. Speaker. 230 HISTORY OF THE that he had a right to be heard ; ' No, Sir ! you have a right to speak, but the House have a right to judge whether they will hear you.' " " In this," continues Mr. Onslow, " the speaker certainly erred : the member has a right to speak, and the House ought to attend to him ; and it is the speaker's duty to endeavour for that purpose to keep them correct ; but, where the love of talking gets the better of modesty and good sense, and which sometimes happens, it is a duty very dif- ficult to execute in a large and popular assembly, and indeed the House are very seldom inattentive to a member who says any thing worth their hearing." To the maintenance of decorum, the speaker's formal and solemn manner, set off with a majestic presence and sonorous voice, largely contributed ; whilst they seemed to denote greater extent of know- ledge and more profundity of wisdom than he could in reality claim. u These useful attributes, to [which might be added a strict application to business, a rigid observance of state ceremonial, and a punctuality to the minute of time in appointments, rendered the fortunate whig an especial favourite both with the king and Prince of Wales,™ who classed such useful qualities among the cardinal virtues. In 1721, the speaker contrived to combine the lucrative offices of treasurer of Chelsea Hospital and paymaster of the navy — a union of salaries which might have drawn down on his head the odium of partiality and depend- ence on ministers, had the contending parties been equally balanced ; but the preponderance of the whigs ■ Fox's joke on Thurlow might be applied to the speaker, — " that he must have been an impostor, for that no one ever was so wise as he looked." w Coxe's Walpolo. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 231 was too decided to call forth the imputation of favour- itism. Following this questionable precedent, Mr. Onslow for some time united the incompatible situa- tion of treasurer of the navy with that of speaker, but at length resigned his appointment under the crown, that he might not appear obnoxious to court favour.* Next to Lord Scarborough, none stood higher in the estimation of the prince than Sir Spencer Comp- ton, though his influence and counsels were exerted in vain to dissuade his avaricious patron from allow- ing his name to be cried in the streets during the South Sea mania, as governor of the copper company J The bait of the £40,000, that he gained, by the sanc- tion of his name, from the luckless subscribers, was stronger than all Compton's dissuasives, which may possibly not have been urged beyond the courtly point of objection. 2 The king's death opened a prospect of high prefer- ment to the prudent favourite. When the sudden news of this event was announced to the Prince of Wales, on awakening from his afternoon slumber, by the subtle and submissive Sir Robert Walpole., kneel- ing down and kissing his hand, he answered abruptly to the question — ■" whom his majesty would be pleased to appoint to draw up the declaration to the privy council," — " Compton!" As this was the act of the prime minister, Walpole, we are told a , quitted the apartment with a mortifying certainty of instant dis- x Hatsell. r Coxe's Walpole. z In one of Swift's letters at this period, he writes with dry humour, " I make blunders now ; in writing speaker, I put an n for a p (sneaker)." a Coxe's Walpole. 232 HISTORY OF THE missal. On acquainting Compton with the king's commands, he found that minister totally unprepared with the forms of etiquette and methods of expres- sion used on these occasions. The certainty of such elevation must have presented itself to the speaker in many former musings ; and yet, with singular impro- vidence, he would seem to have neglected mastering the first elements of his duty. But similar slothful negligence, — the " crassa negligentia" of lawyers, — is not infrequent with statesmen of that age. Though George I. could not converse in English, and spoke wretched Latin, not one of his ministers, with the exception of Lord Carteret, thought of learn- ing, from interest, the royal language which so many now voluntarily undertake for pleasure b . The speaker was accordingly compelled to submit to the humiliation of soliciting the minister to prepare the declaration to the privy council. Walpole at once complied, and carried the document to the king, but could not resist letting the queen into the secret of his rival's incompetency. Queen Caroline entertained the highest possible opinion of Walpole's abilities as a financier. In her conversations with the late king on politics at the Chapel Royal (for this was the manner in which "the most religious king" performed his devotions), in answer to her remark, that a want of funds would compel him to disband his Hanoverian troops, George 1. had replied, — " Oh no! Walpole can turn stones into gold!" The lively impression thus created in his favour, was strengthened by the offers which he made, of carrying through the House an augmentation of £130,000 to the civil list, and of obtaining from parliament a jointure for the queen of b Lord J. Russell's History of Europe. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 233 £100,000 a-year, Compton only venturing to promise £60,000. Her influence over the royal mind, always great, and now strenuously exerted, at length wrung a promise from her consort, that, if the change could be effected without any forfeiture of his word, Sir Robert Walpole should not be cashiered. The weakness and fears of the expectant premier w r ere played upon with equal cleverness and despatch. The queen, in Walpole's presence, repeated to Comp- ton the intimation of the king's pleasure that he should be placed at the head of the treasury, and Sir Robert expressed his cheerful acquiescence in the arrange- ment, not affecting to conceal the arduous nature of the duty he w r as undertaking. The speaker yielding to a sudden panic, and conscious of his rival's supe- riority, shed tears, as he declared, with deep gratitude for his master's kindness, his incapacity to preside over the government. While this drama was thus admirably acted in the closet, the door of his house in St. James's-square was besieged by persons of all ranks, w T ho crowded to pay their court to the new minister. As Walpole returned in triumph from the court to his house on the other side of the square, he observed laughingly to a friend who sat in the carriage with him, " Did you notice how my house is deserted, and how that door is surrounded with carriages ? To-morrow the scene will be changed, his door-way w r ill be vacant and mine will be more frequented than ever." It would have been superfluous for the his- torian to state that his prophecy was fulfilled. d To « Coxe's Walpole. a In the Suffolk Correspondence is a letter from Swift to Patty Blount. " How will you pass this summer for want of a squire to Ham Common or Walpole Lodge ? for as to Richmond Lodge or Marble Hill, they are abandoned as much as Sir Spencer Compton 1" 234 HISTORY OF THE console the ex-speaker for the absence of the venal train, he was raised to the peerage by three steps of promo- tion at a time, made Earl of Wilmington, and a Knight of the Garter, on the restoration of that noble order. But no patent or ribbon could reconcile the discarded statesman to the disappointment of his ambition ; and, brooding over the mortification into which he fancied himself cajoled by over-sensitiveness, he caballed to overthrow the premier. " He entered," writes Horace Walpole, " into a secret league with Mr. Pulteney, which Sir Robert discovered by the means of Pulteney's gentleman, who betrayed to him the letter he was carrying from his master to Lord Wilmington. e As this was soon after a treaty between them, Lord Wilmington was much shocked, when the premier reproached him with it, and continued so steady for the future, that, when the famous motion was made against that minister, he went to the House of Lords with a blister on his head, after having been confined to his bed for some days with a fever ! His fidelity had been confirmed by the post of president of the council, but was still of an unstable character. How little reliance could be placed on the faith of his attachment by the trading politicians of the day is amusingly shewn in the following letter of Bubb Doddington, as characteristic of that hoary apostle of corruption, as the most exact likeness could have been. f "Remember, my very good lord, how dear your over-caution fourteen years ago cost your country, and then let me, with the utmost humility, with the most unfeigned duty and respect, with the most sincere and unaffected desire of pardon c Lord Orford's Reminiscences. 1 Goxe's Walpole — Dotldington's Diary. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 235 for this great liberty, and with assurances to induce you to grant it, that I will never again presume so far, let me humbly and earnestly, for God's sake, for the sake of your own glory, for the love of your king and your country, which I know is sincere and ardent in you, let me intreat your lordship to go to the king without loss of time, and say to him what your own honour and excellent understanding shall suggest to you upon the present occasion. You, and you only, have all the talents and all the requisites that this critical time demands, to effectuate this great event, and save your country if it be to be saved." Place and pension were all the objects contemplated in this impassioned appeal ! The noble earl was not addicted to laughter, or he might have chuckled over this fawning sycophantic effusion, for, at the very time of reading it, he had accepted the place of first lord of the treasury, and knew that Doddington was not to be included in the new arrangements. The imbecility of the premier, who accepted a post in his dotage, for which he had owned himself disqualified in his prime, was keenly ridiculed by the satirical wit, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, who compared the new cabinet to a blind beggar, never stirring without his cur. " Well skilled each different way in finding', Who knows all crossings, every winding, By him through all the town is led, And safely guided home to bed ; So fares it with our treasury board, Where dark and blind sits every lord, From that grave thing that wears a ribbon, Quite down to that grave nothing, Gibbon." S The satirist applies the lash still more vigorously in g Sir C. H. Williams's Works. ' 236 HISTORY OF THE " A New Ode to a great number of great men newly made " : — " See yon old dull important lord Who at the long'd for money-hoard Sits first, but does not lead ; His younger brethren all things make, So that the Treasury's like a snake. And the tail moves the head." The prose of Williams was more envenomed than his verse. In a letter to Mr. Dodsley, January, 1742-3, he thus drolls on the superannuated peer — " Sir, " Though, for the generality, the books you usher into the world come forth as correct as possible, yet, in your edition of Dr. Young's poem, called the ' Com- plaint,' or "Night Thoughts,' part 2, there is one erratum so gross and apparent, that I am surprised it could escape you, — ' A Wilmington goes slower than the sun And all mankind mistake their time of day.' Now suppose you should, to use your own phrase, ' dele the sun, and lege a snail,' and in the last line substitute ' but ' for * and,' the verses will run thus, — ' A Wilmington goes slower than a snail, But all mankind' (i. e. all mankind, as well as his lordship) ' mistake the time of day.' Which is a genteel excuse for a superannuated per- son accepting such an appointment as his lordship is now in. But to return to the most material error, which is that of the word ' sun.' Do you believe, Mr. Dodsley, that Dr. Young really thinks it necessary to keep up a character of orthodoxy among his brethren, by pretending to believe literally the old story of Joshua ? HOUSE OF COMMONS. 237 Does he not yet know, from the concurrent assent of all astronomers, that the sun never stirs out of his place, and how can Lord Wilmington go slower than that which never moves ? I really believe he could, if any man in England could ; but, having so lately made himself first minister, it would be hard to put his lordship so soon upon attaining any more impossi- bilities. Another reason why I think this sun must have been a mistake, is, that no man could think of his lordship and the sun in the same line. The sun shines, fixed and immoveable, in his own proper sphere. Is his lordship in his sphere ? Is his lordship im- moveable ? Is his lordship bright ? Does he shine ? Does he dazzle ? Does he enlighten ? Does he warm ? or can he create ? When he retires for some short time from mortal eyes to Chiswick, do men wish to see his face again ? Do they wait impatiently his com- ing out ? Don't they rather think it time he should go out ? How could his lordship put any body in mind of the sun ! There is another remarkable instance in which he differs. The sun is less favourable to England than to almost any other country. Whereas his lordship's whole bent and study is to make glorious and happy this already totally undone nation. For what else but a heart entirely English could have per- suaded an old, infirm, decayed, body and understand- ing, high in nobility, rich in excess, and without issue, to take upon himself the sole government of this hard- ruled people ; but, for their good, what would he not, — nay, what does he not submit to ! He stalks about a first minister, — not like the sun, for he cannot show us even the shadow of power; — condescends to preside at a board where he has no influence ; to sit in a parlia- ment where he has no utterance ; and most assiduously attend a council where he has no opinion! " 238 HISTORY OF THE This scathing letter concludes with a misquotation from the "Night Thoughts." " Wits spare not heaven and Wilmington, nor thee,'' and is signed "John Grub, Grub Street." Dr. Young, whose complimentary verses had occa- sioned the witty knight's onslaught, continued to feed Compton with the delicacies of dedication, and in- scribed to him one of his satires. The poet Thom- son also prefixed the name of Wilmington to his beautiful poem of Winter, without eliciting any solid requital of the venal praise. At length, Aaron Hill awakened the slumbering notice of the reluctant patron by some verses, which he addressed to Thom- son, and published in one of the newspapers, censur- ing the great for their neglect of illustrious men. The manner in which the poet was tardily rewarded illus- trates the indifference and apathy, which had suc- ceeded to the zealous patronage bestowed by states- men of the last age upon genius. h " I hinted to you in my last/' (we cite the poet's own modest letter,) " that on Saturday morning, I was with Sir Spencer Compton. A certain gentleman, without my desire, spoke to him concerning me, his answer was ' I had never come near him.' Then the gentleman put the question, if he desired that I should wait on him : he returned answer he did. On this the gentleman gave me an introductory letter to him. He received me in what they commonly call a civil manner, asked me some common-place questions, and made me a present of twenty guineas. I am very ready to own, that the present was larger than my performance deserved." 1 A less sum, it is not improbable, would have been 11 D'Isracli's Calamities of Authors. 'Dr. Johnson's Life of Thomson. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 239 more warmly welcomed, had the donor, in conferring his obligation, consulted more the spirit of a gentle- man. The speaker seems to have put the dedication in his debtor and creditor account, and to have treated the author of the Seasons with about as much patri- cian hauteur, as he would have done the master tradesman who had called for his bilL This frigid patron, deluded into grasping at the shadow of power long after he had lost the reality, persevered in attend- ing a council at which his opinions and wishes were constantly overruled, till his death, July 4th, 1743, but died first lord of the treasury, an earl, and K.G. The following extract from a letter of Lord Orford's to Pelham gives a truer notion of the esteem in which Lord Wilmington was held, than the blazonry on his monument. " The first turn Lord Bath will take will be to secure a continuance of the present treasury, and make, if he can, an arrant Wilmington of you, that is an arrant nobody/' A political friendship of fifty years' standing could pronounce no worthier epitaph. 240 CHAPTER VII. Before considering the privileges still claimed by the speaker, interwoven with the dignity and inde- pendence of the House of Commons, and essential to the perfect discharge of their high duties, it will be interesting to review those extravagant abuses of power, long since obsolete, which they formerly usurped. Their demand of wages — a perquisite, rather than a privilege — however unsuited to modern notions of propriety, was once thought by no means unworthy " Goodman Burgess," and had one advan- tage at least, that of securing a punctual attendance, each representative being amerced of his wage for the days on which he might be absent. It would appear, from the curious collection of writs de expensis made by Sir F. Palgrave, that the sums demanded by knights of the shire were not always uniform. Sometimes one knight receives 3s. a-day wage, and his colleague, also designated miles, 20d. only. The writ de expensis for Thomas de Luda, and Johannes de Sonninghall, in February, 1324, includes a charge of fourteen marks for twenty- four days' attendance at the parliament, and two days' coming, and two days' returning, at the rate of 3s. 4d. each per diem. There is a record of the sherhT of HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 241 Somersetshire being attached to answer for having assessed the wages of one of the knights of the shire at 16c?. a-day only. For this incongruity, the learned collector of the writs states that no reason can be assigned. It may be conjectured, indeed, though with extreme diffidence, where such a diligent anti- quarian is at fault, that the less payment was the condition of an express agreement before election between the knight and his constituents. We read a presentment by the grand jury for the wapentake of West Derby, a.d. 1320, " that the sheriff of Lancashire had returned two knights without the assent of the county, and had levied £20 for their expenses ; whereas the county could, by their own election, have found two good and sufficient men, who would have gone to parliament for ten marks, or at the most for £10." The counties in general appear to have been very reluctant in their payments. In 1311, a second writ de expensis was issued to the sheriff of Kent, " to make the levy, or show cause why he had not executed the writ." The sheriff made a return, " that at various county courts he had caused the men, almost all of whom held by gavelkind tenure, to assemble ; that at three succes- sive county courts they had declared unanimously that they were not in any manner bound to contribute to the expenses of the knights of the shire, nor could they, and that there were only very few freeholders in the county, and from whom the expenses could not be levied." In proportion to the reluctance with which the represented gave, was the eagerness with which their representatives exacted the gift. Henry IV. having summoned a parliament in the fourteenth year of his VOL. I. R 242 HISTORY OF THE reign, and died before they had passed a single act, or even fulfilled that law of their being, — the granting a supply — the knights and burgesses petitioned his suc- cessor for their writs cle expensis*. A demur was made at the royal treasury, that the worthy members had not entitled themselves to any wages, as nothing had been done ; and the monarch gave an evasive reply, tantamount to a refusal, that " if any precedent could be found, allowance of their fees should be made." Thrifty boroughs and economical corporations ap- pear to have been in the habit of driving hard bargains with their would-be members. There has been pre- served a curious indenture of agreement 15 between John Strange, member for Dunwich, and his constitu- ents, so far back as a.d. 1463, by which it is witnessed that " John Strange granteth by these presents to be one of the burgesses for Dunwich, at the parliament to be holden at Westminster, for which, whether it hold for longer time or short, or whether it fortune to be prorogued, the said John Strange granteth no more to be taken for his wages than a cade full of herrings, and a half-barrel full of herrings, to be delivered on Christmas next coming." Still better terms were insisted on, with the progress of refinement, by the cunning corporation of Westbury c . " One Thomas Long, a very simple man, and unfit to serve, had crept into queen Elizabeth's parliament of 1571. When questioned how he came to be elected, he confessed 1 that he gave the mayor of Westbury and another, £4 for his place.' " The House was greatly shocked, in those primitive days, at the notion of their member * Coke's Institutes. b Dwarris on the Statutes. c Sir Symonds D'Ewcs HOUSE OF COMMONS. 243 paying, instead of being paid, for a seat, and imme- diately ordered the mayor and town council to dis- gorge the money, to appear to answer such things as should be objected against them, and to suffer a penalty of £20 for their scandalous attempt. The origin of the custom of allowing w r ages is traced by Barrington d to the great uncertainty which prevailed when parliaments were young, of the place where they would be held, the writ of summons being fixed capriciously, at one time for York, at another for Westminster. The cost of travelling made it reasonable that a member should be allow r ed some stipend. When a parliament met at Carlisle, as in the times of Edward II., the expense of the journey and the return, would more than absorb, in the vast majority of instances, the customary scanty allowance : 4s. a-day for the knight of the county, and 2s. for any citizen or burgess. The sum of 4s. a-day during the session, to which there soon grew up a usage of adding the charges in going and returning, equivalent to 20s. at the present standard, pressed heavily in those times of petty trade and slender profits on the electors of poor counties and of small towns, which petitioned to be exempt from this onerous representa- tion. They discarded the expensive boon with as much alacrity as modern boroughs have sought to acquire it. Upon the larger corporate towns the burden was prolonged for several centuries, and is confirmed by various statutes 6 . In their unchecked abuse of the public purse, the remnant of the Long Parliament ventured to quadruple the statutory pro- vision for members, and divided a bonus to each of £4 a-w T eek. d Barrington ou the Statutes. e The last statute is 35th Henry VIII., c. 11. R 2 244 HISTORY OF THE At length members themselves began to be ashamed of being classed among stipendiaries : they would not avail themselves of an odious statute, and in the pen- sioner parliament, burdened with sufficient opprobrium without this miserable pittance, they threw off altogether the badge of degradation. In March, 1676, the pres- byterian knight, Sir Harbottle Grimston, moved for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the statute of wages, and desired it might be in particular for Colchester, the place he served for. A writ had gone down from Sir John Shaw, his fellow-burgess, to receive his wages for service done in parliament, and the town was in confusion. The debate which ensued curiously marks the rising sense of shame in some, and the dogged sel- fishness of other honourable members. " e Mr. Powle computed they had sat in that parliament 3000 days, which would be £600, and wages might be due in pro- rogations as well as adjournments. Sir Robert Sawyer suggested they should give up all but the last two years, for which selfish proposition, as it afterwards proved, he was sharply rebuked by Mr, Boscawen, who did not know why Sawyer, who had been but two years, should give away his wages, that had been six- teen years. Hereafter should boroughs be put out of fear, they will choose their own burgesses, blue aprons, and choose gentlemen no more. Mr. Love, one of the members for the city, confessed with much ingenuousness, ' that he had never received any wages from his constituents, nor demanded any, because he thought he never deserved any at their hands.' " The loss of wages," Sir John Birkenhead argued, " is the only punishment the law has made for the absence of parliament-men from their attendance." e Grey's Debates. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 245 " Sir Richard Temple would have the bill go without a clay for a second reading. 'Tis a reflection on the House to discharge the wages by law ; it should be a free-will offering. Wages have been scarce received these eighty or one hundred years." " Some in the House," said Waller, and the amiable poet might glance at his own condition, " some are so poor, and some of the boroughs so rich, that to force men not to take wages would not be equal justice." The manner in which the bill came to be read a second time forms a striking proof of members' sensibility to shame. " It endured a long argument," writes Marvel to his constituents^ " insomuch, that when the question was put for a second reading, a gentleman who had disapproved of the bill, deceiving himself by the noise of the negative vote, required the division of the House, but so considerable a number of the affirmatives went out for it, that all the rest in a manner followed after them, notwithstanding their own votes, and there were scarce either tellers, or men to be told, left behind, so that it will have a second reading." The bill was silently dropt, but a feeling of pride prevailed with the great majority to waive these obnoxious and paltry, and almost obsolete, claims. It is no reproach to the memory of Andrew Marvel, that he should have been the last who exacted the provisions of the old statute, e for he preferred honest poverty to a courtier's corrupt wealth, and the cold meat of yesterday to luxurious viands at the expense of his country's freedom. The patriot who spurned Danby's bribe of a note for £1000, when that corrupt minister scaled his garret, 1 Marvel's Works, vol. i. * Note. — The worthy burgesses were not only good paymasters, but sent their members a yearly present of a barrel of ale. Writing a joint letter of business to the mayor, December 1660, they say, " We must first give you thanks for the kind present you ha Vc 240 HISTORY OF THE might well demand his shillings from a body of con- stituents to whose interests he devoted his time, and whose public rights he would not sell or barter. This discontinuance of receiving pay according to good old custom did not take place without the sup- pressed murmurs, the complaints not loud but deep, of all those who upheld things as they were, the lauda- tores temporis acti. The gossip Pepys records in his Diary, "At dinner with Pemberton, North, &c, had a good deal of good discourse about parliament, their number being uncertain, and always at the will of the king to increase, as he saw reason to erect a new borough. But all concluded, the bane of the parlia- ment hath been the leaving off the old custom of the places allowing wages to those that served them in parliament, by which they chose men that understood their business, and would attend to it, and then could expect an account, but now they cannot." Time has proved the fallacy of these regrets, and the members have gained in dignity far more than they have lost in pelf. At the Revolution, when all chimerical schemes of improvement were afloat, a pamphlet, attributed to the republican Colonel Wild- man, suggested h that each senator should have for his salary or maintenance £1000 a-year. " The charge," he argues, " is a trifle. There is more spent in some monarchies on hawks, hounds, &c." This munificent proposal, which would offer too tempting a bait to eloquent political adventurers, fell to the ground unheeded at the time, to be revived after the lapse of a century and a half, among other new fantasies of popular excitement. pleased to Bend us, which will give occasion to us to remember you often, but the quantity is so great that it might make sober men for- g< tful. ' h Somcrs Tracts, vol. n. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 247 The privileges of parliament, as formerly exerted, grasped at a larger sphere of patronage than wealth, and the most flagrant abuse usurped by both Houses was that of written protections. As the persons of members and of their servants were protected from actions or suits, as well as from arrest, they made this privilege a matter of barter, and extended it to any needy friend or retainer who might require a temporary shelter, granting him, however respectable in station, a certificate that he was their servant. The journals prove this to have been a flagrant departure from the privilege originally set up. When the servant of Mr. Hall (a member) was arrested in 1575, the Commons found no precedent for setting at large a servant by the mace, but only by writ, and every member used to take a corporal oath before the lord chancellor that the party for whom such writ was prayed came up with him, and was his servant at the time of the arrest. The House, we are told, freed the servant by the mace, but, afterwards, finding that he had fraudulently pro- cured this arrest, in order to be discharged of the debt and execution, committed him to the Tower for a month, and until he should pay £100, probably the debt. When a servant of Mr. William Cooke, a member, was arrested in 1601, on his bond, and complained to the speaker by letter dated " From the most loath- some and unfortunate hole in the prison of Newgate," Sir Robert Wroth moved to know whether Mr. Cooke would affirm that man to be his servant, who stood up and said, " He was one of his most necessary servants, for in truth (quoth he) he is my tailor!" It must be understood, that he was a menial plying needle and thread for the use of the household, according to a 248 HISTORY OF THE custom far from uncommon among the families of country gentlemen at that period. The sequel of the complaint is curiously told in Townsend. 1 " The person that arrested Mr. Cooke's man was brought in, who after a sharp speech delivered by Mr. Speaker, shewing that he had committed an heinous offence to arrest any member of the House his servant, knowing that both their persons, their servants, goods, and everything they had were privileged during this great council. How durst you presume to do it? To which the poor old man answered upon his knees, ' that he knew not that his master was of the House. I do acknowledge I have offended, and humbly crave pardon, and I protest upon my salvation I would not have done it had I known his master had been privi- leged." The House were satisfied with this abject apology, and discharged him paying his fees. In 1624 the earl marshal made a report to the Upper House, from the committee of privileges, appointed to enquire how far the privileges of the nobility do clearly extend, and concerning the freedom of their servants and followers from arrest. "These are to extend to all their menial servants and those of their family, and also those employed necessarily and properly about their estates, as well as their persons. This freedom to continue twenty days before and after every session, in which time the Lords may conveniently go home to their houses in the most remote parts of the kingdom." " The Lords should remember," is the warning language of the report, " the ground of this privilege, which was only that they should not be distracted by the trouble of their ser- vants from attending to the serious affairs of the Townsend's Proceedings of Parliament. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 249 kingdom ; that therefore they will not pervert their privileges to the public injustice of the kingdom. " k How soon the peers forgot this judicious admonition, and abused the license, we learn from Clarendon. "The Lords," he writes, and he might have extended his complaint to the Commons, " gave their protections ad libitum, which were commonly sold by their servants to bankrupt citizens, and to such who were able, but refused, to pay their just debts ; and when their creditors knew that they could have no relation of attendance to any man, and thereupon caused them to be arrested, they produced some pro- tection granted to them by some lord, whereupon they were not only discharged, but their creditors, and all who bore any part in the prosecution, w r ere punished with great rigour, and to their great loss and damage, and to the great prejudice of the city and inter- ruption of the whole course of justice of the king- dom. " l When pressed for a loan by both Houses of Parliament, in November 1641, the Londoners ex- pressed their readiness, but comparative inability from this grievous imposition: "That by reason of the privileges of the members of both Houses, and the protections granted, especially by the Lords, a vast sum of money is detained from them ; so that trade cannot be driven, nor are they so able to lend money for the service of the commonwealth, as they desired.''™ So useful a weapon, both of defence and offence, was sometimes cleverly turned by faithless dames and cunning lacqueys against their lords and masters. In 1663 the Commons passed a resolution, that no wife or servant of any member of that House ought k Lords' Journals, vol. iv. ' Life of Lord Clarendon, vol. i. •" Parliamentary History, vol. ii. 250 HISTORY OF THE to have privilege of protection allowed in any case against the husband of such wife or the master of such servant. 11 These scandalous perversions of power working general mischief, grew rapidly to such an excess as to compel the reluctant animadversion of the House. Mr. Benson, a member, having sold many protections, taking as little for some as 16s. or 17s., the House, ashamed apparently of their protections being disposed of so cheaply, resolved " that Mr. Hugh Benson is unworthy and unfit to be a member and shall sit no longer." Andrew Marvel relates to his constituents at Hull another instance of salutary rigour. " Sir John Pretiman, who serves for Leicester, was yesterday suspended from sitting in the House and from all privilege till he find out Humes (a most notorious fellow otherwise) whom he suggested to be his menial servant, whereas he was a prisoner for debt, and thus by Sir John's procurement has escaped his creditors. The Serjeant was sent into the speaker's chamber with the mace to bring him to receive the sentence upon his knees at the bar. Hereupon the House being disappointed (for in the meanwhile he was escaped by the back door), ordered that door to be nailed up for the future, have revived their votes of 1663 against all paper protections, against protec- tion to any but menial servants, and to-day, after a long debate for expelling him, the House have for some good reason, given him till the second Tuesday after our next meeting to appear." This delay saved the delinquent, but his offence was too rank to be readily hushed up. Constrained into an appearance of activity, the » Journals, vol. vii. w Marvel's Letter to the Mayor of Hull, April 9, 1G70. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 251 speaker in 1677 issued his mandate to supersede and call in all paper protections. The messengers found no less than 800 in London and Middlesex ! As soon as it became noised abroad that some redress might be anticipated by the petitioners, a case of peculiar enormity was brought to the notice of the indignant Commons — an instance of licentious daring that would exceed belief, did not all experience teach the lesson, how much abuse " doth grow with what it feeds on." A petition was presented from Mrs. Cot- tington, complaining that Colonel Wanklyn, a member, protected Mr. Cottington, her husband, as his menial servant, against the decision of a cause depending between her and her husband about the validity of their marriage at Turin in Italy, she being a native of that country, and humbly praying the said protection might be withdrawn. This Mr. Cottington, protected as a menial servant, was living, it appeared, in the character of a gentleman on an income of £2000 a- year, equivalent to an estate of £6000 per annum at the present standard of value. p Colonel Wanklyn, when called upon to explain, made a lame apology: " I did withdraw my protection according to a promise I had made the speaker, but the Bishop of Lincoln said, Mr. Cottington had re- ceived a sentence in the Court of Arches contrary to the law of God, and that the gentleman was under a hard censure, and so I granted him my protection, but revoked it on Thursday last!" This hypocritical pre- tence of deferring to the opinion of the Bishop of Lin- coln could not save the venal colonel from deserved punishment. The subject of his delinquency and doom afforded a regular field-day to the House ; as at p Grey's Debates. 252 HISTORY OF THE a hunting party, the whole pack of senators, courtiers, and country gentlemen, joined in full cry to run down the started and stricken victim. He was ordered to withdraw, and members seemed eager to prove their own immaculate innocence by saying the most bitter things against him. Even the corrupt Secretary Co- ventry assumed a tone of austere virtue. " If you give your members leave to protect persons against judgments and sentences, when they think the judges are in the wrong, the House of Commons will be a great place ! " The speaker read an old order, made when Sir Edward Turner was in the chair: — " Resolved, that all protections and written certificates under the hand of any member of this House be void ; and that all menial servants be protected only according to law, and that this order be printed and published." Sir Robert Sawyer declared that he had read the protec- tion granted by Colonel Wanklyn, which was filed in the exchequer, directed, " To all mayors, bailiffs, sheriffs, &c," in as high a style as a proclamation, neither to stir hand nor foot, and threatening what penalty would ensue for breaking his privilege! Fired at the notion of such high-handed injustice, Mr. Hale, an honest country gentleman, expressed his abhorrence with almost Spartan brevity : ' ' This man is not fit to keep us company, and I humbly move that he may be turned out of the House! " One friend alone in that venal assembly, Mr. Secretary Williamson, rose to say a single word against this peremptory motion, or to suggest an apology for the humble voter for govern- ment : " All orders, rules, and practices of granting protections, have been overlooked in this House ; and this man is unfortunate that he must fall for two errors : HOUSE OF COMMONS. 253 Colonel Wanklyn has been a soldier and a commander, and, therefore perhaps, the lawyers are against him." To remove their reluctance to a vote of expulsion, Mr. Waller suggested that he had seen twenty men in a morning put out of the House, and Sir Richard Tem- ple expressed a unanimous feeling, that, " To protect a gentleman of £2,000 a year for a man's menial ser- vant is an extraordinary thing!" It was resolved, without a division, that granting protections to persons, not menial servants, is against the justice and honour of this House, and that Colonel Wanklyn be expelled. The speaker, Sir Edward Sey- mour, caught the tone of severity which is always conta- gious in a large assembly, and suggested that the colonel ought to receive his sentence of expulsion on his knees. He was saved from this indignity, however, by the interposition of a brother-soldier. "When pardons are read/' said Colonel Titus, "in courts of justice, the pardoned persons hear them read on their knees. A sentence of condemnation ought to be received standing." Sir Thomas Littleton agreed in this hu- mane suggestion . " Wanklyn is none of you now; he is cut off from you, and, therefore, it is not proper to bring him on his knees to receive his sentence." The unhappy colonel was then called in, and, having heard his fate, to the scandal of his brother-officers, went away weeping ! It might have been reasonably expected, after this mark of just severity, that a final stop would be put to all traffic in counterfeit protections, but the evil had taken too deep root to be at once abolished. Needy mem- bers still continued to sell certificates, and persons in respectable station would not scruple, on an emergency, to produce their passports of safety, even though they 254 HISTORY OF THE might perchance be described in them under the mas- querade guise of grooms or footmen. The journals of the House disclose a continued prevalence of the abuse. Soon after the Revolution, a petition was pre- sented from Millicent Oddley, q stating " that she was in custody for causing one Gregory to be arrested, in regard he is a servant to the Lord Fairfax. That this Gregory was tenant to the petitioner, who had nothing to live on but her rent ; for the long arrears of which, she had caused him to be arrested, he having lived in her house about five or six years. That he was a sur- geon ; that she did not therefore know he was his lordship's servant, and never saw his lordship's certifi- cate, but that she did, nevertheless, discharge her tenant, as soon as she heard of the protection." The House were graciously pleased to order that Millicent Oddley should be discharged out of custody, paying her fees ; and so the poor widow woman was fined and imprisoned for enforcing a just debt against a fraudu- lent debtor, and deprived of five years' rent, because her tenant, a surgeon, claimed to be the menial servant of a peer, and, shame to the privileges of peerage, had his claim allowed ! The dignified mischief was still connived at, and, to enhance the evil, multiplied by forgery. In 1690 the House was informed, r that Captain Taylor and Mr. Gibson had counterfeited a protection, under the hand and seal of Philip Coningsby, Esq., a member ; they were committed prisoners to the Gate-House, and the sheriffs of Middlesex and secondaries of the city of London ordered to attend, with an account of the protections that had been entered in their respective offices. 1 Journal?, vol. xi. r Journals, vol. xii. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 255 Reluctantly as the fact of disobedience to certain solemn resolutions was thus obtruded on their notice, the House, in vindication of its consistency, passed a further order, that all protections and written certifi- cates of members be declared void in law, and be forthwith called in and withdrawn, and that none be granted for the future; and that, if any shall be granted by any member, such member shall be liable to the censure of the House ; and that the privilege of mem- bers for their menial servants be observed according to law, and that if any menial servant shall be arrested and detained, contrary to privilege, he shall, upon complaint thereof made unto the speaker, be discharged by order from him. Even this order, though tending to suppress, was not sufficient to cut down and extirpate the abuse. The Bishop of St. Asaph w r as compelled to present a petition, s that he wanted to serve Peter Price w T ith a declaration in ejectment, but that he could not prevail with any attorney to make out the record, in regard that Hugh Verney, a member, protected the man, though he was not a menial servant of his. So far had spread the terror of this outstretching usurpation, that even the valour of the ancient Britons quailed before it! The order was again renewed in 1695, in the self-same words ; a resolution was again voted, that all written protections given by any member are void and against the standing order of the House. A fur- ther notice was proclaimed in the third year of George I., when the nuisance was at length tardily abated, but not before the propriety of extending protections to the actual servants of members began, out of the walls of St. Stephens, to be generally questioned. The sound • Journals, vol. xiv. 256 HISTORY OF THE sense of Swift pronounced the claim to be manifestly- absurd, remarking, in his wonted strain of bitter irony, " that the sacred person of a senator's footman shall be free from arrest, although he undoes the poor alewife by running up a score, is a circumstance of equal wis- dom and justice,, to avoid the great evil of his master's lady wanting her complement of liveries behind the coach." The plea that a member could not dispense with the attendance of a needy or dishonest servant would not bear argument. Yet so reluctantly were even unreasonable privileges relinquished, that the protec- tion clothed these serving-men till the reign of George III., and is even now named by the speaker, though abolished by statute. * The origin of the claim is co- eval with the sitting of parliament. The act of Henry IV., which is the first instance of " privilege of parlia- ment " being mentioned in the statute-book, directs a specific penalty for any assault on the servant of any member. Down to the close of the reign of Henry VIII., the privileges claimed by the Commons were for the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, and their menial servants, or familiar es, present with them during their attendance in London. The duration of these privile- ges was confined to their coming, staying, and return- ing to their houses. Their extent was, to be free from any assault, or from arrest, or imprisonment, except for treason, felony, or surety of the peace. On the accession of the Stuarts, these prescriptive rights began to be pushed with jealous eagerness to the very verge of constitutional license, in exact proportion to the excess with which James advanced his prerogative. A remarkable incident of that period shows the violence 1 Hatsell. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 257 with which the usurping, because alarmed, Commons sought to enforce their demands. On the 4th of June, 1621, the House is informed of Johnson, Sir James Whitelocke's man, being arrested. ' The parties are immediately called to the bar, and heard on their knees in their defence, and, after a variety of proposi- tions made for several degrees of punishment, it is ordered upon the question, that they shall both ride upon one horse, face blacked, back to back, from Westminster to the Exchange, with papers on their breasts with this inscription : " For arresting a servant to a member of the Commons' House of Parliament," and this to be done presently, 'sedente curia,' and this, their judgment, was pronounced by Mr. Speaker, to them at the bar accordingly.' 11 This very new and extraordinary punishment was awarded, though it appears from the journals and the parliamentary pro- ceedings, that both these parties had acknowledged their fault, and craved forgiveness of the House and of Sir James Whitelocke. w The House, we may be sure, would have been more temperate in its censures, had it been convinced of their justice. From this time the journals abound in complaints of members for breaches of privilege committed on the persons of their servants, a grievance more frequent than any which affected themselves personally, as the condition and habits of the serving-men rendered them more liable to be involved in petty litigation. Some of these complaints illustrate strongly the injus- tice that was done. We read in the journals of one captious member stating as a grievance that his servant's cloak had been detained at a tavern to secure payment. Neither the injured master, nor his brother members, "Petyt's Miscclianea Parliaraentaria. "Hatsell. VOL. I. S 258 HISTORY OF THE seemed to care whether the tradesman received part of his bill or not, hut committed the unfortunate vintner to the custody of the serjeant for contempt in detain- ing the cloak, and, after some ten days' imprisonment graciously discharged him, on paying his fees ! Ano- ther master, a learned civilian, Dr. Steward, rose to complain of his servant being committed to prison as the father of an illegitimate child. The warrant had been signed by four justices, during a vacation, but was not executed before the commencement of the session. It does not appear whether the commitment was made for the offence " contra bonos mores," or on the Act of Elizabeth, on the man refusing to pay for the keep of the child, but as the case could not in either alternative be construed into a breach of the peace, the committee of privileges reported in his favour. After a fruitless debate upon the expediency of his paying all charges, the privileged individual escaped scathless. Fortunately for the true honour and real privileges of the House, these sins and follies date as far back as the beginning of the 17th century, and now only raise a smile at the over-jealous scruples of our forefathers. x The privilege claimed by members on their own behalf, of being protected from all actions of law or suits in equity, was supported by more specious argu- ments of convenience, but wrought still greater injus- tice. Assuming the fact that, during their attendance in parliament, it was impossible for members to go down to the assizes, and be present at the courts of law, to prosecute or defend their causes ; and that it * Many of the cases are collected in the excellent pamphlets of Mr. Pemberton, Q.C., and Mr. Pickering on the abuses of the privileges of the House of Commons. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 259 was not expedient their attention should be distracted from the weighty business of the public, for which they had been summoned, by avocations of a private and less important nature, the representatives of the people presumed to hold the law and its terrors at defiance. This theory, like some of the Roman Catholic superstitions, was founded on too sublime a notion of the attributes and duties of members, on a grand parliamentary fiction. Taking for granted that a country gentleman, from the moment he was girded with the sword as knight of the shire, would think of nothing but public measures, spend his days in framing new laws, and " sleep with a volume of the statutes under his pillow"y, it might, perhaps, be conceded that he should not be molested with domestic griev- ances, or drawn aside from the public by private cares. But, as the recess generally comprehended, till the latter end of the eighteenth century, eight, or some- times nine months of the year, even the dignity and public abstraction of a member could not have been compromised by his being permitted, when parliament was not sitting, to "do justice and love mercy," to settle disputes with his neighbours, and to pay his poor debtors. The judges disallowed the formal claim of the Com- mons, when first set up, "not to be impleaded in any personal action." Accordingly, in 1584, the House, ascertaining that they should meet with difficulties, if not a positive refusal, on applying to the courts at Westminster, took the remedy into their own hands. Upon the motion of Mr. Harris, that writs of super- sedeas might be issued, divers members having writs of nisi prius brought against them, to be tried at the y The Rev. Sydney Smith's abstract idea of an M.P. S 2 260 HISTORY OF THE assizes in sundry places of the realm, the speaker was directed to write and enclose their commands to the chancellor. As we hear of no further complaints, it may be taken for granted that the chancellor Wotton submitted to the speaker's warrant. In February 1606, several letters were sent by the then speaker to the judges of assize, for the stay of suits in which members were interested, " as in other like cases hath been usual;" and the speaker expresses his reasons, " fearing lest the cause might receive some prejudice by the absence of the member, or withdraw his attendance from this great service, which it is the principal care of his majesty and this House to prevent." With this peremptory demand, the dread of a visit from the serjeant-at-arms induced the judges to comply. Once acquiesced in, the right was speedily enforced and multiplied. As the principle applied, members obtained an indemnity from attending the courts of law as witnesses. In 1601, Mr. Johnson addressed the speaker, "I thought it my duty to inform you that myself and divers others are served with subpoenas. I do not this either that I am loath to answer, or desire to delay justice, but to inform the House thereof, lest, peradventure, it might be a precedent, or some prejudice to the privilege of this House. " After some dispute, an ancient member showed divers precedents, how " that the minds of the mem- bers ought to be freed as well as their bodies ;" whereupon two members of this House were sent to require the lord keeper to reverse that subpoena 2 . A compulsory dispensation of the attendance of par- liament men as jurors, " sedente curia,'' had been 'Townsend's Proceedings of Parliament. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 261 enforced some years before. " 15th Nov. 1597. Sir John Tracy being at the common pleas bar to be put upon a jury, the serjeant-at-arms was presently sent with his mace to fetch him thence to attend his service in the House a ." In May 1604, Sir Edward Mon- tague, having informed the Speaker that he had been warned to appear upon a trial at Guildhall the next day, was voted to be entitled to privilege, because his appearance must of necessity withdraw his presence and attendance. In 1626, the great confessor for privilege, Sir Edward Coke, standing de facto member, though at the time sheriff for Bucks, was declared entitled to his privilege of staying a suit in chancery, commenced against him by the Lady Cleavre. Under the auspices of that venerable patriot, the House of Commons advanced and made good their claims to extend the right of protection in its integrity over an adjournment of five months. Sir Edward Coke dictated the order, worth remark- ing, from its comprehending every sort of privilege to which a member of the House was at that time thought to be entitled 15 , — "That, in case of any arrest, or an)' distress of goods, serving any process, summoning his land, citation or summoning his person, arresting his person, suing him in any court, or breaking any other privilege of this House, a letter shall issue, under Mr. Speaker's hand, for the party's relief therein, as if the parliament was sitting, and the party refusing to obey it to be cen- sured at the next session." It would be superfluous to show how submissively these exemptions were conceded to the House. The grievous hardship inflicted upon all who, to their sorrow, might be • Hakewell's Memorials of Proceedings. b Hatsell. 262 HISTORY OF THE involved in disputes with the privileged class, became aggravated as the duration of parliaments increased j and a statute of limitations, highly useful in itself, fixed six years as the period within which personal actions must be commenced. As the pensioner parliament of Charles II. lasted for seventeen years, witnesses died before an action could be commenced, and all remedy for wrong was denied by mere lapse of time. This iniquity wrung from an honest burgess the frank confession that ' ■ such a privilege was an invitation to bad men to get within the shelter of parliament," that, by the death of witnesses, parliament being longer than formerly, litigants might lose their lands as well as their debts. But public bodies of men have little con- science and still less shame. The evil continued without redress till some years after the Revolution Of its alarming prevalence and extent some idea may be formed by the following petitions selected out of many score, embodying grievous sufferings at this period by various unhappy victims. A petition of Dame Elizabeth Windham, widow, set forth that peti- tioner had joined with her late husband in settling an estate in Somersetshire on his brother, Sir Francis Windham, now a parliament man, with a proviso, that the trustees in the settlement should, out of those premises, raise and pay the petitioner £1000 within three months after her husband's death. He had been dead six years, yet she could not recover her £1000, being obstructed therein by the present barcnet insist- ing on his privilege as a parliament man. The wrongs inflicted appear equally great, when honourable members were plaintiffs, as the rights un- L Journals vol. xii. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 263 redressed, when they were defendants. 4 In 1698, com- plaint was made that James Greville had entered on the estate of Sir Ralph Dutton, and felled a tree of some value, an elm, and carried away great part thereof, nay, had assaulted and beaten his steward. As a matter of course, the party complained against was sent for in custody of the serjeant. In his petition Mr. Greville disclosed to the curious ear of the House a very different version of the trespass imputed — that he had never entered on Sir Ralph's estate at all, nor cut down any tree of his, but a tree which grew on his own manor, and was planted by his ancestors — that he had never assaulted the steward, but that this person, with five more, had come on his own ground, where he was walking with a gun in his hand, which they en- deavoured forcibly to take away, an act of violence, that he resisted as he lawfully might. He complained of having been put to great trouble and expense by this frivolous information, and prayed that he might be heard on the matters charged against him, and be released from his confinement. The case was referred to a committee of privilege, who, having no power to administer an oath, heard evidence of the most conflicting character, the state- ments of interested parties, undeterred by terror of perjury. One old man had been present when the elm was planted by an ancestor of the petitioner; another knew that the tree grew on the waste of Sir Ralph Dutton's manor. One witness deposed that the peti- tioner was qualified to keep a gun, having an estate of above £100 a-year; another that the steward had a warrant from the justice to take away his gun, as an unqualified person. The committee, after patiently d Journals, vol. xiii. 264 HISTORY OF THE listening to the evidence, came to a resolution, "That Mr. Greville was not guilty of a breach of privilege in aiding and abetting the cutting down the tree called Forden Elm." The House at large, who had not heard any evidence, disagreed by 113 v. 94, with this resolu- tion of the committee, lest it should disparage their member, but directed that Mr. Greville be discharged out of the custody of the serjeant. Thus, as we may reasonably infer, for cutting down his own tree on his own grounds, a gentleman was imprisoned for three weeks at a grievous cost, and, when discharged, debarred of all remedy at law. So confident had members become in this high- handed tyranny, that some fancied they might commit acts of trespass and (what Coke and the old champions of parliamentary privilege had never dreamt of) breaches of the peace with impunity. Sir Bourchier Wray, baronet, an infant, presented a petition by his guardians in 1697 e , stating that Sir William Williams, with a great number of armed men, forcibly broke open two capital houses of his deceased ancestor, drove the servants out of possession, carried away all the plate, furniture, and three sacks full of writings ; broke open the houses of several of the tenants, and drove the cattle off the premises, threatening to serve all in like manner, who would not attorn to Mr. Owen. To support this violence, he threatens to insist on his privilege, which has had such an effect that no justice of the peace will meddle in the matter, though applied to, for fear of displeasing the House ; that Mr. Owen is proceeding to cut down the timber, and threatens to keep possession of the estate, in defiance of the devisee." •Journals, vol. xii. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 205 The Revolution had, however, introduced juster notions respecting other men's rights, and the auda- cious abuser of privilege found himself disappointed in his overweening pretensions. The House granted the reasonable prayer of the guardians, that they might have liberty to seek relief against Mr. Owen for his breach of the peace, without incurring their displeasure, and resolved (strange so reasonable a pro- position should have required a resolution) anew the doctrine that had been established two centuries before, " That no member had any privilege, in case of breach of the peace, or forcible entries, or forcible detainers." Acting in a similar spirit of wise and liberal concession, the House adopted several resolu- tions to check the exorbitance of these still fondly- cherished pretensions. A committee, over which Sir Richard Onslow presided, reported several resolutions^ " That no member should have any privilege, except personal, against any Commoner, in any suit or pro- ceedings in courts of law or equity, for any longer time than the House was actually sitting for despatch of business ; that a Commoner have at all times liberty to file any writ, or make any entry to save a right, in order to prevent any bar by the statute of limitations against any member. That a Commoner have at all times liberty to exhibit any bill in equity against any member, in order only to examine the witnesses, to preserve their testimony, notwithstand- ing any privilege." These resolutons, being afterwards embodied in an act of parliament, reduced within compass the enormity of the evil, which was after- wards, with the increase of intelligence and freedom 'Journals for 169S. 266 HISTORY OF THE wholly removed, the person of the member being left sacred, but all his other distinctions annulled. The privilege of members from having their goods taken in execution was, in its commencement, expressly confined to such goods and chattels as it was necessary the member should have with him during his attend- ance in parliament, or in returning to his house : a chair, on which to sit down ; a table, on which to eat his meals ; a bed, to lie down upon, were certainly essential to the comfort of each individual summoned to the great council of the nation. But the same principle did not apply to the goods left at home, in the country, except so far as a distress on them might be deemed to distract his thoughts. According, however, to that expansive spirit by which all their privileges grew and multiplied, the personalty of members became entitled to the same complete protection as the persons of members them- selves. The sheriff of Hampshire, in 1606, caused a distress to be levied on the goods of Sir William Kingwell, which the knight had left behind him when he set out for Westminster. As these goods could not be brought within the claim established in Atwyll's case, of goods necessary to be had with him, the speaker wrote a courteous letter to the sheriff, inform- ing him of these extended rights, ''That the privilege of parliament, during the time of service there (haply not so well known to yourself), reacheth, as well to the goods as persons of any member. I am therefore to advise and require you, that you forthwith procure restitution of the said goods, according to the privi- lege, lest that danger grow upon it, which I should be loath you should undergo." It is probable the sheriff* took the speaker's advice. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 267 An injudicious attempt was made by Charles I. to justify the seizure of goods for duties owing to the crown, and the officers of the customs levied a distress in the warehouse of Mr. Rolles, a member, by his majesty's express commands The Long Parliament protested fiercely against this inroad of the king's prerogative, and there certainly appeared no valid distinction between the royal revenues and the rights of a subject, were this privilege one that ought to have prevailed against the claims of either. It was reserved for the intelligence of a later age to discover that a member of parliament lost no security worth contending for by divesting himself of all vexatious immunities — that he gained ease and freedom by throwing off that irksome armour which encumbered him with protection, and, in the emphatic language of the dramatist, " only scalded with safety." e Parliamentary History, vol. ii. 268 CHAPTER VIII. Having thus cleared away the superfluous and oppressive privileges — the wood, hay, and stubble, which cumbered the surface — we may proceed to examine and admire those constitutional rights, upon which, like pillars of adamant, the powers of the House are supported ; entire immunity of person, except from matter of criminal charge, and to every member perfect liberty of speech. This freedom of debate, " the quintessence of the four essences 51 " (to use Coke's quaint phraseology), was not made one of the articles of the speaker's petition to the throne till the thirty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII. But a century sooner, on the accession of Henry IV. in 1399, Sir John Cheney preferred a general request, as speaker, that the Commons might enjoy their ancient privileges and liberties, not naming any in particular, but glancing at this as the chief. It forms an interesting chapter in the history of St. Stephen's Chapel, to look back and see how bravely this licence was battled for by our fore- fathers ; how jealously it was watched and impugned by the Tudors and Stuarts; with what persevering » Coke's Reports. b Ilatsell's Precedents. HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 2G9 art the courtiers essayed to control or abridge its exercise ; and with what stubborn firmness the patriots of those days insisted on maintaining, nay, enlarging its foundations. The student of English history will delight to trace by what painful efforts, and against what determined opposition, this hardy plant throve and nourished, flinging out an expanded shade, till at the Revolution it struck its roots into the very centre of the constitution. The Bill of Rights did not, however, insert the Commons' Magna Charta for the first time in the statute book. In the fourth year of Henry IV., Mr. Strode, a member, having proposed a bill in parliament for the regulation of the tinners in Corn- wall, was prosecuted in the stannary courts for that offence; and, there being condemned in a large sum of money, was imprisoned in Ladford Castle, but deli- vered by a writ of privilege. This extraordinary proceeding being represented by him in petition, an act was passed in the same year to annul and make void these several judgments and executions ; and it was further enacted, "that all suits, fines, amerciaments, punishments, and impositions, put and had in the said record, or to any other person of this present parlia- ment, or of any parliament hereafter, for any bill, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter con- cerning the parliament, to be commenced and treated, be utterly void and of none effect." By a resolution of the House, November, 1667, this act was pro- nounced to be only a " declaratory law of the ancient and necessary rights and privileges of parliament. But, however ancient, the Commons exercised their right with flattering humility during the reign of the butcher-king, Henry VIII. ; and were constrained to 270 HISTORY OF THE wrangle for its preservation when repeatedly threat- ened by good Queen Bess. The journals show, with amusing quaintness, the manner in which these strug- gles were carried on. Her faithful Commons, early in the reign, became loyally anxious that Elizabeth should marry; and her maidenly scruples, no less than royal dignity, took alarm at the notion of their interference. " d 1566, October 30th. A committee of both houses is appointed to petition the queen about her marriage. November 9th, Saturday. Mr. Vice- Chamberlain declares her majesty's express com- mandment that they shall no further proceed in their suit, but satisfy themselves with her highness' pro- mise of marriage. November 11, Monday. It is moved whether the queen's command is not against their liberties. This dispute lasts from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is adjourned to next day. November 12th, Tuesday. The speaker communicates a special commandment from her highness to this House, ' that there shall be no further talk of the matter j and if any person is not satisfied, but had reasons, let hirn come before the privy council there to shew them!' November 25, Monday. Mr. Speaker de- clares her highness' pleasure to revoke her two former commandments, which revocation is taken of the House most joyfully, with most hearty prayers." The discussion was afterwards revived, not in reference to that particular service in the Book of Common Prayer, but on the propriety of reforms in the common prayer itself. Mr. Strickland, a mem- ber, having introduced a bill for an alteration of the rubric — to forbid the kneeling at receiving the com- d Sir S. d'Ewes. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 271 munion — was the next day called before the queen's council, and commanded by them " to forbear going to the House till their pleasure was further known." His detention was complained of; and the House would not accept the apology of Mr. Treasurer, that " he was in no sort stayed for any word or speech by him in that place offered ; but for the exhibiting a bill into the House against the prerogative of the queen, which was not to be tolerated." The next morning, almost as soon as the House met, Mr. Strickland came in to their great joy e . That politic princess knew well how to yield, when there was danger in pressing an obnoxious prerogative too far, but returned again to the charge, again to be baffled by the vigilant Commons. A bill relating to rites and ceremonies in the church having been read three times, the speaker declared it to be the queen's pleasure that from thenceforth no bills concerning religion should be preferred or received into that House, unless the same had been first considered and approved of by the clergy. Peter Wentvvorth, a Puritan, "the forerunner of the Pyms and Hampdens in the next generation," protested against this declaration in a speech tinged with enthusiasm, but sublimed by a tone of patriotic vigour f . ' Having opened on seven different grounds the commodities that grow to the prince and the e Parliamentary History, vol. i. 1 Professor Smyth has given a vivid sketch of these first stirrings of freedom in one of those delightful lectures on modern history with which our literature " magnas inter opes inops" has been lately enriched, — lectures which, in language often most eloquent, and in a narrative always interesting, reflect the calm wisdom of the moral teacher upon the acquirements of the scholar, and, whilst they inform our understandings, elevate the feelings, and purify the heart. 272 HISTORY OF THE whole state by free speech used in this place,' the orator concludes, that " in this House, which is termed a place of free speech, there is nothing so necessary for the preservation of the prince and state as free speech, and without this it is a scorn and mockery to call it a parliament House ; for in truth it is none, but a very school of flattery and dissimulation, and so a fit place to serve the devil and his angels in, and not to glorify God and to benefit the common- wealth." The House, out of a reverend regard to her majesty's honour, stopped him before he had fully finished, and sequestered the rash member for his imprudence. The next day he was brought from the Serjeant's custody to answer for his speech to a select committee. "I do promise you all," said this intrepid patriot, "if the Lord forsake me not, that I will never during life hold my tongue, if any message is sent, wherein God is dishonoured, the prince perilled, or the liberties of the parliament impeached." He was then sent to prison " for the violent and wicked words yesterday pronounced by him, touching the queen's majesty 5 ." In a month afterwards the queen was pleased to remit her displeasure, and to refer the enlargement of the party to the House. But, though defeated in open assaults upon their debates, Queen Elizabeth lost no opportunity of letting the House know her stedfast determination to confine their liberties within the narrowest possible limits. When the speaker, Sir Edward Coke, demanded their privileges for her last parliament, Sir John Puckering, the lord keeper, replied by her command 11 , " Privilege of speech is granted, but you must know * Smyth's Lectures, vol. i. u Townscnd's Proceedings of Parliament. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 273 what privilege you have, not to speak every one what he listeth or what cometh into his brain, bat your privilege is i Aye, or No.' Free access is granted to her majesty's person, so that it be upon urgent and weighty causes, and at times convenient, and when her majesty may be at leisure from other important cares of the realm." With equal hauteur, but w 7 ith greater misad- venture, her feeble successor declaimed, in a tone of splenetic tyranny, against his Commons' vaunted liberty of speech, nor could the issue of the contest be doubtful, for, where the pusillanimous James assailed, Coke, with the newly-roused vigour of the people of England, defended. There may sometimes be detected, it is true, a strange appearance of pusil- lanimity and vacillation in their proceedings, nor as yet had the constant intermeddling of the monarch with debates only partly concluded, and bills incom- plete, attracted sufficient notice. Sir Charles Piggot having made a desultory speech against the Scottish nation, the king sent a message to the House, to complain of a member 1 urging matter of invective against his own people, using many words of obloquy and scandal, ill beseeming such an audience, not pertinent to the matter in hand, and very unsea- sonable for the time and occasion. "He did much mislike and tax their neglect, in that the speaker w 7 as not interrupted in the instant, and the party committed before it became public and to his high- ness's ear." It was ordered that Sir Charles Piggot be com- mitted to the Tower during the pleasure of the House, be dismissed from his place as knight of the shire for ' Petyt's Miscellanea. VOL. I. T '274 HISTORY OF THE Bucks, and that a writ be issued for a new choice. Upon a message from the king he was discharged from custody. The unfortunate knight had probably made himself personally obnoxious, for we read k of his being some time before reprimanded by the speaker for not standing up bare-headed ; but even on this hypothesis it would be difficult to acquit the House of tamely yielding up their member as a victim to the royal vengeance. " Privilege of speech," says Hatsell 1 , " was frequently cavilled at by the courtiers in the reigns of Queen Mary, Elizabeth, and James, when they thought it trenched on the royal prerogative, and in general the House acquiesced too much in this doctrine." They inveighed against " some tribunes of the people, whose mouths could not be stopped ;*' declared that " a member must not speak what and of whom he list;" and threatened "those idle heads that would meddle with reforming the church and transforming the commonwealth." But when James, in his zeal for absolute monarchy, wrote a letter to be communicated to the Commons, in which, speaking of their privileges, he says, " We could not allow of the style calling it their ancient and undoubted right and inheritance ; we cannot with patience endure our subjects to use such anti-monarchical words/' he was encountered by a spirit as haughty as his own. In December, 1621, Sir Edward Coke and Noy assisted in drawing up a protestation and remonstrance " that every member hath freedom from all impeach- ment, imprisonment, or molestation, other than by censure of the House itself, for or concerning any bill, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter k Parliamentary History, vol. i. 1 Ilatscll's Precedents, title Privilege. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 275 or matters touching the parliament or parliament business." The angry monarch soon after sent for the Journal Book, and in council, with his own hand, tore out the protestation. It was an act of impotent rage : the rent leaf was soon replaced, and will ever form the first page in the journal of parliamentary privilege. From that period the Commons urged their rights with more uniform boldness, exchanged the ' baited breath' of submissive petition for a language more becoming freemen of firm remonstrance, and interfered to prevent the dastardly revenge which singled out the boldest speakers, Sir Edwin Sandys, Mr. Morice, and many others, for punishment, as soon as parliament had risen. Some members having been committed in 1614, for speeches they had delivered in parliament, during the first session, the grievance was discussed as soon as the next parliament met, at a length and with a spirit proportioned to its exceeding importance. After a debate of several days, it was determined that they should proceed by message to the king, and not by petition in writing, to desire that, if any of the House should speak in any doubtful manner, they may be censured here, and not be punished in or after the parliament. But, during the debate on that question, a message to the House was brought from the king by Mr. Secretary Calvert, to say, that (t his majesty did grant liberty and freedom of speech in as ample manner as any of his predecessors ever did, and, if any should speak undutifully (as he hoped none would), he doubted not but we ourselves would be more forward to punish it than he to require it ; and he willed us to rest satisfied with this, rather than to trouble him with any petition or message, and so cast T 2 276 HISTORY OF THE ourselves upon one of these rocks, that, if we asked for too little, we should wrong ourselves ; if for too much, or more than right, he should be forced to deny us, which he should be very loath to do/' This message put an end to further proceedings, and involved the Lower House in a false security. No sooner had they closed their sittings, than " those ill-tempered spirits," Sir Edward Coke, Sir Robert Philips, Mr. Pym, Mr. Selden, and Mr. Mallory, who had been the most forward in asserting the privileges of the House of Commons, were committed to the Tower and other prisons ; the locks and doors of Sir Edward Coke's chambers in London and in the Tem- ple were sealed up, and his papers seized 01 . Sir Dudley Digges and others, as a lighter punishment, were sent into Ireland, to inquire into matters con- cerning the king's service. The attacks thus fiercely urged against the chief of the Commons' privileges, to which all the rest might be considered subordinate and ancillary, were renewed by Charles with double vehemence, his cha- racter being firmer, and assumption of the royal pre- rogative still loftier than his father's. Accordingly, in the first session of his first parliament, Charles proceeded to attack the freedom of debate, sending a message 11 to complain of a seditious speech by Mr. Clement Coke, youngest son of the great lawyer, that 11 it was better to die by an enemy than be destroyed at home;" and still more of the civilian Dr. Turner having made an inquiry of sundry articles against the Duke of Buckingham, as he pretended, but in truth against the honour and government of the king, his ■ Johnston's Life of Sir E. Coke. " Parliamentary History, vol. ii. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 277 late father, adding a threat, in the guise of hope, that the king might not be constrained to use his royal authority to right himself against these two persons." The Commons attended with a remonstrance, and declared, that " neither the words mentioned in his majesty's message, nor any others of seditious effect, were spoken by Mr. Coke, as hath been resolved by the House without one negative voice. However, he did let fall some words, which might admit an ill con- struction, but, being generally and instantly checked, forthwith explained himself as to his intentions." The king was forced to be content with this apology, and found his forbearance rewarded by the House acquiescing in his mandate, when the respect due to the sovereign had been really outraged. Mr. More, a member, having said in the following session, " That we were born free, and must continue free, if the king would keep his kingdom;" adding, "as thanks be to God, we have no occasion to fear, having a just and pious king;" on the king representing these words to the House, a committee was appointed to examine the matter, and, though cleared of ill inten- tions, the audacious speaker was committed to the Tower for four days, and only enlarged on a message from his majesty. His jealous mistrust of parliamentary eloquence was not suffered to sleep. At a conference with the Lords, on presenting articles of impeachment against the royal favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, Sir Dudley Digges compared him to a blazing star, and Sir John Eliot named him as " that man." The two free speakers were beckoned out, on pretence of a message from the king, and committed to the Tower, Charles avowing the act. Alarmed at this open exer- 278 HISTORY OF THE cise of tyranny, the House refused to continue their sittings, and suspended all discussion on measures of supply. This attitude of defiance constrained the monarch to yield, and, though the forerunner of measures less capable of justification, entitles the leaders of opposition to the gratitude of their country. The boldness with which the House asserted their indubitable and essential right of freedom of speech, and the personal freedom of the members, and their decision in refusing to proceed on any business till their leaders, Sir John Eliot and Sir Dudley Digges, had been discharged , saved the liberties of England The terrors of fine and imprisonment and Star Chamber punishments would undoubtedly have pre- vented many members from voting or speaking against the measures of the court, while the more firm and resolute, the Wentworths, Eliots, and other manly spirits, whom no terrors could affright, would, by the exercise of this power, have been withdrawn from the House, and the court might easily have prevailed with the timid herd which were left behind to give the countenance of parliamentary authority to those deadly assaults of prerogative, in which Charles had deter- mined to prevail or perish. " The very day," writes a modern author, p " that Eliot had concluded his harangue with the memorable peroration, ' My lords, I have done, you see the man,' Charles came in his barge from Westminster Hall, with Buckingham by his side, to order Eliot to the Tower. The House of Commons broke up instantly. The next morning, when the speaker reminded them of the business of the day, " Sit down, sit down !" was the general cry, no business till we are righted in our ° Hatscll. ■' Fbrster's Life of Sir John Eliot. HOUSE OF COMMONS 279 liberties!" In vain did Sir Dudley Carlton, vice chamberlain of the household, reason with the House on what he termed their refractory silence, and declare his opinion, that " the greatest and wisest part of a parliament are those that use the greatest silence, so as not to be opiniative or sullen." They would not be moved from their moody silence, till, after eight days' struggle, Sir John Eliot was released by royal warrant. But, still untractable, he refused to make an apo- logy for having simply said, "You see the man/' though such shocking words had startled the supple courtier Sir Dudley Carlton, as outraging all propriety, 11 extraordinary terms to use of so high a person, and such as he never heard the like in parliament before." The patriot contented himself with a simple explana- tion, that he spoke not by the book, but suddenly. " For brevity's sake he used the words ' the man.' He thought it not fit at all times to reiterate his titles, and yet thinketh him not to be a god !" The House ratified his justification, by resolving, " That Sir John Eliot had not exceeded the commission given him by the House, in anything which passed from him in the late conference with the Lords." A new parliament was called in March, 1627, and proceeded at once to the discussion of public griev- ances. The solemn, grave, measured, tone of their remarks sounds like the hollow murmur that heralds an approaching storm. " I read of a custom," said Sir Robert Philips q, " among the old Romans, that once every year they had a solemn feast for their slaves, at which they had liberty without exception to speak what they would, thereby to ease their afflicted minds, which being Parliamentary History, vol. ii. 280 HISTORY OF THE finished, they severally returned to their former servi- tude. I can live, although another, who has no right, be put to live with me ; nay, I can live, although I pay excises and impositions more than I do ; but to have my liberty, which is the soul of my life, taken from me by power, and to have my body pent up in a gaol, without remedy by law, and to be so adjudged — O improvident ancestors ! O unwise forefathers ! To be so curious in providing for the quiet possession of our laws and the liberties of parliament, and to neglect our persons and bodies, and to let them lie in prison, and that ' durante bene placito,' remediless ! If this be law, why do we talk of liberties ? Why do we trouble ourselves with a dispute about law franchises, property of goods, and the like ? What may any man call his own, if not the liberty of his person." " Let us imitate Jacob," said Sir Henry Martin, using the puritanical illustration from Scripture that began to prevail, " who wrestled with the angel, and would not let him go. I would we could wrestle with the king, in duty and love, and not let him go from this parliament till he comply with us." The veteran Sir Edward Coke, added another quaint and forcible illustration from the law: "For a freeman to be tenant at will for his liberty he could never agree to it ; it was a tenure that could not be found in all Littleton." Their prayers were embodied in the famous petition of right, and the king, after enshrouding evasive assent in vague generalities, was at length driven to give, through the clerk, his constitutional answer, Soit droit fait comme il est desire. In their joy, the Commons dis- regarded precedents, and gave a great shout of applause. As a further practical token of their gratitude, in five days Sir Edward Coke carried up to the Lords a bill for HOUSE OF COMMONS. 281 granting five subsidies to the king, the whole House accompanying him. But the calm proved evanescent. The complaints against tonnage duties and imposts soon burst forth anew with greater violence, as if gain- ing strength from the temporary calm. To still their displeasure, Charles sent a message through the speaker, couched in the highest strain of prerogative, requiring them " not to enter into or proceed with any new business which may spend greater time, or which may lay any scandal or aspersion upon the state, government, or ministers thereof." Well might they deprecate such a sad message, and exclaim, " If stop- ped, and stopped in such a manner as we are now enjoined, we must leave to be a council." Sir John Eliot had only proceeded, "It is said also, as if we cast some aspersions on his majesty's ministers : I am confident no minister, how dear soever, can " — when the speaker started up from the chair, and supposing that the bold patriot intended to attack the duke, said, with tears in his eyes, "' There is a command laid upon me to interrupt any that should go about to lay an aspersion on the ministers of state." An instant reply was given, and met with unanimous assent, "that every member of the House is free from any undutiful speech from the beginning of the parliament to that day." A vote was carried with acclamation, that the House be turned into a committee " to consider what is fit to be done for the safety of the kingdom, and that no man go out upon pain of being sent to the Tower." Meantime, the speaker, Sir John Finch, requested permission to leave the chair for half an hour, and the House having resolved itself into a grand com- mittee, Mr. Kirton uttered words of ominous import. "The king is as good a prince as ever reigned, it is 282 HISTORY OF THE the enemies to the commonwealth that have so pre- vailed with him, therefore let us aim now to discover them, and I doubt not but God will send us hearts, hands, and swords, to cut all his and our enemies' throats." Sir Edward Coke adding, " It is not the king, but the duke (a great cry of assent, ' Tis he, 'tis he,') r that saith, ' We require you not to meddle with state government or the ministers thereof.' " Exception being taken next day to Mr. Kirton's expression, it was resolved " That therein he had said nothing beyond the bounds of duty and allegiance, and that they all concurred with him therein." At length, but ungraciously and by constraint, the king yielded to this fixed determination of discussing grievances, with a range of invective, for which the puritanical notion of Mr. Coriton seems to have been taken as a guide. " I hope we may speak here, as we may speak in heaven, and do our duties, and let not fear divert us." Allusion was again made to the sword by Sir John Elliot who foresaw in this discussion " the begin- ning of the end." " In some churches it is said, that they did not only stand upright with their bodies, but with their swords drawn, and if cause were, I hope, to defend our prince, country, and religion, we should draw our swords against all opposers." The final struggle for privilege took place on the 2nd March, 1628, when parliament was on the verge of dissolution ; and Sir John Eliot, the undaunted leader of the opposition declared, " I protest, as I am a gentleman, if my fortune be ever again to meet in this honourable assembly, where I now leave, I will begin again." It would have been well had he rested here, but his next step was imprudent, and sunk into r Parliamentary History, vol. ii. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 283 sedition. The speaker having interrupted his passion- ate harangue on grievances, to announce that he was the bearer of a royal message for adjournment, the passionate orator retorted that it was not the business of the speaker to deliver such a message, that adjourn- ment belonged not to the king but to the House, and read a remonstrance, after the speaker and clerk had refused to read it, which he submitted to the chair, who declined to put it to the vote, saying he had been commanded by the king expressly, when he had delivered his message, to rise : He then, protesting "I do not say I will not, but I dare not," with tears attempted to quit the chair, but was held down by force, till Hoiles had read a protestation, hastily penned by Eliot, " that whoever introduced innovations in reli- gion, and w T hoever advised the levy of tonnage and poundage without parliament should be reputed a public enemy." The door being locked, and the black rod refused admittance, the king sent for his guards to force an entrance, but the House, their violence ex- hausted, dispersed in time to prevent bloodshed, having by this ill advised outbreak of temper exposed their leaders to the royal vengeance. The king dissolved the parliament, pointing out, in a long printed declaration, how far the members of that House '• have swollen beyond the rules of modera- tion and the modesty of former times, and this under pretence of privilege and freedom of speech, whereby they take liberty to declare against all authority of council and courts, at their pleasure." He committed the ringleaders to the Tower, that they might not be bailed, and requested the opinion of the three chief judges, " Whether a parliament man offending the king criminally or contemptuously in the parliament house 284 HISTORY OF THE (and not then punished), may not be punished out of parliament." 8 Answer. " We conceive that if a par- liament man, exceeding the privilege of parliament, do criminally or contemptuously offend the king in the parliament house (and not there punished), he may be punished out of parliament." After this erroneous and extra-judicial opinion, an information was filed in the King's Bench against Eliot, Holies, and Valentine, for seditious speeches and tumult in parliament. The defendants demurred, because these offences are supposed to be done in parliament, and ought not to be punished in this court, or in any other, but in parliament, Croke drawing a subtle distinction: "And perhaps not only criminal actions committed in parliament are punishable here, but words also," Sir Robert Heath argued that such speeches, which are here pronounced, prove them not counsellors of state but Bedlams : the addition of one word would have made it treason, to wit proditorie, and the judges pronounced: "For the punishment, although the offence be great, yet that shall be with a light hand, and shall be in this manner ; that every of the defendants shall be imprisoned during the king's pleasure : Sir John Eliot to be imprisoned in the Tower of London, and the other defendants in other prisons." The victim of his patriotic rashness, "the viper " as Charles I. unjustly termed him, lingered four wasting years in close confinement in the Tower and there perished. A few days before his death, Eliot sent for a painter to the Tower, 4 and had his portrait painted exactly as he then appeared, worn out by disease, and with a face of ghastly paleness. This portrait he gave to his son that it might be hung on • State Trials, vol. iv. ' Forster's Statesmen. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 285 the walls of Port Eliot, near a painting which repre- sent him in vigorous manhood, a perpetual memorial of his hatred of tyranny. His fate was soon most fearfully avenged : the Long Parliament held the over- ruling of the plea upon the information to the juris- diction of the court, to have been against the law and privilege of parliament, and with a just and fitting munificence voted £5000 to each of the sufferers. Nor was this all : after an interval of nearly forty years, that the report of this case in Croke might not be considered law, the judgment was brought before the Lords by writ of error and reversed. The parliament which met in April 1640, assem- bled in such excellent temper, that one Peard, a lawyer, was compelled to explain, and narrowly escaped being brought to the bar for calling ship-money an abomi- nation, after its legality had been solemnly pronounced. Their successors, the Long Parliament, the same men, but with changed hearts and minds 11 , in November, in a very different spirit, began forthwith to complain loudly and angrily of their violated privileges : " The members are to be free from arrest, to have liberty of speech, a legislative, judiciary, and consiliary power, being to the body public as the faculties of the soul to a man. These privileges have been broken !" This formed the gravamen of the manifesto with which, intemperate in their patriotism, and inebriate with success, the champions of privilege assumed the characters of their oppressors, and rushed into a civil war. It is instructive to remark how vigorously the Long Parliament, presbyterians, independents, repub- licans, root and branch men, one and all bestirred See Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. ii. 286 HISTORY OF THE themselves to extirpate freedom of political discus- sion. Mr. Trelawney was committed to prison and expelled the House, for having said, in private dis- course*, that " the House could not appoint a guard without the king's consent, under pain of high treason." For his signal exposure of Strafford's attainder, in which Lord Dighy used the memorable sayings, " Let the mark be set on the door where the plague is, and then let him that will enter die— we must not piece up want of legality with matter of convenience;" he was expelled the House, and that very day made a peer by patent, by a very spirited and praiseworthy exercise of the prerogative of the crown. Another member, Mr. Taylor, saying, " that the House had not his consent to pass the Bill of attainder of the Earl of Strafford, for that it was to commit murder with the sword of justice, by a tyrannical resolution of the House," was committed to the Tower, and declared incapable of ever being a member. In the heyday of their usurped power, the majority would not tolerate conscientious difference of opinion. Mr. Holies having said "that some propositions were dishonourable, and that the House hath not only entertained them half way, but embraced them," he was suspended the House during that session of parliament, and might congratulate himself on the leniency of the sentence. The future great historian of their triumphant faction, Mr. Hyde, was voted to the Tower by a majority of 169 to 128, for having desired to have liberty to enter his pro- testation against the printing of the remonstrance. Many other members had protested, and warm debates lasted two days concerning protestations, x Lister's Life of Lord Clarendon. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 287 which might certainly have introduced a dangerous novelty, but ought not to have been so put down. No toleration for the licence inseparable from ani- mated free discussion could be suffered. They would "strike, but not hear." Serjeant Hide, not having moved the committee, of which he was chairman, against a member who said, " the parliament were all rebels," was disabled from serving any longer in the House, and sent to the Tower. The people discovered too late, that if the king had whipped them with rods, their new rulers would scourge them with scorpions, that there are no tyrants so intolerant as a multitude. It will be unnecessary to trace the miserable remnant of a once great parliament through its degradation and abasement. The mutilated House, which had stifled discussion in its exaltation, was compelled to hear bitter truths, and at last to be driven forth with terms of personal contumely and individual insult by a usurper y . The despotism of Cromwell crushed with iron heel all free discussion, and, though some sparks of English spirit now and then glanced up, even in the reformed and newly- fashioned House, the debates were but the ashes of its ancient fires. But no sooner had that haughty usurper passed away, than the republican boldness burst forth against his pusillanimous son with almost frenzied violence. Keeping the door closed against the usher of the black rod, Sir Harry Vane denounced the tame tyranny of Richard Cromwell. " Shall we suffer an idiot, without courage, without sense, nay, without ambition, to have dominion in a country of y Dr. Gumble says forcibly in his Life of Monk, " on the 20th of April (it should have been the 1st) they were jeered out of the House." 288 HISTORY OF THE liberty ! Richard Cromwell has a sword by his side, but did he ever draw it ? Is he fit to get obedience from a mighty nation, who could never make a foot- man obey him 2 ." At the Restoration all discussion for a time was wreathed of compliment and congratulation. When their fever of loyalty had somewhat abated, and the king's extravagant licentiousness had drained his Commons of their last guinea, the old republican leaven, that liberty of speech which had preceded but disappeared with a commonwealth, was again found to ferment in the assembly. In 1670 the House had disagreed with the resolution of a committee of supply, " that towards the supply every one resorting to any of the play-houses, who sits in the boxes, shall pay one shilling, every one who sits in the pit, six- pence," &c. The majority refused to adopt this puritanical taxation, all the courtiers urging that the players were the king's servants and a part of his pleasure. Sir John Coventry inquired in raillery, — the jest was of the sharpest, — " whether the king's pleasure lay among the men or women-players ?" His sarcastic gibe gave such umbrage at court, that, a few evenings afterwards, the unlucky knight was waylaid by a company of persons armed, Sir Thomas Sandys, lieutenant of the Duke of Monmouth's troop, com- manding the party, and had his nose slit open. This assassin-like revenge naturally excited a storm of indignation in the House. The quaint style in which the debate is reported, throws a ludicrous air over what might well form a grave and solemn discussion a . 1 Forster's Life of Sir II. Vane, a Grey's Debates. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 289 Sir Robert Holt said, with undoubted truth, " It concerns the Lords as well as us. The Lords' noses are as ours are, unless they be of steel.'* Mr. Hale couched his complaint in strange simplicity of guise : "If a man must thus be assaulted by ruffianly fellows, we must go to bed by sunset like the birds. '' Sir Winston Churchill having declared that the debate seemed to him a cutting of the king over the face, his words gave offence, and he explained that he said it by way of simile. The poet Waller redeemed the tone of debate from absurdity. " When the Greeks and Romans had slaves disfigured and marked, it was a dishonour to the master, but that a freeman, an ambassador of the people, should be thus marked, is much more horrible." It was determined that no other business should be proceeded with, till a bill to prevent malicious wounding for the future had passed. By way of set-off, Dr. Arras made an extravagant motion for a bill to be brought in to punish any man that should speak any reflective thing of the king. By some he was called to the bar, but they yielded to his excuse as the only physician in the House, he hoped he should be pardoned — " humanum est errare." The king's extravagance compelled him to become an importunate suitor, and he heard, in consequence, those home truths from his faithful Commons with which the rich, if overpressed for relief, are wont to edify spendthrift relations. When he asked for further aid in 1675, Lord Cavendish said, " The people have trusted us with their money, and Magna Charta is not to be thrown with their liberties and money into a bottomless pit." Mr. Mallet, another county mem- vol. i. u 290 HISTORY OF THE ber, spoke with still more old-fashioned plainness of speech : " The parliament in Edward III.'s time had a great kindness for him, yet gave him money with extreme caution, not that they mistrusted him, but a woman called Alice Pierce, whom they mistrusted." The same truth-telling burgess applied an example equally in point to the royal libertine. " King James I. was said to be the Solomon of his age. The king is heir to his virtues ; there is something more recorded of Solomon ; he fell to strange counsels by strange women : and we cannot repose any confidence in the king, if he puts his counsel in strange women. If they be left, God will bless his counsels." The House, however, reserved strictly to themselves this licence of tongue in speaking of the sovereign, and would not permit the impudent Titus Oates to declare, when examined at their bar, a constitutional truth, not then openly acknowledged : " The king holds his crown by the same title I hold my liberty." He was reprimanded for his irreverence by the speaker, but refused to retract: il I am sorry I gave offence to the House, in what I said, but it was my conscience, and it was truth, and, though I may not say it here, I will say it elsewhere, and believe it too." Again ordered to withdraw, he narrowly escaped punishment, which, in his case, would have been almost deserved, for speak- ing the truth once without knowing it. " He has no privilege," said Seymour, " to be saucy to his prince, and uncivil to you ;" and Colonel Titus, with diffi- culty, saved this precious informer, on the ground of his merits ; (t I am not to be angry with a man for pulling me out of a ditch, though he tear my clothes." On the speaker administering the farther rebuke, 11 You come not here to expostulate, but to obey the HOUSE OF COMMONS. 291 orders of the House," prudence got the better of his portentous impudence, and he bowed in silence. Through the whole of the Pensioner Parliament, especially in its latter years, the members seem to have given a liberal interpretation to old Serjeant May- nard's rule, " to speak fully, freely, and fearlessly. When the king opens parliament, what does the speaker first crave? Liberty of speech. The king calls us by writ Nobiscum consulendum, and how can treating be without speaking ?" But when this latitude of remark affected themselves, they became more tena- cious of their own than of their sovereign's dignity, and were exceedingly sharp to punish upon slight pro- vocation. On the introduction of the Test Act, Mr. Goring, one of the court party, having said, w T ith a laugh and satirical nod of the head, " I desire a test from those gentlemen on the other side of the House, that they have no design of creeping into the minis- ters' places when they are out, and if they will give the House security that they will act better, I will then be on their side," his words gave such dire offence, that he was compelled to explain that he meant no particular person, and to express his sorrow, if he had given the House offence. But even this apology did not satisfy a clamorous minority, though Sir John Talbot remarked, sensibly enough, " "We must bear with one another, and not be extreme to mark what is done amiss." The insinuation of interested motives (an opposition must of course be disinterested) was too odious to be lightly forgiven. He was directed to withdraw, and afterwards reprimanded by the speaker in his place. " The House has considered your words, Mr. Goring, and, as they are displeased with your words, so are they pleased with your sub- u 2 292 HISTORY OF THE mission, and I admonish you to forbear the like for the future." But, so far from displaying contrition, the petulant debater narrowly escaped censure in the following week for his sarcasms. An opposition orator, Sir George Hungerford, having asserted " The army was pre- tended to be raised against France, but all the world knows there was no such intention," the courtiers called to write the words down. Scarcely had the clamour subsided, when Goring renewed it, by retort- ing : " Yesterday there was a grand committee for dis- banding the army, but I see now there is need of keep- ing it up, if these things are said here." A loud cry instantly arose, "To the bar, to the bar!" but as both sides of the House had sinned in violence, the belli- gerents were allowed to pair off in peace together. One free statement, indeed, the House was compelled to hear in guilty silence, that many of those present had received bribes or pensions, for none could ven- ture to deny its truth. " It is remarkable," writes Marvel, "that, upon occasion of a discourse among the Commons concerning libels and pamphlets, first one member of them stood up, and in the face of their House, said, " That it was affirmed to him by a person that be spoke with, that there were among them thirty, forty, fifty, God knows how many, outlawed." Ano- ther thereupon rose and told, " It was reported too, that there were divers of the members papists ;" a third, " That a multitude of them were bribed and pension- ers." And yet all this was patiently hushed up by their House, and digested, being it seems a thing of that nature which there is no reply to." b In the frenzied panic that pervaded the country like a pesti- b Marvel's Growth of Popery. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 293 lence of conspiracies, plots, and popery, the House lost all the restraint usually imposed hy decency and good manners. The words " papist" and u rebel" were ex- changed between Trelawney and Ash, and a blow- struck. The anti-papist declaimers would not have so much as a popish cat to pur or mew about the king. c In their eagerness to exclude the Duke of York from the throne, they spurned alike the limi- tations of law and bounds of decorum. " I hope," said Colonel Titus, " we shall not be wise as the foxes to whom Jupiter gave a stork for a king. To trust expedients with such a king on the throne, would be just as wise as if there were a lion in the lobby and we should vote to let him in and chain him, instead of fastening the door to keep him out." " If the duke be not set aside," cried another, " the government will be." This violence evaporated in declamation : their oratory was let off like an escape of steam in two dis- solutions, and the orators, defeated by their own extra- vagance, put to utter rout. A complete reaction fol- lowed : the once merry monarch tyrannized for four years without a parliament, and had almost subsided into a gloomy despot. The House which met his successor in May, 1685, was so submissive, that James declared " there were not above forty members but such as he himself wished for." d As the last parliament of Charles resembled a Polish diet, the present seemed rather to be composed of feudal serfs. When they gathered courage in November to remonstrate against the employment of officers in the army not qualified by law-, they were rebuked by the sovereign in terms of menace : " I did not expect such an address, having given you warning c Echard's History of England, vol. ii. d James's Memoirs by Clarke. 294 HISTORY OF THE of fears and jealousies among ourselves. I had reason to hope that the character God hath blessed me with in the world, would have created and confirmed a greater confidence in you of me, and of all that I say to you. But, however you proceed on your part, I will be steady in all my promises I have made to you, and be very just to my word in this and all my other speeches." This answer to their address was read with all reverence, and profound silence prevailed in the House for some time. When Mr. Wharton moved that a day might be appointed to consider of his answer, Mr. Coke stood up and supported the motion, " I hope we are all Englishmen, and are not to be frightened out of our duty by a few high words." There was a blank pause — " His zeal None seconded, as out of season judged, Or singular or rash." — Milton. Lord Preston at length took exception to this honest sentiment, and, though he asked j)ardon, it was resolved, " that Mr. John Coke, for his indecent and undutiful reflection on the king and this House, be committed to the Tower." The servile spiritless members, fortunately for the liberties of their country, were dismissed by a pro- rogation two days afterwards, and never met again. They had set a mark on themselves — a badge of sycophancy, stamped in too legible characters to be summoned to the convention ; and would only have sullied by their alloy that judicious band of patriots, who confirmed to this country in the bill of rights her civil and religious freedom. The great clause of that memorable Major Charta declared 6 that "the 8 Bill of Rights, s. 5. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 295 freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of parliament." Having established this safeguard of political discussion, the members of the Lower House lost no time in making a practical application of their liberty. Far from bow- ing down to the golden image which their hands had set up, they criticised the Prince of Orange as a monarch of their own creation, and both addressed him, and spoke of him among themselves with as little defe- rence as if he had been the president of a republic. The parliamentary, as contradistinguished from an hereditary king, obtained only curt and sullen homage; very different from the deferential mention formerly made of the Plantagenet, or Tudor, or Stuart. The addresses of former Commons, even to Charles II., would seem, by comparison, prostrate adulation. The tone of independence which ensued, though carried in several instances to excess, had a constitutional tendency, and diffused a healthy spirit of freedom through the nation. The coronation of the Prince of Orange had taken the country by surprise ; his gloomy manners made him personally unpopular; his dissenting tenets excited the jea- lous aversion of the church; and, as he was con- strained immediately to plunge into wars, of which the glory seemed far more uncertain than the cost, the voice of murmurings and distrust against the conqueror of the Boyne began to be quickly heard. When ministers insisted on the necessity of further aid to save the nation from falling into the hands of the Irish and French, a member exclaimed, "Add the Dutch. f " In opposing the bill for raising moneys 1 Ralph's History. 296 HISTORY OF THE for the civil list, Sir Charles Sedley saids, " His majesty is encompassed with, his majesty sees nothing but coaches and six horses, and great titles, and, therefore, cannot imagine the want and misery of the rest of his subjects. It's a general scandal, that a government so sick at heart as ours should look so well in the face. . . He is a brave and generous prince, but he is a young king, encom- passed and hemmed in by a company of crafty old courtiers, to say no more." With truth, might his sovereign have retorted on the discontented orator, that he had been long known as a witty and polite courtier but was a very juvenile patriot. In a debate on grievances, 1689, Sir William L. Gower observed 11 , " I am for taking out all the deer in this king's park that were in King James' park j let none but a protestant breed of deer be left." Sir Duncombe Colchester retorted, " If you turn out the deer it will do you no good unless you turn out the keeper too." Some exclaimed, " Does he mean the king?" He probably reflected on the Marquis of Carmarthen; but the metaphor was ambiguous, and admitted of that construction. The humble repre- sentation of the Commons to the king, on his refusing to pass the Place Bill, is distinguished by a vehe- mence of tone which would have been seditious if expressed elsewhere. " Your Commons cannot, without great grief of heart, reflect that, since your majesty's accession to the crown, several public bills, made by advice of both houses of parliament, have not obtained the royal assent, and, in particular, a bill intituled ' An act touching free and impartial proceedings in parliament,' t Sedley 's Works. •> Parliamentary History, vol. v. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 297 which was made to redress a grievance, and take off a scandal relating to the proceedings of your Commons in parliament, after they had freely voted great supplies for the public occasions, which they can impute to no other cause than your majesty's being unacquainted with the constitutions of parliament, and the insinua- tions of particular persons, who take upon them, for their own particular ends, to advise your majesty contrary to the advice of parliament, and therefore cannot look upon them but as enemies to your majesty and your government. They do therefore humbly pray that, for the future, you will be graciously pleased to hearken to the advice of your parliament, and not to the secret advice of particular persons, who may have private interests of their own, separate from the true interest of your majesty and your people." The king returned a civil bu tevasive answer, and, though some turbulent spirits wished to press for a further reply, the good sense of the majority overruled their petulant importunity. The same session, in 1694, the factious John How concluded some bitter reflections on the administration of affairs with a quotation levelled personally at the king. " Egone, qui Tarquinium regem non tulerim, Sicinium feram ?"' and then moved that the House might go into committee on the state of the nation. No notice was taken at the moment of this unpardon- able licence, and when Mr. Montague, after another member had seconded How's motion, interposed to desire his words might be written down, Sir Charles Musgrave took an objection, in point of form, that his animadversion came too late, such an interval of time having been suffered to elapse. The House adopted ! Hatsell. 298 HISTORY OF THE this opinion, and it has since become an established rule, that any words objected to must be noticed at the time or at the close of the speech, that the very- words used may be written down, and an opportunity for explanation given. In their national peevishness at the darkening prospect of a diminished revenue, increased taxation, and profuse expenditure, the country gentlemen seemed to forget that " There's a divinity doth hedge a king," and took strange liberties with the sacred name of royalty. Mr. Ettrick remonstrated on the parsimony " of keeping the king, as it were, on board wages," without rebuke ; and on the chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Smith, in a phrase singularly injudicious, obser- ving, " that the king was in a starving condition," Mr. Granville repeated the word with malicious irony ; " If the king were starving, why then were such grants made of crown lands ? if the king was really starving, why were such great pensions lavished ? why were foreigners enriched and made lords ?" k The dislike of the king's nation was made a watch- word and rallying cry of faction. The debate on the Dutch guards was inflamed with invectives against foreigners. " You will easily judge," writes the king to Lord Galway, on whom this reflects. When the death of the Duke of Gloucester made a further settle- ment of the succession of the crown necessary, and the House of Hanover began to be generally mentioned, the opposition urged, " What ! must we have more foreigners?" 1 "which" secretary Vernon observes, with his ordinary matter-of-fact simplicity, " is not very obliging to the king." But this jealousy of the Hollander reached its height, when Sir John Knight k Vernon's Letters. ' IJardwicke Papers. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 299 opposed the Naturalization Bill, in a speech steeped with bitter prejudice, but applauded to the echo. " I have heard of a ship in a violent storm, in danger of perishing every moment; when the good commander seeing the danger and apprehending death, desired his crew to assist with resolution, and preserve themselves and the ship, which the sailors refusing to do, he retired to his cabin, humbled himself in prayer, and implored the Power that alone can save in time of need, that though the ship and company might be justly swallowed up for the disobedience of the sailors, yet that he and his cabin might suffer no damage. Sir, I cannot as that good commander did, be so vain, as to hope that either myself or the place for which I serve can be preserved from the general inundation which this bill, which we are now debating, lets in on the liberties of my native country and countrymen, and therefore be unconcerned for the good of England, provided Bristol were safe. But if I debate not on them, with that advantage and reason as our land admirals can, no doubt with great ingenuity, on sea politics, I hope the House will pardon me, for my observations never cost the kingdom such expense of money at home and losses at sea, as hath the experience of those honourable persons in sea affairs. Can any man hope to persuade me that our forefathers would have brought foreign soldiers into England, and pay them, and naturalize them likewise; and at the same time send the English soldiers abroad to fight in a strange land without their pay ! Let us abate our taxes, and, after the wise precedent of our fathers, pay our own seamen and soldiers at home, and send the foreigners back. " Our palates for a long time have been so nice, that nothing but a French cook could please them, nor could we persuade ourselves that our clothing was 300 HISTORY OF THE good, unless from head to foot we were a la mode de France. The gentleman was not well served without a Frenchman, and the lady's commode could not sit right, if her fine French woman did not put it on; now on a sudden, the change is as violent in favour of the Dutch, who are great courtiers and the only taking people, and our English are a sort of clumsy-fisted people, if compared with the modish Dutch Hans and Frow, and in short, the Englishmen are fit for nothing but to be sent to Flanders, and there either to fight-, steal, or starve for want of pay. There is one thing, Mr. Speaker, which comes into my mind, with which I shall close this consideration: what reason was there for blaming the mayors, aldermen, common-council, and other governors of corporations, for surrendering their charters, and at the same time hope to justify our proceedings, though they throw up the great charter of our English liberties to admit strangers ? Upon the whole, Sir, it is my judgment that, should this bill pass, it will bring as great afflictions on this nation as ever fell upon the Egyptians, and one of their plagues we have at this time very severe upon us. I mean that of their land bringing forth frogs in abundance, even the chambers of their kings, for there is no entering the courts of St. James's and Whitehall, the palaces of our hereditary kings, for the great noise and croaking of the frog-landers. I will conclude all with this motion, ' That the serjeant be commanded to open the doors, and let us first kick this bill out*of the House, and then foreigners out of the kingdom.' " As these keen-barbed reflections of Mr. Knight's on the king argued factious boldness, the published speech was committed to the flames, and the speaker only escaped imprisonment by denying the authenti- city of the report. A better example of patriotic HOUSE OF COMMON'S. 301 licence was afforded by Mr. Price, in opposing the grants of the revenues of Wales to the Earl of Portland. Exposing the unconstitutional extrava- gance of the royal bounty, this stout-hearted Cambrian asserted, that it was contrary to the Bill of Rights, and attributed the king's munificence to his being imposed upon. " It cannot be pretended that he shall know our laws (who is a stranger to us, and we to him), no more than we know his counsellors, which I wish we did." The House unanimously adopted the public-spirited address of the truth-telling lawyer, and William was compelled to recall his grant to a grasp- ing favourite. A remarkable instance was afforded in 1701 of the facility with which popular assemblies are apt to be carried away by a bold remark uttered at the right season.™ Ministers had calculated on the unanimous concurrence of the House in an address to own the King of Spain, but Mr. Monckton opposed it warmly, and said, " if that vote past, he expected the next would be, for owning the pretended Prince of Wales." The House seemed suddenly struck with the truth of his observation, and sent up an amended address to the king to enter into new alliances with the States. His own surreptitious partition treaty exposed the monarch to severe animadversion. Sir James Bolles, a half-crazed knight, compared this division of another man's kingdom to robbing on the highway, 11 and How rejoicing in the idea, called the treaty felonious. Though in general too phlegmatic and careless of censure, the king was so highly nettled as to declare " that, if the disparity of their condition had not res- trained him, he would have compelled satisfaction." »> Lord Mahon's History. " M' Pherson. 302 HTSTORY OF THE The Upper House scarcely fared better than the sovereign in the angry discussions which, with scarcely the interval of a single session, raged between them; an active tory opposition leading the debates in one House, and a steady whig majority overruling them in the other. The free council of parliament, which could take such liberties with the king, were not likely to pay more respect to an obnoxious peer. This strife of tongues beat with most violence against Lord Somers, the best and ablest of their foes, and scrupled not to assail him with charges of socinianism and corruption. On Captain Kidd, whom the chancellor had commissioned to clear the sea of pirates, turning pirate himsehy Mr. Moore said, " that Kidd plundered with a commission under the Broad Seal in his pocket, and was encouraged to it by those in partner- ship with him, who had obtained a grant of all he should steal." How asked what would become of this nation, if those in authority were not content to plunder themselves, by grants of all that could be got here, but likewise sent out their thieves to rifle what- ever was to be met with elsewhere ? The latitude which they took in speaking of the Upper House, the Commons would not give. When they selected several noblemen for impeachment, on account of their privity to the Partition Treaty, omit- ting others equally implicated, Lord Haversham com- mented on their inconsistency. " Give me leave to say, though I am not to argue it, it is a plain demon- stration, that the Commons think these lords innocent ; and I think the proposition is undeniable, for there are several lords in the same crimes, in the same facts : there is no distinction. And the Commons ° Dr. Drake's Report. r Vernon's Letters. house or COMMONS. 303 leave some of these men at the head of affairs, near the king's person, to do any mischief, if they were inclined to do it, and impeach others, when they are both alike guilty and concerned in the same facts. This is a thing I was in hopes I should never have heard asserted, when the beginning of it was from the House of Commons." The managers of the confer- ence instantly withdrew, indignant at so great an aspersion on the honour of the House, perhaps more indignant from its truth. The House resolved " that John Lord Haversham hath, at the free conference this day, uttered most scandalous reproaches and false expressions, highly reflecting upon the honour and justice of the House of Commons, and tending to the making a breach in the good correspondence between the lords and commons, and to the interrupt- ing the public justice of the nation, by delaying the proceedings on impeachments. That John Lord Haversham be charged before the lords for the words spoken by the said lord this day at the free conference, and that the lords be desired to proceed to judgment against the said Lord Haversham, and to inflict such punishment upon the said lord as so high an offence against the House of Commons does deserved" They also refused to renew the conference till they had received reparation for the indignity offered. Vainly denouncing the lords' "very many irre- gular and unparliamentary proceedings," and refusing to appear at the trial, they solemnly protested against the acquittal, as repugnant to the rules of justice, and therefore null and void. Very brave words, undoubt- edly, but insufficient to change the nature of the dispute, or conceal their own partial and extravagant i Parliamentary History, vol. v. 304 HISTORY OF THE injustice. Annoyed beyond measure at the defeat of their favourite panacea for removing dissent, the bill to prevent occasional conformity, the high church tories inveighed against the bishops, and one of their leaders 1 " declared he should be provoked to move for leave to bring in a bill " for the toleration of episco- pacy ; for since the prelates were of the same princi- ples as the dissenters, it was but just that they should stand on the same footing." Sharpness of tone and licence of invective must be conceded to the grand inquest of the nation, or Sir Henry Capel's complaint would be just : — " If we have nothing to do here but to give money, is it a parliament, or a senate of New Rome, to set rates upon fruits and chesnuts ?" A full measure of licence, and running over, was accordingly given to declama- tions against an unpopular king or an odious minis- try, to the denunciations of an apostate peer or low church bishop ; but if some hardy member withstood a factious resolution of the majority, or opposed their own sweet voices, he discovered that this privilege was but a phantom with regard to his own protection. Manley, a tory member,, having cautioned the House to beware of passing Sir J. Fenwick's attainder, adding, " it would not be the first time that people have repented their making their court to the government, at the hazard of the liberties of the people," — for these words, which can scarcely be termed unguarded, was immediately voted to the Tower. This arbitrary act marked the heyday of whiggery. What was done in the green tree was attempted in the dry. When Hampden used the freedom of remark- ing, in the tory parliament of 1712, that, "between a r Sir J. Packinjrton. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 305 lazy campaign and a trifling negotiation, they were amused by ministers at home, and tricked by enemies abroad," the leader of the House, St. John, retorted, " that it was a reflection on the queen, that persons had been sent to the Tower for less, but that some members who were ambitious of that honour should be disappointed." The menace, though spoken in a moment of passion, seems, in the very imagination, utterly subversive of all free debate. The House, as a body ever instant to notice and punish the slightest disrespect to themselves, could not tolerate criticism. In their eager disputes upon resuming the prodigal grants by King William of the forfeited estates in Ireland, the chancellor of the exchequer, retaining office against an adverse majority of the opposition, narrowly escaped with a resolution of censure for making a true, and scarcely rash remark. When Sir J. Pakington opposed the Union, com- paring it to the marrying a woman against her will, and asserting that it was carried on by corruption and bribery within doors, by force and violence without, the treasury bench exclaimed loudly for apology. He excused himself by a double hearsay : " He w T as told, Emery said in Scotland the Union was so carried." The member for the University of Oxford, Sir Wm. Whitelocke, eluded punishment by a more inge- nious explanation. 5 Opposing some clause in the Bill of Settlement, he committed himself by the rash remark — " Should the Elector of Hanover succeed to the throne, which I hope he never will — " The conclusion of his sentence was drowned in shouts of "To the bar! to the bar!" But he recovered his presence of mind in the clamour, and refused to apo- s Somerville's Queen Anne. VOL. I. X 306 HISTORY OF THE logise. "The queen is younger in years than the elector, and I merely expressed a loyal hope that she might survive him." His words admitted of this explanation, and those of the opposite faction, who knew his meaning better, applauded his ingenuity. The union with Scotland, uprooting such deep preju- dices, caused many angry reflections to be cast on the nation and body, especially as the forty-five used to vote together, and the proud and sensitive strangers were but too ready to resent them*. The sliding-scale, by which offensive phrases and indiscretions of speech appear to have been weighed, was the prevailing opinion of the majority. In the parliament of 1713, comprising a large number, if not a preponderance, of Jacobites, Sir William White- locke was allowed to predicate the speedy return of the pretender without rebuke. General Stanhope having moved an address to the queen, to use her most pressing instances with the Duke of Lorraine to remove the young Charles Stuart out of his territo- ries, the member for the University of Oxford objected that the like address was formerly made to the pro- tector for chasing Charles Stuart out of France ; notwithstanding which, that prince was some time after restored to his father's throne. But, however capricious or partial in noticing any undue liberties of speech themselves, the House evinced an unanimous feeling of jealousy and alarm 1 The following is a specimen of the scurrility to which even courtiers would stoop : — " Sir Edward Seymour compared the Union to a countryman that had a wife proposed to him without a fortune, and gave this reason for refusing- the match, — that 'if he married a bog-gar, he should have (cibsit invidia verba) a louse for his portion.' " Vernon s Letters. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 307 at the slightest attempt to control its exercise beyond their walls. When Colonel Churchill complained of receiving a summons to attend the Board of Admi- ralty, the night before, stating, " When I was called in, the Lords accused me of what I said here, that some persons in the fleet were cowards. I know not that I am to answer anywhere for what I say here but to the House,' 5 the assembled Commons were instantly in a flame, Mr. Foley and others asserting, most justly, that there was an end of privilege, "if officers many of whom had seats, were to be called to account for what might be said or done there." It appeared on inquiry, that Colonel Churchill had used these words elsewhere, and a satisfactory explanation was given, that a man in the fleet had been condemned to be shot as a coward j that the king had been petitioned for pardon ; and that the board wished to ascertain from Colonel Churchill whether he were a fit subject for pardon. A resolution proposed by Sir Charles Musgrave, "That no member be examined for what he has said here." was negatived on the judicious objection of Colonel Titus. " Do you think that this is a new privilege ? This is calling that in question that was ever out of question 1" — and the House allowed the subject to drop, having vindicated the privilege beyond cavil, w T ith a rebuke from the speaker to the Board of Admiralty, inculcating more caution for the future. " It had been civil and reasonable for the board to inform Churchill they had no intent to interrogate him as to any thing said in the House." On the accession of Queen Anne, so high an homage was paid to royalty as to be inconsistent with freedom of debate. The whigs. howbeit unused to bend the knee at court, when they found themselves X 2 308 HISTORY OF THE the only courtiers admitted within the threshold of the palace, stooped to the very ground. When an obnoxious tory, Mr. Charles Csesar, ventured a remark, the chief libel in which lay in its truth, the words were written down. We read in the journals, " That an engrossed bill from the Lords, entitled ' An Act for the better Security of Her Majesty's Person and Government, and of the Succession to the Crown of England in the Protestant Line,' was read a second time, and Charles Caesar, Esq., upon the debate of the said bill, standing up in his place, and saying the words following (which were directed by the House to be set down in writing at the table) : — ' There is a noble lord, without whose advice the queen does nothing, who, in the late reign, was known to keep a constant correspondence with the court at St. Ger- mains : ' and the said Mr. Csesar, endeavouring to excuse himself, and being called upon to withdraw, and he being withdrawn accordingly, and a debate arising thereupon, the House resolved ' That the said words are highly dishonourable to her majesty's person and government, and that the said Charles Csesar, Esq., should for his said offence be committed prisoner to the Tower.' " The tide of party passions never ran in a stronger current than during the reigns of William and Anne, and in all punishments, to the bar or the Tower, regard was had more to the unpopularity of the speaker than to the speech itself. Had this been the measure invariably meted out, the privilege of speech in parliament would have been limited by the condi- tion of saying nothing distasteful to the court or ministry. The complaint was well urged by a tory county member, smarting under a sense of unfair HOUSE OF COMMONS. 300 treatment, and determined at all hazards to unbosom his suppressed vexation. " Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to have troubled you this session, and I believe it will be to little purpose now ; for, if a gentleman stands up to com- plain of grievances, although this House meets in order to redress them, he is represented as a person that obstructs her majesty's business ; if he finds fault with the ministry, he is said to reflect upon the queen ; if he speaks against the continuance of the war to prevent the beggary of the nation, to prevent the moneyed and military men becoming lords of us who have the lands, then he is to be no object of her majesty's favour and encouragement. This, Sir, is the pass we are brought to, and this is the freedom of speech you were pleased to ask for at the opening of this session, and which of right belongs to every member of this House. I remember the time when such restraints as these would not have been suffered or endured, but we are under arbitrary ministerial power." No sooner had the country gentlemen changed sides, than they became in turn equally clamorous for the Serjeant, equally anxious to incarcerate the hostile parties, who would use their liberty as a cloak for licentiousness. The immediate effects of the accession of George I. were rather to curtail than enlarge liberty of speech. The whigs would fain have crushed their opponents without per- mitting a single cry or murmur, too impatient and vindictive to give their adversaries a fair hearing, or any hearing at all. On the 5th of April, 1715, a fortnight after the House had met, a motion was made to take into consideration his majesty's royal proclamation of the 15th of January for the calling 310 HISTORY OF THE of a new parliament. The new monarch having been made to express his conviction " that his loving people would send up to parliament the fittest persons to redress the present disorders, and therein have a par- ticular regard to such as showed a firmness to the protestant succession when it was most in danger," Sir William Wyndham complained of this proclama- tion, as " not only unprecedented and unwarrantable, but even of dangerous consequence to the very being of parliaments." When called upon to justify his charge, he declined giving any particular explanation, but repeated, that " as he thought some expressions in the proclamation of dangerous consequence, so he believed every member was free to speak his thoughts." In this belief the opposition orator found himself wholly mistaken. Mr. Walpole, himself fresh from the Tower, could with difficulty ward off the same unjust punishment for uttering unwelcome truths, a rampant majority being determined to fix some mark of their displeasure upon the eloquent champion of a fallen race, a Jacobite professed. It was moved "that Sir William Wyndham, having reflected upon his majesty's proclamation, and having refused to justify his charge, although often called upon so to do, is guilty of a great indig- nity to his majesty and a breach of the privileges of this House."" It was decided, after three divisions, 212 against 138, that he be reprimanded in his place. The speaker, Sir S. Compton, acquainted him with the resolution, sitting in the chair covered, and Sir William standing up uncovered. " Sir, the arraigning a proclamation issued by his majesty for calling the present parliament, and refusing to assign any cause why such proclamation is blameable, the House u Parliamentary History, vol. vii. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 311 thought an indignity to his majesty, and so unwar- rantable an use of that freedom of speech which is the undoubted privilege of parliament, that the House thought they could not let it pass without animadver- sion ; but being willing their moderation should appear, notwithstanding their levity has been too much despised and contemned, they have inflicted the mildest censure your offence w T as capable of, and have com- manded me to reprimand you in your place., and, in obedience to their command, I do reprimand you accordingly." Whereupon Sir William Wyndham said: "Mr. Speaker, I very truly return my thanks to you for performing that duty which is incumbent upon you, from your office, in so candid and gentlemanlike a manner. As I am a member, I know I must acquiesce in the determination of the House j but, as I am not conscious to myself of having offered any indignity to his majesty,, or of having been guilty of any breach of the privilege of the House, I have no thanks to return to those gentlemen, who, under a pretence of lenity, have brought me under this censure." A still more odious exercise of outstretching tyran- ny was displayed in 1717, against the leader of the forlorn hope, Mr. Shippen. That plain-spoken, honest jacobite had put his glove to his mouth, according to his wonted bad habit, w and said, " the propositions in the king's speech seemed rather calculated for the meridian of Germany than Great Britain," adding drily, " it is the only infelicity of his majesty's reign, that he is unacquainted with our language and consti- tution." He was tumultuously voted to the Tower, and, by a mean exercise of vindictiveness, ministers caused parliament to be adjourned, instead of pro- w Speaker Onslow. 312 HISTORY OF THE rogued, that he might not be released at the rising of the House. He was too stout-hearted to petition for this release, and came out of prison, after many months' confinement, with a fixed resolution to speak his senti- ments as plainly as before. He even drolled upon his doom, advocating, with all his economy, an article, then first added to the estimates, of £200 a year for the physician of the Tower. " Members " he said, " have been frequently sent there for speaking freely, others for acting corruptly. Now, as it is uncertain of what denomination the member may be, who shall next be committed to that state prison, let us not grudge so trifling a sum for so charitable a purpose." x Of his determination to speak out, be the conse- quence what it might, old Mr. Shippen gave another instance in the next reign. " His majesty knows how much the nation is loaded with debts and taxes, and how inconsistent it is with our constitution to keep up a standing army in time of peace." Threats of his former punishment being instantly made, the opposi- tion leader quietly observed, " that he was peculiarly unfortunate, for that in a former parliament he had incurred the severe censure of the House for asserting that the late monarch was unacquainted with the con- stitution, and he now gave high offence, asserting that his present majesty was not unacquainted with the constitution." y The orator's witty antithesis saved him from further molestation. Probably the House had grown ashamed of their former capricious tyranny. The speaker's call to order was deemed a sufficient substitute for the Serjeant's mace ; as the season for extraordinary excitement passed away, the forbear- ance to punish was met by a similar good spirit of x Parliamentary History, vol. viii. Y Bell's History of England. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 313 self-command ; and, during the long reign of George II., members continued to speak with measured licence, liable to censure, and occasionally incurring the rebuke of their dictatorial head, but inapprehensive of com- mitment. "It was reserved," to quote the judicious observation of Mr. Hatsell, z " for a more enlightened age, and for times when the true spirit of liberty should be better understood, to ascertain and establish this privilege to its utmost extent, consistently with the language of good breeding and the behaviour of men of liberal education." Liberty of speech, indeed, is so essential to the very existence of a free council, that, though it always made a part of the liberties of the House of Commons, it was never so well understood or acted upon, as in modern days of increased intelligence and improved constitutional knowledge. The principle is now firmly fixed, on a foundation never to be shaken, that no words spoken within the walls of St. Stephen's, however strong, searching, and personal, can be inquired of in courts of law, or taken criminal cognizance of, in any manner whatsover, except by the House itself. Words which would be treasonable, or seditious, or libellous, if uttered beyond those sacred precincts, maybe spoken there with the most perfect impunity from without : the character and conduct of every subject in the empire may be dis- cussed with the most entire unreserve, and comments made for which, though the member must have defended them at the sword's point, if ventured elsewhere, he is not held amenable by the code of honour. The king's name, indeed, must not be directly mentioned, lest the mention of it should exert an undue influence over the freedom of debate, nor will any disparagement of the 1 Hatsell, Precedents, title Privilege. 314 HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. House of Lords, as a body, be permitted, that a good understanding may prevail between the two branches of the legislature. a But, subject to this reservation, the royal pleasure may be glanced at, through his responsible advisers, with all the liberty of satire, and an obnoxious peer assailed in the fullest Saxon cha- racters of contumely and invective. The only true safeguard against this unconfined range of speech con- sists in the good feeling of the House, and the firmness of the speaker interposing, whenever the offence may require his interposition, to restrain the petulant declaimer within that rule which cannot be too often inculcated, "the language of good breeding and the behaviour of men of education." » Woodesson's Lectures, 315 CHAPTER IX. The speaker's petition for privilege from arrest dates from a later period than that for liberty of speech, but it is supposed to have been included in the general prayer made by Sir John Cheney, 1st Henry IV., " that the Commons might enjoy their ancient liberties and privileges." 3 It is an essential part of the constitution of every court of judicature, that persons resorting to it should be entitled to certain privileges, to secure them from molestation during their attendance, and more pecu- liarly essential to the court of parliament, the first and highest court in the kingdom, that its constituent members should not be prevented by trifling interrup- tions from their attendance on important public duties, but should, for a certain time, be excused from obeying any other call, and be protected in their postponement of private obligations to the service of the state. The privilege may not unfrequently save electors from being virtually unrepresented, 15 and it secures to all that free- dom from personal restraint, without which there would neither be dignity in the collective body, nor indepen- dence in the individual. This exemption from arrest a Hakewell's Modus tenendi Parliamentura. * Speech of C. W. Wynn. 316 HISTORY OF THE has never been extended to such criminal proceedings as involved treason, felony, or breach of the peace. Before the existence of the journals, we are told of one Fearne, a paltry member, being committed to the Marshalsea, for pi ckery (i.e., picking pockets), without any notice to the House. However disposed their hands might be supposed to be to picking and steal- ing on a larger scale, and to levying contributions from the public purse, they must have felt ashamed of such a petty-larceny rogue, and been anxious that his removal should take place sub silentio. Since the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act, it has been the invariable usage of government to give notice to the speaker, by letter, of the particular state offence for which they may have arrested any member. The gradual extension and encroaching advance of this privilege to all civil process, forms a curious chapter of constitutional history. Mr. Hatsell, after a searching inquiry, has come to the conclusion, that the claim in the time of Edward IV. comprehended only arrests for trespass, debt, &c, on mesne process ; that, against such arrests, the law gave a remedy of a writ of parliament, which released the person of the debtor, and did not affect the rights of the creditor. For an arrest on a judgment, there was at that early period no other redress than a special act of par- liament. The first precedent is in King Edward I. days, when, we learn, d " the Templars had certain tenants in the Parliament House, which were behind with their rents, and they made humble petition to the king, That they might distrain either their bodies or their goods for the same. The king positively refused, c Parliaments and Councils of England. d Townsend's Proceedings in Parliament. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 317 Non videtur honestum quod aliquis de mag no Parlia- mento distHngatur." The case of Speaker Thorpe's arrest may be passed over as a precedent of no authority " begotten by the iniquity of the times." Till the instance of George Ferrers, a.b. 1543, when a member had been im- prisoned, the House never delivered him out of custody by their own authority, but referred him to that writ of privilege, to which he was entitled at common law. e But when Ferrers, a burgess in the household of Henry VIII., was arrested, the Serjeant was sent forth- with to the Counter prison, and came back with a report, that the officers of the city, after many stout words, forcibly resisted him, and in the brawl broke off the crown of his mace. The Commons declined the writ which the chancellor offered, and decided that the serjeant might deliver by shew of his mace, without writ, the mace being a sufficient warrant. The sheriffs, having been summoned, and having con- tumeliously refused to surrender Ferrers, were com- mitted to the Tower, and the clerk of the Counter to a place there called Little Ease. This occurred in the 34th year of Henry VIII. who studiously cultivated the good-will of his faithful commons. The king harangued the chancellor and speaker, that the member should have his privilege. " For I understand that you, not only for yourselves, but also for your necessary ser- vants, even to your cooks and housekeepers, enjoy the privilege, insomuch, as my lord chancellor hath informed us, that he, being speaker of the parliament, the cook of the Temple was arrested in London, and, as he served the speaker in that office during the par- 's Elsynge 318 HISTORY OF THE liament, was taken out of execution by the privilege of parliament." Ferrers had been surety for one Weldon, and, at the king's recommendation, an act was passed to revive the debt against Weldon and to acquit Ferrers. The creditor who procured the arrest was committed for his contempt. It is suspected that the privilege thus insisted on, and exercised to as great an extent in this first instance as the House has ever since been admitted to exercise it, may be ascribed rather to the circum- stance of Ferrers being a servant of the king than a member of parliament. The fence of common law once broken down, the Commons went merrily forward in their aggressive path of privilege, and proceeded to abate an arrest in execution with as little ceremony as country justices put down a common nuisance. In February, 1558, there was an inquiry into a complaint, that John Smith, returned burgess for Camelford, had come to the House, being outlawed, and had deceived divers mer- chants in London, taking wares of them to the sum of £300, minding to defraud them of the same under colour of privilege. The complaint was reported to be true, and the House divided that he should be allowed his privilege: Ayes 112, Noes 107. Prynne says: 11 How honourable this vote was for the House in the case of such a cheating member, carried only by five votes, is not fit for me to determine." The burgesses who could venture so far under Elizabeth were not to be deterred from still farther encroachments by the blustering pusillanimity of her successor. Sir Thomas Shirley had been committed prisoner to the Fleet soon after his return, and before parliament met, on an execution, and complained to the HOUSE OF COMMONS. 319 House, March 1603. f The warden refused to deliver the prisoner to the serjeant, and, persisting in his refu- sal, when Shirley was sent for by the House, he was committed ■ to the Tower. His friends urged the extreme hardship, as they could not secure the war- den from an action for an escape. The Recorder of London moved that six members might be sent to the Fleet with the serjeant and his mace, and there require the delivery of Sir Thomas Shirley; if it was denied them, to press to his chamber, and, providing for the safety of the prison and prisoners, to free him by force and bring him away with them to the House. This strange legal advice to act with a vigour beyond the law was carried by 176 against 153. But, the speaker reminding the House, that all sent to enter the prison in that manner would be subject to an action on the case, they relinquished the project of a forcible rescue. Many schemes were discussed in the House several days together for the delivery of the prisoner, all to no purpose ; at last the warden was sent for again, and still obstinately refusing to deliver Sir Thomas, was informed by the speaker " that as he did increase his contempt, so the House thought fit to increase his punishment, and that he should be committed to the prison called Little Ease in the Tower." One night's lodging in the miserable dungeon worked a marvellous change in the obdurate gaoler. The lieutenant of the Tower informed the House next day that the warden relented, and would deliver up his prisoner to the serjeant, if the House would send two of their mem- bers, whom he named, to satisfy him in the point of his security. The House refused, for they knew the power of Little Ease, and sent another warrant of ' Crompton on the Jurisdiction of Courts. 320 HISTORY OF THE Habeas Corpus to be served on the warden to release their member. The forms of these warrants are entered in the journals, but there is an amusing private memo- randum annexed : " That Mr. Vice-Chamberlain was privately instructed to go to the king, and humbly desire, that he would be pleased to command the warden, on his allegiance, to deliver up Sir Thomas, not as petitioned for by the House, but as if himself thought it fit, out of his own gracious judgment." This last method probably prevailed, for, by a petition from the warden, we find Sir Thomas had been given up. The House thought fit to keep the offender in the same dismal hole some time longer ; when at last they brought him to the bar on his knees, he confessed his error and presumption, and the speaker discharged him, paying the ordinary fees. Two peculiar difficulties attending the release — that the warden would have been liable to an action of escape, and the creditor have lost his right to an execution, — were removed by a general law, 1 James L, to excuse the debt, and save harmless the keepers of prisons. From this time, all persons who ventured on arresting a parliament man for debt, either in ignorance, or wilful hardihood, were consigned to the custody of the serjeant. In 1606, we read of a complaint that Mr. James, a burgess, had been arrested on an execu- tion. The attorney who procured the arrest, and the officer who arrested Mr. James, were the next day brought to the bar, and for this contempt committed to the Serjeant's custody for one entire month ; the first instance recorded in the journals, but speedily multi- plied, of delinquents being handed over to the custody of the serjeant, by way of punishment. The period of protection that environed a member's person being HOUSE OF COMMONS. 321 indefinite, Sir Edward Coke, in 1621, by an excess of privilege, as great as any that the Stuarts ever usurped of prerogative, carried a motion, that "all members should be free from arrest by their creditors, during an adjournment of five months." The precedent met with such approval in Ireland, that the members there enjoyed protection over a recess of two years, and as their parliaments, till the middle of the 18th century, were only dissolved on the death of the reigning sovereign, luxuriated in a complete immunity from troublesome debtors. None, of course, proved themselves hardy enough to dispute the summary power of the Long Parliament during the saturnalia which marked the close of the reign of Charles and the Commonwealth ; but after the Restoration it was braved in a strange manner by one Maurice Thompson, who, being ordered into cus- tody for arresting a member, barred his house, and kept the serjeant-at-arms at bay. He could not pre- vail, till armed with a warrant from the speaker to break open the door, and to call in the aid of the sheriffs of Middlesex to enforce obedience. Excepting this futile resistance, all attempts at opposition to the privi- lege appear at length to have quailed beneath the determined spirit with which the House invariably asserted it. As to the extent of the privilege in one particular, whether it freed a prisoner in execution at the time of his election to parliament, the legal autho- rities of the House still fluctuated in opinion. When a petition was presented from Mr. Montague, in March, 1690, for his discharge, and it appeared that he had been confined in the King's Bench prison, on a judg- ment for debts incurred previously to and at the time of his election, the committee appointed to search for VOL. I. y 322 HISTORY OF THE precedents came to no decision till after repeated ad- journments ; and, when they at length made a report, the House postponed all consideration of it from time to time, and never proceeded to any final resolution s . A worthless member met with better fortune. In 1707 Mr. Asgill wrote to the speaker to inform him that he was detained a prisoner in the Fleet upon two executions. His letter was referred to a commit- tee, and the House ordered him to be delivered out of custody by the serjeant with the mace. The only distinction between the two cases seems to have been, that the one was a prisoner in execution before, and the other subsequent to, his election ! that in the first instance the privilege must have had a retrospective operation, and invested the person of the member with a sanctity which it had not at the time of the arrest. Mr. Hatsell, with a natural anxiety to promote the privileges of the Commons' House of Parliament, hesitates a complaint that the question should ever have been mooted, whether a person was eligible to be a member, though an outlaw or in execution at the time of his return. h "Had James I.,' ? he says, " suc- ceeded in establishing the doctrine that persons employ- ed in foreign embassies, sheriffs of counties, bankrupts, and persons outlawed or in execution, ought not to be elected or to retain their seats, he would soon, by one or other of these methods, have found means to withdraw from their service in that House many of its ablest members, to whose spirit and attention we, at this dis- tance of time, are very much indebted for the existence of the freedom which this nation now enjoys." In a note to Burnet, the speaker, Arthur Onslow, that vigilant guardian of all the just rights and privi- B Journals, vol. x. h llatsell's Precedents, title Privilege. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 323 leges of the House, has left a memorable proof of his conviction how much the collective benefit ought to outweigh all considerations of individual hardship and oppression. " George Robinson, in 1737, was chosen member for Marlow : after this, in the mean time, and before the next session, a commission of bankruptcy issued against him, he having some time before withdrawn himself from his habitation and retired, it was said, into France. The commission of bankruptcy was taken out by the corporation for lending money on pledges, to whom he had been cashier or banker, and was charged by them with great embezzlement of their money, and they petitioned his majesty to send instructions to his ambassador at Paris to procure the said Robinson to be seized and sent over hither. The petition was referred to Sir Philip Yorke, the attorney- general, who immediately came to me to know what privilege I thought Robinson had in the case. Upon talking it over, we both agreed that, as this was for a detention of his person, and within the time of privi- lege as to every thing but suits, it might be of danger- ous consequence to the privilege of parliament, and very ill use might hereafter be made of such a seizure. He did accordingly report that it was by no means advisable for his majesty to give such directions to his ambassador, nor did any such direction go." There can be no question that the speaker gave judicious advice to the law officers of the crown, but that the privilege is too valuable to be ever impugned, even upon occasions of peculiar enormity, may admit of some discussion. The sweeping censure of Swift, however specious at first sight, is made in utter disre- gard of the general good to the community, which a Y 2 324 HISTORY OF THE safe and unmolested meeting of the great council of the nation is calculated to produce. " The claim of senators," says that arch satirist, in his essay upon public absurdities in England, " to have themselves and servants exempted from law-suits and arrests, is manifestly absurd. The proceedings at law are already so scandalous a grievance upon account of the delays, that they little need any addition. Whoever is either not able or not willing to pay his just debts, or, to keep other men out of their lands, would evade the decision of the law, is surely but ill qualified to be a legislator. A criminal with as good reason might sit on the bench, with a power of condemning men to be hanged for their honesty." Full light has been recently thrown upon the advantages and attendant inconveniences of this pro- tection in an eloquent and elaborate debate. In the session of 1832 *, Mr. Baring proposed to narrow this safeguard of parliament-men within closer limits, and to take away the freedom from arrest in all cases of judgment debts. He stated that he did not mean to touch the right in criminal proceedings nor on mesne process, but only in the event of actual judgments against a member. The bill was finally abandoned, but its ill success may be attributed rather to the period of the session and approaching deter- mination of parliament, as then constituted, than to the weight of arguments used against it. Mr. Wynn, indeed, ably contended, "that the duty of attendance ought not to be interrupted by the private claims of any individual. In maintenance of this principle, the par- liament of 1707 released, — (as we have seen,) a very obnoxious member named Asgill from custody, though 1 Mirror of Parliament. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 325 it immediately afterwards expelled him for an irreligious publication. And just a century later, in 1807, a Mr. Mills having written to the speaker, stating that he was under arrest, was held entitled to his privilege, and on motion discharged out of the custody of the marshal of the King's Bench, though it was notorious that he had purchased his seat to escape payment of his debts, which amounted to £23,000/' More recently, on the complaint of Sir Charles Hamilton, that he had been arrested in mistake by an officer who had made no apology, the officer was committed to Newgate and detained ten days. There is much force in Mr. Herbert's ingenious objection, that some of the members of that House had been known to be in very poor circumstances, and if it were not for this boon, a sort of benefit of clergy in civil suits, it would be in the power of any admini- stration, by buying up his debts, to immure a man of the first-rate abilities. A wealthy merchant, like the late Mr. Thelusson, not over partial to long orations, might have materially shortened the debates, by coop- ing up together Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, and Courtenay. The frauds upon debtors, which an abuse of the privilege had occasioned, tainting the character of the House, were chiefly relied upon by the supporters of Mr. Baring's proposition. He cited the case of a Mr. Bourke, who being confined in the King's Bench pri- son in execution for a considerable debt,, procured, through the venal instrumentality of some convenient friends, his return for a pocket borough, but never deigned to come near the House at all ; he had horses ready at the door of the prison, started direct for the continent, and never returned. There certainly appears the stamp and mark of honesty in a legisla- 326 HISTORY OF THE tive measure which should protect the poor against the rich, and prevent the confiding tradesman from being defrauded of his just demands by the class who feel no scruple in running up a long account, and swindling under privilege of parliament. It accords with our notions of political justice, that no man should sit in the House of Commons to levy contributions on his countrymen, who has not himself the means of contributing ; and it deserves consideration, whether any character can be more dangerous to the common weal than a senator possessing great and commanding eloquence, but subject to the harassing demands of creditors, eager to grasp at some lucrative post by any methods, and almost constrained against his conscience to barter principles for place. Nor is it any legiti- mate argument against the existence of much vexation that there should be such few instances of members being sued to judgment and execution. It is impos- sible to calculate how many creditors may have been deterred from prosecuting their just claims by the known difficulties which the privileges of parliament throw in their way. The abstract reasons for such a measure appear to outweigh the rather fanciful alarms of some Irish representatives, that it would give rise to a system of purchasing up judgments, mortgages, and incumbrances on the estates of members of the legislature which, though perfectly solvent, they might not be able to satisfy on a short notice. The more grave objection of Lord John Russell was entitled to greater weight, that men of high talent and integrity were often care- less in pecuniary affairs, and that it would be injudi- cious to exclude such persons from the House, because they might on particular occasions be unable to pay all HOUSE OF COMMONS. 327 their debts. '* Such power," he urged, " might be made a most improper use of, as hardly anything could be so objectionable as making the private affairs of mem- bers the subject of party discussion. By that proposal the constituents were not called upon to consider the integrity and talents of a person they might wish to represent them, but had only to look to his pecuniary circumstances." The necessity for the change contemplated in Mr. Baring's bill, even w T ere its expediency beyond doubt, has been in some degree removed by the change in the law of imprisonment for debt. Notwithstanding the plausible arguments adduced in favour of such a mea- sure, the historian of the privileges of members cannot but heartily sympathise with the emphatic language in which the author of the Lex Parliamentaria con- cludes his treatise : " Nothing ought to be so dear to the Commons of Great Britain as a free parliament ; that is, a House of Commons every way free and inde- pendent of the King, Lords, and Ministry, free in their persons, free in their estates, free in their elections, free in their returns, free in their assembling, free in their speeches, debates, and determinations j free to complain of offenders, free in their prosecuting for offences, and therein free from the fear or influence of others, how great soever ; free to guard against the encroachments of arbitrary power, free to preserve the liberties and properties of the subject, and free to part with a share of those properties when necessary for the service of the public." The privilege of franking letters was one of the very few honorary distinctions which members of the House of Commons retained at the passing of the Reform Bill. The sending and receiving letters free 328 HISTORY OF THE had become a mark of consideration, and, whilst the loss to the revenue was not considerable, the gratifica- tion this boon afforded to the privileged class of con- ferring little favours should not be lightly esteemed. It seemed the quiddam honorarium — the distinguishing sign — the graceful apanage of an M.P. The history of its introduction is curious, for, in company with many prized distinctions, it had an ignoble origin in the Pensioner Parliament of Charles II., in a settle- ment of the revenues of the post-office. When Colonel Titus reported the bill, k Sir Walter Erie delivered a proviso for the letters of all members of parliament to go free during their sitting. Sir Heneage Finch 'said. it was a poor, mendicant, proviso. The question being called for, the speaker, Sir Harbottle Grimstone, was unwilling to put it, saying he felt ashamed of it, nevertheless the proviso was carried. The restriction of this privilege to the period of parliament's sitting was speedily overlooked in practice, and for half a century members enjoyed a license of writing free over any number of post-office letters, and of enclosing franks in parcels to be used by their friends and constituents for any period of time, and of any weight. At the accession, 1715, complaint was made of great abuses in franking post letters, " tending to the lessening of his majesty's revenue and to the disper- sion of scandalous and seditious libels." As some slight remedy for the evil, the House in its tenderness directed that the superscription of each letter should be in the member's hand-writing. A very liberal extension of the privilege appears to have been still connived at as an innocent job. Dr. Johnson relates, in his life of Cave the printer, that tc he was raised to k Grey's Debates. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 329 the office of clerk of the franks, in which he acted with great spirit and firmness, and often stopped franks which were given by members of parliament to their friends, because he thought such extension of a peculiar right illegal. This raised many complaints, and, having stopped, among others, a frank given by the old Duchess of Marlborough to Mr. Walter Plum- mer, he was cited before the House as for a breach of privilege, and accused, I suppose very unjustly, of opening letters to detect them. He was treated with great harshness and severity, but declining their ques- tions, by pleading his oath of secrecy, was at last dis- missed;" — no marked encouragement, assuredly, to vigilance in the detection of abuses. That many members (and tradition points strongly to the Scotch) strained this permission to an abuse, there is no doubt. The gossiping Wraxall 1 proves how long and to what extent it prevailed. "Till 1784, neither date nor place was necessary. Not only were covers trans- mitted by hundreds, packed in boxes, from one part of the kingdom to the other, and laid up as a magazine for future expenditure, but far greater perversions of the original principle, for purposes very injurious to the revenue, took place. I was acquained with a member, a native of Scotland, decorated with the order of the Bath, who sent up to London from Edinburgh by one post thirty-three covers, addressed to an eminent banking-house in the Strand, most of which con- tained, not letters, but garden-seeds. The post- master-general had the covers carried up to the speaker's chair ; but he voted for Lord North, and the business never came before the House." Merchants used to send and receive prices-current 1 Wraxall's Posthumous Memoirs. 330 HISTORY OF THE and circulars free, and bankers have been known to realize some hundred pounds a-year by an abuse of this advantage. Since the Union, an honourable mem- ber has deposited the privilege in the hands of his bankers, to be placed to the credit side of his account, the daily number of twenty-five letters, the full amount allowed to be sent and received, being under his covers. In 1760, the Lords amended a new Post-office Bill, by leaving out the proviso of exemption. The Commons agreed to this, on a private assurance from the ministers of the crown that the privilege should be continued ; and accordingly a warrant was issued to the post-master general, directing the allowance to the extent of two ounces in weight, thus reducing the bulk of letters post-free within some moderate dimen- sions. During the fiscal embarrassments to which the unfortunate American war had reduced the country, Lord North, in opening the budget, intimated one method which had suggested itself of supplying the deficiencies in the revenue, by restraining, or entirely suppressing, the privilege of franking. m But the House had become less sensitive to what their prede- cessors deemed " a mendicant proviso," and inter- rupted the scheme with such a loud and general murmur of disapprobation, that the easy chancellor of the exchequer stopped suddenly short, and proposed instead the taking off the prohibition on foreign cam- brics. The attempt at restraining the boon was renewed by an abler financier, Mr. Pitt, with more decision and with success. He proposed certain regulations, the general object of which was to restrain the number of franks sent or received by any m Parliamentary History, vol. xxxiv. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 331 post, and also to restrict them in regard to weight. He designed that in future all franks should be dated, both as to time and place, — a measure which would in some degree limit the advantage, as the limitation ought to be, to the personal advantage of the members of the two Houses. These salutary amendments, yielding a large annual profit to the revenue, were agreed to without a mur- mur. The late active secretary of the post-office, Sir Francis Freeling, was of opinion that the post-office lost a mere trifle by the modified exercise of this pri- vilege, so much was gained by answers to the letters, and by mistakes in the envelopes themselves. The exercise of franking was, after this regulation, watched with such jealousy that, in 1799, a member brought a charge, which the House seriously investigated, against Sir Benjamin Hammet, for deputing to his son the privilege during his illness. His friends justi- fied this laxity of practice by the precedents of former parliaments, whose members, they urged, delegated this power occasionally to their wives, daughters, and other ladies ; but the excuse was not admitted, and the worthy knight received a reprimand, and caution not to offend again. All possibility of abuse is now at length removed. An economical reform in the Post-office, as searching and complete as that of the House itself, has put an end to this counting-house convenience and drawing- room luxury. These cheap favours to constituents are abolished, and the last feather in the plume of privilege remorselessly torn away. 332 CHAPTER X. In the triumphant vindication of the undoubted pri- vileges of the Commons, and the able advocacy of their somewhat questionable powers, assumed from time to time, the lawyers led the van, their earliest, most reso- lute, and most persevering champions. From the first dawn of civil liberty to its full development, they stood between the crown and the subject, asserting the right of every member to express his thoughts fully, freely, fearlessly, withstanding the oppressions of the nobles, and upholding the right of the representatives of the people to tax themselves. Who, it may be asked, took the lead in those memorable discussions, which esta- blished the freedom of his majesty's poor Commons, and confirmed a wavering House in their resolution, but Sir Edward Coke, Selden, and Littleton ? Who but these great constitutional lawyers managed the memorable conference with the Lords, which preceded the Bill of Rights ? Who drew up that Magna Charta, but Serjeant Glanville, and Pym, and Hyde ? At the Restoration, the cautious wisdom of Sir Matthew Hale would have fettered the king with conditions, that might have saved his reign from alternating between anarchy and despotism. Whose voice more loud than that of Maynard, Somers, Sawyer, and Williams, in HOUSE OF COMMONS. 333 denouncing the tyranny of James ; whose suggestions so valuable in establishing the happy Revolution ? Their praise is not, however, confined to the jour- nals and statute-book : the fears of usurping tyrants in the early annals of English history, proclamations of enmity, and futile efforts at exclusion, form the best, because involuntary, homage to the merits of our great lawyers. The statute 23rd Edward III., called that parliament the meeting of the learned men, from the number of persons learned in the laws which it included. But, as the exactions of the royal favourites were by these means thwarted, they petitioned that " Nul home cle ley soient retournez ni acceptez cheva- liers des Countees." The king willed in answer " that knights and esquires only should be returned in full counties." In the writ of summons to parliament 5th Henry IV. was inserted the famous clause, " No- lumus quod aliquis homo ad legem aliqualiter sit electus." This Nolumus, we are assured, a was inserted by Henry IV. in his writ, as he suffered from extreme want of money, and felt afraid of his demands being resisted. Deprived of their orators, the parliament granted a subsidy tristabilis et valde gravis, and was called by Speed the " lack-learning parliament," by Walsingham Parliamentum indoctorum. " The prohibition that no apprentice or man following the law should be chosen," says Coke, 4 Institute 48, " made the parliament fruit- less, and never a good law passed thereat, and called the ' lack-learning parliament.'" Since this time lawyers, for the great and good service of the Commons, have been eligible, but always objects of jealousy on the part of the crown. n Coke's Institutes. 335 HISTORY OF THE James I. wrote to Secretary Calvert, desiring the House Cl to go on cheerfully in their business, rejecting the curious wrangling of lawyers upon words and sylla- bles." In his speech, 1623, the pedantic monarch says, " Let not any stir you up to law questions, debates, quirks, tricks, and jerks." ° His son, declar- ing his reasons for dissolving parliament, said, "Young lawyers sitting there take upon them to decry the opinions of the judges, and some have not doubted to maintain, ' That the resolutions of that House must bind the judges,' a thing never heard of in ages past. And when one of the members of that House, speak- ing of our councillors, said ' we had wicked counsel ■' and another said, ' That the council and judges sought to trample under feet the liberty of the subject ;' and a third traduced our court of Star Chamber for the sentence given against Savage, they passed without check or censure by the House : By which may appear how far the members of that House have of late swollen beyond the rules of moderation and the modesty of former times, and this under the pretence of privilege and freedom of speech, whereby they take liberty to declare against all authority of council and courts at their pleasure." When the dark Earl of Strafford sought to establish an absolute tyranny in England, his first endeavour was to sweep the obstructing lawyers from his path. " I disdain," he writes to Archbishop Laud, p a to see the gown-men hang their noses over the flowers of the crown, and blow and snuffle upon them till they take both scent and beauty off them ;" and again, " How well this suits with monarchy, when common lawyers monopolize all to be governed by their year-books, you Parliamentary History, vol. i. p Forster's Lord Strafford. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 335 in England have a costly experience." The reason of his hate is clearly legible — all who run may read it. But the secret of their unpopularity with other classes, who have no object to gain, seems less easily accounted for, however undeniable in fact. Were their informa- tion ever so valuable, their knowledge ever so import- ant, they have never been favourites with the consti- tuent body. The high-born patricians, though a fourth part of the peerage is derived from the law, sneered at the adventurers, who could with such facility out talk them. Naval and military men undervalued the peaceful labours of the gown ; county-members reckoning their acres, whom Canning termed landed grandees, would not listen to learned gentlemen, who must speak volubly by the hour forsooth, according to instructions, and were hired by fees. At three different eras in parliamentary history, the aversion of three different sections of the community is displayed by their representatives in lively colours. Under the Stuarts, when the clergy were still struggling for civil offices of state, Archbishop Whitgift evinces in a pri- vate letter to Burleigh, the jealousy of the proud churchman : " The temporal lawyer, whose learning is no learning anywhere but here at home, being born to nothing, doth by his labour and travail in that bar- barous knowledge purchase to himself and his heirs for ever a thousand pounds per annum, and oftentimes much more, whereof there are at this day many examples.'" 1 Bishop Goodman depicts in a still more amusing manner his disgust at the good offices which men of the law exacted by their fears from the com- monalty. q Strype's Life of Archbishop Whitgift. * Bishop Goodman's Letters, temp. James I. 336 HISTORY OF THE " One knight did affirm, that in one term he gave twenty nobles in rewards to the door-keepers of the attorney-general." The poor bishop complains " that the lawyers usually had all the good matches in the kingdom, and does boldly say there is not a mean lawyer but spendeth as much venison in his house as he doth that hath an ordinary park. I did once intend to have built a church, and a lawyer in my neighbour- hood did intend to build himself a fair house. One sent to desire him to accept from him all his timber ; another sent to desire he might supply him with all the iron. In the building of my church, where it was so necessary, for without the church they had not God's service, and no church was near them within four or five miles, truly I could not get the contribution of one farthing." In the Pensioner Parliament, the saturnine Andrew Marvel, representing the country and trading interest, railed at the long robe in this good set fashion : s " The wisdom and probity of the law went off for the most part with good Sir Matthew Hale, and justice is made a mere property. This poisonous arrow strikes to the very heart of government. What French counsel, what standing forces, what parliamentary bribes, what treating, and all the other machinations of wicked men have not been able to effect, may be more compen- diously acted by twelve judges in scarlet. What self- denial were in the learned counsel in law, did they not vindicate the decisions of the judges, perplex all reme- dies against the encroachments and corruptions of courts of judicature, word all acts towards the advan- tage of their own profession, palliate abuses in elec- tions, extenuate and advocate public crimes, where the ■ Marvel on the Growth of Popery. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 337 criminal may prove considerable, step into the chair of a money bill, and pen the clauses so dubiously, that they may be interpreted in Westminster Hall beyond the House's intention, mislead the House not only in point of law, but even in matter of fact, without any respect to veracity, but all to farther promotion." At the Revolution, the courtly Lord Halifax, a favourable specimen of the nobleman in Charles the Second's day, cautioned the constituencies' " against choosing lawyers, who almost all had narrow minds, and by the whole scope of their studies found themselves pressed to adhere to the king and his prerogative." For this general odium, the venality of some and tergiversation of other great lawyers, who trafficked with their powers of speech, may perhaps in some degree account. The exactions of Dudley, wresting the law to iniquity; the apostacy of Noy, suggesting in his guilty flight the impost of ship-money ; the late repentance of Coke, becoming in his old age, but not till then, a tribune of the people, may in part explain this deep- rooted aversion. But a still stronger motive of dislike may be traced to the trivial jealousy which the weak entertain against the strong, depreciating those arts of oratory with which themselves may be unacquainted ; undervaluing that research and laborious investigation for which they have neither leisure nor capacity; mea- suring by a money standard, those acquirements which though it may retain, gold cannot purchase. The gift of ready elocution, the self-possession, apt address, unfailing facility of speech, and those attendant evils, the habits of prolixity and repetition, an unsparing- consumption of time, and minute subtlety, tend to ' On the Choice of a Speaker. VOL. I. Z 338 HISTORY OF THE weariness, and irritate and annoy the most impatient, the least merciful in criticism, of all audiences — a crowded House of Commons. Hence the frequent complaints we read of the House being lawyer-ridden ; of the garrulity of learned Serjeants ; of St. Stephen's being overwhelmed with the politicians of Westminster Hall, though they count but very few in a division. The number of lawyers in parliament, in James I's. time, was not more than twenty or thirty. When that king commanded the House, " as an absolute king," to confer with the judges on a disputed return for the county of Bucks, they selected a committee of twenty- one lawyers and sixteen gentlemen — apparently all the lawyers in the House with the exception of Coke- comprising the eminent names of Serjeant Hobbard, Doddridge, Sir Francis Bacon, Yelverton, Lawrence, Hyde, Sir Roger Wilbraham, &c, yet has the return of practising barristers been always proportionably small. Of this compact phalanx there has been in modern times rather a diminution than increase, if we exclude those country gentlemen and men of large fortune who have been called to the bar, more as a matter of form than with any serious intention of pursuing the law as a profession, and on whom of course the esprit de corps must have little, if any, weight. So long as the House shall continue a legislative assembly, there must be some persons conversant with the language and interpretation of statutes, nor can they become numerically formidable, since the abolition of nomina- tion boroughs. Their favour with large popular consti- tuencies is not so proverbial, nor their wealth or influence so great, as to occasion, except in the minds of sensitive country gentlemen, an inordinate cause of alarm. Prynne's argument, that their exclusion would HOUSE OF COMMONS. 339 shorten the debates, can only be noticed with contempt. There may be serious evil in excessive discussion, but the forcible thrusting forth of argument, the carrying measures of government by the mere tyranny of num- bers, is a far more serious evil, and abhorrent to the genius of the constitution. The unpopularity of lawyers attained its maximum during the convulsion of the civil wars, when the sword had been thrown into the scale, and justice kicked the beam. Lord Keeper Whitelocke, that they might not be forcibly excluded from their seats, made a long and ample apology in behalf of the profes- sion. u One of his arguments was a double-edged sword; answering the military sneer, "that gownsmen did not undergo such dangers and hardships as martial men," he pointed to the great services performed by Lieutenant- GeneralJones, Commissary Ireton, and others, who, putting off their gowns, had served the parliament stoutly as soldiers. His answer to the invidious motion that lawyers, being members of the House, should, during that time, forbear their practice and pleading, will receive a more general assent : "That in the act, which the member might be pleased to bring in for that purpose, it might also be inserted that merchants should forbear their trading, physicians from visiting their patients, and country gentlemen forbear to sell their corn and wool, whilst they sat as members." So long as the Interregnum lasted, the red coat and sabretasche superseded the lawyer's gown ; but at the Restoration, the gentle goodness of Hale, the stout presbyterianism of Maynard, the antiquarian research of Prynne, and sound constitutional learning ° Whitelocke's Memoirs. Z 2 340 HISTORY OF THE of Bridgeman and Vaughan, were not without some avail. It must be confessed, however, that the legal pro- fession shared largely in the degeneracy which pervaded with universal taint the reigns of Charles II. and his bigoted brother. From no period of our history can a railer at law and lawyers extract so many obnoxious persons and incidents. On the bench", Scroggs, North, Jeffries, Saunders, and Wythens made a shambles of Westminster Hall : in the senate, the blustering vio- lence of Williams and Jones veered about at each breath of corruption between court obsequiousness and factious sedition. Even in this depth of degrada- tion, it should be remembered that legal science still left its trace and character in those admirable statutes which reflected a legislative glory on the reign of Charles ; which, in the act for abolishing military tenures, in the habeas corpus act, the statute of wills, the statute of limitations, the statute of frauds, have conferred enduring good, and protected from spoil or violence both persons and property. Amid the din of the Pensioner Parliament, the lawyer's voice might be heard, now battling stoutly against the royal prerogative, now inveighing against the upper house, baying to death Roman Catholic noblemen, and hoarse with applauding the perjuries of Oates. But though they shared in the excesses of fanaticism and did not escape the pestilent epidemic of those distempered times, — though among their first-class men may be ranked grand apostates from the cause of constitutional liberty, the honours of an ambitious profession proving too strong a bait for the firmness of Noy, the integrity of Digges and Little- ton, — without them, wayward, ambitious, and recreant, HOUSE OF COMMONS. 341 as too many were, what would have become of the laws and liberties of Englishmen ? If the accents of sound deliberative wisdom could have been listened to in the moody and factious temper of the Long Parliament, the eloquence of Glanville and the persuasive arguments of Hyde would not have pleaded in vain. Let us not disparage a profession which has adorned the bench, with such chancellors as Nottingham, Somers, and Hardwicke — has placed in the chair of the House of Commons its best speakers, More and Coke — has preserved its privileges, and added to the renown of its orators ; which engraved on the statute-book so many wise and excellent laws, and, as a crowning glory, took an active and leading part in the settlement of the happy revolution. At the head of those distinguished lawyers who were summoned to the Convention Parliament may fairly be placed the venerable Maynard, then in his eighty-sixth year ! To have toiled in his profession for sixty years with intellect and spirits unbroken; to have received a larger amount of fees than any serjeant, or utter bar- rister before his time ; to have impeached some of the most eminent lay and spiritual peers, and to have been impeached himself and twice committed to the Tower ; to have held rank and conciliated favour under five dynasties — for he partook more of the willow than the oak — and finally to have been first commissioner of the great seal at the age of eighty-five — are a few among the many singular incidents that illustrate the life of this remarkable man. Mr. Maynard was born at Tavistock, in 1602, the eldest son of a private gentleman resident in that town, and was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, ,342 HISTORY OF THE previously to his admission at the Inner Temple. His acuteness and docility recommended him to the notice of Mr. Nov, the celebrated attorney-general of Charles I., and he rose early into repute with the attorneys, from being looked upon, according to his own account, as Mr. Noy's favourite. He had formi- dable rivals in Rolle and Selden, but soon obtained professional eminence. His name frequently occurs in Croke's Reports, forty-eight years before quitting the bar. In 1647 his receipts from the profession were so great, that Whitelocke, a rival lawyer, records the fact in atone of wondering envy. "I attended the House, and Maynard and I talking of our circuit gains, he told me that he got on the last circuit £700, which I believe was more than any one of our profession got before." It was then more common than even in modern days for aspiring lawyers to become members of parliament. Maynard accordingly secured a seat for Totness in 1640, but always acted on the prudent rule of making politics subservient to the law. He had been from boyhood closely wedded to his profession, and was not unfaithful. Though a decided member of the presby- terian party,, coinciding with all their schemes, and compelled from the deference paid to his legal lore to take part in those state prosecutions with which the times were rife, he " did their bidding gently," and never envenomed the duties of the advocate, like Pym or St. John, by mixing with their performance the bitter resentments of the man. "Mr. Hyde's friends in the profession," writes Clarendon in his faithful history, "were, among others, John Maynard and Bulstrode Whitelocke, men of eminent parts and great learning out of their pro- fessions, and in their professions of signal reputation ; HOUSE OF COMMONS. 343 and, though the two last did afterwards bow their knees to Baal, and so swerved from their allegiance, it was with less rancour and malice than other men : they never led, but followed, and were rather carried away with the torrent, than swam with the stream, and failed through those infirmities which less than a general defection and a prosperous rebellion could never have discovered." To this moderation, easiness of temper, natural caution, the acquired shrewdness of the lawyer, and appetency of gain, in different degrees of strength, jointly contributed. He would not cut off all chance of reconciliation with temperate royalists, even when he went most heartily with the proceedings of the roundheads. Abstaining from all unnecessary harshness, he supported the other managers in the impeachments of Strafford and Laud, and sat in the assembly of divines, when a synod of laymen met them to consider the best method of establishing the presby- terian form of church government. He even accepted the office of deputy lieutenant, when the House of Commons ventured on usurping the functions of royalty, but never acted in that character. This prudent, almost timid, reserve appears to have been sorely tried on an occasion which is amusingly de- scribed by "Whitelocke, though the quaintness of his narrative must suffer from abridgment. "In 1644," we are told, "the lord general (Essex) began to have some jealousies of Lieutenant- General Cromwell; one evening, very late, Maynard and I were sent for to Essex House, and there was no excuse to be admitted, nor did we know beforehand (a decided case of hardship) the occasion of our being sent for." They found in council the lord general and Scots commissioners, with Holies and other presby- 344 HISTORY OF THE terian leaders. The Scottish chancellor opened the cause of their summons, and the memorialist imitates in his spelling the pronunciation of the cannie Scot, " You ken varry weel that General Cromwell is no friend of ours. It is requisite this obstacle or remora should be removed. The Solemn League and Cove- nant has settled how an incendiary is to be proceeded against. Your opinion is desired, what is the meaning of incendiary, and whilke way to proceed against him, if he be such. By our law in Scotland we clepe him an incendiary who kindleth the coals of contention and raiseth differences in the state to the public damage and he is ' tanquam publicus hostis patriae .' " Maynard politely gave way to Whitelocke in solving this knotty point, and then expressed a submissive opinion that, however correctly defined the term incen- diary might be, it was a term of civil law, and not often met with in his books ; the application of it was quite another question. " General Cromwell," he added, " is a person of great favour and interest with the House of Commons, and with some of the House of Peers likewise, therefore there must be proofs, and the most clear and evident against him, to prevail with the par- liament to judge him an incendiary. I confess, my lords, I do not, in my private knowledge, assure myself of any such particulars, nor have we heard of any here, and I believe it will be more difficult than some of us imagine to fasten this upon him. The proofs are not ripe — it is not fit for my lord general and the Scots commissioners yet to appear in it." This sensible advice, after a sharp debate and with much reluctance, was adopted. At two in the morning, the shrewd counsellors were dismissed with thanks, and stole away to their respective homes greatly comforted HOUSE OF COMMONS. 345 no doubt at having escaped an instant peril. " I believe," says Whitelocke, in concluding his account of their secret interview, " several false brethren in- formed Cromwell of all that passed. After that he seemed more kind to me and Maynard than he had been formerly." Notwithstanding this comparative restoration to favour, he was too able a member of the presbyterian party not to be marked out as a victim by the independent faction in their struggles for ascendency. In 1G47 he was charged by Sir Thomas Fairfax and the army, who included ten other members most opposed to violent measures, in the same sweeping accusation, with being delinquents and favouring the royal cause. The terror of such a charge seemed sufficient to deter the feeble remnant of the Long Parliament from whispering one word in their defence. They resolved, without a division, that he should be expelled, committed to the Tower and impeached. Several articles of impeachment were in due course carried up to the Lords, charging him with plotting to levy war against the parliament, and the speaker commanded him to kneel at the bar, as a delinquent. He refused with prompt and unexpected boldness, saying he did not come to make bargains, but desired, as a commoner of England and a free- born subject, to be tried by indictment. And although the Lords fined him £500 for contumacy, he persisted in his refusal to kneel, protesting at the same time that the articles brought against him were not believed by those who brought them up. His unwonted firmness taught the movement party that he could not be crushed with impunity, and in a few months these hostile proceedings were discharged. He opposed with spirit the declaration of the 346 HISTORY OF THE House of Commons for a vote of non-communication with the king, declaring that by such a vote parlia- ment dissolved itself, and inveighed against the insolent remonstrance of the army calling for justice on Charles I., as the capital source of all grievances, which their officers, now conscious of their overwhelm- ing power, forwarded from St. Albans. Still wishing to temporize, he argued, says a contemporary, as if he had taken fees on both sides, " one while magni- fying the gallant deeds of the army, then firking them for their remonstrance." When the execution of the unhappy Charles was in agitation, his humanity again mastered all his pusil- lanimous doubts ; he burst into the House, and pleaded for his royal master's life with such impassioned energy that Cromwell demanded that he should be brought to the bar. But when the king had suffered martyr- dom, he again relapsed into prudence, and accepted office from the usurper. "In 1653," writes honest Anthony Wood, " Oliver Protector, Maynard was by writ, dated February 1st, called to the degree of Serjeant at law, having before taken the engagement, and on May 1st, was by patent made the Protector's serjeant, and pleaded in his and the then commonwealth's behalf against several royalists that were tried in the pretended high court of parliament, wherein several generous cavaliers and noble hearts received the dis- mal sentence of death." In his character as serjeant, he would still have acted with honest vigour for the good of the subject, had not his heart failed him for fear. The story of his tergiversation is told, with a warmth that becomes the lover of liberty, by Ludlow. " When George Cony, a merchant, refused to pay custom, and it was HOUSE OF COMMONS. 347 taken by force (during the usurpation), he sued the collector at common law. Cromwell sent his counsel, Serjeants Maynard and Twysden, to the Tower, where they had not been above three or four days, when they unworthily petitioned to be set at liberty, acknowledging their fault, and promising to do so no more, choosing rather to sacrifice the cause of their client, wherein that of their country was also eminently concerned, than to endure a little restraint with the loss of their fees for a few days." Cromwell told the judges they should not suffer the lawyers to prate what it would not become them to hear. So effectually subdued indeed was Westminster Hall, that even the faint-hearted Maynard appears to have been among his brothers of the long robe con- spicuous for hardihood. When Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn was brought again to his trial for sedition, he prayed earnestly for further time ; in regard the counsel assigned him refused to appear for him, only Serjeant Maynard, who was sick. Whether this was a con- venient sickness of the body or not, Colonel Lilburn gained a reprieve and eventually an acquittal. In one of the few parliaments summoned during the Commonwealth, this active lawyer was thought of sufficient consideration to be returned for several boroughs, and made his election for Newton. From the parliament of 1656 he was excluded by the audacious virulence of Cromwell, who claimed the power of verifying the regularity of the elections, together with Haselrig, Ashley Cooper, and the most public-spirited of the commonwealth party. The short notes of the debates taken by Mr. Burton serve to show that he was on his re-admission a frequent and judicious speaker, but are too brief and 348 HISTORY OF THE quaint to represent the style of his oratory. He is made to bear his protest against two decided evils, long speeches, and excessive legislation. " I profess to you," he said, " I am not ambitious, I would be lower, his parliament did pass more laws in one month than the best student in England can read in a year, and well if he can understand it then. We had a speech to-day (Sir Arthur Haslerig's) which lasted from nine till twelve. If you go on at this rate, to have one speech a day, the Dutch will give you £2000 a-day to do so." With the wary spleen of a sectarian, he supported a convenient motion for the dominant party that parsons should have no votes at their elections, and is summary in rejecting a cavalier's petition. But the nation was by this time sick of a twelve years' tyranny, under the pretence of popular government, and the iron hand of the Protector loosed its firm grasp of power in death. His ancient serjeant hastened to Whitehall to swear fealty to Richard Cromwell, followed as a mourner in the pompous funeral procession of his father, and the following year repaired again to court to welcome the abjured Stuart on his restoration. The guilt of the individual was absorbed in that of the multitude, and bis merit as a lawyer none could . question. He was accordingly dubbed a knight by Charles on Lord Mayor's day, and created by patent his ancient serjeant. Nay, had the judges been better paid, he might bave been elevated to the bench, but Sir John was too cunning to accept the offer of a precarious dignity at the expense of certain gain. He would not exchange the solid honorarium of the bar for the pinching allowance then doled out with most unwise parsimony to the bench. That the commonwealth lawyer was not, however, HOUSE OF COMMONS. 349 over-popular with the cavaliers, is proved by the following note of the pious Mr. Pepys at the close of his Journal on Coronation Day: " Thus did the day end with joy everywhere, and, blessed be God, I have not heard of any mischance to any body through it all, but only to Serjeant Glynne, whose horse fell upon him yesterday, and is like to kill him, which people do please themselves to see how just God is to punish the rogue at such a time as this, he being now one of the king's Serjeants, and rode in the cavalcade with Maynard, to whom people wish the same for- tune." Both Serjeants escaped; the one from his actual and the other from his imprecated tumble, to earn disgrace in the next year as an earnest for their full-blown honours. The Protector's chief justice, Glynne, divided with his Serjeant, Maynard, the shame of appearing at Westminster, in 1661, among the crown lawyers to sustain the prosecution against Sir Henry Vane ; an instance of tergiversation for which they well deserved to be stitched into Butler's rhymes — " Did not the learned Glynne and -Maynard To make good subjects traitors, strain hard?" for that subject, whether good, bad, or indifferent, had only carried out their own doctrines, as free as them- selves from all personal participation in the death of the royal martyr, and with whom they "had taken sweet counsel together as friends." During the dis- tracted reign of Charles II., Sir John Maynard sought shelter on the civil side of Westminster Hall, his increased age and infirmities serving as a convenient plea for handing over the conduct of state trials to younger, and, in bodily health, more able men. Roger North relates, in an acrimonious but amusing manner, 350 HISTORY OF THE some characteristic and amusing anecdotes of his sub- tlety and thrift w . "Serjeant Maynard was a very able practiser, and used to lay traps for the judges, and very cunning ones; but, if he discovered that he was observed, he straightway gave it up and contended not upon a fallacy which he foresaw would be resolved. He once had a mind to punish a man who had voted against his interest in a borough in the West; and brought an action against him for the scandalous words spoke at a time when a member to serve in the House of Commons for that borough was to be chosen ; and, after his great skill, he first laid his action in the county of Middlesex, and that was by virtue of his privilege, which supposes a Serjeant is attendant on the Court of Common Pleas and cannot be drawn from the county where the court sat; and then, in the next place, he charged the words in Latin, that, if he proved the effect, it would be sufficient, whereas, being in English, they must prove the very words to a tittle; and those were a long story "that used to be told of Mr. Noy and of the cock lawyers of the West, and this was tried before his lordship (Lord Keeper Guildford) at the nisi prius sittings for the Common Pleas for Middlesex. The witness telling the story as he swore the defendant told it, said, 1 that a client came to the serjeant and gave him a basket of pippins, and every pippin had a piece of gold in it.' ' Those were golden pippins !' quoth the judge. The serjeant began to puff, not bearing the jest; so the witness went on, 'and then,' said he, * the other side came, and gave him a roasting pig (as it is called in the West), and in the belly of that, there w Life of Lord Guildford. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 351 were fifty broad pieces.' ' That's good sauce to a pig/ quoth the judge again. This put the serjeant out of all patience, and speaking to those about him, 'This,' said he, 'is on purpose to make me ridiculous!' This story being sworn, the judge directed the jury to find for the serjeant; but in the court the judg- ment was arrested, because the words were but a blind story, and went as mere merriment over ale without intent to slander. Such bitterness flows from the sour spirits of old pretended republicans." " One afternoon, at the nisi prius court of the Common Pleas in Westminster Hall, before the judge sat, a poor half-starved old woman, who sold sweet- meats to school-boys at the end of the bar, desired the serjeant to pay her two shillings for keeping his hat two terms. She spoke two or three times, and he took no notice of her, and then I told the serjeant the poor woman wanted her money, and I thought he would do well to pay her. The serjeant fumbled a little, and then said to me, ' Lend me a shilling.' ' Ay, with all my heart,' quoth I, ' to pay the poor woman.' He took it, and gave it her ; but she asked for another. I said I would lend him that also to pay the woman. ■ No, don't boy,' he said, * for I never intend to pay you this,' and he was as good as his word." But, though smarting under the loss of his shil- ling, poor North is compelled to pay reluctant homage to the legal acumen of his crafty old friend. "This great man, as I must call him, since his natural and acquired abilities, and the immense gains he had by practice, justly entitle him to that epithet, was an anti-restoration lawyer. In 1684, I heard him say in the Court of Chancery, of a cause then at 352 HISTORY OF THE hearing, that he was counsel in that cause in the year 1643. His actions in the rebellious times made the Act of Indemnity smell sweet; and afterwards he had the cunning to temporize and got to be made the king's eldest serjeant, but advanced no further." A more profound observer of men and manners, Bishop Warburton, is less severe in his strictures upon the political delinquencies of the trimming lawyer. " Old Maynard and Whitelocke were both lawyers of family, and, in the Long Parliament, both of the pres- by terian faction, both learned and eminent in their pro- fession, moderate, sage, and steady, and so far they agreed. In this they differed: Maynard had strong parts w r ith a serious modesty ; Whitelocke was weak and vain ; a sense of honour made Maynard stick to the presbyterian faction, and to fall with them; but, as he had much phlegm and caution, not like Holies to fall for them, so that he was never marked out by the independent party for their first sacrifice. Maynard, by adhering steadily but not violently to the party he set out with, was reverenced by all, and, had he not been more intent upon the affairs of his profession, might have become considerable by station." In this flattering likeness the profile only is taken. Neither in the House nor at the bar did the serjeant in his personal character command the reverence which is here attributed to him, nor will his full- length portrait give as agreeable, though it may a, more faithful, representation. In the courts, indeed, he played his bowls admirably, but would sometimes meet with rubbers. He w r as rallying Gadbury, a witness to the popish plot, when the man retorted " Mr. Serjeant, I was none of the tribe of forty-one," and the conscious-stricken non-conformist sat down. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 3o3 But even to the last he was ready with his repar- tee, and obtained a partial homage from his depth of learning. When Jeffries, with habitual roughness, told Maynard he had got so old he forgot the law, the Serjeant retorted with a readiness which has become proverbial for its felicity, " 'Tis true, Sir George, I have forgot more law than ever you knew!" When, after his promotion to the bench, Jeffries was disputing some legal point with Ward, a barrister, overwhelming him with his rude rhetoric, " Do not make such discourses ad captandum populum with your flourishes. I will none of your enamel nor your garniture," the aged serjeant rose to the rescue of his oppressed brother, and stated how the law really stood, in which statement the chief justice imme- diately acquiesced. The deference thus conceded to his great erudition sometimes betrayed the court into error. Chief Justice Pemberton, having adopted his opinion on the authority of some case, which could not be met with immediately, but to which he referred the judge, afterwards reproached him with having misled the bench, and said that, when he looked into the case, he found that his brother Maynard might as well have tossed his cap into the air, or have laughed in his face. It would have been better for his memory had he continued to amuse the civil side of Westminster Hall with these comparatively innocent stratagems, and not suffered himself in 1679 to act the character of high priest, in offering up what he must have believed to be an innocent victim, to appease the popular cry for vengeance. His hatred of popery, together with the little risk, induced the wary lawyer verging on eighty to imbrue his hands once more in the shedding of vol. i. 2 a 354 HISTORY OF THE innocent blood, and to carry up to the Lords the articles of impeachment against Lord Stafford for participating in a popish plot which had no existence. It was craftily thought that, from the advanced age and enfeebled intellect of this unhappy peer, he would have bowed his head to the stroke without resistance, but, fortunately for the cause of truth and justice, he deceived the expectations of his persecutors, and proved the perjured testimony of the suborned witnesses with a force of conviction, that would have ensured his acquittal from all but the wilfully har- dened, and judicially blind. In another state prosecution eagerly pressed forward, Maynard, though not naturally cruel, but time-serving, brought his legal lore to bear down the accused. He explained, on the impeachment being voted against Lord Danby, the words of the statute 25th Edward III. (the great statute of high treason), that the courts of law could only proceed on one of the crimes there enumerated, but that parliament had still a power by a clause in the act to declare what was treason. Swift remarks on this casuistry with his usual terseness : " Yes, by a new act, but not by a retrospective one, for Maynard was a knave and a fool with all his law !" On another measure of a more innocuous nature, but framed in a spirit of superfluous legislation, the serjeant betrayed a pre- judice but too congenial with the age in which he lived. He sought to carry an act, which the good sense of the House rejected, to prevent further build- ing in London or the neighbourhood. " This build- ing," he said, almost pathetically, " is the ruin of the gentry and ruin of religion, leaving so many good people without churches to go to. This enlarging of HOUSE OF COMMONS. 355 London makes it filled with lacquies and pages. I would prevent the design of enlarging the eity or places adjacent. In St. Giles' parish, scarce the fifth part can come to church, and they must be of no religion at last !" This last suggestion, marked with far-thinking shrewdness, (well for this country had it been fully weighed and acted on,) atones for the folly of a prohibition which would have restricted the west end of London to Bow-street and the Strand, and not even included in its precincts what the next generation deemed the fashion of Great Ormond- street and the exclusiveness of Soho-square. But his view of public policy was contracted within a narrow vision. In matters of law Maynard shone in the House as at the bar. His arguments in Skinner's case, — that subject of warm conflict at a conference with the Lords — delighted his brother Commoners so much, that they were entered on the journals by express order of the House. Sharing in the popular delusion, he moved in 1681 to agree with the Lords that the hopes of a popish successor were the grounds of the plot. rt Shall we be led," he exclaimed, " like an ox to the slaughter, or a fool to the stocks, and not apprehend our danger ?" He was then the father of the House, and could refer to a precedent, when he was in the chair of the Committee of Elections, in the Long Parliament in 1641. The respect gracefully paid to the shrewd old lawyer rescued him from the grasp of the serjeant for going his circuit without leave of absence. His son Joseph Maynard was instructed to inform his father that he must return forthwith to his attendance, and that, if he refused prompt compliance, he should be sent for in custody. 2 a 2 356 HISTORY OF THE The times were lowering with danger, and the par- liamentary patriarch had two excellent motives for his journey — to escape from trouble and accumulate fees. During the short reign of James, when a less discerning eye than the Serjeant's could see from afar in the political horizon the distant haze of revolution, he could with difficulty be dragged from his forensic retreat, even by the consummate impudence of Titus Oates. When that infamous bravo was tried for perjury in 1685, he called upon Serjeant Maynard to speak to the legality of the proceedings against Lord Stafford, but the learned gentleman was troubled with a most convenient forget fulness, and begged to be excused giving any evidence on the subject, alleging as a reason, "I can never swear to my memory for any cause so long ago." The defendant remarked, with his accustomed audacity, "My lord, I am very sorry the learned Serjeant's age should so impair his memory," and was as usual huffed for his sauciness by the judge: "I dare say you are not more sorry than he is for his age!" Summoned to the servile parliament of 1685, Maynard did the state good service in exposing the iniquity of an act by which it was sought to enlarge the definition of treason. A clause had been so framed that anything said in disparagement of the king's person or govern- ment was made treason ; and, as judges and juries were then constituted, any words spoken to the dishonour of the king's religion might have been comprehended within the scope and purview of the statute. This monstrous innovation was strongly opposed by Maynard, who, in a speech of convincing eloquence, showed the injustice of making words treason : — HOUSE OF COMMONS. 3o7 " They were often ill-heard and ill-understood, and were apt to be misrecited by a very small varia- tion : men in passion or in drink might say things they never intended, therefore he hoped they would keep to the law of 25th Edward III., by which an overt act was made the necessary proof of ill inten- tion. When others insisted that ' out of the abundance of the heart the mouth spake,' he brought the instance of our Saviour's words, ' Destroy this temple, &c.,' and showed how near the temple was to this temple, pronouncing it in Syriac, so that the difference was almost imperceptible. There was nothing more innocent than these words as our Saviour meant and spoke them, but nothing more criminal than the setting on a multitude to destroy the temple." "This," says Burnet, "made some impression at that time. But if the Duke of Mon- mouth's landing had not brought the session to an early conclusion, that bill would certainly have passed." Sir John Maynard is entitled to the gratitude of his countrymen for averting a sanguinary enactment, which none but those whose lot was cast on evil days could have dreamt of being proposed seriously, and he deserves the especial remembrance of his learned friends for quoting the Syriac in the original, a branch of black letter lore with which no gentleman of the long robe is expected to be very familiar. On the welcome arrival of King William, the veteran of eighty-five hastened to court, and graced his audience with a repartee, perhaps the best known in our language, which proved that his learning was not superior to his wit. We repeat it for the sake of adding Swift's caustic comment: "The Prince of 358 HISTORY OF THE Orange, who could not avoid noticing his great age, remarked, with his natural brusqueness, and with as little expectation of making, as of eliciting, a com- pliment : ' You must have outlived all the lawyers of your time.' 'Yes,' replied the ready-witted advocate, 1 and I should have outlived the law itself but for the coming of your highness !' " Swift margined this note on his speech, proving oddly enough his tacit admiration of its cleverness : — " He was an old rogue for all that." But, however happy the reply, the octogenarian could scarcely have expected in his waking dreams to have been placed "in his reverence and his chair days" at the head of the law. Few members of the profession will acquiesce in the pro- priety of the American regulation that all judges must resign their seats at sixty, but none can approve the precedent of selecting a common lawyer of such an extreme age to be first commissioner of the great seal. But such was the anxiety of the new government to multiply places and pensions, that all offices which could by possibility be divided were distributed to different hands, and, accordingly, the custody of the great seal was put into commission, and intrusted to the care of Sir John Maynard, Sir Anthony Keck, and Sir William Iiawlinson. For three months he tottered down to the Court of Chancery, and then resigned its too onerous duties to Sir John Trevor. His active services to the new government in the Convention Parliament had certainly deserved high rewards, but they might have been paid in a more suitable form. In the Convention and first Parliament that succeeded (to both of which he was returned for Plymouth without opposition), he betrayed no want of HOUSE OF COMMONS. 359 energy, but entered into the debates with all the vigour of manhood. He was named at the head of five eminent lawyers, Holt, Pollexfen, Bradford, and Atkinson, to assist the Lords in their consultations,, and to explain to them the laws and constitution of the realm in the room of the judges, who were either absent from London or unworthy of the trust, and took the lead in the celebrated conference between the Lords and Commons, upon the propriety of the word Abdication. It is to be hoped that the reporter has been more guilty than the speaker of the strange rhetoric attributed to him : — "My lords, when there is a present defect of one to exercise the administration of the government, I conceive the declaring a vacancy and provision of a supply for it can never make the crown elective. If the attempting the utter destruction of the subject and subversion of the constitution be not as much an abdication as the attempting of a father to cut his son's throat, I know not what is. It is not that the Commons do say the crown of England is always and perpetually elective, but it is more necessary that there be a supply, when there is a defect, and the doing of that will be no alteration of the monarchy from a successive one to an elective." In the keen dialogue which ensued between the managers of the conference, it would appear that Lord Pembroke had the advantage of the lawyer, notwithstanding his doctrine of descent, and analogies from the Old Bailey. Pembroke. "If there be a doubtful title (that is dubious in whom the title resides, but a certain title as to some one), and I cannot directly name him that hath the immediate right, yet it is sufficient to prevent 3G0 HISTORY OF THE the vacancy, that there is an heir or successor, let him be who he will." Maynard. " But your Lordship will neither agree it is vacant, nor tell us how it is full. King James is gone, we hear or know of no other ; what shall the nation do in this uncertainty ? When will you tell us who is king, if King James be not? Shall we everlastingly be in this doubtful condition ?" Pembroke. " Sure, Mr. Serjeant Maynard, you will agree there is one, and no more than one, to whom a right does belong of succeeding, upon failure of Kinsj James. Has he no heir known ?" Maynard. " I say no man can be his heir while he lives. If he has any, it is in nubibus; our law knows none; and what shall we do till he be dead? It cannot descend till then." Pembroke. " You agree that, notwithstanding King Charles II. was abroad at his father's death, and did not actually exercise the government, yet in law, immediately upon his father's decease, he was not the less heir for that, nor was the throne vacant." Maynard. " That is not like this case, because the descent was legally immediate ; but there can be no such thing during King James's life as an hereditary descent; so that either here must be an everlasting war entailed upon us, his title continuing, and we opposing his return to the exercise of the government, or we have no government, for want of a legal descent and succession. Pray, my lords, consider the condition of the nation till there be a government ; no law can be executed, no debts can be compelled to be paid, no offences can be punished, no one can tell what to do lo obtain his right or defend himself from wrong. You still say the throne is not void, and yet you will HOUSE OF COMMONS. 3G1 not tell us who fills it ! If once you will agree that the throne is vacant, it will then come orderly in debate how it should, according to our law, be filled?" In the debate on the state of the nation, the old Serjeant showed how strong the Presbyterian leaven was still within him, stirring up his hatred to Roman Catholics and jealousy of the clergy. " There is no Popish prince in Europe but would destroy all Pro- testants, as in Spain, France, and Hungary; and in Spain they destroyed a gallant young prince (Don Carlos) whom they suspected to incline to the Pro- testants; and now they would make Magdalen College a new St. Omers." The ruling passion was strong in death. The aged puritan railed at the papists with his last breath, and willed away all his personalty from his young wife, his third wife by the way, and whose marriage settlement he had rendered nugatory by what he deemed a clever trick. Of a lawyer, so astute, so erudite, and venerable, of a man so crafty, truckling, and mean, it is easier to speak with levity than to mention him in terms of respect or esteem. He nar- rowly escaped the name of a pettifogger by the extent of his learning and his length of service. 362 CHAPTER XI. The " gentle Somers," though far from being That faultless monster which the world ne'er saw," was one of the most incorrupt statesmen and patriotic lawyers whom this country, rich in greatness, ever nur- tured. His father did not spring " from the dregs of the people," as the scurrilous Swift asserted, but was a res- pectable attorney at Worcester. a He is termed indeed by the same prejudiced authority " a great rogue;" but his chief demerits appear to have been that he had com- manded a troop of horse in Cromwell's army and was parent to the whig chancellor. The old house in which he was born had been inhabited by one branch of the Somers family from the time of the Tudors, and known by the name of the White Ladies, from its site being that of some ancient monastery. It had sheltered Queen Elizabeth in her royal progress, and Charles II. just before the battle of Worcester, at which disastrous period to royalty, the autumn of 1651, is dated the birth of John Somers. Under this ample roof-tree several families with whom the Somers had intermar- ried, the Cookseys and Foleys, lived sociably together. I fere too came on repeated visits the young Earl of Shrewsbury (the elder Somers was receiver of his ° Cookscy's Life of Lord Somers. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 363 estates), and grew up the warm friend of his son. The patronage of this wavering but amiable nobleman exercised through life a favourable influence on his fortunes. He was educated at a private school in Staffordshire, and is described to have been there a youth without " outleaps, a cold-blooded boy/' who loved to be with his books at play-hours. A manuscript, formerly in the possession of Dr. Birch, says, " The account of his behaviour at school I had many years ago from a school-fellow. I think Walsall was the place ; they learned their grammar together ; I remember very well his account of Johnny Somers being a weakly boy, wearing a black cap, and never so much as looking on when they were at play." This precocious gravity Somers shared with the late Dr. Parr, who diversified his studies — "the boy is father to the man" — with preaching in his shirt thrown over the boy's jacket. At the late age of twenty-one he took up his residence as gentleman commoner at Trinity College, Oxford, destined, a generation later, to be the college of the great Chatham, and cultivated there that love of classical literature which he pre- served in all its freshness amid an ungenial atmo- sphere, the gloomy chambers of the Middle Temple, and after his call to the bar. Politics, as well as literature, diversified his legal studies. In behalf of those leaders of opposition to whom Shrewsbury introduced his young friend, Lords Shaftes- bury and Russell, Sir William Temple, and Algernon Sidney, Somers adventured his first essays as an author. He composed the greater part of the cele- brated " Answer to the Declaration of Charles the Second on Dissolving his Last Parliament," and revised several state papers and pamphlets ascribed to Sidney. 364 HISTORY OF THE Provided with a handsome competency, independent of his profession, he was early distinguished for his generous and discriminating patronage of lite- rature. We are told of his contributing one hundred pounds to the repair of the college chapel, and taking an active part in the publication of Milton's Paradise Lost, in folio ; that he was strenuous in obtaining sub- scriptions, and recommending the poem to general notice. His own stray contributions to verse deserve the praise of ease and elegance, and are far superior to the uncouth attempts at rhyme of those great states- men and lawyers, Lord Clarendon, Sir Christopher Hatton, and Sir Matthew Hale, who loved the muses truly much better than the muses loved them. When " a mob of gentlemen/' as they termed themselves, undertook to translate Plutarch ; they solicited Somers's assistance, and he favoured them with a spirited translation of the Life of Alcibiades, the character which Lord Bolingbroke afterwards piqued himself so much on resembling. He also translated several epistles from Ovid. Yet, in the midst of these and other less intellectual dissipations, he did not neglect law. In 1683, he appeared as counsel for Pilkington, the unlucky ex-sheriff of London, who was cast in the heaviest damages ever recorded, £100,000, and had Joseph Jekyll, who afterwards married his sister, for a junior. At this period, we are assured, he was realizing £700 a-year, though we cannot but suspect some exaggera- tion, for he had not acquired rank, and was scarcely known. The proverbial slowness of professional advancement was exemplified in his case, notwithstand- ing his legal and political connexions ; and, on the trial of the Seven Bishops, when his name had been sug- HOUSE OF COMMONS. 365 gested as junior counsel, the right reverend prelates objected to one so young and so little known, Somen) was then thirty-seven, a juvenile and somewhat pre- mature age in that late-flowering profession. Lord Kenyon, commending a learned junior of forty-eight, spoke of him as "a rising young man." To the honour of the puzzle-pated Serjeant Pollexfen, who will be remembered for his discerning patronage more than for his black-letter law, he persisted in having Somers retained; and his speech, for simple and well-reasoned eloquence, bears a most favourable comparison with those which preceded it. His arguments were in truth geometrical stairs supporting each other, b and the peroration especially has obtained, as it deserves, uni- versal admiration : — " My lords, as to the matters of fact alleged in the petition, that they are perfectly true we have shown by the journals of both Houses. In every one of those years which are mentioned in the petition, this power was considered by parliament, and, upon debate, declared to be contrary to law. There could be then no design to diminish the prerogative, for the king has no such prerogative. Seditious, my lords, it could not be, nor could it possibly stir up sedition in the minds of the people, because it was presented to the kino; in private and alone. False it could not be, for the matter of it was true. There could be nothing of malice, for the occasion was not sought, but the thing was pressed upon them. And a libel it could not be, because the intent was innocent, and they kept within the bounds set up by the law, that gives the subject leave to apply to his prince by petition, when he is aggrieved." The flower of England's chivalry, her proudest Granger. c Phillipps's State Trials. 3G6 HISTORY OF THE peers and most distinguished commoners, were present to hear and applaud this noble specimen of well- reasoned eloquence. The genius of the pleader wanted only an opportunity, his oratory required but a fitting theme and audience ; to be appreciated was but to be known. From that day Somers stood forward in the character in which Sunderland afterwards described him to the king, d as " the life, the soul, the spirit, of his party." The best form of whiggery, its mainten- ance of tempered liberty, religious freedom, and gra- dual amelioration, most accorded with his judgment and taste. Returned to the Convention for his native city, Worcester, he was chosen to be one of the mana- gers of the conference with the Lords, when they would have substituted an amendment to the resolution of the Commons that the king had deserted the throne instead of abdicated, the word which Somers had hap- pily suggested, as one of doubtful import, likely to reconcile jarring opinions, and to soothe uneasy con- sciences. Some admirers of this great statesman have expressed disappointment at this argument turning so much on the niceties of verbal criticism. He cited jurists and lexicographers, Grotius, Budoeus, and the Code, to prove that desertion was an abandonment, admitting the right to return and assume — abdication, an absolute irrevocable renunciation, and therefore the more proper word, first, as a consequence from the king's violation of the original contract, which the Lords had voted ; next, as effectually shutting out King James, which object the Lords professed. He maintained that the non-use of the term " abdication " in tbe law-books was no objection, for it was a word of known signification used by the best authors, and nei- ther was the word desertion known to the common law. '' Shrewsbury Correspondence. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 367 In persuading the Commons to adopt this resolu- tion he laid down the proposition boldly, that the king's going to a foreign power, and casting himself into his hands, absolved the people from their alle- giance. e He compared the case to that of Sigismund, king of Sweden, who changed his religion, and, when he had withdrawn from the kingdom, was voted by their parliament to have forfeited the crown. The orator then reminded the House of the imprecation of King James L, that if his posterity were not protestant, he prayed God to take them from the throne, and carried the vote of abdication without a division. His own notes, taken in pencil, form almost the only record of that most interesting debate. "The dispute about the words abdicate or desert," says Bolingbroke, "might have been expected in some assembly of pedants, where young students exercised themselves in disputa- tion; but not in such an august assembly as this, of the Lords and Commons in solemn conference upon the most important occasion." But it should be remem- bered that this discussion was in the nature of a feigned issue, and that matters of the greatest moment lay concealed under disputes about words. The king had sufficient sagacity to reward this able champion of his crown with the office of solicitor- general, to the surprise and discontent of older law- yers, Sawyer, Pollexfen, Williams, and other rivals, none of whom could bear a comparison in consistency and moral worth. Unfortunately, careless of his fame as an orator, he has left no permanent memorial of his exertions in the House, but appears to have been a frequent speaker. The reports give little more than the name, mere fleshless skeletons of what, under his Parliamentary History, vol. v. 368 HISTORY OF THE plastic hand, must have been moulded to grace and beauty. His spirited interposition and influence over a critical debate are thus recorded by Burnet. f " One of them questioned the legality of the Convention, since it was not summoned by writ. Somers, then solicitor-general, answered this with great spirit. He said if that was not a legal parliament they, who were then met, and who had taken the oaths enacted by that parliament, were guilty of high treason. The laws repealed by it were still in force ; so they must pre- sently return to King James. All the money levied, collected, and paid by virtue of the acts of that parlia- ment made every one that was concerned in it highly criminal. This he spoke with much zeal and such an ascendency of authority that none were prepared to answer it. So the bill passed without any more oppo- sition. This was a great service done in a very critical time, and contributed not a little to raise Somers's character." Of the jealousy with which the baffled Jacobites regarded their arch-enemy, a curious instance is given in Ralph, s Being chairman of a committee of ways and means, and obliged as attorney-general to attend the Lords, on occasion of the million-annuity bill, they caused him to be sent for out of the chair, and as he had offended one House by suffering them to wait for him, so he offended the other as much by obeying that summons rather too abruptly, and breaking up the committee without a due regard to the usual forms. Such are the petty courses of resentment with which i action fastens on the great. In 1693 Somers was appointed lord keeper, but not ennobled, partly from his own indifference to title, Memoirs, vol iii. ' Ralph's History of England. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 3G9 and partly by the king's parsimony, which reserved its grants and honours for his own countrymen, or grasping courtiers of more congenial humours and less culti- vated tastes. Sir John Somers had been disappointed in a contemplated marriage, and disregarded a title which he could not transmit. A peerage was, in 1 G{)5, urgently pressed upon his acceptance, and the Duke of Shrewsbury wrote to his friend, " You should accept the title. I have used all the arguments I have already, and by your objections you may give me leave to tell you, that you are as peevish and unreasonable with too much modesty, as some are with too much ambition." His modest friend did not acquiesce how- ever for two years, when he was reluctantly created Baron of Evesham, and promoted to the rank of lord chancellor. In this office he has borne a liidi and stainless reputation, but the period during which he held the seals was too short to enable him to be classed with Northington, Hardwicke, or Eldon. His judgment on the celebrated Bankers' case, in collecting books and manuscripts for which he is said to have expended more than £1,000, has been always consi- dered by lawyers one of the most elaborate judicial arguments ever delivered in Westminster Hall. The history of the case was shortly this. The king's revenue had been farmed out under Charles II. to bankers, to whom he allowed eight or ten per cent, for advancing the money before the taxes were received. Suddenly, without notice, the exchequer was shut and all payments stopped, a measure equiva- lent to the seizing a million and a half of other men's money. When the king had committed this tyrannical fraud, and grasped the deposits of the leading London bankers, he granted to their clamours, in lieu of prin- VOL. i. 2 b 370 HISTORY OF THE cipal, dividends out of the hereditary excise, equal to six per cent, interest on their several debts. The payments, never punctual, having fallen during the late distracted times into arrear, the creditors sought to enforce their claims by petition to the barons of the exchequer. The barons were unanimous in their opinion that the remedy by petition was proper, and that the grant from the excise was good. On appeal to the exchequer chamber, Chief Justice Treby stood alone in his judgment that the barons had no authority to make orders for payment on the receipt of the exchequer. His opinion was adopted and enforced by the Lord Keeper Somers, to whom, and the lord high treasurer, whose office was at that time in abey- ance, there lay an appeal. He submitted his doubts whether he should decide according to his own opinion , or in conformity with that of the majority of the judges, to their determination, and they decided, seven against three, that he should consult his own judgment. Taking the same view of his duty, Lord Somers reversed the judgment of the exchequer. The case was afterwards carried into the House of Lords, who reversed the decision of the chancellor. But, though not supported by the highest court, it is far from clear that the chancellor's judgment was erroneous, or his principle of law unsound, the court of the last resort sometimes permitting considerations of expediency, or hardship, or abstract justice, or even, on rare occasions, political favour, to influence their votes. The love of justice was kindled assuredly by party heat. The opposition peers cheered Chief Justice Holt in his argument on a grave law point with a heartiness which the merits of the case or the force of his reasoning could not have elicited, and the decision formed a sub- HOUSE OF COMMONS. 371 ject of malicious triumph. "Downright Shippen," in verses upon which a spirit of bitterness is better stamped than the metre, writes of the discomfited chancellor as " A shallow statesman ; An unjust judge, and blemish of the mace — Witness the bankers' long depending case." During his four years of office he contrived to do his country good service in the cabinet as well as in court. His views of reform embraced a wider expanse than was then usually taken. Burnet informs us how valuable his counsels would have been on the currency question, had they not appeared too daring to the more narrow spirits with w T hom he was " cabined and confined." Somers proposed what would have put an end to clipping the coin, "that a proclamation should be prepared, with such secrecy as to be published all over England the same day, ordering money to pass only by weight; but that at the same time, during three or four days after the proclamation, all persons in every county that had money, should bring it in to be told and weighed, and the difference was to be registered, and the money to be sealed up to the end of the time given, and then to be restored to the owners, and an assurance was to be given that this deficiency in weight should be laid before the parlia- ment to be supplied another way, and to be allowed them in the following taxes. The king liked this proposition, but all the rest of the council were against it, fearing mutiny. It would have saved the nation above a million of money. Clipping went on, all people believing parliament would receive the dipt money in its tale." 2 b 2 372 HISTORY OF THE In all those practical duties of statesmanship which fall to the lot of the chancellor, his versatile talents for business proved him thoroughly proficient. " It is not the least of his excellencies," says the honest chronicler, Ralph, h " that, in point of address, whether advising as a minister, or standing in the circle as courtier, presiding in the House of Lords as speaker, conferring or altercating with foreign ministers, giving audience and despatch to suitors, or doing the honours of his table, where he ' became all things to al] men,' he was the most extraordinary man of his times." Mackey, in his sketch of the leading characters of the court of Great Britain, drawn for the information of the Princess Sophia of Hanover, bears a similar testimony to his Proteus-like power, and adds a per- sonal description, which, as it could not fail to please the German court, may not prove uninteresting to the reader. " He has gained such a reputation of honesty with the majority of the people of England, that it may be said, very few ministers in any reign ever had so many friends in the House of Commons. He can go into the city, and on his bare word gain so much credit of the public. He gives entertainments to foreign ministers more like one always bred up in a court than at a bar. He is of grave deportment, easy and free in conversation, something of a libertine, of a middle stature, brown complexion." It would have been well for the king if he had sufficiently appreciated the value of his able servant, and not, in exposing him to a forlorn hope, have exacted a proof of his loyal devotion injurious to both. It would have been well also, for the country and the chancellor's untarnished name, had he shown a h History of England. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 373 less prompt obedience to the command of his sove- reign ; but that firmness which had withstood the storm, melted in the sunshine, and having once sug- gested what was right, he did not think himself obliged to resist what was wrong, at least in such points as the king had set his heart upon. 1 The courtier was too hard for the patriot, and he who had pleaded so strongly for the right of resistance, acted as if resignation and compliance were indispensable duties. Maladroit in the arts of diplomacy, King William sought to wean the French monarch by concession from grasping the whole of the Spanish inheritance, and to profit by a partition treaty from the spoils of that unwieldy empire. He deluded himself with the notion that partition treaties would produce a more favourable dismemberment of Spain than even successful war, and wrote to his chancellor from Loo for powers under the great seal to treat with the French ambassador leaving blanks for names. The request of advice which accompanied this unconstitu- tional demand, was a mere unmeaning compliment, as the impatient king concluded the treaty four days after his letter had been sent. Lord Somers should have at once refused to incur such a fearful responsi- bility, but the natural reluctance to thwart his royal master in a scheme of darling policy, which, however venturous, might at the time appear the best alter- native to preserve the peace of Europe, prevailed over his constitutional principles. The treaty, treacherously divulged, unfortunate in its result, and generally unpopular, raised a storm of obloquy against the king which he could only avert by sacrificing the keeper of his conscience. Irritated ' Ralph's History. 374 HISTORY OF THE by the disasters of the session, and eager, like some uneasy patient to change his physician, k he requested Lord Somers to resign the seals voluntarily, and, when his faithful councillor refused with firmness, sent him a formal dismissal under the great seal. To his brother peers, when the partition treaty came under discussion, he gave so clear an account of his own share and responsibility, that they proved their appro- bation, according to the testimony of Tindall, by shouts of applause louder and longer than had ever been heard there before. A less favourable hearing awaited the noble defen- dant in the hostile audience, which then crowded the ministerial benches of the lower house. Having learned that they were discussing the question of his impeach- ment, he adopted a course for which there were several precedents, both in this and the preceding reigns — that of the Duke of Leeds was the last — and requested to be heard in his vindication. A chair was immediately placed for the now unpopular peer within the bar, on which he sat for a moment and then spoke with persuasive eloquence and candour. He con- sidered the letter a warrant in effect, though not in form, and, rather than endanger a most important treaty, at a very critical time, hazarded readily his own personal safety. He had objected to many par- ticulars in a letter to his majesty. As a privy coun- cillor he had offered the sovereign his best advice, and as chancellor had executed a ministerial task according to his duty. Of the success of his defence we have conflicting evidence, tinged with the party views of the narrators. »< Trevor's Life of William III. ' Tindal's Continuation of Rapin. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 375 Burnet relates that " his defence was so full and clear that if the question had been put immediately on his withdrawal, the prosecution would have failed." Lord Dartmouth, on the contrary, a high tory, says, " I never saw that house in so great a flame, as they were upon his withdrawing. He justified his putting the great seal to a blank commission so poorly, and insisted that the king's letter which he produced was a good warrant, which every body knew to be none, nor did the contents sufficiently justify him, if it had been any, and his endeavouring to throw every thing upon the king, provoked them to such a degree, that he left them in a much worse disposition to himself than he found them ; and I heard many of his best friends say they heartily wished he had never come thither." The historian and his hostile commentator speak, no doubt, according to their own conviction, and most various was probably the effect of the orator's rhetoric on an excited popular audience ; but, as the dis- cussion was prolonged till past midnight, and the vote of impeachment then only carried by a majority of 198 to 188, there can be little doubt that his address made a favourable impression on the moderate portion of his audience. An artful question of the speaker, put according to a previous resolution at the close of his speech, "Who had informed him that there was a debate in the House about him ?" was repelled by the ex-chancellor, with a spirit worthy of his name. " He was strangely surprised at a question that he never knew was put to any man who came to desire the favour of being heard, and if that question was asked to bring the least prejudice to any man in England, he would not only be content to He under the censure of the House, but suffer the worst thing 376 HISTORY OF THE that might hefal him upon earth, rather than do such a dishonest thing." He then withdrew, hut came back immediately, and desired to leave with the House the king's letter to him and the copy of his answer, which he acquainted the House, he had leave to lay before them. An extract from this letter, "I suppose your majesty will not think it proper to name commissioners that are not English or naturalized in an affair of this nature," betrays his dislike of foreign favourites. His act in affixing the great seal to blank forms, both in the power to treat and in the ratification, has been deservedly censured by Lord Hardwicke and ought not to exempt the minister from responsibility. But that his error deserved to be visited with impeachment no constitutional historian will allow. Another of the articles with which his enemies sought to eke out their accusation was, their imputing to the late chancellor's connivance the piracies of Captain Kidd. This plau- sible buccaneer had been entrusted with the command of a vessel through the influence of Lord Somers and Lord Halifax, who designed to put down piracy in that part of the world, to cruize in the West Indies. His valour was better known than his integrity, and he seized the opportunity to turn pirate himself. All that affected the chancellor in his perfidy was fairly enough confessed by himself in his letter to the Duke of Shrewsbury : " As to Kidd's business, we hope there can be no blame, though perhaps we may appear somewhat ridiculous." His noble correspondent exclaims, with just indig- nation on learning his unworthy treatment, " I wonder that man can be found in England, who has bread, that will be concerned in public business. Had I a HOUSE OF COMMONS. 377 son, I would sooner breed him a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a statesman!" Such was the natural reflection of the noble ; equally in character was the conduct of the base ! The creeping things after their kind crawled out with libels and lampoons on the impeached ex-minister. Dr. Dave- nant, in his discourse of private men's duty in the administration of public affairs, had a fling at his rapa- city : " If a lawyer from £300 a year in estate and practice both together comes to have a good £6000 a year, is he to rest there ? No, let him think of doubling that estate, and to be made an earl !" As the day of trial approached, the libeller re- doubled his venom. " Dr. Davenant," Prior writes in one of his lively letters, "is coming out with another book, and, as I am told, very scurrilous upon my lord chancellor. I must congratulate your happiness," he writes to the Duke of Manchester, then ambassador at Paris, " that you are out of this noise and tumult, where we are tearing and destroying every man his neighbour. To-morrow is the great day, when we expect my lord chancellor will be fallen upon, though, God knows what crime he is guilty of but that of being a very great man and a wise and upright judge 1 Thus every day a minister, till at last we reach the king." But the plot failed for want of materials. The vindictive Commons, unable to maintain their accusa- tion, eagerly caught at a ground of quarrel with the Lords on account of some sharp words spoken at a conference by Lord Haversham, demanded reparation for the scandal, and, no explanation which they would allow to be satisfactory being given, voted, with con- venient anger, that justice was denied by the Lords, 378 HISTORY OF THE and made an order that no member of their House should presume to appear at the pretended trial of Lord Somers, m the first on the list of the impeached peers. As no prosecutor appeared, they were of course declared not guilty, and Lord Somers withdrew for a season to the enjoyments of rest and literature. This rest was absolutely necessary for the restoration of his shattered constitution. His letter to the king from Tunb ridge gives a sorry report of his health ; and in the previous year there is a report in the correspondence of the day, " The chancellor has lost his fever, but has fallen into the jaundice." To soothe a mind that could not brook total absence of occupation, he frequently took the chair of the Royal Society, of which he had been two years before elected president, and, after holding the distinguished post five years, resigned it to an admirable successor, Sir Isaac Newton. His literary pursuits were soon interrupted. In 1701 he was requested by Lord Sunderland, at the pressing instance of the king, to accept the post of head of the government, but declined the responsibility, not yet assured of the firmness of the sovereign. It is related by Coke, that, in an interview with William, Lord Somers objected that he might relapse into toryism, upon which the king, leaning with his elbow on the table said emphatically, "Never, never!" By the advice of his faithful councillor, he dissolved the impeaching parliament, and addressed the new House of Commons in a speech composed by Somers, the original of which Lord Hardwicke saw in his own handwriting. It was the last speech of William, the most eloquent and popular, perhaps, that ever proceeded from the throne ; a simple but stirring appeal to parliament and the m Coke's Detection of the Court of England. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 379 nation against the ambitious arrogance of the French monarch, who had dared to taunt the whole people of England, by proclaiming the son of James the Second their king. " You have yet an opportunity, by God's blessing, to secure to you and your posterity the quiet enjoy- ment of your religion and liberties, if you are not wanting to yourselves, but will exert the ancient vigour of the English nation ; but I tell you plainly my opinion is, if you do not lay hold on this occasion you have no reason to hope for another. — Gentlemen of the House of Commons, I do recommend these matters to you with that concern and earnestness which their importance requires. At the same time, I cannot but press you to take care of the public credit, which cannot be preserved but by keeping sacred that maxim, that they shall never be losers who trust to a parliamentary security." The House responded with alacrity, and the people were drawing nearer to their king ; he had never before such a chance of extensive popularity, when death struck down his hopes. The memorable speech was preserved as a relic, was circulated, we are assured, even to remote towns and villages, and framed and glazed in homage to his memory. The national loss became heightened by the dismissal of Lord Somers from the privy council. He was obnoxious to the queen's husband from misrepresenta- tion, and probably from a jealous sense of his own inferiority : the illustrious by worth could scarcely fail to excite the spleen of one who was utterly inefficient, and illustrious only by courtesy. During his life- time, the first six years of Queen Anne, Lord Somers continued in a private station. But, fortunately for 380 HISTORY OF THE the nation, his spirit inspired in secret the councils of government and the deliberations of the House of Lords. During the hot disputes and fierce jealousies of the two Houses upon the extent of their respective privileges, which threatened at one time to disturb the equipoise of our constitution, Lord Somers con- tended successfully for the independence of his order, and subdued the angry pretensions of the Lower House with the weight of reasoning, and superiority of legislative wisdom. Against a pernicious measure, — the bill for abolishing occasional conformity, — he inveighed with such effect as to crush the scheme, but at the hazard of life, being seized with severe illness from his over-wrought exertions. In ] 705 he saw his labours crowned with success in the completion of the Union with Scotland, the accomplishment of which statesman-like measure is mainly due to his persuasive power over the Scottish lords, and his comprehensive policy. Setting a praise- worthy example to future ex- chancellors (would that the example had been followed !) he dedicated a portion of his leisure to the reform of the court of chancery. He made a motion in the House of Lords to correct some of the proceedings in common law and in chancery, that were both dilatory and very chargeable : he gained the concurrence of the lord keeper and judges, but in the House of Commons it was visible that the interests of under-officers, clerks, and attorneys, whose gains were to be lessened, were more considered than the interest of the nation. Several changes., how beneficial soever to the subject, which trenched on their profit, were left out by the Commons. 11 Thus dis-amended, his valuable [bill passed. a Uurnct. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 381 On the death of Prince George of Denmark in 1708, Lord Somers was called to more active useful- ness, and made president of the council. The second Lord Shaftesbury, writing to a friend, shows how immediately court favour succeeded the royal widow- hood. " November 20, 1708. 11 Somers has kissed the queen's hand, though not directly as minister, pretty near it you may be sure : since at this time of mourning (and so sincere a mourner as the queen is) she hardly would see a stranger, and what is more, a man so estranged from her, and so wholly off from the court as he has been, and whom I scarcely believe she has admitted at any time to kiss her hand, he having been for certain the prince's aversion, as you may judge by those who chiefly influenced the prince, and were the violentest enemies Lord Somers had." Bland, winning, and deferential in his manners, he appears to have rapidly conquered the prejudices of the queen, but the same gossiping letters of the Duchess of Marlborough, which relate his intimacy with her royal mistress, prove, by their ill-natured comments and sinister hints, that he could not have stood high in the good opinion of the shrewish favourite.? " I remember to have been at several of his conversations with Queen Anne to fill out their tea and wash their cups, and he was the chief man in promoting the Union with Scotland ! One argument was, that it would shut the door to let the Pretender in, and no man in all the debates was so pressing as ° Lord Shaftesbury's Letters. p Thompson's Correspondence of the Duchess of Marlborough. OOJ, HISTORY OF THE himself to have Dr. Sacheverell tried, and one of his arguments for that was, that if they did not do it, the queen would he preached out of the throne and the nation ruined. Notwithstanding this, when the queen had a mind by her new councillors to save Dr. Sacheverell, she prevailed with Lord Somers not to go to the finishing of his trial, and the reason he gave for not doing it was, that his mother was dead, and he was so exact, that, though he could not bring her to life again, out of great decency he must stay at home." There is no contending with an angry woman who confuses bread-and-butter gossip with a grave state trial, else it might have been gently intimated that the politic president of the council did not recommend a prosecution by impeachment, and that, in absenting himself on such an occasion of domestic bereavement as a mother's death, he con- sulted merely natural feelings and common decency. But the reason of Atossa's rancour is disclosed in another letter to one of her confidants, Main- way ring: — " 'Tis certain, that as soon as he got into his post, to obtain which I so often urged the queen, he made his court to Abigail and very seldom came to me, and it is as true that Lord Oxford and St. John used to laugh in their cups, which came out by Duke Devonshire, that they had instructed the queen to behave so as to make Lord Somers think he should be her chief minister. She could act a part very well, when her lesson was given her, and in a little time it appeared very plain to the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Godolphin, that Somers thought of nothing so much as to flatter the queen, and went to her per- petually in private, and whatever was said to her HOUSE OF COMMONS. 383 upon the subject that he did not like, he contrived so as to have Lords Marlborough and Godolphin do that, and when the council was entirely changed, and for shame he could not continue if the tories would have suffered him, to my certain knowledge he went wait upon the queen at Kensington, which at that time he would not have done, if he had not thought he was much in her favour, and that some time or other he might get by it." Though superior to such petty malice, the duke had cause for resentment of his own. Acting under the patriotic advice of the president, Lord Cowper had refused to affix his seal to the patent which the queen would have directed for making him com- mander of the forces for life, and the ambitious general knew to whom the cruel disappointment of his hopes was owing. Of the coldness which subsisted between the two cabinet ministers, the following letter of com- pliment, though turned with much elegance, furnishes pregnant proof : — Somers to the duke, September 1 709. " My lord: — Many others can make their court better, but no man living can more truly rejoice in your success, or has more heartily wished and prayed for it. I cannot but hope this last great success will quite lower the credit of those who may wish for an ill peace, and satisfy the French king at last, that he has attempted every thing possible for saving his own honour, and that it is time for him in good earnest to think of preserving France from utter ruin. I am sure your grace will omit nothing which may improve this glorious advantage. 1 am not so vain as to offer any poor thoughts of mine, for that purpose. "i But, though too wise to lecture his country's Hannibal on the art of war, he suggested * Coxe's Mavlborough. 384 HISTORY OF THE the best methods of supplying the sinews of warfare, and even opened up fresh paths of conquest, of which the great duke could not appreciate the value. Not even a futile article of impeachment carried sufficient force to deter the prescient statesman from those adventures to the islands in the West Indies, which afterwards proved so fertile of profit and glory to his countrymen. In a letter to his wife the duke thus invidiously glances at the scheme : " Colonel Hunter, whom you mention for the West Indies, is a very good man ; as to the expedition itself, it is impossible for me to give any judgment, but I know that my Lord Halifax and my Lord Somers, by the judgment of some merchants are made very fond of such expeditions : I do not remember any of them that has hitherto served for any thing but a pretext to plunder." It was in agitation to send Lord Somers, as lord lieutenant to Ireland, when SacheverelPs unadvised impeachment put a sudden and final period to his career of useful- ness. On the 20th of September, 1710, he was com- manded to resign his staff of office to the Earl of Rochester, and, with the resignation of his seat in the cabinet, retired from public life. Though he was only in his sixtieth year, the constitution of the invalid lawyer was as completely broken, as if he had exceeded the allotted space of three score years and ten. His great faculties gradually sunk from energy into torpor, and from torpor into childishness ; a paralytic stroke shat- tered his intellectual strength, and for some years before his death he survived the powers of his mind. Still, in the midst of physical and mental weakness, bowed down by sickness and infirmity, he was looked up to as the oracle of his party — their Delphic shrine in ruins. Even when the sap was gone and the boughs HOUSE OF COMMONS. 385 had withered, the whigs still reposed under the shadow of his name. One or two anecdotes of his old age prove how eagerly the leaders of party had recourse to their former guide for counsel in emergency, with what earnestness they tried to collect the Sibylline leaves, parched and dewless as they were. When the bill for repealing triennial parliaments was in agitation, Dr. Friend, in a visit to Lord Townshend, informed him that Lord Somers was restored to the full posses- sion of his reason by a fit of the gout, which suspended for a while the effects of his paralytic complaints. Lord Townshend waited on his aged friend, and asked his opinion. The venerable peer said, "You have my hearty approbation in this business. I think it will be the greatest support possible to the liberty of the country." He is reported to have shed tears when the same enthusiastic nobleman communicated to him in triumph the general sweep, which George I. proposed to make of the whole tory connexion. His cautious, somewhat timid, spirit shrunk from the danger of such extreme measures. Speaker Onslow 1- records a meeting rather earlier in point of time, when the purity of his advice appears to have been tainted with the prejudices of faction. "There was a motion," he says, "made in 1713 by the whig lords for dissolving the union for the purpose of distressing the ministry. I had it from good authority (which he names), that at a meeting upon it at Lord Somers' house, where Sir Thomas Monroe was, nobody pressed that motion more than that noble lord. Good God !" The consistent whig speaker, before writing his ■ Notes to Burnet. VOL. I. 2 C 386 HISTORY OF THE pious exclamation of horror at the depravity of the keen politician, should have borne in mind the date of this anecdote, should have remembered the undimmed brightness of his meridian, and made allowance for the mists which obscured his setting, and gathered still more thickly round his close. There were spots in the sun ! Insincerity, love of money, and libertinism have been laid to the charge of this really great and good man with different degrees of truth. " My Lord Somers," says the prejudiced but plain-spoken Duchess of Marlborough, "could not have supported himself so long at the head of the whigs, if he had not had good talents. But there was one thing that appeared to be a great blemish to a lord chancellor, that he lived as publicly with another man's wife as if she had been his own." Several cotem- poraries hint at this licentiousness, with which his manners were tainted from an early disappointment in love. Mackey in his friendly portrait to the Princess Sophia says, " He is of a grave deportment, easy, and free in conversation, something of a libertine. " " The grave Somerius," writes a collateral descendant, Cook- sey, "became infected with the gallantries of a licentious court. " s He had been disappointed in his first attach- ment, and renounced marriage. To this excess Mr. Cooksey attributes his frequent attacks of illness and premature decay of intellect ; and, though the credit of his biography is lessened by the easy credulity with which he ascribes the authorship of the Tale of a Tub to his distinguished kinsman, the charge is too often repeated by well-informed persons not to convince the reader of its truth, and not to raise his admiration at the simplicity of Hannah More in setting up this ■ Cooksoy's Lord Somers. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 387 libertine statesman as a faultless model for the worship of fashionable society. The proof of his cupidity rests on evidence less convincing. " I have heard," says the Duchess of Marlborough, " but do not know the truth of that myself, that he got as much money as he could in the post of chancellor, and some grants not becoming a chancellor to have." The excellent tory gentleman Evelyn, records in his Diary, "It is certain that this chancellor was a most excellent lawyer, very learned in all polite literature, a superior pen, master of a handsome style, and of easy conversation; but he is said to make too much haste to be rich, as his prede- cessor and most in place in this age did to a more prodigious excess than was ever known." Lord Hardwicke justifies the conduct of the chancellor in receiving a gift of £30,000 at one time from the lavish king, and in obtaining the grants of two several manors in Sussex, by the examples of other statesmen, espe- cially Sir Robert Walpole, and on the ground of the great officers of state being miserably underpaid. But when Lord Hardwicke takes the character of Sir Robert Walpole as the standard, he fixes upon one of a much lower grade than that by which the admirers of Lord Somers would wish to have his moral stature compared. Though free from absolute reproach for soliciting these grants, he would have stood above imputation, had he not solicited them. His pension and private fortune were sufficient to support the rank of one who studied retirement and lived without ostentation ; nor can the painful suspicion his procur- ing those grants occasions be wholly dismissed, that the greediness, which debased Lord Verulam, may have in a slight degree sullied his incomparable successor. 2 C 2 388 history of the The charge of insincerity is more unfounded, and rests on the partizan rancour of the Dean of St. Patrick, and the jealous gossip of the Duchess of Marlborough, whose great lord had, it would seem, been offended to the death by the patriotic firmness with which Lord Somers resisted his daring design of becoming dictator. His vindictive widow wove into her memoir every thread of scandal that could gratify her spleen against her husband's enemy. With those who had no personal reasons of quarrel, his universal courtesy might naturally create a suspicion that he was fair and false, that, in the worst sense of the apostle's precept, he was " all things to all men." He perhaps consulted the feelings of the venal throng who frequented his levee or sought his acquaintance too much, and good-naturedly left his hearers to imagine a preference which he did not feel. So many hints of this courtier-like artifice are scattered with profusion through the writings of Swift, that Walter Scott has filled up with the name of Somers what the author left in blank. " I burnt all my lord's letters where he had used these words to me, ' all I pretend to is a great deal of sincerity/ which indeed was the chief virtue he wanted." And yet the retiring chancellor and studious statesman did not affect that enthusiastic attachment, the warmth and gaiety of heart, the abandonment of restraint, and careless, social festivity, with which St. John would attach his worshippers. Alarmed at his commanding intellect, those who paid court to Harley would com plain of the chancellor's talent for finesse ; annoyed with his decorous mien and conversation (for Somers respected propriety too much openly to profane it), the boon companions of Bolingbroke railed at his caution HOUSE OF COMMONS. 389 and reserve. The reproach flung by high-flying tories at his manners, that they were cold and distant, seems inconsistent assuredly with their accusation of insincerity ; yet we find it hazarded with the same bitterness, and as little based on truth. Arthur Maynwaring, literary toady to the Duchess of Marl- borough, at the very time he repeats the whisper of my Lord Halifax that Somers always had a cold, reserved temper, which formerly had done great mis- chief to his party, admits, " I never saw any one so little reserved that was thought to be so, for, except yourself, nobody ever spoke so freely to me since I was born." His chief crime consisted in being the Coryphceus of a party, whose apologist, as he lived in angry times, could not detect a virtue but factious virulence would contrive to spell it backwards. From what source could his mildness to opposing creeds and toleration for dissent proceed, but a lurking affection to Toland and deism ? His caution was construed into fraudulent reserve, his moderation into timidity, his prudent w T isdom into cunning. His regularity in business, punctuality, and despatch could originate, forsooth, in no other cause than low birth and addic- tion to the counter. " Have you not observed," Swift writes to Lord Bolingbroke, in a sort of flatter- ing query, " that there is a lower kind of discretion and regularity, which seldom fails of raising men to the highest stations in the court, the church, and the law ? Did you never observe one of your clerks cut- ting his paper with a blunt ivory knife ? Did you ever know the knife to fail going the true way? "Whereas if he had used a razor; or a penknife, he had odds against himself of spoiling a whole sheet. I 390 IirSTORY OF THE have twenty times compared the motion of that ivory- implement to those talents that thrive best at court. Think upon Lord Bacon, Williams, Strafford, Laud, Clarendon, Shaftesbury, the last Duke of Bucking- ham, and, of my own acquaintance, the Earl of Oxford, yourself, all great statesmen in their several ways, and if they had not been so great, would have been less unfortunate. I remember but one exception, and that was Lord Somers, whose timorous nature, joined with the trade of a common lawyer and the consciousness of a mean extraction, had taught him the regularity of an alderman or a gentleman usher." Shame on such odious prejudice! It has spoiled more pages in contemporary history than the sharpest penknife, though it cut ever so awry, could have done. Perhaps, in the wish to discover the strength and weakness of this great lawyer's character, to put in strong relief its depth and shadows, his biographer has dwelt too long on these rancorous effusions of jealousy and factious hate. It is pleasant to shut their pages, mildewed by prejudice and spleen, and turn over the tributes which the wise and good, both of his own and later generations, have rejoiced to render. None of these, strange to say, equal in grace and elegance, the eulogy of Swift. He dedicates the " Tale of a Tub " with consum- mate address as if from the bookseller, pretending that he was going to turn over a hundred or two dedications, and transcribe an abstract to be applied to his lord- ship ; that he met with the words " Detur dignissimo," and called at a poet's chamber, who worked for his lordship, to know who it was the author could mean. He thought himself the person aimed at : "I desired him to guess again." " Why then," said he, " it must HOUSE OF COMMONS. 391 be I or my lord." " I found several other wits all in the same story, both of your lordship and themselves." He employs these wits to furnish him with materials — they bring him hard names of Cato and Tully, of Socrates and Epaminondas. " I expected to have heard of your lordship's bravery at the head of an army ; of your undaunted courage in mounting a breach or scaling a wall ; or to have heard your pedi- gree traced in a lineal descent from the house of Austria; or of your wonderful talent at dress and dancing; or your profound knowledge in Aquinas, metaphysics, and the oriental tongues. But to ply the world with an old beaten story of your wit and eloquence, &c, I confess I have neither conscience nor countenance to do it." The panegyric of Addison, in the " Freeholder," seems cold and insipid, when compared with this feli- citous strain of compliment, but had the merit of coming from the heart. That graceful writer dedi- cated his "Travels" to the same worthy patron, and from his experience on the continent, paid the fol- lowing apposite tribute to his merits as a statesman : " Whatever great impressions an Englishman must have of your lordship, they who have been conversant abroad will find them still improved. It cannot but be obvious to them, that, though they see your admirers every where, they meet with very few of your well-wishers at Paris or at Rome ; and I could not but observe, when I passed through most of the protestant governments in Europe, that their hopes or fears for the common cause rose or fell with your lordship's interest and authority in England." The calm judg- ment of posterity has confirmed what might be deemed the partial opinions of contemporaries. Lord Mahon says, with emphatic brevity, after 392 HISTORY OF THE considering his conduct, 1 " I know not where to find a more upright and unsullied public character than his. He had contracted nothing of the venality and base- ness of the age." In this decision, the mature criti- cism of Mackintosh concurs, u "Lord Somers seems to have very nearly realized the perfect model of a wise statesman in a free community. His end was public liberty; he employed every talent and resource which were necessary for his end, and not prohibited by the rules of morality. His regulating principle was usefulness. His quiet and refined mind rather shrunk from popular applause. He preserved the most intrepid steadiness, with a disposition so mild, that his friends thought its mildness excessive, and his enemies supposed that it could be scarcely natural." With this elegant eulogy, conforms the tribute of a living states- man and intellectual whig, Lord John Russell : " Somers is a bright and a great example of a states- man who could live in times of revolution without rancour, who could hold the highest posts in a court without meanness, and who could unite mildness and charity to his opponents with the firmest attachment to the great principles of liberty, civil and religious, which he had early espoused, long promoted, and never abandonecl." w The poet's garland, to wreathe the brows of the literary chancellor, has been woven with less skilful hands. The prosaic truth of Blackmore, in his satire upon wit, will scarcely atone for its dulness : — " But what remains will be so pure, 'twill bear The examination of the most severe ; 'Twill Somers' scales and Talbot's test abide, And with their mark please all the world beside." 1 Lord Mahon's History of England. u Life oy his Son. Lord J. Russell's History of Europe. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 393 The following couplet in the " Dispensary," still less corresponds with the reputation of Dr. Garth: — " Somers doth sick'ning equity restore, And helpless orphans now need weep no more." Pope contents himself with a mere frigid mention of his name as a literary patron, and cannot even spare an epithet: — ** The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, And Buckingham, applauding, nods the head." Waller's clever apology on another occasion must, we presume, be the reason of this coldness, " that poets always succeed better in subjects of fiction than of truth." The sacred band in the next generation extol the merits of the " gentle friend to song" with more heartiness and. success. Whitehead, though not for- tunate in his comparison, infused some spirit into his stanzas: — " Patrons and arts must live, till arts decay, Sacred to verse in every poet's lay ; Thus grateful France does Richelieu's worth proclaim, Thus grateful Britons doat on Somers' name." In his address to Lord Chatham upon Trinity College, Dr. Warton has dilated upon the associations of the place, in a classical strain, not altogether un- worthy of the Oxford professor of poetry : — " In that calm bower, which nurs'd thy thoughtful youth In the firm precepts of Athenian truth, Where first the form of British liberty Beam'd in full radiance on thy musing eye — That form sublime, whose mien, with equal awe, In the same shade unblemish'd Somers saw." The unblemished Somers wrote himself very good verses for a lawyer, better than Murray's, and not inferior to Charles Yorke's. The following part of 394 HISTORY OF THE his translation of Dido's Epistle to iEneas shows his facility of metre : — " All day, iEneas walks before my sight, In all my dreams, I see him every night, But see him still ungrateful as before, And such as, if I could, I would abhor ; But the strong flame burns on against my will, I call him false, yet love the traitor still." His Latin verse was still more beautiful. These lines from his epitaph on his sister are not more perfect in sentiment than rythm : — " Moribus ilia vultuque modesto Omnes callebat artes, Quae virginem decebant Quid plura ? Hie una jacent Parentum delicise, et decus, et dolor 1" Lord Somers, though he published many pam- phlets on subjects of politics and constitutional law anonymously, never avowed any of his writings. " Prodesse quam conspici" was at once his motto and practice. He would not discover the paternity, even when an impudent pretender had laid claim to a copy of his verses, and assured the chancellor, in answer to his question, for he was naturally curious, how long the composition occupied his thoughts, " that it was a mere trifle, — he had done it off-hand." A scornful laugh, which not even Somers' good-nature could suppress, alone detected the cheat, and revealed his secret. It was only by internal evidence, and the fact of the two treatises in Lord Hardwicke's possession being entirely, with the alterations, in Somers' hand- writing, that Sir Walter Scott was enabled to trace authoritatively to his authorship " the Just and Modest Vindication of the Last Parliament of Charles HOUSE OF COMMONS. 395 the Second," and " Advice to Grand Juries," which the celebrated Dunning calls "a valuable treatise, attributed to one who not only understood the consti- tution but loved it." The ninth volume of the Somers Tracts contains "Another Vindication of the Proceedings of the late Parliament of England, by John Lord Somers," in the preface to which Sir Walter Scott says, " It does not appear by what authority this piece is ascribed to him. It does not occur in Lord Somers' works given by Wal- pole. But in style and spirit it is not unworthy of the great name prefixed to it ; and it was a point of his character to be very indifferent towards claiming the literary merit to which he was entitled. It is well known that he composed several political tracts at this important period. His pen was ready to serve the public, but with so little regard to his own pecu- liar fame, that we are ignorant even of the titles of many of his works." His manuscripts, which filled above sixty folio volumes, were unhappily destroyed by a fire that consumed Mr. Yorke's chambers in Lincoln's Inn, in 1752. He left a noble library, of which a fine collection of bibles formed a large and valuable portion. For this laudable curiosity he would have been excommu- nicated in the dark ages, and was denounced as a Socinian and freethinker in the enlightened days of Queen Anne. He was too good a patron to literature and too earnest a friend of liberty not to oppose the Licensing Act. " His best friends," he said with epigrammatical point and terseness, " found nothing more to be praised of Trajan in his government than that, in his time, all men might think what they pleased, and every man speak what he thought." In 396 HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. the year 1694, when Somers was lord keeper, the act for licensing printing presses expired, never to be renewed; and the dominion of a licenser over works of literature passed away for ever. Lord Somers died in the summer of 1716, having long survived his mental capacity, and left no son to transmit his honours. But the friend of Tillotson, patron of Milton, counsellor of William in his best days, scarcely more distinguished for his writings in the closet than for his dissertations in the senate, the eloquent poet, the persuasive orator, the accomplished lawyer, the consummate statesman, impeached like Lord Verulam, but not like him giving just matter of impeachment, the President of the Royal Society, which has never since, though graced by princes of the blood, had one more noble from the patent of intellect — he has bequeathed his name an heirloom to his country, lasting as her literature and identified with her laws. The monument posterity has raised to his honour is worth all the sculptured urns in Westminster Abbey — their heartfelt reverence for his sayings and acts, for his speeches full of deliberative wisdom, for his statutes of enduring equity. On that votive pillar, reared by grateful memories, are inscribed the vote of abdication of James II., the Bill of Rights, the union with Scotland, the settlement of the Pro- testant Succession. What statues would modern statesmen deserve, could such memorials be engraved upon their pedestals ! 397 CHAPTER XII. There were other great lawyers in the Convention Parliament, but whose names command no respectful remembrance, for they wanted integrity. Of these the most notorious are Sir Robert Sawyer and Sir William Williams. Both had been speakers of pre- ceding parliaments, and had filled high legal offices in the two last reigns; the first being attorney-general to Charles II. and James II., and the last solicitor- general to James. Able, active, ambitious, they strayed from the broad path of duty, and in the slip- pery byways of promotion stumbled and fell. But they took too prominent a part in the first debates of a most important session, and held too distinguished a station bath in the house and out of it, not to require a particular notice. Sir Robert Sawyer, confessedly one of the most learned of his cotemporaries, had formed himself, we are assured, on the model of Chief Justice Hale, before whom he practised in the exchequer ; but the study must have been directed to his intellectual rather than his moral qualities. " He was," says North, in his quaint style, 8 " a proper comely gentle- man, inclining to the red; a good general scholar, d North's Life of Lord Guildford. 398 HISTORY OF THE and perhaps too much of that;" his bias was to loyalty, the character of his family, an inclination fostered, doubtless, and matured in the orthodox cloisters of Magdalen College, Cambridge. As early as 1666, we find, from an entry in Pepys' Diary, that he was advancing rapidly in his profession. 15 " Into the House of Lords, where a great committee. I did hear the great case against my Lord Mordaunt. Here was Mr. Sawyer, my old chamber fellow at Magdalen, a counsel against my lord, and I was glad to see him in so good play." His talents were too conspicuous to remain long concealed under a stuff gown. Returned to parliament for a close borough, he took a decisive part against the claims of the Lords in the great struggle of the Commons about appellate juris- diction. But the pestilent atmosphere of a corrupt court was soon to wither his laurels. In April, 1678, by the king's particular appoint- ment, the Commons chose Mr. Sawyer their speaker, " a great practiser in the exchequer," and then ad- journed for a fortnight. In a few days, however, Mr. Sawyer excused his attendance by reason of a violent fit of the stone, occasioned by his long sitting- one day in the House ; whereupon the old speaker, Mr. Edward Seymour, was reinstated in the chair." The court lawyer had, there is no doubt, weighty reasons for abdication. When the voluptuous Charles began, a few years later, to act the part of a callous tyrant, he selected Sir Robert Sawyer as a fit instrument for oppressing his subjects, and made him attorney-general in the room of Sir Creswell Levinz. This vindictive situa- tion he held from 1681 to 1687, six years stained b Pepys' Diary, vol. i. c Ecliard's History. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 399 with the blood of some of England's noblest freemen, and damning to the honest fame of the first law officer of the crown. To secure the conviction of a poor dependant on Shaftesbury, one College, nick-named the "protestant joiner," who had swelled the cry of a popish plot, and now found himself, much to his own amazement, in the meshes of a prosecution for high treason, the attorney-general, distrusting the grand jury, d obtained an order from the chief justice that the witnesses should be examined and the indictment disposed of in open court. His illegal artifice failed, and the grand jury ignored the bill, but the destined victim was not permitted to escape. Being charged with treasons committed in Oxfordshire as well as Middlesex, he was again put on his trial, and, through the medium of a more courtly and better packed jury, was sacrificed for the sins of his party. In the san- guinary year 1683, Sir Robert Sawyer hunted to the death nobler victims, Lord William Russell and Algernon Sidney, straining the arbitrary powers of his office with merciless rigour, and, as a worthy successor of Coke, taunting his unhappy prisoners. He opposed the noble lord's wish for a postponement to the afternoon, in consequence of a mistake in fur- nishing the names of the jury. " You," he rejoined to Lord Russell, "would not have given the king an hour's notice for saving his life." The trial of that virtuous peer was, however, among the fairest of those cruel times, though a passage from Echard shows the spirit with which it was conducted. 6 "When Lord Russell asserted that the business at Sheppard's house was sworn to only by one witness, it was answered, that if there was one witness of one act of treason, d State Trials, vol. ix. e Echard's History. 400 HISTORY OF THE and another of a second, that manifested the same treason, it was sufficient." "The attorney-general," says a prejudiced party writer/ " and Sir George Jeffries made a home thrust at the prisoner. The former said, ' Your lordship remembers in my Lord Strafford's case there was but one witness to one act in England, and another to another in France, and the latter said there was not so much evidence against him as against your lordship.' Home thrusts certainly, but made with poisoned weapons ! When on the infamous trial of Sidney, Lord Howard of Escrick, " that monster of a man," had finished his treacherous evidence, and, in reply to a question of the chief justice, Colonel Sidney answered with emphatic scorn that he had nothing to ask, the attorney-general broke in with a scurrilous gibe, " Silence, you know the proverb." s His mode of proving a second overt act of treason by a treatise found in Sidney's cabinet, by whom written and when written left in doubt, was also a memorable iniquity, and fully justifies the reversal in parliament of his attainder. On Hampden's trial for a misdemeanor, when his counsel challenged a juror, because he had an office under the crown, and was, therefore, not indifferent, contending that it had been held a good cause of challenge in Coke, the attorney-general made a futile attempt to disparage a legal authority still higher than his own. "How many hundred errors," he asked scoffingly, " do you find in my Lord Coke, notwithstanding all his learning ? It is an opinion in a straggling book." 11 But the act which more exclusively brands his f North's Lord Keeper Guildford. s Phillipps's State Trials. 11 Hargrave's State Trials, vol. x. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 401 memory, and for which lie afterwards justly suffered, was his share in that legal murder, the condemnation of Sir Thomas Armstrong 1 . This unhappy man had fled to Holland to escape a prosecution for treason, was outlawed, and seized at Leyden by virtue of a warrant from the States for a reward of 5,000 guilders. In his confusion at the moment, he forgot to claim protection as a native, and was hurried off to England. When he was brought up in custody to the King's Bench, the attorney-general moved for an award of execution upon the statute 6 Edward VI., which, however, contained a clause permitting a person out- lawed to purge himself of his outlawry, and claim the benefit of a trial by rendering himself within a year. In his case there were several months of the year since his outlawry yet to run. Sir Robert Sawyer drew a subtle distinction, to which the court joyfully assented, that the prisoner had not surrendered, he was taken ; he had not rendered himself, but was brought in custody, and therefore could not claim the benefit of the statute. In vain the prisoner urged that he might have ren- dered himself, and come over voluntarily to claim the benefit of the act, the allotted year of grace not having expired. A vindictive tribunal soon arrived at a foregone conclusion, and Sir Thomas Armstrong was quibbled out of his life. " He was murdered," says Burnet, " for having been the favourite of the Duke of Mon- mouth." The guilt seems to have been almost equally divided between the attorney-general, who demanded judgment, the Chief Justice Jeffries who tried, and the Lord Keeper North, to whom applica- i Sir J. Hawles' Remarks on the Trial. VOL. I. 2D 402 HISTORY OF THE tion had been made for a writ of error. His lordship found, according to his nephew and apologist, that writs of error to reverse outlawries in treason had never been made without a warrant from the attorney- general, for it is not a writ of right but of favour. That functionary, on the other hand, denied that it was in his power to grant the writ, but the prisoner must apply to the king by petition. The whole appears to have been a nefarious juggle between the court and counsel, equally unscrupulous, and equally submissive to the beck of royalty, to destroy an obnoxious individual and presumed traitor, whom they could not legally convict. Sir Robert continued for three years after the death of Charles II. the indefatigable instrument of his bigoted brother's tyranny, filing criminal in- formations for libels against the government with a rigour worthy of the Star Chamber, till at length the king's polemical madness reached a height which not even his creeping ductility could venture to gain. He was directed to draw up a warrant investing a priest of the church of Rome with a benefice by virtue of the royal prerogative, and to confirm one Walker, head of Magdalen College, together with some thirty of the fellows, who had apostatized to the Romish communion by a writ non obstante. The learning and orthodoxy of the attorney-general took alarm much more quickly than his conscience had done at commissions of simple cruelty. He declared that such proceedings would be against not one statute only, but against all the law r s since the days of Eliza- beth ; that he durst not comply, and desired his majesty to weigh the matter, for that it struck at the very root of the Protestant church. The king HOUSE OF COMMONS. 403 was obstinate to rush on his fate, and Sir Robert Sawyer, at a fortunate period for his own safety, found himself dismissed from office. The prosecution of the seven bishops following the next summer, he was naturally selected as their leading counsel, and acquitted himself at the trial with distinguished legal ability. But, though dex- terous in his points of law, and subtle in his argu- ments, he seems to have been sadly wanting in eloquence, — a deficiency common to the bar of his day. Nothing can be imagined more tame and jejune than the speeches then usually addressed to juries by counsel for state prisoners. They seem to move in fetters, so clumsy are their reported attempts at exciting sympathy: like mere legal machines they revolve incessantly round volumes of black letter, instead of addressing themselves with all their heart and all their soul, in plain intelligible English, to the rescue of a client trembling for his life. The spirit of Erskine had not yet descended on our courts, whose powers of speech rose no higher than their indepen- dence. Even in these busy prosaic days, unfavourable to forensic eloquence, a reader may be tempted to smile at the following lame and impotent peroration to the ex-attorney's speech for the defence, on an occasion which, above all others, ought to have compelled a pathetic appeal, to have thrilled through every vein in his hearers, and made their hearts burn within them. "The defendants," concluded this ineloquent lawyer, " have not acted as busybodies. The other side would have this petition work by implication of law to make a libel of it, but by what I have said it will appear there was nothing of sedition, nothing of 2 D 2 404 HISTORY OF THE malice, nothing of scandal in it, nothing of the salt, and vinegar, and pepper, that they have put into the case. We shall prove the matters that I have opened for our defence, and then I dare say your lordships will be of opinion we have done nothing but our duty." Sir Robert, it may be inferred, was not deeply read in " Cicero cle Oratore." He shared in the triumph that succeeded the glorious acquittal of his venerable clients, and was returned to the convention with an illustrious colleague, Sir Isaac Newton, for Cambridge University. Never, in point of intellect, could the University be better represented. From his extrinsic importance as father-in-law to Lord Pembroke, and his high legal reputation, he expected to be one of the council appointed to advise the Lords, but was rejected at the pressing instance of Lords Mordaunt and Dela- ware, who declared they would have none of those who had been instruments in the late reign. With the zeal of an exile from office, he inveighed bitterly against James, and, in one of the debates previous to the vote of abdication, even went the length of saying: "In all I have read, I never met in so short a reign with the laws so violated and the prerogative so stretched." James, be it remembered, had reigned nearly four years, and till the last twelve months this virulent declaimer had been his first law officer. In committee on the state of the nation he moved that the House should vote it inconsistent with a protestant govern- ment to have a popish prince ; adding the sententious apothegm : " There is a possibility that a papist may be saved, and a possibility that a popish king may govern well, but where the papists govern the king it is next to an impossibility that the government should HOUSE OF COMMONS. 405 be protestant." He argued with much subtlety against voting the convention a parliament, and was beginning to assume such a lead in the debates, that the prospect of promotion seemed opening before him. But his rivals and enemies were eager to take advantage of former misconduct, and the lover of retributive justice must rejoice that he had laid himself open to their attacks, that the hand of the lawyer stained with blood should for once have forgot its cunning. A petition was presented from Lady Armstrong and her daughters for annulling the attainder of Sir Thomas, and produced a long and angry debate. Mr. Hawles, afterwards solicitor-general, remarked, " how scandalous is it, when a man guilty of murder should be protected within these walls ! Armstrong offered a plea, and you have voted its rejection wilful murder. Were the judges and prosecutors not guilty ? They were all guilty. I am not for rigour, though blood cries for blood." Sir Win. Williams, who had drawn the prisoners' plea, and harked on the cry for ven- geance against an odious rival, said bitterly, "All is put upon the dead Chief Justice Jeffries, and the dead must answer for the dead, and the dead must bury the dead. The judges acted the part of executioners. The attorney-general, forsooth, was asleep in the court." He made a sophistical defence. "It was not his duty to grant a writ of error. Application must be made to the king by petition, and he gives a warrant to the attorney-general to consent to it. It was the duty of his office upon outlawry brought to pray judg- ment of the court." After various excuses by his friends (Sir Robert had a strong party in his favour) the bill was recommitted for the purpose of examining 405 HISTORY OF THE Mrs. Matthews, a daughter of the deceased. k Her evidence pressed hard upon the accused member. " I was with Sawyer/' she asserted, ''for a writ of error. He said ' your father must die, he must die, he is an ill man.' My mother was ready to pay him all his due fees, but he said ' he must die.' When my father was brought to the bar, the chief justice asked Sawyer whether he prayed an award of execution, which was done. My father desired that the statute of outlawries might be read, and said he thought it was plain he was come in within a year. Said Sawyer, ' Sir Thomas will not find anything in the statute to his purpose. Possibly he will say he surrendered himself to your lordship, but, Sir Thomas, you should have surren- dered yourself before you went out of England.' Said the chief justice, * we have enough against him.' Said Sawyer, * Armstrong was active in the fire at New- market.' " In answer to questions from Sir Robert, she deposed further : " I believe Sawyer said, ' It was not in his power to grant a writ of error,' and he did say, 1 you must apply to the king or lord keeper by peti- tion.' The king and duke said ' it was an impudent petition.' I cannot say Sawyer demanded execution before the judges had declared themselves." Sir Robert, being heard in defence before he withdrew, denied the truth of what Mrs. Matthews had asserted as to their private conversation, and argued that he had done his duty and no more. "As for my management at the arraignment, it was accord- ing to my oath and duty to attend the court. Every tittle of what passed was printed in three days, and went all over England. It was not only lawful, but k Parliamentary History, vol. v. HOUSE OF COMMONS. 407 my duty to put Armstrong upon trial, to hear what he had to say to the record of outlawry, and I prayed judgment ; if he had nothing to say, it was my duty to pray execution. I went no further, not a tittle, in this business. Armstrong quoted such a statute, and it was read in court. Has he rendered himself to the chief-justice? No! Armstrong said, ' I now render myself to your lordship.' This is the fact ; I never argued to incline the court one way or another. When Armstrong had said he surrendered himself, I sat down and said no more." The ex-attorney-general then withdrew. His plea of passive acquiescence, of silent connivance, did not avail, though his friend, Sir Robert Cotton, in parti- cular, urged that he had done his duty to God, the king, and the prisoner. It was resolved,