iiLb

 
 PARLIAMENT: ITS ROMANCE; 
 ITS COMEDY; ITS PATHOS.
 
 PARLIAMENT: 
 
 ITS ROMANCE 
 ITS COMEDY 
 ITS PATHOS. 
 
 BY 
 
 MICHAEL MACDONAGH, 
 ^ 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE BOOK OF PARLIAMENT," 
 AND " IRISH LIFE AND CHARACTER." 
 
 WESTMINSTER: 
 P. S. KING & SON, 
 ORCHARD HOUSE. 
 
 R H
 
 BRADBURY AGNKW & CO. LD., PRINTERS, 
 LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN "The Book of Parliament," published in 1897, 
 I have endeavoured to describe the two Houses of 
 Parliament engaged in the work of law-making, 
 dwelling particularly on the human element of the 
 operation. In this volume I deal with phases of 
 Parliament still keeping to its human, rather than 
 to its historical, side which have hitherto not been 
 noticed in books on the Constitution. 
 
 The chapters originally appeared as articles in 
 various magazines. In Good Words were published 
 " THE KING : His PREROGATIVES AND DISABILITIES," 
 " THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE NEW," " THE 
 OLD HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE NEW," and " PRIVILEGE! 
 PRIVILEGE ! " ; in Temple Bar, " THE GREAT SEAL OF 
 ENGLAND " ; in The Fortnightly Review, " THE FIRST 
 OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGNS " (under the title 
 of " QUEEN VICTORIA AS A STATESMAN ") ; in The 
 Nineteenth Century, " THE EVOLUTION OF THE PARLIA- 
 MENTARY OATH," " THE QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT," 
 and " UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS"; in Macmillaris 
 Magazine, " MAIDEN SPEECHES," " CURRENT COIN OF 
 THE POLITICIANS," and "THE HUMOURS OF PARLIA- 
 MENTARY REPORTING " ; in Literature, " HANSARD "
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 (included in the series " Among My Books ") ; and 
 in The New Liberal Review, " LAST SPEECHES OF 
 GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS." My most grateful acknow- 
 ledgments are due to the editors of these magazines 
 for their kind permission to republish the articles. 
 Some of the Chapters have been rewritten, and much 
 new matter has been added. 
 
 It was the favour with which the articles were 
 received on their original publication that induced 
 me to think that they may be acceptable in collected 
 form. 
 
 I hope my book will prove not only a recreation 
 to while away a leisure hour for the general reader, 
 but a help to serious students of Constitutional history, 
 and the development of Parliamentary institutions. 
 
 MICHAEL MAcDONAGH. 
 
 LONDON, 
 April, 1902.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CRAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE KING : HIS PREROGATIVES AND DISABILITIES . . I 
 
 II. THE FIRST OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGNS . 25 
 
 III. HOW EDWARD VII. OPENED HIS FIRST PARLIAMENT . 84 
 
 IV. THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE NEW . . Io8 
 V. THE OLD HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE NEW . . .127 
 
 VI. " PRIVILEGE ! PRIVILEGE ! " 145 
 
 VII. THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND ..... 159 
 
 VIII. THE EVOLUTION OF THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH . .179 
 
 IX. MAIDEN SPEECHES 213 
 
 X. THE QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT .... 252 
 
 XI. THE CURRENT COIN OF THE POLITICIANS . . . 278 
 
 XII. UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS 308 
 
 XIII. " HANSARD " 343 
 
 XIV. HUMOURS OF PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING . . . 364 
 XV. LAST SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS . . 379
 
 PARLIAMENT: 
 
 ITS ROMANCE, ITS COMEDY, AND ITS 
 PATHOS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE KING : His PREROGATIVES AND DISABILITIES. 
 
 THE King stands at the head of Parliament, the 
 three constituent parts of which are the Sovereign, the 
 Lords, and the Commons. According to the theory 
 of the Constitution, Parliament is the King's Great 
 Council summoned to deliberate with him on the 
 affairs of the nation, to advise him as to the condition, 
 the wants, and the wishes of his subjects ; and a Bill 
 does not become an Act of Parliament, or, in other 
 words, the law of the land, even though it has passed 
 through the House of Commons and the House of 
 Lords, until it has received his Royal assent. The 
 first clause "the enacting clause," as it is termed 
 of every Act of Parliament runs " Be it enacted by 
 the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the 
 consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and the 
 Commons, in Parliament assembled, and by the 
 authority of the same, as follows." But beyond this 
 legislative power which the King possesses as a sepa- 
 rate and independent part of the Legislature, his 
 Majesty, by right of the Prerogative of the Crown, 
 p. B
 
 2 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 is the supreme executive authority of the State in all 
 matters, civil and military. 
 
 And what are the exclusive rights, privileges, and 
 powers which the Prerogative confers upon the King? 
 Mr. Pickwick, it will be remembered, was arrested at 
 Ipswich for contemplating a breach of the peace by 
 righting a duel. " I believe duelling is one of his 
 Majesty's most undoubted prerogatives, Mr. Jinks ? " 
 said the mayor of the town to his clerk, when the case 
 came before his worship. " Expressly stipulated in 
 Magna Charta, sir," replied Mr. Jinks. " One of the 
 brightest jewels in the British Crown wrung from his 
 Majesty by the barons, I believe, Mr. Jinks ? " said the 
 mayor. "Just so, sir," assented Mr. Jinks. "Very 
 well," continued the mayor, drawing himself up 
 proudly, " it shall not be violated in this portion of 
 his Majesty's dominions." Now, though the privi- 
 leges conferred by the Royal Prerogative do not 
 include the exclusive right of fighting duels, they are, 
 nevertheless, curiously varied and peculiar. Walter 
 Bagehot, an acute thinker, attempts in his illumina- 
 tive work "The English Constitution" to enumerate 
 some of the powers of the Sovereign as the pre-eminent 
 executive authority of the land. Writing of Queen 
 Victoria he says : 
 
 " She could disband the army (by law she cannot 
 engage more than a certain number of men, but she 
 is not obliged to engage any men) ; she could dismiss 
 all the officers, from the general commanding-in-chief 
 downwards ; she could dismiss all the sailors too ; 
 she could sell off all our ships of war and all our naval 
 stores ; she could make a peace by the sacrifice of
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. 3 
 
 Cornwall, and begin a war for the conquest of Brittany. 
 She could make every citizen in the United Kingdom, 
 male or female, a peer ; she could make every parish 
 in the United Kingdom a * university ' ; she could 
 dismiss most of the civil servants, and she could 
 pardon all offenders. In a word, the Queen could by 
 Prerogative upset all the action of civil government 
 within the Government ; could disgrace the nation by 
 a bad war or peace, and could, by disbanding our 
 forces, whether land or sea, leave us defenceless 
 against foreign nations." 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that the King as the 
 executive authority is omnipotent. Indeed, if his 
 Majesty were to exercise the extreme, but undoubted, 
 rights of his Prerogative, a monstrous and grinding 
 despotism would be established in this ancient home 
 of freedom without violating the letter, at least, of 
 the law. But extraordinary as are the powers of the 
 King, as set forth by Bagehot, he possesses other 
 rights and privileges of which few of his subjects, 
 perhaps, are aware ; and possibly not even his Majesty 
 himself fully realises the rare and wonderful attributes 
 with which he has been endowed by the Constitution. 
 
 The law, for instance, declares that the Sovereign 
 can never be under age. In other words, the law does 
 not recognise the incapacity of an infant King or 
 Queen to exercsie the functions of the Sovereignty. 
 Lord Eldon, explaining this dictum of the law during 
 a debate in the House of Lords in 1830, on the 
 question of appointing a Regency in the event of 
 King William's death, until the Princess Victoria, the 
 heir to the Throne, was eighteen years of age, said : 
 
 B 2
 
 4 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 "If an infant Sovereign were to be on the Throne 
 whose head could not be seen over the integument 
 which covers the head of my noble and learned friend 
 on the Woolsack he would be supposed to have as 
 much sense, knowledge, and experience as if he had 
 reached the years of three score and ten." Never- 
 theless, should it happen that an infant King or Queen 
 succeeded to the Throne, a Regent would be appointed 
 by Parliament, vested with the executive authority of 
 the Crown until the King or Queen came of age ; just 
 as during the long years of the mental incapacity of 
 George III. the Prince of Wales was authorised by 
 Parliament to exercise, as Regent, all the powers oi 
 the Royal Prerogative necessary to the government 
 of the Realm. The law also seems to ascribe immor- 
 tality to the Sovereign. " Kings should disdain to die, 
 and only disappear." So sang a poet named Flatman 
 on the death of Charles II. But " The King never 
 dies" is a very ancient maxim of the Constitution. 
 "The King never dies," writes Sir William Blackstone, 
 the eminent commentator on English law. " Henry, 
 Edward, or George may die; but the King sur- 
 vives them all." Thus we find that it is to the 
 Sovereign as ruler, and not to the Sovereign as 
 human being, that the law denies the privilege of 
 death. Not for an instant is the Throne vacant. The 
 moment the Sovereign dies, that moment the reign of 
 his successor begins. " The King is dead ! Long live 
 the King!" Immediately after the death of George 
 III., which took place at Windsor, at 8 o'clock in the 
 evening of January 29, 1820, a herald appeared at one 
 of the windows of the castle overlooking the town, 
 and, after a fanfare by two State trumpeters to arrest
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. 5 
 
 the attention of wayfarers, he cried aloud: "The 
 King is dead ! Long live the King! " This ceremony 
 was dispensed with at the deaths of George IV., 
 William IV., and Victoria. 
 
 The succession to the Throne is not, however, a 
 matter of indefeasible hereditary right. There are 
 conditions attached to the tenure of the Crown. The 
 succession is limited by the Act of Settlement, passed 
 in 1700, to the House of Hanover, and the hereditary 
 right with regard even to the members of that House 
 may be set aside by Parliament. With all the ap- 
 parently limitless power of the Prerogative, there is 
 one thing the Sovereign is absolutely prohibited from 
 doing, and that is, marrying a Roman Catholic. Not 
 only must the King or Queen of this Realm be a Pro- 
 testant, but if the Sovereign were to contract a matri- 
 monial alliance with a member of the Roman Catholic 
 Church he or she would forfeit the Crown. The Bill 
 of Rights, passed in 1689, in the first Parliament after 
 the Revolution, thus lays down the law on this point : 
 
 " That all and every person or persons that is, are, 
 or shall be reconciled to, or shall hold communion 
 with the See or Church of Rome, or shall profess the 
 Popish religion, or shall marry a Papist, shall be 
 excluded, and be for ever incapable to inherit, possess, 
 or enjoy the Crown and Government of this Realm 
 and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, 
 or any part of the same, or to have, use or exercise any 
 regal power, authority, or jurisdiction within the 
 same ; and in all and every such case or cases the 
 people of these Realms shall be and are hereby 
 absolved of their allegiance ; and the said Crown and
 
 6 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Government shall, from time to time, descend to and 
 be enjoyed by such person or persons, being Protes- 
 tants, as should have inherited and enjoyed the same, 
 in case the said person or persons so reconciled, 
 holding communion, or professing, or marrying as 
 aforesaid, were naturally dead." 
 
 The law also ascribes to the King perfection 
 in thought and deed. One of the most ancient 
 maxims of our Constitution is : " The King can do 
 no wrong;" and Blackstone, commenting on it, writes: 
 " The King is not only incapable of doing wrong, 
 but even of thinking wrong ; he can never mean to do 
 an improper thing ; in him is no folly or weakness." 
 Incredible as it may appear in these days of limited 
 monarchy there was a time in our history when the 
 literal meaning of the phrase " The King can do no 
 wrong," was accepted almost universally. Every act of 
 the Sovereign, no matter how unrighteous and oppres- 
 sive, was regarded save, perhaps, by those who suffered 
 from it as necessarily right and just. As in theory 
 the King has never been supposed capable of commit- 
 ting any crime or misdeed whatever, should he, in 
 practice being human do a wrongful act there is 
 no proceeding known to the law by which he can be 
 brought to account and made personally responsible. 
 He cannot be sued in any Court, either civilly or crimi- 
 nally, for any act of personal misconduct. " We are 
 therefore," says the courtly Blackstone, " out of rever- 
 ence and decency to forbear any idle inquiries of what 
 would be the consequence if the King were to act thus 
 and thus, since the law deems so highly of his wisdom 
 and virtue, as not even to presume it possible for him
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. 7 
 
 to do anything inconsistent with his station and 
 dignity, and therefore has made no provision to remedy 
 such a grievance." So that if the Sovereign were, 
 we will say, to forge a cheque he could not be brought 
 to trial, or if he were to defame any of his subjects he 
 would not be liable to an action for damages. He is 
 amenable to no earthly tribunal ; and his Royal person 
 is, by law, sacred and inviolable. "The erring 
 Prince," an ancient writer on the Constitution says, 
 " must be left to the rebukes of his own conscience, 
 and to his personal accountability to God alone." 
 
 The law says that the wrong-doing of a servant 
 is the wrong-doing of the master. But there is an 
 exception made in the case of the King. As his 
 Majesty can do no wrong it is assumed that no 
 wrong either can be done by his servants in the 
 employment of the State. This is true, at least, to 
 the extent that if a merchant-vessel were wrecked 
 or damaged by the negligent management of a 
 King's ship, or a man-of-war, there is no redress. 
 In the case of Tobin v. The Queen, damages were 
 sought for the loss of a schooner which was burned 
 by the captain of a man-of-war under the mistaken 
 impression that it was engaged in the slave trade. 
 The Court dismissed the action on the ground that 
 the maxim " The King can do wrong " was true 
 in the sense that the Sovereign is not liable to be 
 sued, civilly or criminally, for a supposed injury. 
 But this immunity is not extended to those who 
 may do wrong by the King's direct command. No 
 one can plead the orders of the King in defence 
 of any act not otherwise justifiable by law. The 
 person who executes the unlawful orders of a
 
 8 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Sovereign is amenable to punishment. This arises 
 out of the abolition, by the Bill of Rights, of the power 
 of the Crown to dispense with or suspend laws, which, 
 under the Stuarts, was made the cover of all sorts 
 of injustices. There is no power in the Crown, 
 that Statute declares, to dispense with the obligation 
 to obey the law. The law, in other words, is above 
 the King ; and he is bound to govern according to 
 the law. Therefore, though the King himself cannot 
 be brought to trial as a criminal or a misdemeanant, 
 any person who acted illegally at his command would 
 be liable to criminal or civil proceedings, according 
 to the legal maxim that all persons engaged in an 
 outrage are individually responsible. 
 
 " A subject, so long as he continues a subject, 
 has no way to oblige his Prince to give him his 
 due, when he refuses it ; though no wise Prince 
 will ever refuse to stand to a lawful contract." So 
 writes Samuel Puffendorf, the great Saxon jurist, 
 in his " Law of Nature and Nations." However, 
 though there is no means at the disposal of a 
 subject to oblige the King to meet his liabilities, 
 should he choose to repudiate them as the personal 
 acts of the King are not under the cognisance of 
 the law there is a procedure known as " Petition 
 of Right," by which, with the gracious consent of 
 the King, the matter in dispute may be investigated, 
 should it be thought that his Majesty was in wrongful 
 possession of real or personal property, or of money 
 due by him to a subject, either by way of debt, or 
 damages on breach of contract. The first step 
 taken by the subject in such a matter is to present 
 a petition to the Home Secretary setting forth the
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. 9 
 
 alleged cause of action. The Secretary of State 
 then informs the King, and if his Majesty orders 
 the petition to be endorsed with the fiat, "Let right 
 be done," the suit proceeds in the Courts in the 
 ordinary way, as between subject and subject, not 
 upon compulsion, however, but as a matter of grace. 
 Another disability of the King is that he cannot 
 appear as a witness in a Court of law. He is, 
 therefore, unable to give evidence in any cause in 
 which he is a party. But even if judgment be 
 obtained against the King under a " Petition ot 
 Right," his goods cannot be distrained or taken in 
 execution. Should he refuse to pay the debt, the 
 creditor has absolutely no remedy whatever. 
 
 His Majesty is not burdened by any taxes or rates. 
 He is never troubled with the formidable yellow 
 form issued annually by the Inland Revenue Depart- 
 ment asking searching questions about the amount 
 of one's income, with a view to taxation ; and he 
 is in blissful ignorance of the demands of the 
 parish overseers for local rates in respect of his 
 palaces. The Sovereign is exempt from taxation, 
 because the revenue of the Realm being his in 
 theory, now ; formerly in reality it would be use- 
 less and ridiculous for him to tax himself. His 
 Majesty is also exempt from toll. In the reign 
 of George III. a toll was charged for crossing 
 Hampton Bridge. One day there was a Royal hunt 
 on Hounslow Heath. The stag swam across the river, 
 and the Royal hunting party followed by Hampton 
 Bridge. Seeing them approaching at a furious canter, 
 and being unaware that the King was with them, 
 the toll-collector closed the gates. " The King !
 
 io PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the King!" shouted the hunters angrily, and the 
 collector at once opened the gates and allowed 
 them to pass. A few minutes later another party 
 appeared, and the gates being again shut they also 
 cried out : " The King ! the King ! " But the 
 collector this time was determined to have his toll. 
 " I've let King George through, God bless him," 
 he said, " and I know no other King in England. 
 If you have brought out the King of France, hang 
 me if I let him through without the blunt." Sud- 
 denly the King himself appeared in the party ; and 
 the toll-collector with many humble apologies flung 
 the gates open. Owing to the delay the stag was 
 lost, and the King in high dudgeon sent an attendant 
 to the collector for an explanation of his conduct. 
 The collector stated that a guinea had always been 
 paid when the Royal hunt passed over the bridge, 
 and that he had allowed the first party to cross 
 without question, thinking that the King was with 
 them. His Majesty, satisfied with the explanation, 
 directed that toll should be paid for forty of his 
 attendants. Driving over the bridge a few days 
 later George let down the carriage window, and 
 laughing heartily, cried out to the toll-keeper : " No 
 fear of the King of France coming to-day." 
 
 The King does not pay probate duty or death 
 duty on legacies that may fall to him, or property 
 which he may inherit. The will of Prince Albert, 
 who left considerable property, was never lodged 
 as the wills of all subjects must be lodged in 
 Somerset House. Whether her Majesty Queen 
 Victoria was within her rights in withholding the 
 will is a question upon which jurists are divided.
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. u 
 
 This leads to the consideration of the rights of the 
 Sovereign's Consort. Prince Albert was Queen 
 Victoria's husband, but he was also her subject. 
 Before their marriage her Majesty desired to have him 
 made King Consort. " For God's sake let's hear 
 no more of it, Ma'am," said Lord Melbourne, who 
 was Prime Minister at the time. " If you once 
 get the English people into the habit of making 
 kings you may get them into the habit of unmaking 
 them." Such was the hostility with which the 
 Prince, as a foreigner, was regarded that the House 
 of Lords, on the motion of no less a personage than 
 the Duke of Wellington, rejected a proposal, sub- 
 mitted to them before the marriage took place, 
 that his Royal Highness should rank in pre- 
 cedence next to the Queen ; but by a decree 
 of the Queen a remarkable illustration of the 
 power of the Prerogative this distinction was con- 
 ferred upon the Prince subsequently. It was not, 
 however, until 1857 four years before his death 
 that the title of "Prince Consort" was bestowed 
 on him by Royal Letters Patent, with the con- 
 currence of the leaders of both political Parties. 
 The Prince also enjoyed freedom from arrest, as 
 the Consort of the- Sovereign, but he could have 
 been sued in any Court of justice. At that time, 
 which, of course, was before the Married Women's 
 Property Act was passed, the property of a wife 
 was the property of her husband. From this law 
 the estate of the Queen was exempt. The Queen 
 Consort is also a subject of the King. The chief 
 privilege conferred on her by her position is freedom 
 from arrest.
 
 12 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 None of the King's household or menial officers 
 or servants employed in waiting or attending on 
 the Royal presence can be arrested, or taken in 
 execution in civil actions, unless the permission of 
 the Board of Green Cloth, which regulates the 
 duties of Royal officials and servants, is first ob- 
 tained. This privilege was not instituted for the 
 personal benefit of these servants, but in order that 
 the Sovereign may not be put to inconvenience by 
 being deprived of the services of an attendant, and 
 also as a mark of respect to the Throne. There 
 is a case in which a warrant for the arrest of a 
 Royal servant who was also in trade, and con- 
 tracted in the course of his business a debt which 
 he declined to pay, was refused by a Court of law 
 on the ground that he was privileged from arrest. 
 Royal servants are also exempted from serving on 
 juries. Exemptions of a similar character apply to 
 the palaces. No arrest or anything in the nature 
 of a judicial process can be executed within a Royal 
 residence unless by consent of the Board of Green 
 Cloth. To strike a person in the King's palace, and 
 to draw blood, was formerly punishable by the loss of 
 the offender's right hand and imprisonment for life. 
 
 Another privilege of the King is that his consent 
 must be obtained before a member of the Royal 
 family can marry. Formerly it was high treason for 
 any man to contract marriage, without the approval 
 of the Sovereign, with the Sovereign's children, or 
 reputed children, his sisters, or aunts, or the children 
 of his brothers and sisters. Under the Royal Marriage 
 Act of 1772, passed in the time of George III., a 
 marriage with any of the King's near relations, unless
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. 13 
 
 with his Majesty's consent and approbation, is null 
 and void. This statute was passed because of the 
 marriages of the Duke of Gloucester with the widow 
 of Lord Waldegrave, and the Duke of Cumberland 
 with the widow of Colonel Horton. Before that time, 
 however, it had been decided by the judges that the 
 King's sanction was necessary to a marriage with 
 one of the Blood Royal. In the year 1718, George I. 
 commanded the Lord Chancellor to obtain the judg- 
 ment of the judges of the High Court upon the 
 following question : " Whether the care and approba- 
 tion of his Majesty's grandchildren when grown up 
 did belong of right to his Majesty as King of the 
 Realm or not?" Six of the twelve judges answered 
 the question in the affirmative. Charles II. had 
 obliged his brother, the Duke of York (afterwards 
 James II.), to allow the young Princesses, his 
 daughters, to be brought up in the Protestant Faith ; 
 and arranged the marriage between the eldest, 
 Princess Mary, and the Prince of Orange. ''Happy 
 it was for two nations that the King in the marriages 
 of Mary, Queen to William III., and of Queen Anne 
 had his Prerogative," said Baron Aland Fortescue in 
 his judgment, "for had the pretended paternal right 
 prevailed the English nation had been for ever undone 
 and our religion destroyed ; and we had never seen 
 the many and great blessings we enjoy and are like 
 to enjoy by this family sitting on the Throne of Great 
 Britain." 
 
 But the matrimonial alliances of the children of the 
 Sovereign must now be approved by the Ministry. 
 In the matter of the disposal by Queen Victoria of the 
 hand of the Princess Louise on the Marquis of Lome
 
 i 4 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 in 1871 the Administration of the time were consulted. 
 Gladstone, the Prime Minister, speaking in the House 
 of Commons on February 13, 1871, on the motion 
 that an annuity of 6,000 be settled on the Princess 
 for life, said: u In the resolution which the Queen 
 has taken that the absence of Royal rank shall not 
 of itself, and in every case, form an insuperable bar 
 to the suit for the hand of one of her daughters, 
 she is not acting without the advice of responsible 
 Ministers." This statement was interpreted, in some 
 quarters, as meaning that the marriage had really 
 been arranged by the Liberal Government, in which 
 the bridegroom's father, the Duke of Argyll, held 
 office ; but, of course, the suggestion was absolutely 
 unfounded. " What I stated," said Gladstone, in a 
 subsequent speech, "was that upon the important 
 question of the deviation from what had recently been 
 the established rule her Majesty had taken the advice 
 of her confidential advisers ; and I may as well state 
 that she did so about eighteen months ago, and long 
 anterior to the period when the present arrangement 
 was contemplated." 
 
 The King's authority over his subjects also raises 
 some curious points. Under the Common Law a 
 subject may leave the country when he chooses or for 
 any reason he pleases, but as it is the duty of every 
 subject " to defend the King and his Realm " his 
 Majesty has power to prevent any subject leaving the 
 kingdom, and to command the immediate return of 
 any subject from abroad. But the King cannot 
 compel a subject to quit the Realm. This disability 
 does not cease to operate even in time of war. It is, 
 of course, the duty of every able-bodied man to assist
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. 15 
 
 in the defence of the country, but no subject can be 
 forced on active service in a war abroad. There 
 is no power either in the King to compel an alien 
 to leave the kingdom. 
 
 The King has the power of remission of punish- 
 ment for any crime. This prerogative is based upon 
 the legal dictum that inasmuch as it is the " King's 
 Peace " that is broken by every violation of the law, 
 the King, being himself the offended party, may 
 pardon the criminal. More than that, a pardon from 
 the Crown can be pleaded when the prisoner is 
 arraigned, and is a complete bar to the indictment. 
 There is only one exception to the exercise of this 
 prerogative. It is provided by the Act of Settlement 
 that no pardon from the Crown is plsadable to an 
 impeachment instituted by the Commons in Parlia- 
 ment. But if, when the impeachment is concluded, 
 a sentence is imposed, the King can exercise the 
 prerogative of pardon. His Majesty, however, cannot 
 interfere in a case of private, as opposed to public, 
 wrong. At the beginning of her reign, Queen Victoria 
 attached her signature to warrants for the execution 
 of condemned criminals ; but she soon relegated this 
 unpleasant duty to the Home Secretary. The Queen 
 had the power, of course, to reprieve any and every 
 murderer. She did, in fact, reprieve the first person 
 sentenced to death after her accession to the Throne 
 The culprit was a soldier, upon whom a court-martial 
 had imposed the death penalty as an incorrigible 
 deserter three times he had absconded but as he had 
 a fine record for bravery on active service, her Majesty 
 wrote " pardoned " across the warrant of execution. 
 Queen Victoria, however, rarely, if ever, acted on her
 
 i6 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 own initiative in the exercise of the prerogative of 
 mercy, being content to leave a free hand to the 
 Home Secretary, the Minister responsible for the 
 maintenance of law and order in the Realm. The 
 King, nevertheless, could to-morrow, on his own 
 authority, issue a general amnesty pardoning and 
 releasing every prisoner in the gaols. 
 
 It is improbable, however, that any Sovereign 
 would now exercise the prerogative ol mercy without 
 having first taken his Ministers into his confidence 
 and obtained their approval. A curious case occurred 
 in 1830. In Ireland a gentleman of good family and 
 position, named Comyn, was convicted of arson, 
 and sentenced to death. George IV., influenced by 
 a petition presented to him on behalf of the unfortu- 
 nate man, wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, without any 
 previous consultation with his Ministers, signifying 
 his pleasure that the criminal should be reprieved. 
 In the meantime the Viceroy, with the advice of the 
 law officers in Ireland, had decided that the law 
 should take its course, and this determination was 
 supported by Wellington, the Prime Minister, and 
 Peel, the Home Secretary. Peel, on being informed 
 of the action of the King, addressed a strong remon- 
 strance to his Majesty for having exercised the 
 prerogative of mercy unknown to his Ministers, and 
 Wellington had an immediate personal interview with 
 the King, which resulted in the withdrawal of the 
 order of reprieve. Comyn was accordingly hanged. 
 He would have had to be released, of course, had 
 the King refused to accede to the request of his 
 Ministers to revoke the order. 
 
 " It is impossible for a man to be in two places at
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. 17 
 
 one time, unless he is a bird," said Sir Boyle Roche 
 in the Irish House of Commons. The law of the 
 Constitution attributes to the King the magic gift of 
 being in a hundred Courts of justice at the same time. 
 The Court Circular may state that yesterday his 
 Majesty was at Windsor ; but the Constitution insists 
 that he was at the Law Courts in the Strand, and 
 with every judge holding a Court of assize throughout 
 the kingdom. If either of the parties in any action 
 fails to appear when the case is called he is non- 
 suited, or, in other words, the case is dismissed. 
 But the King, in whose name many causes and 
 prosecutions are instituted, can never be nonsuited, 
 because, even if he be a thousand miles away, he is 
 in Court, nevertheless. Yet, though he is presumed 
 by the Constitution to be present in every Court of 
 law, he cannot, according to that same authority, 
 strangely enough, appear personally in any of the 
 Courts or personally decide any case, civil or criminal. 
 The same contradictory theories apply in Parliament. 
 The King is understood to be present at every sitting 
 of the Legislature. But, as a matter of fact, he 
 cannot constitutionally appear in Parliament except 
 when he comes in state to the House of Lords for 
 the exercise of his prerogative of opening or pro- 
 roguing Parliament. He may also attend during a 
 session for the purpose of giving the Royal Assent to 
 Bills. But his presence on any other occasion would 
 be regarded as an unconstitutional attempt to influ- 
 ence debates by overawing the assembly. Queen 
 Victoria, therefore, was never present in the House 
 of Commons during the whole course of her long 
 reign of sixty-three years ; and the King will never 
 p. c
 
 i8 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 again occupy the seat over the clock in the Peers' 
 Gallery, from which, as Prince of Wales, he so often 
 listened to the debates of the Lower Chamber. 
 
 Walter Bagehot, who declares in "The English 
 Constitution," as already quoted, that the Sovereign 
 by the exercise of his Prerogative could break the 
 might of Great Britain, and bring about irretrievable 
 disaster while the Ministers look helplessly on, asserts 
 nevertheless that the Sovereign has long ceased to 
 possess any legislative authority, inasmuch as he is 
 really powerless to veto any Bill which has passed 
 through both Houses of Parliament. Writing of 
 Queen Victoria, Bagehot says : " She must sign her 
 own death warrant if the two Houses unanimously 
 send it up to her." This assertion has been contro- 
 verted by some authorities. They say that while the 
 King cannot amend or alter a Bill, he would be 
 within his right in declining to assent to any measure 
 to which he personally objected. It is true that the 
 Royal Assent has not been refused since Queen Anne 
 declined to sign a Scotch Militia Bill ; but the legis- 
 lative veto still, undoubtedly, rests" in the Sovereign 
 and may be exercised at any time. It can, however, 
 be exercised only on the advice of the Ministers. 
 Were it otherwise, the King could render futile the 
 work of both Houses of Parliament by simply 
 withholding his signature to Bills. 
 
 No act of the Crown as the executive authority, 
 however trifling, can be completed without the Royal 
 Sign Manual as the signature of the Sovereign is 
 called and the King cannot, without the consent 
 of Parliament, delegate this duty of signing papers to 
 another. In May, 1830, during the last illness ot
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. ig 
 
 George IV., an Act was hurriedly passed to relieve 
 the dying monarch from the painful task of signing 
 State papers with his own hand. It was provided 
 that a stamp should be affixed to every document, in 
 place of the Royal signature, in the presence of the 
 King and in obedience to his command, given by 
 word of mouth, and the document thus stamped was 
 to be further indorsed by three members of the Privy 
 Council. Not to speak of important State papers, 
 the purely formal documents which the King has to 
 sign are very numerous. Mr. Balfour in his affecting 
 tribute to Queen Victoria in the House of Commons, 
 on January 26th, 1901, referred to the vast mass of 
 untouched documents which he saw at Osborne, 
 awaiting the Sign Manual. " Short," said he, " as 
 was the interval between the last trembling signature 
 affixed to a public document, and the final rest, it 
 was yet long enough to clog and hamper the wheels 
 of administration." This work of drudgery has, of late 
 years, been somewhat lightened for the Sovereign. 
 For instance, the King now only indorses all fresh 
 commissions in the army. Formerly, all military 
 commissions, of every kind, had to be signed by the 
 Sovereign, with the result that when in 1862 an Act 
 was passed by Parliament to enable the Queen, by 
 Order in Council, to free herself from the duty of 
 signing all such documents there was an accumulation 
 of 15,000 commissions in arrear. Indeed, it often 
 happened that an officer received his warrant of pro- 
 motion only after he had left the army. Yet, despite 
 this relief, Queen Victoria had to attach her signa- 
 ture to more than 50,000 documents every year. 
 While the Court was at Balmoral or Osborne, six 
 
 c 2
 
 20 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Queen's messengers were continually travelling be- 
 tween the capital and the palace with bags and 
 boxes containing these papers. 
 
 Considerable as are the prerogatives of the King, 
 his Majesty is subject to some curious restrictions 
 or disabilities, besides those already mentioned. 
 He cannot, for instance, on his own personal 
 responsibility, send a communication to or receive 
 a communication from any other Sovereign on a 
 question of State. In 1829 the Duke of Wellington, 
 being then Prime Minister, indirectly heard that the 
 King, George IV., had received a letter from the 
 King of Prussia requesting his Majesty to vote for 
 Prince Charles of Mecklenburg to be King of Greece, 
 which had just wrested its independence from the 
 Turks, and that King George had agreed to do so. 
 The Prime Minister wrote to his Foreign Secretary, 
 the Earl of Aberdeen, indignantly complaining of the 
 action of King George. " It is not usual for the 
 King of England," he said, " to receive from other 
 Sovereigns letters which do not pass through the 
 hands of his Ministers. Indeed, I have known 
 instances of letters having been returned because 
 copies were not sent with the sealed letter, the copy 
 being intended for the information of the Minister. 
 But it is still more unusual and improper for the King 
 to answer a letter from another Sovereign without the 
 advice of his Minister who, whether he advises or 
 does not, is responsible if he knows of the letter being 
 written." Wellington urged Aberdeen to at once 
 " entreat " the King not to answer the letter until he 
 had heard from him again. It then transpired that 
 the letter in question was really from the Grand Duke
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. 21 
 
 of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to the Duke of Cumberland, 
 written at the request of the King of Prussia, 
 desiring that King George might be asked to support 
 the candidature of Prince Charles. The King also 
 promised the Foreign Secretary that he would not 
 commit himself on behalf of Prince Charles in his 
 reply to the note from Prussia. But the Ministers 
 were not satisfied. The Foreign Secretary wrote to 
 the British Minister at Berlin desiring him to convey 
 to the King of Prussia the intention of his Britannic 
 Majesty to act in the matter solely on the advice of 
 his responsible Minister. 
 
 " Her Majesty cannot be supposed to have a 
 private opinion apart from that of her responsible 
 advisers." So we are gravely told by Sir Erskine 
 May, the erudite Clerk of the House of Commons, 
 referring to Queen Victoria, in his standard work on 
 " Parliamentary Practice." The sentence is curiously 
 phrased ; but what, of course, it means is that the 
 Sovereign must not be influenced by his personal 
 predilections in his attitude towards public affairs, 
 at least to the extent of opposing, or refusing to act 
 upon, the advice of his Ministers. In like manner, it 
 is a breach of order in both Houses of Parliament to 
 mention the name of the Sovereign with a view to 
 affect the course of legislation. On December lyth, 
 1783, the House of Commons adopted the following 
 resolution : 
 
 " Resolved That it is now necessary to declare 
 that to report any opinion, or pretended opinion, of 
 his Majesty upon any Bill, or other proceeding 
 depending in either House of Parliament, with a
 
 22 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 view to influence the votes of Members, is a high 
 crime and misdemeanour, derogatory to the honour 
 of the Crown, a breach of the fundamental privileges 
 of Parliament, and subversive of the Constitution ol 
 the country." 
 
 On February 26th, 1808, Tierney speaking in the 
 House of Commons said of Canning : " The right 
 hon. gentleman has forfeited the good opinion of 
 the country, of the House, and as I believe of his 
 Sovereign." The Speaker at once interposed and 
 called Tierney to order for having introduced the 
 personal opinion of the Sovereign into the debate. 
 
 The Crown has, in theory, been shorn of none of 
 its ancient rights and privileges. All the executive 
 powers involved in the Prerogative are still vested in 
 the Sovereign alone, as in the days of the absolute 
 monarchy of the Stuarts, and still can be exercised 
 only by the Sovereign. But under the unwritten laws 
 and customs of the Constitution, which have gradually 
 grown up since the Revolution of 1688, silently, as it 
 were, and almost imperceptibly, the executive powers 
 that are necessary to the smooth working of the Con- 
 stitution are now put into operation solely on the 
 advice and through the instrumentality of the Ministers. 
 The old constitutional maxim, " The King can do no 
 wrong," which has come down to us from the far-off 
 days when the " Divine right of Kings " was an 
 article of religious belief, therefore obtains in the 
 twentieth century, not in the sense that the King 
 is personally infallible, or humanly incapable of 
 doing wrong, but in the sense that if any evil or 
 injustice is wrought by the executive acts of Govern-
 
 THE KING'S PREROGATIVES. 23 
 
 ment which are done in the Sovereign's name, it 
 is not the Sovereign that is to blame, but the 
 Minister on whose advice his Majesty exercises his 
 Royal Prerogative. 
 
 Thus have the old theories of the Constitution 
 been brought, in practice, into harmony with modern 
 ideas. The King can do no wrong as part of the 
 Legislature, or as the supreme executive authority, 
 because everything he may do in either capacity 
 is done, not on his own personal initiative and 
 responsibility, but on the advice of his Ministers. 
 It is the Ministers, therefore, who are answerable 
 to Parliament, and to the law of the land, for every 
 legislative or executive act of the Sovereign. 
 
 Of course the extent to which the King influences 
 his Ministers, or is himself controlled by them, 
 depends upon his strength of will and obstinacy, 
 and the weakness and pliancy of his advisers. 
 George III. generally succeeded in having his own 
 way in policy and legislation. A plain, blunt, and 
 rather narrow-minded man, he could not understand 
 the subtleties of a Constitution which told him in 
 black and white that he was an absolute ruler 
 incapable of ill-doing ; and yet insisted by its 
 unwritten laws and customs that, in practice, he 
 must do nothing on his own responsibility, but 
 everything he is told by his Ministers. In 1799 
 he informed Henry Dundas how pleased he was 
 to learn that a union between Ireland and Great 
 Britain was in contemplation. "But," he added, 
 " I hope it is not true that the Government is 
 pledged to emancipate the Roman Catholics ? " 
 " No," replied the Minister, "that will be a matter
 
 24 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 for future consideration." The King protested that 
 he could never consent to the emancipation of the 
 Roman Catholics, as it would be a violation of 
 his Coronation Oath, which bound him to uphold 
 the Protestant supremacy. Dundas endeavoured 
 to explain that his oath applied to the King in 
 his executive capacity and not as part of the 
 Legislature. " None of your Scotch metaphysics, 
 Mr. Dundas," cried the monarch angrily. " None 
 of your d Scotch metaphysics." The incon- 
 sistency between legal theory and actual practice 
 in the Constitution is, indeed, somewhat bewildering. 
 It is also amusing.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FIRST OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGNS. 
 
 WILLIAM PITT in 1783, three years after the 
 House of Commons had agreed to Dunning's 
 celebrated motion, " That the influence of the 
 Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to 
 be diminished," was asked by a French Abbe 
 during a visit to France in what part the British 
 Constitution might be first expected to decay. 
 The statesman, after musing for a moment, 
 answered, " That part of our Constitution which 
 will first perish is the Prerogative of the King, 
 and the authority of the House of Lords." 
 
 I have endeavoured to show in the preceding 
 chapter the mutations through which the ancient 
 conception of the Royal Prerogative has passed 
 the wide divergence which now prevails between 
 its theory and its practice owing to the changes 
 in popular opinion and belief and the consequent 
 political revolutions of our national life. In truth 
 the exercise of the once absolute prerogatives of 
 the Crown is to-day limited and restrained by 
 law, by constitutional precept and by common 
 sense. It was said of Victoria, in a most inte- 
 resting article on the personal character of the 
 Queen, which appeared in " The Quarterly Review"
 
 26 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 after her death, that she regarded herself as "a 
 consecrated Monarch by Divine right," who construed 
 the word "loyal" in the mediaeval sense, as im- 
 plying the duty of obedience to her, as Sovereign, 
 irrespective of her personal character. Thus she 
 cultivated "a deep and almost superstitious rever- 
 ence for Charles I., who was never anything less 
 than * the Royal martyr ' in her eyes ; and no 
 disparagement of James II. was ever permitted 
 in her presence." If Queen Victoria entertained 
 these old-fashioned Royalist notions she certainly 
 never displayed them in her relations, as Sovereign, 
 with the various Ministers chosen by the people 
 to conduct the affairs of the State in the course 
 of her long reign. On the contrary, she had a 
 most enlightened sense and appreciation of the 
 changed position of the Sovereign which the advance 
 of democracy has produced. She never exercised 
 any of the prerogatives which are still, in fact, 
 vested in the Crown, except on the advice of her 
 Ministers ; and under her rule Parliamentary 
 Government was placed on a broad, unshakable, and 
 enduring basis. Queen Victoria may, in truth, be 
 described absolutely as the first of our constitutional 
 Sovereigns. 
 
 " Why are Princes alone to be denied the credit of 
 having political opinions based upon an anxiety for 
 the national interests, their country's honour, and 
 the welfare of mankind ? Are they not more inde- 
 pendently placed than any other politician in the 
 State ? Are their interests not more intimately 
 bound up with those of their country ? Is the 
 Sovereign not the natural guardian of the honour of
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 27 
 
 his country ? Is he not necessarily a politician ? " 
 These reflections are contained in a private memo- 
 randum written by Prince Albert in 1852. 
 
 If Queen Victoria had any political opinions on 
 her accession to the Throne in 1837, they were 
 certainly Whig. The influences of her home tended 
 to give her mind a bias in that direction. Her 
 father, the Duke of Kent, was a Whig, like his 
 brother, the Duke of Sussex, while the other sons of 
 George III. the Prince of Wales, who as George IV. 
 abjured the Whig principles of his youth, the Duke of 
 York, the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.), 
 and the Duke of Cumberland entertained high 
 Protestant and Tory opinions. The Duke of Kent 
 was associated with the Whig Opposition during the 
 Regency of his brother, the Prince of Wales. At 
 a political banquet in London he made a public 
 declaration of his political creed. " I am a friend of 
 civil and religious liberty all the world over," said 
 his Royal Highness ; " I am an enemy to all 
 religious tests. I am a supporter of a general system 
 of education. All men are my brethren, and I hold 
 that power is only delegated for the benefit of the 
 people. Those are the principles of myself and of 
 my beloved brother, the Duke of Sussex. They are 
 not popular principles just now ; that is, they do not 
 conduct to place or office. All the members of the 
 Royal Family do not hold the same principles. For 
 this I do not blame them. But we claim for ourselves 
 the right of thinking and acting as we deem best, and 
 we proclaim ourselves, with our friend Mr. Tierney, 
 * members of his Majesty's loyal Opposition.' " He 
 died a few months after the birth of the Princess
 
 28 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Victoria, and therefore cannot be said to have 
 personally influenced the mind of his daughter in 
 political affairs ; but the Duchess of Kent, who had 
 the sole direction of the training of the future Queen, 
 shared the Whig principles of her husband, and the 
 society which she favoured after his death was 
 Whig. 
 
 The fact that a Whig Administration was in office 
 when the Queen ascended the Throne also tended 
 naturally to colour the political views of the young 
 Sovereign. From Lord Melbourne, the Prime 
 Minister of that Administration, to whom she was 
 indebted for tuition and training in her constitutional 
 duties as Queen, she must have inevitably imbibed 
 Whig principles, if she had not adopted them already. 
 During the progress of the General Election, which, 
 according to the law, followed within a few months 
 of her accession, she evinced the greatest interest in 
 the success of the Whig candidates, and was delighted 
 that the result confirmed the Melbourne Administration 
 in office. The Whigs, indeed, did not scruple to 
 make use of the Queen's name as a party cry during 
 the election. They boldly declared that she was on 
 their side. " The Queen," said Sir Henry Parnell, a 
 member of the Administration, "has definite and firm 
 opinions on all the questions of the day." " What! " 
 exclaimed young William Ewart Gladstone, in a 
 speech at Manchester, "does Sir Henry Parnell 
 conceive that amidst the shades of Kensington 
 Gardens the Princess Victoria has been studying the 
 question of Irish Municipal Corporations ; that she 
 has taken her morning walks with the division list in 
 her hand ; and has over her evening tea discussed
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 29 
 
 the probability of Tory or Whig ascendency ? " But, 
 despite these jaunty words, the Tories well knew, to 
 their mortification, that the Sovereign regarded them 
 with disfavour and suspicion. 
 
 Lord Melbourne exercised in the development of 
 her fresh young mind all the influence of a parent. 
 That always interesting gossip, Charles Greville, re- 
 cords in his "Journal " that the Queen and the Prime 
 Minister passed, "if not in tete-a-tete yet in intimate 
 communication," six hours every day. " If Melbourne 
 should be compelled to resign," Greville adds, " her 
 privation will be the more bitter on account of the 
 exclusiveness of her intimacy with him. Accordingly 
 her terror when any danger menaces the Government, 
 her nervous apprehension at any appearance of 
 change, affects her health, and upon one occasion 
 during the last session (1838) she actually fretted 
 herself into an illness at the notion of their going 
 out." The Whigs sustained a defeat in the House 
 of Commons in May, 1839, and decided to resign. 
 "The Queen had not been prepared for this catas- 
 trophe, and was completely upset by it," writes 
 Greville. " Her agitation and grief were very 
 great. In her interview with Lord John Russell 
 she was all the time dissolved in tears, and she 
 dined in her own room and never appeared on that 
 evening." 
 
 Sir Robert Peel was sent for by the Queen and 
 commanded to form an Administration. The Tory 
 leader pointed out to the Queen that according to 
 custom the ladies of the Court, who had been 
 appointed by Melbourne, and were, indeed, near 
 relatives of some of the outgoing Ministers, must
 
 30 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 resign. The Queen declared she could not part with 
 the ladies of her household. " I regard them," said 
 she, "as personal friends, and not as party politicians." 
 Peel protested that if her Majesty adhered to that 
 opinion he must abandon the undertaking to construct 
 a Government. He mentioned particularly that Irish 
 affairs would constitute one of his principal difficulties 
 as Prime Minister, and that it could scarcely be felt 
 that he had fair-play regarding these questions so 
 long as the wife of the late Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland (the Marchioness of Normanby) and the 
 sister of the late Chief Secretary (the Duchess of 
 Sutherland) retained their posts as Ladies of the 
 Bedchamber, which would bring them into intimate 
 daily intercourse with the Sovereign. But the 
 Queen was obdurate ; and Peel left Buckingham 
 Palace, where the interview took place, in a state 
 of perplexity. 
 
 That night a meeting of the outcoming Ministers 
 was held at Melbourne House. The Prime Minister 
 laid before his colleagues a letter he had received from 
 the Queen, describing her colloquy with Peel. " It 
 was written," remarks Greville, truly enough, "in a 
 bitter spirit, and in a strain such as Elizabeth might 
 have used." In it Victoria said : " Do not fear that 
 I was not calm and composed. They wanted to 
 deprive me of my ladies, and I suppose they would 
 deprive me next of my dressers and my housemaids. 
 They wished to treat me like a girl, but I will show 
 them that I am Queen of England." The Whig 
 Ministers, animated by a natural chivalrousness to 
 save the young and sensitive Sovereign from a painful 
 situation, decided to remain in office. The next
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 31 
 
 morning the Queen, on Melbourne's advice, sent 
 Peel the following note : 
 
 " The Queen, having considered the proposals made 
 to her yesterday by Sir Robert Peel to remove the 
 Ladies of her Bedchamber, cannot consent to a course 
 which she considers to be contrary to usage and is 
 repugnant to her feelings." 
 
 No doubt the Queen's more matured opinion of this 
 interesting incident of her early years is expressed by 
 Sir Theodore Martin, in his " Life of the Prince 
 Consort," when he says : " It cannot be denied that 
 the young Queen's warm personal regard for Lord 
 Melbourne and for the adherents of his Administra- 
 tion, who had surrounded her Majesty since her 
 accession, had not unnaturally caused her to drift 
 into political partisanship. . . . The continuance of 
 the state of things to which this led must have been 
 productive of consequences the most mischievous." 
 
 We obtain another glimpse of the Queen's attitude 
 towards the Tories at this time from an entry in the 
 diary of Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 who, having dined at Buckingham Palace, records : 
 " She said the other night, when reading some attack 
 on her in some low paper professing to be on our 
 side, ' the Tories do all in their power to make them- 
 selves odious to me.' The fact is that from her earliest 
 years she has been taught to regard us as her personal 
 enemies. I am told that the language of Kensington 
 was such as to inspire her with fear and hatred." Many 
 honest Whigs, indeed, were convinced that the Tories 
 desired to set aside the right of the Princess Victoria 
 to the Throne, and secure the accession of her uncle,
 
 3 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the Duke of Cumberland, then King of Hanover, a 
 stout old Tory. On the arrangement of her marriage 
 with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1839, 
 the Queen was further alienated from the Tories by 
 their action with regard to the allowance and status of 
 the bridegroom. Lord John Russell moved in the 
 House of Commons, on behalf of the Government, for 
 a yearly grant of 50,000, but an amendment from the 
 Tory Opposition, to reduce the sum to 30,000, was 
 carried, after an acrimonious debate, by 262 votes 
 against 158. Peel, writing to a friend, said: "This 
 division will inform the Queen that she must not place 
 too much reliance on the forbearance of the Conserva- 
 tive Party." In the House of Lords the Tory peers, 
 headed by the Duke of Wellington as I have men- 
 tioned in the preceding chapter carried the omission 
 from the Bill for the naturalisation of Prince Albert 
 of a clause proposing that his Royal Highness should 
 rank in precedence next to the Queen. 
 
 In 1841 the Melbourne Government were defeated 
 in the House of Commons. They appealed to the 
 country, but were beaten at the polls, and resigned. 
 The Queen, writing to Lord John Russell on 
 August 28th, said : 
 
 " Long as the Queen was prepared for this event, 
 she does not for that feel it the less painful. She 
 is deeply grieved to have to part from those she has 
 such confidence in. She trusts, however, that at no 
 very distant period she will again see Lord John 
 Russell in the office which he has filled so much to 
 the satisfaction of both his Sovereign and his country." 
 
 There was no difficulty this time over the ladies of
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 33 
 
 the Royal Household. They resigned, with the willing 
 consent of the Queen. Her Majesty also received 
 her Tory Ministers most cordially. Peel, the Prime 
 Minister, was able to write to a friend : 
 
 " My relations with the Queen are most satisfactory. 
 The Queen has acted towards me not merely (as every- 
 one who knew her Majesty's character must have 
 anticipated) with perfect fidelity and honour, but with 
 great kindness and consideration. There is every 
 facility for the dispatch of public business, a scrupu- 
 lous and most punctual discharge of every public duty, 
 and an exact understanding of the relation of a Con- 
 stitutional Sovereign to her advisers." 
 
 In September, 1841, Peel, after he had formed an 
 Administration, received a significant note from the 
 Queen. She wrote : " The Queen is certain that 
 toleration and forbearance will have the best effect 
 upon the people of Ireland." Her Majesty was clearly 
 desirous that the ameliorative and pacific policy of the 
 Melbourne Administration with respect to Ireland 
 should be continued by the new Government. How- 
 ever, O'Connell, hopeless of obtaining any concession 
 from the Tories, renewed the agitation for the Repeal 
 of the Union, which he had allowed to slumber during 
 the friendly Melbourne regime, and Peel endeavoured 
 to crush it by imprisoning its leader and his principal 
 lieutenants. In 1844 P e ^ adopted a more conciliatory 
 policy towards Ireland. He proposed to increase the 
 annual grant in aid of Maynooth College, for the 
 education of the Roman Catholic priesthood of Ireland, 
 from 9,000 to 26,000, and, by making it a perma- 
 nent charge on the Consolidated Fund, withdraw it 
 
 p. D
 
 34 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 altogether from the control and yearly criticism of the 
 House of Commons. Owing to the scruples of Glad- 
 stone, who was a member of the Administration, Peel 
 was unable for some time to lay his proposal before 
 Parliament. At that stage he received the following 
 encouraging communication from Prince Albert, dated 
 February i6th, 1844 : " I return the private memo- 
 randum respecting Maynooth, and repeat to you my 
 regret that you were not enabled to carry out your 
 wise intentions. The Queen joins with me in hoping 
 that you may, in no distant time, overcome the diffi- 
 culties which now stand in your way." 
 
 The Queen had in contemplation a visit to Ireland, 
 which she reluctantly postponed owing to the dis- 
 affected and disturbed condition of the country. 
 Early in the Session of 1844 the Whig Opposition 
 moved for a Committee of Inquiry into the causes 
 of Irish discontent. On February 23rd the ninth 
 night of a bitter and angry debate on the motion 
 Peel delivered a most able speech in defence of 
 the Government, animated by a conciliatory spirit 
 towards Ireland, in the course of which he expressed 
 the desire to improve by legislation the social 
 condition of the unhappy country. Referring to the 
 Queen's wish to visit Ireland, he thus concluded : 
 
 "I should rejoice in whatever capacity I may 
 fill I should consider it the happiest day of my 
 life when I see the beloved Sovereign of these 
 realms fulfilling the fondest wishes of her heart 
 of that heart so full of affection to all her people, 
 but mingling that affection with peculiar sympathy 
 and tenderness to Ireland. I should hail the
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 35 
 
 dawning of that auspicious day when she could 
 alight like some benign spirit on its shores and 
 there lay the foundations of a Temple of Peace ; 
 when she could in accents which, proceeding from 
 the heart, speak to the heart, rather than to the 
 ear; when she could call on her Irish subjects of 
 all classes and of all denominations, Protestant and 
 Catholic, Saxon and Celt, to forget the differences 
 of creed and race, and to hallow that holy Temple 
 of Peace, of which she laid the foundation to 
 hallow it with sacrifices still holier than the sacrifices 
 by which the temples of old were hallowed to 
 hallow it by the sacrifice of those evil passions 
 which dishonour our common faith and prevent the 
 union of heart and hand in defence of our common 
 country." 
 
 A few days later Peel received the following private 
 letter of congratulation from her Majesty : 
 
 " WINDSOR CASTLE, February 2$th, 1844. 
 
 "The Queen cannot but write a line to Sir Robert 
 Peel to express to him our extreme admiration of his 
 speech, which we read entirely through last night. 
 
 " It is a most triumphant defence, and at the 
 same time calculated to produce the best effect in 
 Ireland." 
 
 Peel, having obtained for the Maynooth Bill the 
 unanimous support of his colleagues by the resigna- 
 tion of Gladstone, introduced the measure in the 
 Session of 1845. It met with formidable opposition. 
 It was objected to by some Members because it 
 
 D 2
 
 36 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 proposed to subsidise a Church which disseminated 
 religious error, and by others on the ground that they 
 were opposed to all grants to Churches, whether 
 corrupt or pure. Immediately after the introduction 
 of the Bill the Queen wrote to Peel : 
 
 "April gth, 1845. 
 
 " We are very anxious to hear the effect which 
 has been produced by the Maynooth Bill in Ireland. 
 The Queen anxiously hopes Sir Robert does not 
 feel uneasy about the result of the debate. The 
 measure is so just and good a one that people 
 must open their eyes and will not oppose it." 
 
 The Bill was strenuously resisted through all its 
 stages in the House of Commons. The Queen 
 evidently read the debates with interest, and was 
 pained by the religiously fanatical spirit which 
 pervaded many of the speeches in opposition to the 
 measure. Writing to Peel on April I5th, she said : 
 " It is not honourable to Protestants to see the 
 bad and violent and bigoted passions displayed at 
 this moment." However, the Third Reading was 
 carried by 317 votes to 184. Her Majesty told 
 Peel, on April 25th, she was much pleased with the 
 result, and added: "We were most enthusiastically 
 received last night, in the theatre and outside ; 
 and not one ' No Popery ' observation was to be 
 heard." 
 
 On June 2nd the Duke of Wellington moved the 
 Second Reading of the Bill in the House of Lords. 
 He had spoken only a few sentences of his speech 
 when, by a curious interruption, the Duke of New- 
 castle raised an interesting point as to the power
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 37 
 
 or authority exercised by the Crown in the initiation 
 of legislation. Here is the extract from Hansard : 
 
 " THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE My Lords, I rise 
 to order. I beg to apologise to the noble Duke 
 and to the House for interrupting him, but as a 
 preliminary to this discussion I think it right to 
 put this question to the noble Duke, whether he 
 has the Queen's permission to make this proposition 
 to the House. (Cries of Hear, hear, and Order.) 
 
 " LORD BROUGHAM That is not in order. The 
 noble Duke is not speaking to order; but, on the 
 contrary, this is one of the most disorderly pro- 
 ceedings I ever witnessed in the whole course of my 
 experience. The question of the noble Duke is one 
 that should have been put, not as an interruption 
 to, but after the noble Duke's speech. 
 
 "THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE I wish to put the 
 question, as it affects the Act of Succession, as it 
 affects the Nation, and as it affects individuals. 
 (Cries of Order, order.) 
 
 "LoRD BROUGHAM My Lords, I rise to order. 
 I will not sit here and allow any man to deny 
 that we have a right to enter into, to continue, 
 and to close any discussion of any nature. The 
 leave of the Crown is required in one case only, 
 but may be given at any period of the discussion, 
 and that is on a measure affecting the revenues or 
 the patrimonial interests of the Crown." 
 
 The Duke of Wellington did not reply to the 
 constitutional question thus irrelevantly raised by 
 the Duke of Newcastle. On the conclusion of Lord 
 Brougham's emphatic declaration of the law on the
 
 38 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 point, he simply said : " My Lords, I will now 
 resume my speech, if your Lordships will permit 
 me." The Bill also passed through the House of 
 Lords ; and we may be sure the Queen was 
 delighted to give it the Royal Assent. 
 
 The failure of the potato crop in Ireland, in 1845, 
 forced Peel to the conclusion that the Corn Laws, 
 which he was pledged to maintain, could no longer be 
 upheld. In this momentous change of attitude he 
 had also the sympathy and support cr' the Queen. 
 On informing her of the opposition which his proposal 
 to repeal the duty on corn had aroused among his 
 colleagues, she wrote to him : 
 
 " OSBORNE, November 28///, 1845. 
 
 "The Queen is very sorry to hear that Sir Robert 
 apprehends further differences of opinion in the 
 Cabinet. At a moment of pending calamity it is 
 more than ever necessary that the Government should 
 be united. 
 
 " The Queen thinks the time is come when a 
 removal of the restrictions upon the importation of 
 food cannot be successfully resisted. 
 
 11 Should this be Sir Robert's own opinion, the 
 Queen very much hopes that none of his colleagues 
 will prevent him from doing what it is right to do." 
 
 Peel, however, finding it hopeless to conciliate his 
 divided Cabinet, resigned in December, and Lord 
 John Russell attempted to form an Administration, 
 but failed. The Duke of Wellington then carried the 
 wavering leaders of the Tory Party to the side of 
 Peel by his blunt declaration that, while he was in
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 39 
 
 favour of the Corn Laws, those laws, or any other 
 laws, were a subordinate consideration to the necessity 
 of providing the Queen with an efficient Government. 
 The Duke also placed no limit to the authority of 
 the Queen. A short time before, Lord Albemarle, 
 as Master of the Horse, claimed an official right to 
 travel in the State Coach with the Queen to prorogue 
 Parliament. Her Majesty objected, and referred the 
 question to Wellington. His reply to Albemarle was: 
 " The Queen can make you go inside the coach, or 
 outside the coach, or run behind it like a tinker's 
 dog." 
 
 On January ayth, 1846, Peel brought in a Bill for 
 the Repeal of the Corn Laws. He was fiercely 
 assailed by Disraeli as a traitor to his party, and no 
 doubt it was these bitter personal onslaughts that 
 the Queen had especially in mind when she wrote, on 
 February 4th, to Peel : " She is sure that Sir Robert 
 will be rewarded in the end by the gratitude of the 
 country. This will make up for the abuse he has to 
 endure from so many of his party." On February nth 
 she sent him another sympathetic communication. 
 " Sir Robert Peel has the confidence of the country," 
 she said, " and she need not add that he has hers, as 
 he knows that well enough." 
 
 These letters of encouragement were, of course, 
 strictly private. The Queen rarely, in the course 
 of her long reign, gave any hint to the country 
 of her personal opinion in a political crisis. Prince 
 Albert, who shared the Queen's views as to the action 
 of Peel, without showing in public the least bias, 
 went to the House of Commons, on January 27th, to 
 hear the Premier's speech. On the twelfth night of
 
 40 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the debate, Lord George Bentinck, the leader of the 
 Protectionists, thus referred to the Prince : 
 
 " I cannot but think he listened to ill advice, when, 
 on the first night of this great discussion, he allowed 
 himself to be seduced by the First Minister of the 
 Crown to come down to the House to usher in and to 
 give eclat, and, as it were, reflection from the Queen, 
 to give the semblance of a personal sanction of her 
 Majesty to a measure which, be it for good or for 
 evil, a great majority at least of the landed aris- 
 tocracy of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland, 
 imagine fraught with deep injury, if not ruin, to 
 them." 
 
 That was the last visit of Prince Albert to the 
 House of Commons. Finding that his appearance 
 in the Peers' Gallery of the Chamber was liable to 
 misinterpretation, he decided to go there no more. 
 
 Peel successfully carried his measure through 
 both Houses, and on the very day it received the 
 Royal Assent, June 26th, he was defeated in the 
 House of Commons on a Coercion Bill for Ireland, 
 by a coalition of Protectionists, Whigs, and Irish 
 Repealers. The Queen was much grieved by Peel's 
 resignation. Amid the wreck of his political party 
 and his friendships the great statesman was sustained 
 by the sympathy of his Sovereign. How completely 
 her first feelings of dislike for Peel had given way to 
 affectionate regard, is shown by a letter she wrote to 
 the King of the Belgians : 
 
 " Yesterday was a very hard day for me. I had 
 to part with Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen,
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 41 
 
 who are irreparable losses to us and to the country. 
 They were both so overcome that it quite upset 
 me ; and we have in them two devoted friends. We 
 felt so safe with them. Never during the five 
 years that they were with me did they ever recom- 
 mend a person or thing that was not for my or the 
 country's best, and never for the party's advantage 
 only." 
 
 In foreign affairs the Queen exercised, unquestioned, 
 a more direct personal influence than in home policy. 
 " Personal and domestic relations with the ruling 
 families abroad," Gladstone has written, " give 
 openings, in delicate cases, for saying more, and 
 saying it at once more gently and more efficiently, 
 than could be ventured in the more formal corre- 
 spondence and ruder contacts of Government." 
 However, all letters received by the Queen from 
 foreign potentates on matters of State, and all 
 answers to them, were submitted by her Majesty 
 to the Foreign Secretary or to the Prime Minister, 
 according to usage. In 1847 tne King of Prussia 
 wrote a private letter to the Queen on European 
 affairs, which he requested his ambassador to deliver 
 at a private audience. The communication was so 
 presented ; but by the interposition of Prince Albert 
 this irregularity was corrected. The letter was read 
 by her Majesty in the presence of the Foreign 
 Secretary, Lord Palmerston, and the reply to it was 
 approved by him. The Queen, on the other hand, 
 insisted on being fully advised of the policy of her 
 Ministers in foreign affairs, and on the terms of 
 instructions to British plenipotentiaries abroad, all
 
 42 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 official notes addressed to foreign diplomatists being 
 first submitted in draft for her approval. 
 
 Lord Palmerston was Foreign Secretary in the 
 Whig Administration, with Lord John Russell as 
 Premier, which came into office on the defeat of 
 Peel in 1846. His jauntiness and levity, his "ha-ha 
 manner," as Monckton Milnes so well described it, 
 grated on the nerves of the serious and formal 
 Prince Albert. Besides, Palmerston had an airy 
 and off-hand manner of dealing with foreign affairs 
 without consulting the Queen, or, when he did 
 consult her, of ignoring her recommendations, which 
 was in violent conflict with the views of her Majesty 
 as to the constitutional relations between the 
 Sovereign and the Foreign Secretary. On April and, 
 1850, Prince Albert, on the Queen's behalf, wrote 
 a letter to Lord John Russell, from which the 
 following is an extract : 
 
 "As a Minister, the Sovereign has a right to 
 demand from Lord Palmerston that she be made 
 thoroughly acquainted with the whole object and 
 tendency of the policy to which her consent is 
 required ; and, having given that consent, that the 
 policy be not arbitrarily altered from the original 
 line, that important steps be not concealed from 
 her, nor her name used without her sanction. In 
 all these respects Lord Palmerston has failed 
 towards her; and not from oversight or negligence, 
 but upon principle, and with astonishing pertinacity, 
 against every effort of the Queen. Besides which, 
 Lord Palmerston does not scruple to let it appear 
 in public as if the Sovereign's negligence in attending
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 43 
 
 to the papers sent to her caused delays and com- 
 plications." 
 
 Palmerston promised to mend his ways. His 
 despatches would, in future, he said, pass through 
 the hands of the Prime Minister and the Queen. 
 But, on the very next occasion, in a matter 
 affecting France, his impatience with the inter- 
 position of the Queen in foreign affairs again 
 asserted itself, and the first intimation the Queen 
 and the Prime Minister received of his action in 
 the affair was a note of complaint from the French 
 Government. " My dear Lord John," wrote Prince 
 Albert to Russell on May i5th, 1850, " both the 
 Queen and myself are exceedingly sorry at the 
 news your letter conveyed to us. We are -not sur- 
 prised, however, that Lord Palmerston's mode of 
 doing business should not be borne by a susceptible 
 French Government with the same good humour 
 and forbearance as by his colleagues." There is 
 an obvious hint to the Premier in the last sentence 
 to get rid of his masterful and obstreperous Foreign 
 Secretary. But, however Palmerston's " spirited 
 foreign policy " might be disapproved by the Court 
 and regarded with concern by his colleagues, it 
 was popular in the country, and Russell, bewildered 
 by the contentions between the Sovereign and the 
 Foreign Secretary, and vacillating as to the course 
 he should pursue, was reluctant to weaken his 
 Administration by dismissing so powerful a Minister. 
 But the Queen, who now absolutely distrusted 
 Palmerston, showed more decision of character. 
 She drew up an important memorandum, stating
 
 44 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 in clear and severe language the rules by which a 
 Foreign Secretary must be bound in his relations with 
 the Sovereign. It is as follows : 
 
 " OSBORNE, August I2th, 1850. 
 
 "With reference to the conversation about Lord 
 Palmerston, which the Queen had with Lord John 
 Russell the other day, and Lord Palmerston's dis- 
 avowal that he ever intended any disrespect to her 
 by the various neglects of which she has had so 
 long and so often to complain, she thinks it right, 
 in order to prevent any mistake for the future, to 
 explain what it is she expects from the Foreign 
 Secretary. 
 
 " She requires : 
 
 "i. That he will directly state what he proposes 
 in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as 
 distinctly to what she has given her Royal sanction. 
 
 " 2. Having once given her sanction to a measure, 
 that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the 
 Minister. Such an act she must consider as a 
 failure in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly 
 to be visited by the exercise of her Constitutional 
 right of dismissing that Minister. She expects to 
 be kept informed of what passes between him and 
 the Foreign Ministers, before important decisions 
 are taken, based upon that intercourse ; to receive 
 the foreign despatches in good time, and to have 
 the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient 
 time to make herself acquainted with their contents 
 before they must be sent off. The Queen thinks 
 it best that Lord John Russell should show this 
 letter to Lord Palmerston."
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 45 
 
 Palmerston again promised " that he would 
 punctually obey the directions contained in the 
 memorandum," as Russell informed the Queen on 
 August I3th. On that day also the Foreign 
 Secretary wrote to Prince Albert requesting an inter- 
 view, which was granted at Windsor the following 
 day. According to a long memorandum written 
 by the Prince, describing the interview, Palmerston 
 was most repentant and sorrowful in his demeanour. 
 His habitual good humour had deserted him. Not 
 a trace of his exuberant " ha-ha manner" remained. 
 " He was very much agitated," says the Prince, 
 " shook, and had tears in his eyes, so as quite to move 
 me, who never, under any circumstances, had known 
 him otherwise than with a bland smile on his face." 
 Differences of opinion as to his policy were, the 
 statesman said, natural and to be expected. " But the 
 accusation that he had been wanting in respect to 
 the Queen, whom he had every reason to respect 
 as his Sovereign, and as a woman whose virtues 
 he admired, and to whom he was bound by every 
 tie of duty and gratitude, was an imputation on 
 his honour as a gentleman, and if he could have 
 made himself guilty of it, he was almost no longer 
 fit to be tolerated in society." So argued Palmer- 
 ston, subdued and broken in spirits. The Prince 
 then proceeds : 
 
 " I purposely did not interrupt him, but when he 
 had concluded I reminded him of the innumerable 
 complaints and remonstrances which the Queen had 
 had to make these last years. 
 
 "The Queen had often I was sorry to say,
 
 46 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 latterly almost invariably differed from the line of 
 policy pursued by Lord Palmerston. She had always 
 openly stated her objections ; but when overruled by 
 the Cabinet, or convinced that it would from political 
 reasons be more prudent to waive her objection, she 
 knew her Constitutional position too well not to give 
 her full support to whatever was done on the part of 
 the Government. 
 
 11 But what she had a right to require in return 
 was, that before a line of policy was adopted or 
 brought before her for her sanction, she should be in 
 full possession of all the facts and all the motives 
 operating. She felt that in this respect she was not 
 dealt with as she ought to be. She never found a 
 matter ' intact,' nor a question in which we were not 
 already compromised, when it was submitted to her. 
 She had no means of knowing what passed in the 
 Cabinet nor what passed between Lord Palmerston 
 and the Foreign Ministers in their conferences, but 
 what Lord Palmerston chose to tell her, or what she 
 found in the newspapers." 
 
 Prince Albert adds that when he told Lord John 
 Russell of the grieved and agitated condition of 
 Palmerston during the interview, the Prime Minister 
 grimly answered, " Oh, what has passed will do a 
 great deal of good." 
 
 For a time all went well, but only for a time. On 
 December 2nd, 1851, Louis Napoleon overthrew the 
 French Republic, of which he was President, with 
 the aid of the army, and proclaimed himself Dictator. 
 The Queen regarded the coup d'etat the news of 
 which reached her at Osborne on December 4th
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 47 
 
 as an outrage on constitutional government. She at 
 once wrote the following letter to Lord John Russell, 
 enjoining strict neutrality on the part of England : 
 
 " OSBORNE, December 4th, 1851. 
 " The Queen has learnt with concern and astonish- 
 ment of the extraordinary proceedings at Paris. She 
 thinks it absolutely necessary that we should remain 
 absolutely passive, and take no part either for or 
 against what is going on. The Queen hopes, there- 
 fore, that Lord Normanby will be very cautious and 
 keep entirely aloof, for a word from him at such a 
 moment would be misconstrued." 
 
 "Your Majesty's directions," wrote the Prime 
 Minister in reply, " respecting affairs in Paris shall 
 be followed." A despatch to that effect was accord- 
 ingly sent to the Marquis of Normanby, the British 
 Ambassador at Paris ; but when he called on the 
 French Foreign Minister to state his instructions, he 
 was informed that Lord Palmerston had personally 
 expressed his approval of the coup d'etat to the 
 French Ambassador in London. The news, which 
 was at once sent home by Lord Normanby, annoyed 
 the Prime Minister and greatly angered the Queen. 
 Her Majesty forwarded the following note to Lord 
 John Russell : 
 
 " OSBORNE, December i$th, 1851. 
 
 " The Queen sends the inclosed despatch from 
 
 Lord Normanby to Lord John Russell, from which 
 
 it appears that the French Government pretend to 
 
 have received the entire approval of the late coup
 
 48 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 d'etat by the British Government as conveyed by 
 Lord Palmerston to Count Walewski. The Queen 
 cannot believe in the truth of this assertion, as such 
 an approval given by Lord Palmerston would have 
 been in complete contradiction to the line of strict 
 neutrality and passiveness which the Queen had 
 expressed her desire to see followed with regard to 
 the late convulsions at Paris, and which was approved 
 by the Cabinet, as stated in Lord John Russell's 
 letter of the 6th inst. Does Lord John know any- 
 thing about the alleged approval, which, if true, 
 would again expose the honesty and dignity of 
 the Queen's Government in the eyes of the 
 world ? " 
 
 The Prime Minister sent the Queen's note to Lord 
 Palmerston with a request for an explanation, but 
 the unrepentant and domineering Foreign Secretary 
 took no notice of it. On December i6th, the day 
 after he received this communication from his chief, 
 he, with characteristic audacity, wrote a despatch to 
 Lord Normanby, expressing in the strongest terms 
 his satisfaction at the success of the coup d'etat. This 
 despatch was not submitted either to the Prime 
 Minister or to the Queen. The long-suffering Russell 
 was at last stung to action. " I am most reluctantly 
 compelled to the conclusion," he wrote to the Foreign 
 Secretary, " that the conduct of foreign affairs can 
 no longer be left in your hands with advantage." 
 Palmerston was, accordingly, dismissed. How the 
 Queen regarded this unexpected display of decision 
 of character on the part of Lord John Russell, and 
 the good effect she expected to follow from it, is made
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 49 
 
 clear in the following interesting letter from Prince 
 Albert to the Premier : 
 
 "WINDSOR CASTLE, December 2oth, 1851. 
 
 " MY DEAR LORD JOHN, You will readily imagine 
 that the news of the sudden termination of your 
 difference with Lord Palmerston has taken us much 
 by surprise, as we were wont to see such differences 
 terminate in his carrying his points, and leaving the 
 defence of them to his colleagues and the discredit to 
 the Queen. 
 
 "It is quite clear to the Queen that we are enter- 
 ing upon most dangerous times, in which Military 
 Despotism and Red Republicanism will for some time 
 be the only Powers on the Continent, to both of which 
 the Constitutional Monarchy of England will be equally 
 hateful. That the calm influence of our institutions, 
 however, should succeed in assuaging the contest 
 abroad must be the anxious wish of every English- 
 man, and of every friend of liberty and progressive 
 civilisation. This influence has been rendered null 
 by Lord Palmerston's personal manner of conducting 
 the foreign affairs, and by the universal hatred which 
 he has excited on the Continent. That you could 
 hope to control him has long been doubted by us, 
 and its impossibility is clearly proved by the last 
 proceedings. I can, therefore, only congratulate you 
 that the opportunity of the rupture should have been 
 one on which all the right is on your side." 
 
 The Crimean War, which had drawn France and 
 England together on the battlefield as allies, led to 
 a close friendship between the Sovereigns of the 
 two countries. In a letter which Queen Victoria 
 
 p.
 
 50 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 subsequently wrote to Napoleon she thus describes in 
 a few sentences the advantages of constitutional as 
 compared with absolute monarchy : 
 
 11 Your policy runs the risk of remaining unsup- 
 ported by the Nation, and you may be exposed to the 
 dangerous alternative of either havingto impose it upon 
 them against their will, or of having suddenly to alter 
 your course abroad, or even, perhaps, to encounter 
 grave resistance. I, on the other hand, can allow my 
 policy free scope to work out its own consequences, 
 certain of the steady and consistent support of my 
 people, who, having had a share in determining my 
 policy, feel themselves to be identified with it." 
 
 Meantime, a furious storm of religious passion had 
 swept over the country. In September, 1850, Pope 
 Pius IX. issued an " apostolic letter " re-establishing 
 the Roman Catholic episcopacy in England, by appoint- 
 ing the Vicars-Apostolic, who had hitherto governed 
 that Church, bishops to sees, not identical territorially 
 with the sees filled by the hierarchy of the Church of 
 England, but freshly created; and, on October yth, 
 Dr. Wiseman, the Vicar-Apostolic of the London dis- 
 trict, who had been elevated to the " Archbishopric of 
 Westminster," with the dignity of Cardinal, issued 
 from the Eternal City his first pastoral, which he 
 grandiloquently described as " Given out of the 
 Flaminian Gate of Rome." The popular excitement 
 against " No Popery " was further inflamed by a letter 
 written by Lord John Russell to the Bishop of Dur- 
 ham, laying the blame for the advance of " Romanism " 
 on the Puseyites or Tractarians in the Church of 
 England. Protestant indignation meetings were held
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 51 
 
 all over the country, and Parliament was overwhelmed 
 with petitions calling for legislation to protect the 
 Protestant ascendency. On December loth nume- 
 rous addresses from the Corporation of London, the 
 Universities, and other important public bodies, were 
 presented to the Queen in Windsor Castle, urging 
 the most strenuous opposition on her part, as 
 Sovereign, to the Papal pretensions. " You may be 
 assured," she said in reply, " of my earnest desire and 
 firm determination, under God's blessing, to maintain 
 unimpaired the religious liberty which is justly prized 
 by the people of this country, and to uphold as its 
 surest safeguard the pure and scriptural worship of 
 the Protestant faith which has long been happily 
 established in this land." But the Queen, at the 
 same time, deplored the agitation. With keener in- 
 sight than her advisers, she saw that the dangers 
 which, in the popular mind, seemed to threaten the 
 Church of England, were hysterical exaggerations ; 
 and she saw also that the real evil to be apprehended 
 was the spreading of the spirit of religious bigotry 
 which the agitation had inevitably aroused. Her 
 aunt, the Duchess of Gloucester, congratulated her 
 on her replies to the addresses at Windsor. This her 
 Majesty answered in a private letter, from which the 
 following is an extract : 
 
 " I would never have consented to say anything 
 which breathed a spirit of intolerance. Sincerely Pro- 
 testant as I always have been and always shall be, 
 and indignant as I am at those who call themselves 
 Protestants while they are in fact quite the contrary. 
 I much regret the unchristian and intolerant spirit 
 
 2
 
 52 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 exhibited by many people at the public meetings. I 
 cannot bear to hear the violent abuse of the Catholic 
 religion, which is so painful and so cruel towards 
 the many good and innocent Roman Catholics. How- 
 ever, we must hope and trust this excitement will soon 
 cease, and that the wholesome effect of it upon our own 
 Church will be lasting." 
 
 We next see exhibited the Queen's sagacity and dis- 
 cernment in a complicated political crisis. Palmerston, 
 writing to his brother on February 24th, 1852, two 
 months after his dismissal from office, said : " I have 
 had my tit-for-tat with Johnny Russell, and I turned 
 him out on Friday last." Close on the heels of the 
 panic about Papal aggression came the more terrible 
 alarm that Napoleon III. meditated an invasion of 
 England ; and as Russell met the first terror with an 
 inoperative Bill making the assumption by the Roman 
 Catholic Bishops of their proposed English territorial 
 titles illegal, he faced the second with a nondescript 
 measure for the reorganisation of the local Militia. 
 Palmerston, dissatisfied with the Militia Bill, carried an 
 amendment to it by a majority of eleven ; and Russell, 
 regarding his defeat as a vote of want of confidence, 
 resigned. Then came for a few months a Tory 
 Administration, under the Earl of Derby, which was 
 overthrown on the Budget introduced by Disraeli, its 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. Both the Whigs and 
 Tories were at this time divided among themselves 
 by personal rivalries and political differences. The 
 Queen, in the circumstances, came to the conclusion 
 that a Coalition Government, composed of leading 
 statesmen without distinction of party, was the only
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 53 
 
 means of obtaining a stable Ministry, or a Ministry that 
 would endure through more than one Session. To 
 Lord Aberdeen, the leader of the Peelite section of the 
 Tories, she entrusted the task of forming such an 
 Administration, and at the same time she sent to 
 Lord John Russell a letter announcing her intention, 
 which thus ended: 
 
 " The Queen thinks the moment to have arrived 
 when a popular, efficient, and durable Government 
 could be formed by the sincere and united efforts of all 
 professing Conservative and Liberal opinions. The 
 Queen, knowing that this can only be effected by the 
 patriotic sacrifice of personal interests and feelings, 
 trusts that Lord John Russell will, as far as he is 
 able, give his valuable and powerful assistance to the 
 realisation of this object." 
 
 Macaulay states, in his Diary, that on December 
 2Oth, 1852, he went to Lansdowne House, on a hasty 
 summons, to find Lord Lansdowne and Lord John 
 Russell in consultation over the Queen's communica- 
 tion. " They asked me what I thought," writes 
 Macaulay. " I said that I could improve the Queen's 
 letter neither in substance nor in language, and that 
 she had expressed my sentiments to a tittle." Lord 
 Aberdeen successfully discharged the duty imposed 
 upon him. The Cabinet, which included Lord John 
 Russell as Foreign Secretary, and Lord Palmerston 
 as Home Secretary, was regarded by the Queen " as 
 the realisation of the country's and our own most 
 ardent wishes." 
 
 But much trouble was in store for the Aberdeen 
 Administration, arising out of the war which had
 
 54 PARLIAMENT/ 
 
 been declared between Russia and Turkey, and the 
 Crimean War, which, as a consequence, followed. 
 The Queen had also to endure, at this period, pro- 
 bably the severest trial, apart from domestic bereave- 
 ment, of her reign. An outcry was raised in the Press 
 against Prince Albert, as ignorant and unreasoning as 
 it was bitter. It was said that he was an influence 
 behind the Throne hostile to this country. Palmerston, 
 who, while Liberal abroad, was Conservative at home, 
 had left the Government because he disagreed with 
 a Reform Bill introduced by Lord John Russell. " The 
 great Liberal braggart, who wanted to press free 
 constitutions on every country, finds the Reform 
 Measure, which Aberdeen approves, too liberal," 
 wrote Prince Albert to his friend, Baron Stockmar, 
 at Coburg. " What mischief that man has done 
 us ! " But it was freely stated in the newspapers 
 that Palmerston had really resigned because he de- 
 tected Prince Albert in the betrayal of State secrets to 
 foreign Courts. " The stupidest trash is babbled to 
 the public," wrote the Prince to Baron Stockmar, 
 " so stupid that (as they say in Coburg) you would 
 not give it to the pigs for litter." Two London 
 morning papers actually announced that the Prince 
 had been arrested for high treason, and was about to 
 be sent to the Tower. An immense crowd assembled 
 that day at Tower Hill to see the Prince in chains 
 on his way to captivity. They were, of course, dis- 
 appointed, but there was an explanation forthcoming. 
 The Government, it was said, had relinquished their 
 intention to send the Prince to the Tower because the 
 Queen had declared her determination to share his 
 prison cell. These absurd attacks naturally gave the
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 55 
 
 deepest pain to the Queen. Writing to Lord Aber- 
 deen in January, 1854, she said : 
 
 " In attacking the Prince, who is one and the same 
 with the Queen herself, the Throne is assailed ; and 
 she must say she little expected that any portion 
 of her subjects would thus requite the unceasing 
 labours of the Prince." 
 
 On January 3ist Parliament was opened by the 
 Queen in person, and in the debate on the Address, 
 which followed, in both Houses the calumnies against 
 the Prince were completely refuted by the Ministerial 
 leaders Lord Aberdeen in the Lords, and Lord John 
 Russell in the Commons. Aberdeen in the course of 
 his speech said : 
 
 " It is true that his Royal Highness often, very 
 often generally is present in the conversations 
 which take place when her Majesty's Ministers find 
 it necessary to make representations to her Majesty 
 which it is their duty to do. I can only say that 
 I extremely regret his absence when it takes place. 
 But I appeal to noble Lords in this House, of whom 
 there are several, who have had the means of knowing, 
 of learning, of profiting by the wisdom and prudence 
 and justice of his Royal Highness I ask them to 
 say whether, in all that they have ever seen or heard, 
 a single syllable has ever been breathed that has 
 not tended to the honour, and the interest, and the 
 welfare of this country." 
 
 Lord Derby, the leader of the Opposition, concurred 
 in Lord Aberdeen's testimony to the patriotism of 
 Prince Albert. " The advice and counsel given by
 
 56 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 his Royal Highness," said he, " have been always, 
 to the best of my belief, from an enlightened con- 
 sideration of what was for the advantage of the 
 Sovereign and the public good." Lord Campbell, 
 as a constitutional lawyer, maintained the right of 
 Prince Albert, as the Consort of a female Sovereign, 
 to advise the Crown. If the advice were uncon- 
 stitutional, the Ministers had the antidote to their 
 hands by resigning. Both the Queen and Prince 
 were extremely pleased with the result. " I write to 
 you," said the Queen to Stockmar, "in the fulness of 
 joy at the triumphant refutation of the calumnies in 
 the two Houses of Parliament last night. The posi- 
 tion of my beloved lord and master has been denned 
 for once and all, and his merits have been acknow- 
 ledged on all sides most duly." The Prince wrote to 
 the same friend : "The impression has been excellent, 
 and my political status and activity, which up to 
 this time have been silently assumed, have now 
 been asserted in Parliament, and vindicated without 
 a dissentient voice." 
 
 After the declaration of war witrr Russia in 1854, 
 Lord Aberdeen, replying to a question put by Lord 
 Roden in the House of Lords, announced that it was 
 intended to appoint a day of humiliation and prayer 
 for the success of the British arms. The Queen 
 immediately wrote to the Prime Minister reminding 
 him that she had not been consulted in the matter, 
 and strongly objecting to the " day of humiliation." 
 She said : 
 
 " She thinks we have recourse to them far too 
 often, and they thereby lose all effect. Were the
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 57 
 
 services selected for those days of a different kind 
 from what they are, the Queen would feel less strongly 
 about it ; but they always select chapters from the 
 Old Testament and Psalms which are so totally 
 inapplicable that the effect such occasions ought to 
 have is entirely done away with." 
 
 Besides, as England was not to blame, she could 
 not see why England should humiliate itself. Was it 
 not all Russia's fault ? 
 
 "To say (as we probably should) that the great 
 sinfulness of the Nation has brought about this war, 
 when it is the selfishness, and ambition, and want of 
 honesty of one man and his servants which has done 
 it, while our conduct throughout has been actuated 
 by unselfishness and honesty, would be too manifestly 
 repulsive to the feelings of every one, and would 
 be a mere bit of hypocrisy. Let there be a prayer 
 expressive of our great thankfulness for the immense 
 benefits we have enjoyed, and for the immense 
 prosperity of the country, and entreating God's 
 help and protection in the coming struggle. In 
 this the Queen would join heart and soul. If there 
 is to be a day set apart, let it be for prayer in this 
 
 sense." 
 
 The "day of humiliation" was, however, appointed, 
 but though the title was not changed, the advice of the 
 Queen as to the character of the service was adopted. 
 
 As the Queen had her own private opinions with 
 respect to the varying policy and legislation of her 
 different Ministers, so, too, she had, naturally, greater 
 esteem for some of her advisers than for others.
 
 58 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 But, both as regards her rival Ministers and their 
 rival policies, she seems to have always pursued an 
 absolutely straight course. There is not the slightest 
 evidence of any intrigue to obtain her own ends, as 
 11 a consecrated Monarch by Divine right," in the 
 records of her reign. She never tried to influence the 
 judgment of the country on any political scheme or 
 proposal by publicly hinting or suggesting her own 
 individual views with regard to it ; and she never 
 endeavoured to secure a favourite Minister in office 
 by any concealed devices in the exercise of the many 
 sources of influence at her command as Queen. Her 
 aim had always been to follow the law, custom, and 
 etiquette of the Constitution, as regards both Ministers 
 and legislation, with absolute rectitude and single- 
 mindedness. She treated every one of her Ministers 
 with scrupulous courtesy. Even Lord Palmerston, 
 in the years he was Prime Minister, had never any 
 reason to complain of any manifestation of suspicion 
 or distrust in her relations with him. But, privately, 
 she did not refrain from showing the deep regret, or 
 sorrow, she felt on the departure of some of her 
 Ministers. Lord Aberdeen was one of her favourites. 
 On his resignation in 1855 he went to the Queen to 
 say farewell and kiss her hand. " To his surprise," 
 as he himself related, " when he took hold of it to 
 lift it to his lips, he found his own hand squeezed 
 with a strong and significant pressure." Her Majesty 
 also sent him a letter, from which the following is an 
 extract : 
 
 " She wishes to say what a pang it is for her to 
 separate from so kind, and dear, and valued a friend
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 59 
 
 as Lord Aberdeen has ever been to her since she has 
 known him. The day he became her Prime Minister 
 was a very happy one for her ; and throughout his 
 Ministry he has ever been the kindest and wisest 
 adviser, one to whom she could apply for advice on 
 all, and trifling occasions even. This she is sure he 
 will still ever be, but the losing him as the first 
 adviser in her Government is very painful." 
 
 After the suppression of the Indian Mutiny, the 
 horrible stories of the savage atrocities of the 
 mutineers led to a popular outcry for vengeance. 
 Lord Canning, the Governor -General of India, 
 writing privately to the Queen on September 25th, 
 1857, sa id: "There is a rabid and indiscriminate 
 vindictiveness abroad, even amongst many who 
 ought to set a better example, which it is impossible 
 to contemplate without a feeling of shame for one's 
 countrymen." To this her Majesty sent the following 
 reply : 
 
 " Lord Canning will easily believe how entirely the 
 Queen shares his feelings of sorrow and indignation 
 at the unchristian spirit shown, alas ! to a great 
 extent here by the public towards Indians in general, 
 and towards Sepoys without discrimination. It is, 
 however, not likely to last, and comes from the 
 horror produced by the unspeakable atrocities per- 
 petrated upon the innocent women and children, 
 which makes one's blood run cold and one's heart 
 bleed. For the perpetrators of these awful horrors 
 no punishment can be severe enough, and, sad as it 
 is, stern justice must be dealt out to all the guilty. 
 But to the nation at large to the peaceful inhabitants
 
 60 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 to the many kind and friendly natives who have 
 assisted us, sheltered the fugitives, and been faithful 
 and true, there should be shown the greatest kindness. 
 They should know that there is no hatred to a brown 
 skin none ; but the greatest wish on their Queen's 
 part to see them happy, contented, and flourishing." 
 
 When the Act had been passed transferring the 
 government of India from the East India Company 
 to the Crown, a Royal Proclamation was prepared 
 announcing the change in the situation and the new 
 policy to the natives. The draft of the document 
 reached the Queen while she was on her first visit to 
 the home of her newly-married daughter, the Princess 
 Royal, in Prussia. The vigorous reality of her 
 Majesty's influence in State affairs and its beneficent 
 results is shown by her action on this important 
 occasion. She declared to Lord Malmesbury, the 
 Minister in attendance, that she objected both to the 
 spirit and the language of the Proclamation, and the 
 following letter was sent by her to the Prime Minister, 
 Lord Derby : 
 
 BABELSBERG, August I5/A, 1858. 
 
 " The Queen has asked Lord Malmesbury to ex- 
 plain in detail her objections to the draft of the 
 Proclamation for India. The Queen would be glad if 
 Lord Derby would write it himself in his excellent 
 language, bearing in mind that it is a female Sovereign 
 who speaks to more than a hundred millions of 
 Eastern people on assuming the direct government of 
 them, and after a bloody war, giving them pledges 
 which her future reign is to redeem, and explaining 
 the principles of her government. Such a document
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 61 
 
 should breathe feelings of generosity, benevolence, 
 and religious toleration, and point out the privileges 
 which the Indians will receive on being placed on an 
 equality with the subjects of the British Crown, and 
 the prosperity following in the train of civilisation." 
 
 Lord Malmesbury's memorandum, which accom- 
 panied the Queen's letter, explains in more detail the 
 nature of her Majesty's objections. She especially 
 condemned the expression that she had the "power 
 of undermining " the native religions and customs ot 
 India. " Her Majesty would prefer," Lord Malmes- 
 bury goes on to say, " that the subject should be 
 introduced in a declaration in the sense that the 
 deep attachment which her Majesty feels to her own 
 religion and the comfort and happiness which she 
 derives from its consolation, will preclude her from 
 any attempt to interfere with the native religions, and 
 that her servants will be directed to act scrupulously 
 in accordance with her directions." 
 
 The Proclamation was re-written, "entirely in the 
 spirit of your Majesty's observations," as Lord Derby 
 informed the Queen. To the new document she 
 added in her own handwriting, as its last sentence, 
 the words " May the God of all power grant to us, 
 and those in authority under us, the strength to carry 
 out these our wishes for the good of our people ! " 
 The amended Proclamation gave the greatest satis- 
 faction to the Governor-General of India. " To the 
 good effect of the words in which religion is spoken of 
 in the Proclamation," he wrote, " Lord Canning looks 
 forward with very sanguine hope. It is impossible 
 that the justice, charity and kindliness, as well as the
 
 62 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 true wisdom which mark these words, should not be 
 appreciated." 
 
 The Queen always used her powerful influence on 
 behalf of peace and goodwill between nations. On 
 one notable occasion the tact and discretion of her 
 Majesty and the Prince Consort averted the terrible 
 calamity of a war between Great Britain and the 
 United States. In November, 1861, during the 
 American Civil War, the British mail steamer Trent 
 was boarded by the San Jacinto, a vessel of the 
 Federal Navy, and Slidell and Mason, delegates from 
 the revolted Southern States, who were on their way 
 to England, were seized. The news of the outrage 
 aroused the greatest indignation in England, and the 
 Palmerston Administration, then in office, at once 
 decided to send an ultimatum to the United States 
 Government demanding the prompt release of the 
 envoys. The despatch was, in the usual course, sub- 
 mitted for approval to the Queen. Her Majesty, 
 shocked at the idea of the possibility of a war with 
 America, took the despatch to the apartment of the 
 Prince Consort, who was lying sick unto death, and 
 asked him to soften down its dictatorial and menacing 
 expressions. It was the last time the Prince used his 
 busy pen in the service of the State. As he gave the 
 memorandum he prepared for the Cabinet to the 
 Queen, between seven and eight o'clock on the morning 
 of December ist,he said: " I am so weak I could hardly 
 hold the pen." A facsimile of the document was 
 subsequently published. It shows that in turn it was 
 corrected by the Queen. The Prince, for instance, 
 had written of the subject of the despatch as " a 
 quarrel," which expression the Queen struck out and
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 63 
 
 substituted " a question of dispute." The despatch, 
 thus modified in spirit and language, was sent to the 
 British Ambassador at Washington for presentation. 
 " Everything will depend on the tone of it," said 
 Seward, the Secretary of State, as he received the 
 document from Lord Lyons. Happily it was in such 
 a form that a pacific settlement of the dispute was 
 soon arranged. 
 
 When the final solution of the affair was communi- 
 cated to the Queen, on January 6th, 1862, about three 
 weeks after the death of the Prince Consort, her 
 Majesty wrote to the Prime Minister : 
 
 " Lord Palmerston cannot but look on this peaceful 
 issue of the American quarrel as greatly owing to 
 her beloved Prince, who wrote the observations on 
 the draft to Lord Lyons in which Lord Palmerston 
 so entirely concurred. It was the last thing he ever 
 wrote." 
 
 The Prime Minister replied : 
 
 "There can be no doubt that the alteration made 
 in the despatch to Lord Lyons contributed essentially 
 to the satisfactory settlement of the dispute. Those 
 alterations were only one of innumerable instances 
 of the tact and judgment, and the power of nice 
 discrimination, which excited Lord Palmerston's 
 constant and unbounded admiration." 
 
 The death ol the Prince Consort changed the 
 current of the Queen's lite, to the extent that she 
 retired from society, and shunned, as far as possible, 
 the pomp and pageantry associated with her exalted 
 position on her rare appearances in public. But
 
 64 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 though deprived of the advice and aid of Prince 
 Albert in the discharge of her constitutional duties, 
 her Majesty's attention to State affairs continued 
 to be unremitting, and her opinions and actions 
 were guided by the same political wisdom. The 
 Queen conscientiously disapproved the disestablish- 
 ment of the Irish Church. Besides, the fifth article 
 of the Act of Union between Great Britain and 
 Ireland enacted that the " continuance and pre- 
 servation " of the Established Church in Ireland 
 *' shall be deemed and be taken to be an essential 
 and fundamental part of the Union" which was 
 expressly intended by the promoters of that measure 
 to bind the action of future Parliaments and in 
 her Coronation Oath her Majesty had sworn to 
 uphold the Establishment in Ireland. But in the 
 grave political crisis which arose on Gladstone 
 laying his scheme before Parliament her Majesty 
 exhibited, in a most striking manner, a well- 
 balanced mind, which enabled her to preserve her 
 equanimity when her Prime Minister adopted a 
 policy to which she was personally opposed ; and 
 a recognition of her duty as a Constitutional 
 Sovereign to use her influence to moderate the 
 violence of party passions, and secure that the will 
 of the majority of her people, as expressed by her 
 advisers, should prevail, however distasteful to her- 
 self personally, and however seemingly opposed to 
 Coronation Oath and Parliamentary enactments. 
 
 In the General Election of 1868, the country, by 
 returning Gladstone to power, with a majority of 
 from no to 120, declared for the disestablishment 
 of the Church of Ireland. The new Parliament
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 65 
 
 opened on February i6th, 1869. On that morning 
 Dr. Tait, the Archbishop of Canterbury, received 
 the following autograph letter from her Majesty : 
 
 " OSBORNE, i$th February, 1869. 
 " The Queen must write a few lines to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury on the subject of the 
 Irish Church, which makes her very anxious. The 
 Queen has seen Mr. Gladstone, who shows the 
 most conciliatory disposition. He seems to be 
 really moderate in his views, and anxious, as far 
 as he can properly and consistently do so, to meet 
 the objections of those who would maintain the 
 Irish Church. He at once assured the Queen of 
 his readiness indeed, his anxiety to meet the 
 Archbishop, and to communicate freely with him 
 on the subject of this important question, and the 
 Queen must express her earnest hope that the 
 Archbishop will meet him in the same spirit. The 
 Government can do nothing that would tend to 
 raise a suspicion of their sincerity in proposing to 
 disestablish the Irish Church and to withdraw all 
 State endowments from all religious communions 
 in Ireland ; but were these conditions accepted, all 
 other matters connected with the question might, 
 the Queen thinks, become the subject of discussion 
 and negotiation. The Archbishop had best now 
 communicate with Mr. Gladstone direct as to where 
 he can see him." 
 
 An interview between the Archbishop and the 
 Prime Minister accordingly took place at Lambeth 
 Palace ; and Dr. Tait found that Gladstone's pro- 
 posed policy with regard to the Irish Church was
 
 66 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 in practical accord with the conditions which in 
 the opinion of his Grace should accompany the 
 proposed disestablishment. The Bill was introduced 
 in the House of Commons. It passed triumphantly 
 through all its stages in that Chamber before the 
 end of May. Then arose the question, " What will 
 the Lords do ? " A dangerous struggle between 
 the two Houses seemed impending. What the 
 Queen thought the Peers ought to do is set forth 
 in the following most interesting letter which she 
 sent, through her Secretary, General Grey, to 
 Archbishop Tait : 
 
 " BALMORAL, June ^th, 1869. 
 
 " MY DEAR LORD ARCHBISHOP, I write to your 
 Grace by the Queen's command. You must be 
 well aware from your former communication with 
 her Majesty on the subject, of the great anxiety 
 which the question of the Irish Church causes her, 
 and will therefore not wonder at her desire to learn 
 what your Grace thinks of the prospect of the 
 question being settled during the progress through 
 the House of Lords of the Bill which has just been 
 sent up from the House of Commons. 
 
 " Mr. Gladstone is not ignorant (indeed the Queen 
 has never concealed her feelings on the subject) 
 how deeply her Majesty deplores the necessity 
 under which he has conceived himself to lie of 
 raising the question as he has done, or of the 
 apprehensions of which she cannot divest herself 
 as to the possible consequences of the measure 
 which he has introduced. These apprehensions her 
 Majesty is bound to say still exist in full force.
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 67 
 
 But considering the circumstances under which the 
 measure has come to the House of Lords, the 
 Queen cannot regard without the greatest alarm 
 the probable effect of its absolute rejection in that 
 House. 
 
 " Carried as it has been by an overwhelming and 
 steady majority through a House of Commons chosen 
 expressly to speak the feeling of the country on the 
 question, there~ seems no reason to believe that any 
 fresh appeal to the people could lead to a different 
 result. 
 
 " The rejection of the Bill, therefore, on the 
 second reading would only serve to bring the two 
 Houses into collision and to prolong a dangerous 
 agitation of the subject, while it would further tend 
 to increase the difficulty of ultimately obtaining a 
 measure so modified as to remove, or at least to 
 mitigate, the fears of those who are conscientiously 
 opposed to the present Bill as it stands. 
 
 " Her Majesty was consequently glad to hear, 
 though she knows not whether it was on very good 
 authority, that the leaders of the Opposition are 
 disposed to advise acquiescence in the second read- 
 ing rather than incur the greater dangers to which 
 I have alluded, in the hope of being able in 
 Committee to amend the Bill so as to make the 
 measure less objectionable. 
 
 " The Queen well knows how anxious your Grace 
 must be to assist in bringing about a settlement 
 f the question, if not altogether such as you 
 would have desired, at least the best possible under 
 the circumstances, and she feels sure, therefore, that 
 the great influence of your genius, high character, 
 
 F 2
 
 68 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 and station, will be used on the side of prudence 
 and moderation. Her Majesty desires me to add 
 that she will be very glad to receive any com- 
 munication which you may think is desirable to 
 address to her direct. I remain, my dear Lord, 
 your Grace's very faithful servant, 
 
 "C. GREY." 
 
 Through the skilful diplomacy of the Primate these 
 prudent counsels prevailed ; and the second reading, 
 on June i8th, was carried by 179 votes against 146, 
 or a majority of 33. But the Peers were determined 
 to secure by amendments, in the Committee stage, a 
 larger and better provision for the disestablished Irish 
 Church than the Bill proposed. The measure, indeed, 
 seemed still in danger of being wrecked in the Upper 
 Chamber. " The friends of the Irish Church," wrote 
 Archbishop Tait to the Queen on July 8th, " feel that 
 they cannot allow the Church to be despoiled beyond 
 the point thus indicated ; and that it would be wiser to 
 take the chance of another year of agitation, however 
 undesirable, than yield beyond this point." To this 
 communication the Queen replied on July nth in the 
 following autograph letter, urging a more conciliatory 
 attitude on the part of the Peers : 
 
 " The Queen thanks the Archbishop very much for 
 his letter. She is very sensible of the prudence, and 
 at the same time anxiety, for the welfare of the Irish 
 Establishment which the Archbishop has manifested 
 in his conduct throughout the debates, and she will be 
 very glad if the amendments which have been adopted 
 at his suggestion lead to the settlement of the question; 
 but to effect this, concessions, the Queen believes, will
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 69 
 
 still have to be made on both sides. The Queen 
 must say that she cannot view without alarm the pos- 
 sible consequences of another year of agitation on the 
 Irish Church, and she would ask the Archbishop 
 seriously to consider, in case the concessions to which 
 the Government may agree should not go so far as he 
 may himself wish, whether the postponement of the 
 settlement for another year would not be likely to 
 result in worse rather than in better terms for the 
 Church. The Queen trusts therefore that the Arch- 
 bishop will himself consider, and, as far as he can, 
 endeavour to induce others to consider, any conces- 
 sions that may be offered by the House of Commons 
 in the most conciliatory spirit." 
 
 So in the matter of amendments in Committee, also, 
 moderation prevailed. On Thursday, July 22nd, 
 1869, the Bill was safe in harbour. " We have made 
 the best terms we could," the Primate wrote in his 
 diary when the struggle was over ; " and thanks to the 
 Queen a collision between the two Houses has been 
 averted." Such a conflict, with the firm and deliberate 
 determination of the people on the subject of dis- 
 establishment and disendowment, would have led to a 
 grave constitutional crisis. 
 
 During the reign of Queen Victoria it was con- 
 stitutionally established that the Prerogative of the 
 Crown gives to the Ministry large executive powers 
 free of the control of Parliament. A striking illustra- 
 tion of the exercise of these powers is afforded by the 
 manner in which purchase of commissions in the 
 Army was abolished. In 1871 the House of Lords 
 rejected a clause abolishing purchase from the Army
 
 70 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Regulation Bill introduced by the Liberal Govern- 
 ment. On July 2Oth, three days after this action by 
 the Lords, Gladstone, the Prime Minister, made the 
 following momentous statement in the House of 
 Commons : 
 
 " The Government have resolved to advise her 
 Majesty to take the decisive step of cancelling the 
 Royal Warrant under which purchase was legal. 
 That advice has been accepted and acted upon by her 
 Majesty. A new Warrant has been framed in terms 
 conformable with the law ; and it is my duty on the 
 part of the Government to state that at the present 
 moment purchase in the Army no longer exists." 
 
 Purchase of commissions in the Army was legalised 
 by Royal Warrant, and by the withdrawal of that 
 Royal Warrant the statute which prohibits the sale of 
 offices under the Crown was extended to positions in 
 the Army. The Lords declared by 162 votes to 82, or 
 a majority of 80, that this exercise of the Royal Pre- 
 rogative " is calculated to depreciate and neutralise 
 the independent action of the Legislature, and is 
 strongly to be condemned," a vote of censure, not, 
 of course, upon the Queen, but upon the Ministers 
 by whose advice her Majesty had acted. 
 
 The " Life of the Right Hon. Hugh Childers," by 
 his son, Lieut. -Col. Spencer Childers, throws light on 
 the active interest of the Queen in Navy and Army 
 questions. Childers was First Lord of the Admiralty 
 in Gladstone's Administration in 1869. At that time 
 there was a rule in the Navy that the men should 
 shave clean or grow whiskers only. In March, 1869, 
 the Queen suggested to Childers the necessity for a
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 71 
 
 modification of the rule, on the ground of the difficulty 
 and inconvenience of the operation of shaving at sea. 
 Accompanying the communication was a letter in 
 support of the suggestion from Prince Leiningen, the 
 captain of the Royal yacht. " There is," he wrote, 
 " more bad language made use of during the quarter 
 of an hour devoted to shaving than during any other 
 part of the day." The reason was not far to seek. 
 The face of Jack, after hours of duty on deck, became 
 as hard as iron. A bad razor, a small bit of broken 
 looking-glass about the size of half-a-crown, very 
 often a wet deck to stand on, the ship all the while 
 rolling or pitching heavily. " Such," added Prince 
 Leiningen, " are the difficulties under which the 
 British seaman shaves." In the June following the 
 Queen again wrote: " Has Mr. Childers ascertained 
 anything on the subject of beards ? The old officers 
 will certainly be against it. It should be referred to 
 those now serving and who look to the comforts of the 
 men more than formerly." But even the naval 
 officers on service proved to be opponents of the 
 suggested modification of the rule with regard to 
 shaving. Childers consulted all the admirals in com- 
 mand, and all the naval members of the Board of 
 Admiralty, and all, with two exceptions, objected to 
 the growing of beards in the Navy. The First Lord, 
 however, decided to issue an Order in conformity with 
 the Queen's wishes. On submitting it to her Majesty 
 for approval he received the following letter, dated 
 June 1 7th, 1869 : 
 
 " The Queen thanks Mr. Childers very much for 
 his communication on the subject of beards. She
 
 72 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 thinks the Order will do extremely well. Her own 
 personal feeling would be for the beards without 
 the moustaches, as the latter have rather a soldier- 
 like appearance ; but then the object in view would 
 not be obtained, viz., to prevent the necessity for shav- 
 ing. Therefore, it had better be as proposed, the entire 
 beard, only it should be kept short and very clean." 
 
 Her Majesty, evidently, was determined to secure 
 to the Army the copyright in the moustache. On 
 June 25th she wrote : " The Queen wishes to 
 make one additional observation respecting the 
 beards, viz., that on no account should moustaches 
 be allowed without the beards. That must be clearly 
 understood." 
 
 In 1880, when the Liberals were again returned 
 to power, Childers was appointed, by Gladstone, 
 Secretary of State for War. In the previous 
 Session the last of the Conservative Parliament 
 flogging in the Army was abolished, except on 
 active service. Feeling in the new Parliament was 
 against corporal punishment under any circumstances; 
 and on that point her Majesty thus conveyed her 
 views to the Secretary of War, through Sir Henry 
 Ponsonby : 
 
 " The Queen commands me to let you know 
 that I have by her Majesty's command communi- 
 cated to Mr. Gladstone the Queen's hope that 
 officers on service may not be deprived of the only 
 power they possess of keeping young troops in 
 order, viz., by inflicting corporal punishment in the 
 extreme cases of cowardice, treachery, plundering, or 
 neglect of duty on sentry.
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 73 
 
 " The Queen hates the system of flogging, but sees 
 no alternative in extreme cases on active service. 
 
 " Her Majesty trusts you will listen to the opinion 
 of officers recently returned from the war." 
 
 Childers replied that it would be impossible to 
 maintain the Regulation with respect to flogging 
 against the opinion of the House of Commons. The 
 Queen accepted the position without further comment. 
 
 At that time a scheme of Army Reform was in 
 contemplation. Her Majesty's anxiety to have the 
 opportunity of expressing her opinions with respect to 
 the proposals is seen in the following letter, written 
 at Balmoral, in September, 1880, on learning that the 
 Secretary of State for War was unable, owing to illness, 
 to obey the command to act as Minister in attendance : 
 
 " The Queen regrets being deprived of the plea- 
 sure of seeing you here, and is also sorry at missing 
 the opportunity of discussing personally with you 
 the plans you are considering for the Army. Her 
 Majesty hopes you will keep her well informed of 
 what you think of doing, and that you will give 
 her the power of communicating on any proposals 
 before they are matured." 
 
 Gladstone was never an especial favourite at 
 Court. An absurd story was current some years 
 ago that he was habitually uncivil to the Queen. 
 It was also said that he talked to her Majesty 
 as if she were a public meeting. As a matter of 
 fact, no statesman more fully recognised the dignity 
 and influence of the Sovereign's position. " Though 
 decisions must ultimately conform to the sense of 
 those who are to be responsible for them, yet their
 
 74 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 business is to inform and persuade the Sovereign, not 
 to overrule him," he has said. He has also written: 
 "There is no doubt that the aggregate of direct 
 influence normally exercised by the Sovereign upon 
 the counsels and proceedings of her Ministers is 
 considerable in amount, tends to permanence and 
 solidity of action, and confers much benefit on the 
 country, without in the smallest degree relieving 
 the advisers of the Crown from individual responsi- 
 bility." His devotion to the person of the Queen 
 was also unbounded. " I have no small talk and 
 Peel has no manners," said the Duke of Wellington, 
 ruefully speculating, after the fall of Melbourne, on 
 the impression he and his colleagues would make 
 upon the young Queen. Gladstone had manners, 
 and exuberant powers of conversation, but no small 
 talk, and it may have been that while his demeanour 
 towards the Queen was perfect, the abstruse subjects 
 which he generally delighted in discussing perplexed 
 her Majesty and made his presence oppressive or 
 uncomfortable. It was not, however, his personal 
 qualities, but his political schemes that displeased the 
 Queen. She distrusted the domestic policy of Glad- 
 stone as much as Palmerston's intervention in foreign 
 affairs. Disraeli, for whom her Majesty entertained 
 the deepest antipathy, in the days of his merciless 
 attacks upon Peel, for whom she sent with reluct- 
 ance and misgiving when he was first designated by 
 the decision of the electorate as her chief adviser, 
 became, of all her ten Prime Ministers, her Majesty's 
 greatest favourite. For his death she mourned with 
 the deepest sorrow. On April 3Oth, 1881, four days 
 after the interment of the Earl of Beaconsfield in
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 75 
 
 Hughenden churchyard, the Queen paid a private 
 visit to his tomb, to lay a wreath and cross upon 
 his coffin, and take her last farewell of her devoted 
 adviser. Her Majesty also erected a memorial tablet 
 to the Earl on the wall of Hughenden Church. 
 The inscription, which she herself wrote, runs : 
 " To the dear and honoured memory of Benjamin, 
 Earl of Beaconsfield, this memorial is placed by his 
 grateful and affectionate Sovereign and friend, Victoria, 
 R.I. 'Kings love him that speaketh right' Prov. 
 xvi. 13." Disraeli, it is said, always deferred to 
 the opinion of the Queen in affairs of State. He 
 unquestionably desired to exalt the influence of the 
 Sovereign. " I am grieved, and greatly, that any- 
 thing I should say, or do, should be displeasing to 
 her Majesty," he wrote in an interesting letter to 
 a lady at Court, in September, 1879. " I love the 
 Queen perhaps the only person left to me in this 
 world that I do love ; and therefore you can under- 
 stand how much it worries and disquiets me when 
 there is a cloud between us. It is very foolish on my 
 part, but my heart, unfortunately, has not withered 
 like my frame, and when it is affected I am as 
 harassed as I was fifty years ago. I received the 
 Queen's letter yesterday, and wrote to her Majesty 
 last night. I wish to see the Queen dictatress of 
 Europe ; many things are preparing which for the 
 sake of peace and civilisation render it most necessary 
 that her Majesty should occupy that position. This 
 unhappy African war has much interfered with my 
 plans, and therefore some sense of annoyance on my 
 part may be understood and perhaps pardoned." But, 
 no doubt, his popularity at Court was due as much
 
 76 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 to the policies and schemes of his great political 
 rival, as to his own qualities as a courtier. 
 
 Queen Victoria in the exercise of her duties as a 
 constitutional Sovereign exhibited a complete detach- 
 ment from political partisanship. She had the precious 
 gift of being able to keep her personal wishes and 
 opinions, her likes and dislikes inevitable in the 
 Sovereign as in the humblest subject under the con- 
 trol of a well-balanced reason in the practical con- 
 duct of government. But if ever her perfect judgment, 
 tact, and serenity failed her, it was in one or two of 
 her public utterances which referred indirectly to the 
 policy, legislative schemes, or actions of Gladstone. 
 The silence which is imposed upon the Sovereign 
 by the law and custom of the Constitution must 
 sometimes prove exceedingly trying and irksome, 
 especially when things go wrong which might have 
 gone well if advice given by the Sovereign had been 
 followed by the Ministers. The nation was profoundly 
 moved, early in February, 1885, by the news of 
 the death of General Gordon at Khartoum, which 
 for ten months he had held against the siege of 
 the Mahdi. Sir Charles Wilson, with a relief force, 
 arrived within sight of the town on January 28th, to 
 find himself two days too late, for on the 26th 
 a traitor had opened the gates to the Mahdi, and 
 all was over. The Government, of whom Glad- 
 stone was the head, was blamed for the death of 
 Gordon, because of their dilatoriness in sending out 
 the relief expedition ; and in the height of the popular 
 outcry against them the Queen, stirred by the tragedy 
 and pathos of Gordon's end, wrote to his sister a letter 
 of deep womanly sympathy, and womanly also in its
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 77 
 
 impulsive and passionate attack upon the Government, 
 which was immediately made public : 
 
 " OSBORNE, February ijth, 1885. 
 
 " DEAR Miss GORDON, How shall I write to you, 
 or how shall I attempt to express what I feel ? To 
 think of your dear, noble, heroic brother, who served 
 his country and his Queen so truly, so heroically, with 
 a self-sacrifice so edifying to the world, not having 
 been rescued ! That the promises of support were 
 not fulfilled which I so frequently and constantly 
 pressed on those who asked him to go is to me grief 
 inexpressible ! Indeed, it has made me ill. My heart 
 bleeds for you, his sister, who have gone through so 
 many anxieties on his account, and who loved the 
 dear brother as he deserved to be. You are all so 
 good and trustful, and have such strong faith that 
 you will be sustained even now, when real, absolute 
 evidence of your dear brother's death does not exist 
 but I fear there cannot be much doubt of it. Some day 
 I hope to see you again to tell you all I cannot express. 
 My daughter Beatrice, who has felt quite as I do, 
 wishes me to express her deepest sympathy from 
 abroad ; from my eldest daughter, the Crown Princess, 
 and from my cousin, the King of the Belgians, the 
 very warmest. Would you express to your other 
 sisters and your elder brother my true sympathy, 
 and what I do so keenly feel the stain left upon 
 England for your dear brother's cruel, though heroic, 
 fate. 
 
 " Ever, dear Miss Gordon, yours sincerely and 
 sympathisingly, 
 
 "V. R. I."
 
 78 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Again, on the death of W. E. Forster, the Queen 
 sent his widow a gracious and kindly letter of condo- 
 lence, which contained expressions indirectly bearing 
 upon Forster's quarrel with Gladstone on the Irish 
 policy of the Liberal Government of 1880-5, and 
 especially upon the question of Home Rule, which at 
 the time occupied the public mind. Forster died on 
 April 5th, 1886. The Queen, writing to the widow of the 
 dead statesman on the 7th the day before Gladstone 
 explained the clauses of his Home Rule Bill to the 
 House of Commons said in a letter intended, of 
 course, for publication in the newspapers : 
 
 " I purposely delayed writing at once to you, not 
 wishing to intrude on your overwhelming grief for the 
 loss of such a husband, so good and so devoted, 
 fearing to add to the weight of your affliction ; but 
 to-day I trust I may venture to express not only the 
 deep sympathy I feel for you, but also the true and 
 sincere concern I feel at the loss of one for whom I 
 had the greatest regard and respect, and who served 
 his Queen and country bravely, truly, and loyally. 
 We can ill afford to lose so honest, so useful and 
 courageous a statesman as he was, in these days, 
 and his public loss is very great." 
 
 This veiled reference to the Home Rule controversy 
 was the only public manifestation of the Queen's 
 feelings on the question during the heated discussions 
 and party and personal recriminations of the year 
 1886. But since then evidence has come to light of 
 her Majesty's deep-seated hostility to Home Rule. 
 In the biography of Lord Tennyson are letters which 
 passed privately between the Queen and the Poet
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 79 
 
 Laureate, containing significant allusions to the 
 question. The Queen, writing from Osborne on 
 April i6th, 1886, to Lord Tennyson, expressed her 
 sympathy with him in the illness of his son, who 
 subsequently died in India. " I cannot in this letter 
 allude to politics," she added, " but I know what 
 your feelings must be." The Poet Laureate in his 
 reply said : " Our latest telegram was from Colombo, 
 1 No improvement ' ; but in this pause, as it were, 
 between life and death, since your Majesty touches 
 upon the disastrous policy of the day, I may say that 
 I wish I may be in my grave beyond sight and 
 hearing when an English army fire upon the loyalists 
 of Ulster." But as early as 1882 the Queen was 
 apprehensive that Gladstone intended to adopt the 
 policy of Home Rule. Mr. Barry O'Brien, in his 
 " Life of Parnell," publishes an interview he had 
 with Gladstone on the subject of his relations with 
 the leader of the Nationalists. In reply to a question 
 as to when he first directed his attention to Home 
 Rule, Gladstone said : " You will see by a speech 
 which I made on the Address in 1882 that I then 
 had the subject in my mind. I said then that a 
 system of Local Government for Ireland should differ 
 in some important respects from any system of Local 
 Government introduced in England or Scotland. 
 Plunket got up immediately, and said that I meant 
 Home Rule. But I am bound to say that Gibson 
 followed, and said that he did not put that construc- 
 tion upon my words. Well, I had to send an account 
 of that speech to the Queen, and it led to a corre- 
 spondence between us. More than this I cannot say 
 on the subject." But in these few words Gladstone
 
 8o PARLIAMENT. 
 
 said enough to make it clear that the Queen gave the 
 same interpretation to his language as Mr. David 
 Plunket, and that her Majesty wrote to her Prime 
 Minister, as, constitutionally, she had every right to 
 do, that she disapproved of Home Rule. 
 
 As a further illustration of the Queen's attitude 
 towards Gladstone, it is instructive to contrast her 
 message of condolence to Mrs. Gladstone with the 
 letter of the same nature which she sent to Mrs. 
 Forster. On May a8th, 1898, the day Gladstone was 
 buried in Westminster Abbey, his widow received the 
 following telegram from the Queen at Balmoral : 
 
 "My thoughts are much with you to-day, when 
 your dear husband is laid to rest. To-day's ceremony 
 will be most trying and painful to you ; but it will be 
 at the same time gratifying to you to see the respect 
 and regret evinced by the Nation for the memory ot 
 one whose character and intellectual abilities marked 
 him as one of the most distinguished statesmen of 
 my reign. I shall ever gratefully remember his 
 devotion and zeal in all that concerned my personal 
 welfare and that of my family." 
 
 It will be noticed that while words of deep and 
 heartfelt condolence and sympathy are there, no 
 tribute is paid, as in the case of Forster, to the dead 
 statesman's services to his country. 
 
 There may be in the Queen's letter to Miss Gordon 
 expressions which perhaps it was indiscreet for a 
 constitutional Sovereign to utter with regard to the 
 statesmen chosen to advise her by the nation. But 
 though there must have been numbers of Acts of 
 Parliament passed, and many policies adopted, in the
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 81 
 
 course of her long reign, to which the Queen was 
 utterly opposed, or which she did not entirely 
 approve, she never publicly entered into the combat 
 of politics, and never, so far as is known, tried to 
 gain her ends by the secret and subtle influences of 
 the Court. We learn from her private letters, set 
 forth in this chapter, that she argued out with her 
 Ministers questions with which she was out of 
 sympathy ; that she tried to turn them, by her advice 
 and guidance, from policies she thought mistaken or 
 ill-advised. She sometimes, as we have seen, had 
 her way. But that was ever the limit to the exer- 
 cise of that boundless personal influence, which she 
 naturally had at command as a Sovereign of un- 
 exampled experience and prestige. She bowed to 
 the will of her Ministers, when she saw they were 
 determined to persevere with their policy, and how- 
 ever she might disagree with it, loyally aided them 
 as in the case of the disestablishment and disendow- 
 ment of the Irish Church in giving it legislative 
 effect. 
 
 Lord Salisbury in the course of a eulogy on the 
 Queen's career and character, delivered in the House 
 of Lords on the occasion of her death, said : 
 
 " She always maintained and practised a rigorous 
 supervision over public affairs, giving to her Ministers 
 her frank advice, and warning them of danger if she 
 saw there was danger ahead ; and she certainly im- 
 pressed many of us with a profound sense of the 
 penetration, almost intuition, with which she saw the 
 perils with which we might be threatened, in any 
 course it was thought expedient to adopt. She left 
 p. G
 
 82 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 upon my mind, she left upon our minds, the convic- 
 tion that it was always a dangerous matter to press 
 on her any course of the expediency of which she was 
 not thoroughly convinced ; and I may say with 
 confidence that no Minister in her long reign ever 
 disregarded her advice, or pressed her to disregard it, 
 without afterwards feeling that he had incurred a 
 dangerous responsibility. She had an extraordinary 
 knowledge of what her people would think. I have 
 said for years that I always thought that when I knew 
 what the Queen thought I knew certainly what view 
 her subjects would take, and especially the middle 
 classes of her subjects. Such was the extraordinary 
 penetration of her mind. Yet she never adhered to 
 her own conceptions obstinately. On the contrary 
 she was full of concession and consideration ; and she 
 spared no effort I might almost say she shrank from 
 no sacrifice to make the task of conducting this 
 difficult Government more easy to her advisers than 
 it would otherwise have been." 
 
 Queen Victoria's guiding principle from the open- 
 ing of her reign to its close was to do her duty as a 
 constitutional Sovereign ; and such is the enduring 
 force of the example she set in that respect, that in a 
 country so swayed as this is by precedent, there can 
 never again be a return to even the modified personal 
 rule of the Georges. But if the Throne has declined 
 in political power though, as I think I have shown, 
 the legitimate influence and authority of the Sovereign, 
 constitutionally exercised in affairs of State, is still 
 very great the Throne during the reign of Queen 
 Victoria has enormously increased in popularity. The
 
 OUR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 83 
 
 Monarchy is stronger than it has ever been, despite 
 the immense developments of democracy within the 
 last fifty years. It was under a cloud at the opening 
 of Victoria's reign. Even that astute statesman, Sir 
 Robert Peel, was of opinion in 1830, when William 
 IV. ascended the Throne, that the Monarchy could 
 last only five or six years longer. It is now firmly 
 rooted in the devotion of its subjects. 
 
 G 2
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 How EDWARD VII. OPENED HIS FIRST PARLIAMENT. 
 
 WESTMINSTER has been the seat of Parliament for 
 six centuries indeed, ever since the first of the Kings 
 Edward, " the great law-giver," called together an 
 assembly of the magnates and wise men of the Realm 
 in 1295 and the scene enacted there on Thursday, 
 February I4th, 1901, when Edward the Seventh, 
 accompanied by Queen Alexandra, opened the first 
 Parliament of his reign the first Parliament also of 
 the twentieth century with all the pomp and cir- 
 cumstance of full State ceremonial, will long endure 
 among the many great historic memories which 
 cluster round the place. 
 
 There was a sharp sting of frost in the air, and a 
 slight fog partially blurred the towers and spires and 
 pinnacles of the Palace of Westminster, but did not 
 detract from the imposing and picturesque stateliness 
 of the noble building by the waters of the Thames, 
 as, about 11.30 o'clock that morning, I passed over 
 Westminster Bridge to witness the pageant for this 
 is the only word that adequately describes the cere- 
 mony which was about to take place in the House 
 of Lords. Traffic was stopped, but there was bustle 
 and animation, nevertheless. An immense crowd 
 was already gathering at that early hour to see the
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 85 
 
 Royal procession, which was not due until two o'clock. 
 King Edward and Queen Alexandra were to drive in 
 full state in the ornate State coach, which had not 
 been seen in public for many years, attended by the 
 ladies and lords of the Royal Household in carriages, 
 and escorted by mounted Life Guards, and the 
 Yeomen of the Guard, on foot, in their Tudor garb 
 from Buckingham Palace, through the Mall, the 
 Horse Guards' Parade, Whitehall and Parliament 
 Street, to the Palace of Westminster. Foot Guards 
 kept the line of route. The newly-formed Irish 
 Guards were stationed about the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment the place of honour and tall, well-set-up, 
 soldierly young fellows they looked in their big bear- 
 skins with hackles of St. Patrick's blue. 
 
 The House of Lords was not to be opened until 
 twelve o'clock. At a quarter to the hour there 
 was a crowd of peers and peeresses (with some 
 journalists) around the portals of the building in 
 Old Palace Yard, close to the huge equestrian statue 
 of Richard the Lion-hearted. The wind, with its 
 keen touch of frost, blew chillily across the wide 
 space between the Palace of Westminster and West- 
 minster Abbey. The peers, clad in heavy, fur-lined 
 overcoats carrying, many of them, portmanteaus 
 and jewel-cases containing their robes and decora- 
 tions probably did not feel the cold. But for the 
 peeresses it must have been a most uncomfortable and 
 tiresome quarter of an hour. They wore the low- 
 cut bodices prescribed for the occasion ; over their 
 bare shoulders were flung fur wraps, while their heads 
 were uncovered save for their coronets and tiaras of 
 pearls and diamonds. " My feet feel like two lumps
 
 86 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 of ice," I heard one lady say to another, as she 
 stamped about in her thin, white satin slippers to 
 obtain a little warmth. 
 
 At last twelve o'clock came. The four quarters of Big 
 Ben rang out with the well-known air of the refrain 
 
 " Lord, through this hour, 
 
 Be Thou our Guide, 
 So by Thy power 
 No foot shall slide." 
 
 i 
 
 The doors were flung open, and we passed from the 
 haze and the frost into the warm interior, bright with 
 electric lights. Our tickets were closely scrutinised 
 by two of the King's Marshals, picturesque-looking 
 fellows in vivid scarlet-and-gold doublets and white 
 plush knee-breeches and beaver shakoes. Then we 
 proceeded peeresses, peers, and journalists through 
 long corridors, and up wide marble staircases, to the 
 House of Lords. 
 
 Viewed from the Press Gallery, it was seen that the 
 customary arrangements of the Chamber were com- 
 pletely disturbed to meet the necessities of this great 
 and most interesting occasion. The five rows of 
 heavy benches with backs which rise from the floor on 
 each side were removed, and in their places were seven 
 rows of low crimson-covered forms. For the long Table 
 in the centre of the floor, at which sit the three Clerks 
 of the House, a small table was substituted. The 
 cross-benches near the Bar, at the end of the Chamber, 
 and the Woolsack of the Lord Chancellor a broad 
 crimson lounge at the top, close to the Throne, had 
 TS\SO disappeared, and the floor space thus obtained, 
 above and below the table, was occupied by four rows 
 of forms, covered also in red morocco. But the most
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 87 
 
 conspicuous innovation was presented by the Throne 
 at the top of the Chamber. Formerly one chair 
 of State alone occupied the canopied dais glowing in 
 gold and colours. Now there are two State chairs, 
 richly carved and gilded, and sparkling with large, 
 egg-shaped pieces of crystal, with which they are 
 lavishly studded the old State chair (used by Queen 
 Victoria on the occasions when she opened or pro- 
 rogued Parliament) for the King ; and a new State 
 chair, an exact replica of the old, for the Queen 
 Consort. For the first time in English history, 
 perhaps, a Queen Consort was to accompany the 
 King in equal state for the opening of Parliament. 
 William and Mary, no doubt, sat together on the 
 Throne at the opening or prorogation of the Legis- 
 lature. They, of course, were joint holders of the 
 Sovereignty, although the sole exercise of the Royal 
 Prerogative was vested in William. But the Consorts 
 of the succeeding Kings, when present in Parliament, 
 did not accompany their husbands in state to West- 
 minster. Each preceded her lord, and sat during the 
 ceremony on a low chair at the foot of the Throne. 
 
 As the Chamber filled it became evident that the 
 peeresses would far outnumber the peers. It was 
 also manifest that the order of precedence in the 
 Peerage was to be observed as strictly as circumstances 
 permitted. Under a statute of Henry VIII. each 
 gradation of the Peerage has its special bench to the left 
 of the Woolsack, or, as it is now called, the Opposition 
 side of the House. There was not, consequently, 
 the usual division of parties, and a peer by sitting 
 to the right or to the left gave no indication of his 
 political opinions. On the benches nearest to the
 
 88 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Throne on the Opposition side were seated the dukes, 
 and lower down were the marquises and the earls, all 
 in order according to the dates of their creation. The 
 viscounts and the barons, who form the vast bulk of 
 the Peerage, deposited themselves wherever they could 
 get seats, without any regard for precedence. The three 
 front rows of benches on each side, and the benches 
 above and below the table, were allocated to the peers. 
 Opposite to the dukes sat the spiritual peers, and 
 behind the bishops were the foreign Ambassadors and 
 Ministers. Two benches in the centre of the floor, 
 immediately in front of the Throne, were for the Judges 
 of the High Court, who on these occasions are sum- 
 moned to appear in the House of Lords to give their 
 advice if required. To the peeresses were given the 
 four back rows of benches, behind the peers, at each 
 side of the House. They also had the Strangers' 
 Gallery, behind the Press Gallery, and the two 
 smaller galleries to the right and left of the Press 
 Gallery, to which, on ordinary occasions, the members 
 of the House of Commons have access. Precedence, 
 if loosely followed in the case of the peers, was rigidly 
 observed in the allotting of places to the peeresses. 
 The duchesses sat behind the dukes at the top of the 
 Chamber, and nearest to the Throne. Then came the 
 marchionesses, and the countesses, and the vis- 
 countesses, all, as far as possible, on the floor of 
 the Chamber, while the ladies of the barons looked 
 down on the peeresses of higher rank from the 
 galleries. There are also side galleries running the 
 entire length of the Chamber. The one to the right 
 of the Throne was occupied by immediate friends, 
 mostly ladies, of the King and Queen ; and in the one
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 89 
 
 to the left known as the Diplomatic Gallery the 
 ladies of the Ambassadors and foreign Ministers were 
 accommodated. The mighty general public was 
 represented in the Press Gallery, over the Bar, by the 
 representatives of twenty-five newspapers, to which 
 the Lord Great Chamberlain (who has control of the 
 arrangements for the opening of Parliament by the 
 Sovereign) issued tickets. So much for the arrange- 
 ment of the large, the brilliant, and the representative 
 company which was assembling to witness the great 
 ceremonial of the day. 
 
 Two hours were yet to elapse before the arrival of 
 the King and his Consort ; but there was not a dull 
 moment in the interval. During the filling-up of the 
 Chamber the attention was always on the alert to note 
 the arrival of celebrities. The canopied Throne stands 
 between two doors. The door to the left was open, 
 giving entrance to the floor of the Chamber. Through 
 it looking from the Press Gallery could be seen 
 a spacious anteroom, known as the Prince's Chamber, 
 across which flitted the peers and peeresses. The 
 company were received by the Master of the Cere- 
 monies (Hon. Sir W. J. Colville) in a military uniform, 
 wearing the badge of his office a gold chain and 
 medal; the Assistant-Master of the Ceremonies; and 
 the Marshal of the Ceremonies, by whom the ladies 
 were conducted to their places. The sombre dresses of 
 the peeresses told of the national bereavement which, 
 by bringing to a close the long and happy reign of 
 Victoria, led to this rare and most impressive cere- 
 mony. These toilettes were of the deepest mourning 
 low-cut bodices, short sleeves, and flowing gowns 
 of black materials, embroideries of black jet, black
 
 go PARLIAMENT. 
 
 gloves, black fans, black ostrich feathers in the hair, 
 black veils of crepe flowing behind relieved only by 
 coronets, or tiaras of pearls, and diamond or pearl 
 necklaces. By a striking reversal of the customary 
 appearances of the sexes at State ceremonies, it was 
 the men who imparted colour to the spectacle. The 
 peers were arrayed in all the glory of their ample 
 robes of scarlet cloth, trimmed with ermine or white 
 fur, with a tippet or hood of ermine over the shoulder. 
 The robes are striped, back and front, with bars 
 of white fur and gold, the number of bars denoting 
 the wearer's rank in the Peerage barons and vis- 
 counts having two, earls three, marquises three and 
 a half, and dukes four. 
 
 The opportunities for the display of these quaint 
 habiliments are rare. They are seen in the House of 
 Lords on the introduction of a new peer, when they 
 are worn only by the neophyte and by his two 
 sponsors ; at the giving of the Royal assent to Bills 
 by Commission in the course of a Session ; and at the 
 opening and prorogation of Parliament by Commis- 
 sion, on which occasions the Royal Commissioners, or 
 representatives of the Sovereign, are thus arrayed ; 
 but the only time the robes are donned by the general 
 body of the peers is at the opening of Parliament by 
 the Sovereign in person. The peers, perhaps, are 
 thankful that they are not often required to wear 
 this apparel. The robes can hardly be described 
 as things of beauty ; and it is not easy to recognise 
 in them even the conspicuous and therefore familiar 
 members of the hereditary Chamber. Some of the 
 nobles wore this heavy, loose-fitting raiment nobly. 
 Others seemed somewhat ill at ease in it. These had
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 91 
 
 a constrained look, as if they were haunted by the 
 dreadful suspicion that they looked ludicrous in the 
 eyes of the beholders. The robes, too, differed con- 
 siderably in appearance. As a robe is often handed 
 down from generation to generation, its condition 
 often indicates the age of the wearer's peerage. In 
 some the scarlet was vivid, and the sheen of the 
 ermine was like driven snow ; in others the white 
 fur was yellow with age, and the red of the cloth dull 
 and dingy. Many of the robes were also misfits. 
 But this was apparent only with respect to old robes, 
 some of which were too long, and others too short, 
 showing, in each case, that the wearer was not made 
 so far as stature is concerned in the same mould 
 as the ancestor from whom he inherited his State 
 apparel, as well as his title and acres. 
 
 Many of the peers also wore over their robes the 
 collars and stars of various orders of knighthood. 
 The Earl of Rosebery, sitting on a bench above the 
 table facing the dukes, displayed the collar of the 
 Most Noble Order of the Garter, the premier order 
 of knighthood in the world a circlet of pieces ot 
 gold, in the fashion of garters, from which depends 
 a medallion in gold of St. George slaying the dragon. 
 On the front bench, on the Government side of the 
 House, was seen Earl Cadogan, Lord-Lieutenant of 
 Ireland, with the collar of harps and shamrocks in 
 gold, and the blue ribbon of the Knights of St. 
 Patrick. Other peers wore collars of gold thistles, 
 the badge of the Scottish Order of the Thistle. 
 The gold circlet around the neck of Lord Aber- 
 deen, who stood under the Press Gallery for so 
 packed was the Chamber that he was unable to
 
 92 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 find a seat is the collar of the Order of SS. Michael 
 and George. 
 
 The spiritual peers assembled on their benches to 
 the right of the Throne formed an interesting group. 
 Over their flowing black gowns and ample lawn 
 sleeves in which they are apparelled at the ordinary 
 meetings of the House of Lords, they, like the 
 temporal peers, wore State robes of crimson, dis- 
 tinguished, however, not by bars of ermine, but by 
 their tippets or hoods of ermine being fuller and 
 flowing halfway down the back. On the front bench 
 were to be seen the Archbishop of York and the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. Among the bishops, the 
 Bishop of Winchester was recognisable by the blue 
 ribbon and badge of the Garter, which he wore 
 as the prelate of the Order. But perhaps the most 
 picturesque corner of the Chamber was that in which 
 the foreign Ambassadors and Ministers were assembled, 
 immediately behind the bishops. The uniforms of 
 the diplomatists are, like the nations and races they 
 represent, marked by the widest divergences of style 
 and colour. The Chinese Minister was resplendent in 
 a blue silken robe, embroidered in front with a dragon 
 in gold. The Persian Minister was also a notable 
 figure in his red fez and uniform blazing with jewels 
 and broad emerald-green sash. At the very back 
 row, his brown face barely distinguishable from the 
 dark oak panel of the wall, sat the representative of 
 the negro Republic of Hayti in a uniform of black 
 and gold braid and white gloves. On the first 
 bench, in the very centre of a galaxy of rich uniforms 
 and glittering Orders worn by the Ambassadors of 
 Russia, Germany, and France, sat the American
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 93 
 
 Minister, the sole figure in that glowing diplomatic 
 circle in the severe black coat and white shirt-front 
 of civilian evening dress, without a star or a ribbon. 
 
 The Judges of the High Court, too sitting on 
 benches in the centre of the floor, near the Throne 
 contributed a feature to the gorgeous picture that stood 
 out distinctly and apart. The Lords Justices wore 
 their State robes of black silk heavily embroidered 
 in gold, and their full-bottomed wigs, while the puisne 
 Judges were arrayed in their judicial red robes, with 
 white capes, and wigs. The three Clerks of the House, 
 sitting at the Table a conspicuous patch of black in 
 a field of scarlet poppies wearing their wigs and 
 gowns, were also noticeable. Sitting beside them, the 
 fresh, rubicund face of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland 
 (Lord Ashbourne) was seen ; and immediately behind, 
 hardly distinguishable in a crowded group of peers, 
 was the slight form of Earl Roberts. Over the canopy 
 of the Throne, a young lad in Eton dress no doubt 
 a prince greatly daring, occupied a very prominent 
 position. Close to the youth, in the gallery to the 
 left, was seen the Lord Mayor of London in his State 
 robes. But the chief and enduring impression of the 
 picture was the scarlet and white of the mass of peers 
 on the floor, set in the encircling sombre frame of the 
 mourning dresses of the peeresses. 
 
 Close on two o'clock the Duke of Connaught and 
 the Duke of Cambridge arrived, wearing their robes 
 as peers the latter leaning heavily on the supporting 
 arm of his son and were escorted to two vacant 
 seats at the top of the dukes' bench, nearest to the 
 Throne. Immediately after them came the Royal 
 Princesses, in deep mourning, relieved only by the
 
 94 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 sash of the Victorian Order pale blue with a white 
 edge which each lady wore across her shoulder. 
 The assemblage respectfully rose to receive them. 
 They were accommodated with chairs to the right 
 and left of the Throne, and before taking their 
 seats they bowed low to the company. On the 
 right, close to the vacant chair of the Duke of 
 York for his Royal Highness being ill was unable 
 to take part in the ceremonial sat the Duchess 
 of York, with, among others, Princess Victoria, 
 Princess Christian, and the Duchess of Connaught. 
 Prince Christian in uniform was also in the group. 
 On the left were Princess Louise, Princess Henry 
 of Battenberg, the Duchess of Albany, and other 
 Royal ladies. Behind the chairs of the two groups 
 stood several ladies-in-waiting, also in mourning 
 attire. 
 
 The Chamber is now densely crowded, save that to 
 the right and left of the Throne there is a narrow 
 empty space for the great personages of State who 
 are to accompany the King and Queen. A low 
 murmur of conversation is heard, and occasionally a 
 lady's musical laugh, but the great assembly is for 
 the most part silent, eagerly awaiting the Royal 
 procession. Look round the Chamber. It is not 
 the eye alone that is delighted by the spectacle. 
 The white light of day scarcely finds its way through 
 the stained-glass windows, and a sort of dim, religious 
 light prevails. Still, on every side may be seen 
 something that appeals to the historical imagination, 
 something that recalls thrilling memories from the 
 storied past. Under the galleries the walls are 
 lined with a carved-oak framing into which are set
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 95 
 
 shields bearing in colours and gold the arms of the 
 Lord Chancellors. The windows at each side, above 
 the galleries, are glowing with bright-hued figures of 
 the Kings and Queens from the time of William the 
 Conqueror. On pedestals, between the windows, are 
 large bronze statues of the barons who wrested 
 Magna Charta from King John ; with bowed heads 
 they stand, and hands resting on their grounded 
 swords. Frescoes depicting incidents in English 
 history are set in elaborate gilt mountings over the 
 Throne one being a representation of Edward III. 
 conferring the Order of the Garter on Edward the 
 Black Prince ; while from the wall, at the back of 
 the Strangers' Gallery, the figures of " Religion," 
 " Chivalry," and " Love," look down upon the 
 assemblage. 
 
 But with all the historic associations of this 
 Chamber never before has it seen the spectacle which 
 is about to be transacted now within its walls the 
 opening of Parliament by a King. Frequently since 
 the present House of Lords was completed in 1847 
 after the old Palace of Westminster was burned 
 down in 1834 had Queen Victoria sat on its Throne 
 to open Parliament, the last occasion being in 1886. 
 But it is sixty-five years since William IV. opened 
 Parliament for the last time in the old temporary 
 Chamber of the Lords, constructed after the disastrous 
 fire of the 'Thirties. 
 
 Two o'clock was the hour their Majesties were 
 expected, and a few minutes later, in the deep silence 
 which prevailed in the Chamber, the guns firing the 
 Royal salute in St. James's Park proclaiming that the 
 King had arrived at the Palace of Westminster a
 
 96 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 fact which was signalled from the top of the Victoria 
 Tower could be heard distinctly. At ten minutes 
 past two the doors to the right of the Throne were flung 
 open. At the same moment the lights were turned on 
 and the Chamber was flooded with a brilliant white 
 radiance from the electric lamps in the groined and 
 heraldic-decorated ceiling. Across the wide ante- 
 room outside extended a line of Gentlemen-at-Arms 
 in plumed helmets, scarlet-and-gold uniforms, and long 
 white gauntlets. A few moments more and the head 
 of the procession appeared at the doorway, and the 
 vast assemblage on the floor and in the galleries stood 
 up with a simultaneous movement, the ladies dropping 
 to the benches their sable wraps, baring their white 
 shoulders and arms; and diamonds and pearls 
 sparkled and glowed in living lustre from brow and 
 throat and bodice. First came four pursuivants, 
 recalling by their old-world titles Rouge Croix, Blue 
 Mantle, Rouge Dragon, Portcullis and by their 
 quaint uniforms, or tabards (to speak by the card) , 
 embroidered back and front in gold and crimson with 
 the Royal Arms, the age of chivalry, or at least the 
 Middle Ages, with memories of jousts and tourna- 
 ments. Then came six heralds officers of a higher 
 grade in the Heralds' College again in tabards, but 
 of richer material. As pursuivants and heralds reached 
 the front of the Throne they stood, two by two, and 
 made a low obeisance, bowed to the Princes and 
 Princess to the right, again to the Princes and 
 Princesses on the left, then passing on and ranging 
 up in the open space on the left. They were followed 
 by equerries-in-waiting, gentlemen ushers, and grooms- 
 in-waiting, in Court costumes. After these were the
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 97 
 
 Comptroller of his Majesty's Household (Viscount 
 Valentia), the Treasurer of his Majesty's Household 
 (Mr. Victor Cavendish) two political officers each 
 in Court dress and bearing a white wand ; then came 
 other permanent officials of the Royal Household 
 Sir Francis Knollys, Private Secretary to the King, 
 and Sir Dighton Probyn, the Keeper of the Privy 
 Purse, in dark blue uniforms with gold embroidery. 
 These officials also passed the Throne with many an 
 obeisance and grouped themselves on the left. Great 
 officers of the State followed the chief members of 
 the Government who are Peers. Preceding them 
 were two Sergeants-at-Arms, carrying maces. First 
 was the Prime Minister, the Marquis of Salisbury 
 (Lord Privy Seal), an impressive figure, with bent 
 shoulders and heavy gait, in the scarlet and ermine 
 robes of a peer. As he passed the Throne he bowed 
 first to the Duchess of York and the Royal ladies on 
 the right and then to Princess Henry of Battenberg 
 and the Royal ladies on the left. The Lord Chancel- 
 lor, who next appeared, wearing his robes as a peer, 
 surmounted by his full-bottomed wig, and carrying 
 the Great Seal in a gorgeous sachet, took up a position 
 to the right of the Throne immediately before the 
 chair of the Duke of York. Among others who 
 quickly followed the Marquis of Salisbury to the 
 left of the Throne were the Gentleman Usher of 
 the Black Rod (Sir Michael Biddulph), in the scarlet 
 uniform of a general and carrying the black ebony 
 staff from which he gets his name ; and Norroy King 
 of Arms (Mr. W. H. Weldon), representing Garter, 
 the principal King of Arms of the Heralds' College, 
 absent through ill-health. As Norroy swiftly passed 
 p. H
 
 98 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 in front of the Throne in his gorgeous tabard, he 
 seemed to be enveloped in a rich pattern of the Royal 
 Standard. Next to appear were the hereditary 
 holders of two of the great offices of the State the 
 Duke of Norfolk as Earl Marshal, and the Marquis of 
 Cholmondeley as Lord Great Chamberlain both in 
 the scarlet and ermine of peers. The Lord Great 
 Chamberlain passed across to the left of the Throne, 
 and the Earl Marshal took up a position on the 
 right. 
 
 Apart from the King and Queen who were yet 
 to come three of the most interesting personages 
 in the procession now appeared. They were three 
 great noblemen carrying ancient symbols of authority 
 and power. First was the Marquis of Londonderry 
 (the Postmaster-General) in his robes, bearing the 
 Sword of State a long heavy weapon sheathed in 
 a scabbard of crimson velvet encircled with gilt 
 metal plates which, grasping its pommel with his 
 two hands, the noble marquis held aloft before him 
 without a tremor as he walked in his heavy robes 
 with slow and measured stride. It is customary 
 for the Sword of State to be carried at this 
 ceremony by the Prime Minister; and on the last 
 occasion when Queen Victoria opened Parliament, 
 in 1886, the Marquis of Salisbury as Premier 
 exercised the right, but this time he was obliged 
 to relinquish so fatiguing a task. Then came the 
 Duke of Devonshire (Lord President of the Council) 
 in his robes. On a cushion of crimson velvet with 
 gold edgings, supported by a cord round his neck, 
 reposed the Imperial Crown its circles and arches 
 of gold encrusted with diamonds and pearls, sur-
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 99 
 
 mounted by a globe and cross, enclosing a cap of 
 purple. A thing alive it seemed, with its sparkling 
 jewels, and withal it appeared but a tiny symbol of so 
 mighty an Empire. Following the Duke of Devon- 
 shire was the Marquis of Winchester, who, by 
 hereditary right as premier Marquis, carried the 
 Cap of Maintenance on the top of a short white 
 staff; for these emblems of Royal rank the Crown 
 and the Cap may not be touched by any hands 
 but the hands of the Sovereign. The Cap is a 
 quaint low-crowned head-dress of crimson velvet, 
 with a high peak in front and its turned-up brim 
 lined with ermine. The Marquis of Londonderry 
 took up a position on the steps of the Throne to 
 the left, close to the Lord Chamberlain, while the 
 Duke of Devonshire and the Marquis of Winchester 
 joined the Earl Marshal and the Lord Chancellor 
 on the right. As thus the Royal Procession 
 clustered around the Throne not a sound was heard 
 in the crowded Chamber. The feet of these brilliant 
 figures were noiseless on the thick pile carpets, and 
 the audience stood in breathless stillness. 
 
 Then entered King Edward and Queen Alexandra, 
 walking side by side and hand in hand the right 
 hand of the Queen being clasped in the left of 
 the King. The long trains of the State robes of their 
 Majesties were held up by dapper young Pages of 
 Honour in scarlet doublets and white knee-breeches, 
 under the direction of the Groom of the Robes, in whom 
 was recognised a figure familiar in the Commons, 
 that of Mr. Erskine, the Sergeant-at-Arms. The 
 robe of the King was a wide flowing garment of 
 silk velvet of a deep crimson colour, edged with 
 
 H 2
 
 ioo PARLIAMENT. 
 
 rich gold lace and ermine, and hanging behind was 
 a long deep mantle of ermine, the snowy whiteness 
 of which was starred with innumerable tiny spots 
 of black fur. His Majesty was bareheaded. In 
 his right hand he carried his white-plumed Field- 
 Marshal's hat. The robe of the Queen was also 
 of deep crimson silk velvet edged with ermine, but 
 not so ample or flowing as that of the King, nor 
 was the train so long, nor the ermine cape, spotted 
 with black fur, so deep. Over her hair, which curled 
 about her forehead, her Majesty wore a miniature 
 crown of diamonds. Arrived in front of the Throne, 
 their Majesties bowed to it together, and, still hand 
 in hand, ascended the three steps to the dais. It 
 was then seen that the Queen wore a long black 
 veil flowing behind from her Crown. The King 
 stood on the dais, while the Queen took her seat 
 on her Throne, and Gentlemen-in-Waiting brought 
 her a footstool and adjusted her robe around the 
 chair. Before she parted with the hand of her 
 august spouse she stooped and kissed it. His 
 Majesty then sat down on his Throne to the right 
 of the Queen, and throwing back his robe disclosed 
 the scarlet of the Field-Marshal's uniform which 
 he wore beneath, its breast a blaze of jewels and 
 orders, and across it over the left shoulder the 
 broad blue sash of the Order of the Garter. By 
 a slight wave of the King's hand the upstanding 
 assemblage were commanded to resume their seats. 
 All this time the personages composing the end of 
 the procession were entering the Chamber. They 
 were Ladies-in-Waiting, Gentlemen-in-Waiting, and 
 other officers of the Royal Household, among them
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 101 
 
 being discerned Viscount Wolseley, in a Field- 
 Marshal's uniform, as the Gold Stick, carrying a 
 long wand. But the spectators had eyes only for 
 the King and Queen, sitting in equal state on the 
 Throne. And, if the King were the most splendid 
 and imposing figure in the pageant, the Queen 
 imparted to it exquisite grace and charm. " How 
 young and beautiful she looks ! " was the comment 
 one heard on every side. Beneath her Royal robe 
 her Majesty wore a black dress an indication of 
 the national sorrow that hung over this otherwise 
 joyous occasion across her left shoulder she dis- 
 played, for the first time, the blue ribbon of the 
 Garter a dignity conferred on her by the King 
 immediately on his Accession around her throat 
 glowed a necklace of pearls, a rope of similar jewels 
 hung almost to the hem of her dress, while the 
 gold and jewelled insignia of many Orders sparkled 
 on her breast, among them, conspicuous by 
 its lustre, being the precious Koh-i-Noor. Her 
 Majesty's stateliness of demeanour, her complete 
 composure, her charming smile, and the interested 
 glances which she cast around the Chamber were 
 specially noted, even in the quick and fleeting 
 impressions of the moment. 
 
 The rapid developments of this stage of the 
 ceremony were watched with keen and deeply- 
 interested attention by the assemblage. The picture, 
 crowded though it was with figures, was not yet 
 completed. The "faithful Commons" were still to 
 come. Through the Lord Great Chamberlain the 
 King's command was conveyed to Black Rod to 
 summon the Commons to " attend his Majesty
 
 102 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 immediately in the House of Peers," and Sir 
 Michael Biddulph, his breast glittering with medals 
 won on the fields of the Crimea, set out on his 
 errand. He made a low obeisance at the foot of 
 the Throne ; and in strict etiquette he should have 
 backed out of the Chamber, bowing as he went. 
 But the floor was completely blocked. Black Rod, 
 therefore, turned round, after his obeisance to the 
 Throne, and, holding aloft his ebony staff, forced 
 his way through the mass of ermine and scarlet. 
 It was slow work and difficult, but at last he 
 reached the Bar and disappeared. The doors 
 leading to the lobby, directly facing the Throne, 
 were now opened ; so, too, were the doors of the 
 House of Commons, after Black Rod had made 
 the customary supplication for admission, and, 
 as it is a straight line from the Throne in the 
 Upper Chamber to the Speaker's Chair in the 
 Lower, their Majesties were able to see from its 
 start to finish the wild and surging rush of the 
 Commons to the Royal presence. The King cer- 
 tainly whispered to the Queen at this time something 
 which made her Majesty look with interest towards 
 the House of Commons. A wait of a few' minutes 
 followed. It could only have been a few minutes, 
 but it seemed intolerably long. Suddenly the intense 
 silence which prevailed was broken by the clatter 
 of many feet on the tesselated floor of the lobby 
 outside. The noise grew in volume as the Speaker 
 appeared at the Bar, attended by Black Rod, the 
 Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, and the Chaplain, followed 
 close at heel by a tumultuous crowd of members 
 hustling and jostling each other in their natural
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 103 
 
 eagerness to get standing room in the limited space 
 allotted for their accommodation. The Bar proper is 
 a sort of pen enclosed by carved oak barriers. Into 
 this were packed, immediately behind the Speaker, 
 the most prominent members of the Government and 
 the Opposition. Mr. Balfour and Sir. H. Campbell- 
 Bannerman were there. The tall forms of Sir 
 William Harcourt and Sir. M. Hicks Beach were 
 also prominent. For a minute or so there was con- 
 siderable noise and confusion, and the gaze of the 
 assemblage, which hitherto had been concentrated on 
 the King and Queen, was turned to the struggling 
 Commons. Their Majesties, too, watched the scene 
 with evident concern. Cries of "Don't push," "Close 
 the door," "There are too many in," were heard from 
 the crowd massed at the Bar, and extending in lines 
 five and six deep, from side to side of the Chamber. 
 In the midst of the uproar Mr. Chamberlain was 
 observed being pushed to the front row at the Bar. 
 The Speaker in his gold embroidered robe and full- 
 bottomed wig bowed reverently to the Throne. Then 
 a deep silence fell once more upon the House. 
 
 And now were gathered together before the King all 
 the Estates of the Realm, the Lords Spiritual, the 
 Lords Temporal, and the Commons. The Pageant 
 in all its splendour was complete. The most im- 
 pressive stage of the ceremonial had come. There 
 was a movement among the brilliant and illustrious 
 group which surrounded the Throne. The Lord 
 Chancellor emerged from behind the Duke of Devon- 
 shire (carrying the Crown) and the Marquis of 
 Winchester (bearing the Cap of Maintenance) to the 
 right of the Throne, close beside the King, and bending
 
 104 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 his right knee on the higher step of the dais, presented 
 to his Majesty a large square-shaped piece of stiff 
 parchment containing printed matter. 
 
 When the Lord Chancellor rose again to his feet, it 
 was seen that he held in his hands a similar docu- 
 ment. Then, lifting his glasses to his eyes, the Lord 
 Chancellor began reading from his parchment the 
 declaration against transubstantiation, the Mass, 
 and the invocation of Saints, and the King, seated 
 but uncovered, repeated the words, following them on 
 his own copy of the oath. The Bill of Rights provides 
 that this declaration must be made and subscribed to 
 by the Sovereign, either on the Throne in the House 
 of Lords in the presence of both Houses, at the open- 
 ing of Parliament, or at the Coronation, whichever shall 
 happen first. The voice of the King was low and 
 subdued as it mingled with the tones of the Lord 
 Chancellor. It was not therefore possible to hear 
 clearly all the words of the declaration throughout 
 the Chamber. The terms of it, however, are as 
 follows : 
 
 11 1 doe solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of 
 God, professe, testifie, and declare, that I do believe 
 that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is 
 not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread 
 and wine into the body and blood of Christ at or 
 after the consecration thereof by any person what- 
 soever ; and that the invocation or adoration of the 
 Virgin Mary or any other saint, and the sacrifice of 
 the masse, as they are now used in the Church of 
 Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous ; and I doe 
 solemnly, in the presence of God, professe, testifie, 
 and declare, that I doe make this declaration, and
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 105 
 
 every part thereof, in the plaine and ordinary sence 
 of the words read unto me, as they are commonly 
 understood by English Protestants, without any eva- 
 sion, equivocation, or mentall reservation whatsoever, 
 and without any dispensation already granted me for 
 this purpose by the Pope, or any other authority or 
 person whatsoever, or without any hope of any such 
 dispensation from any person or authority whatsoever, 
 or without thinking that I am or can be acquitted 
 before God or man, or absolved of this declaration, 
 or any part thereof, although the Pope, or any other 
 person or persons, or power whatsoever, should dis- 
 pense with or annull the same, or declare that it was 
 null and void from the beginning." 
 
 Close behind the Lord Chancellor stood the Duke 
 of Norfolk, looking down the Chamber with a fixed 
 stare during the reading of the declaration. On its 
 conclusion the Lord Chancellor handed the King a 
 scarlet-bound copy of the New Testament, which his 
 Majesty kissed. Then an ink-bottle was produced 
 of gold, apparently the King was provided with a 
 gold pen, and he signed the declaration not the 
 copy from which his Majesty had read, but the Lord 
 Chancellor's copy which his lordship, again kneeling, 
 held with both hands while his Majesty affixed his 
 signature. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor next produced a black- 
 bordered document, and, bending his right knee, as 
 before, presented it to the King. It was the Speech 
 from the Throne. His Majesty rose, and putting on 
 his white-plumed hat the assembly rising with him 
 read the terms of the Speech. But, if the voice of 
 his Majesty was pitched in a subdued and almost
 
 io6 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 painful key while repeating the declaration, it now 
 rang clear and distinct through the Chamber. Not a 
 word of the Speech was lost to any ear, and, as its 
 terms had been kept a profound secret until they 
 were now disclosed by the King, the Speech was 
 followed with intense interest. Two points in the 
 Speech were especially noted. There was profound 
 earnestness in his Majesty's utterance of the words, 
 " My beloved mother, during her long and glorious 
 reign, has set an example before the world of what a 
 Monarch should be. It is my earnest desire to walk 
 in her footsteps." There was deep emotion in his 
 Majesty's voice as he said, " A separation from my 
 son, especially at such a moment, cannot be other- 
 wise than deeply painful," thereby expressing his 
 decision that the proposed visit of the Duke of 
 Cornwall and York to Australia not only should not 
 be abandoned, but should be extended to New 
 Zealand and to the Dominion of Canada. These 
 were passages which, it was plain to see, deeply 
 moved the assemblage. 
 
 At the conclusion of the Speech the King and 
 Queen resumed their seats. Then came the closing 
 scene of the great ceremonial. The Speaker, the 
 Ministers and the ex-Ministers bowed themselves 
 away from the Bar and disappeared. The person- 
 ages who formed the head of the Royal procession 
 quitted the Chamber by the door on the left near 
 which they were grouped. The King, uncovering, 
 rose and assisted the Queen from her chair, and 
 their Majesties standing on the dais, hand in hand, 
 graciously acknowledged with many bows the homage 
 of the still standing assemblage. This was the
 
 FIRST PARLIAMENT OF EDWARD VII. 107 
 
 episode which most of all in the ever-varying scene will 
 linger longest in the memory of the spectators. Hand 
 clasped in hand, their Majesties descended the steps 
 of the Throne ; and, turning to the left their robes 
 again lifted by the alert Pages of Honour and 
 preceded by the Cap of Maintenance, the Imperial 
 Crown and the Sword of State, they disappeared into 
 the Prince's Chamber. The Royal Princes and 
 Princesses bowed to the House before following 
 immediately behind. The group of famous states- 
 men, the brilliantly-attired officers of the Royal 
 Household, the quaintly-garbed Heralds also dis- 
 appeared. So the grandly-impressive ceremony was 
 brought to an end. The gorgeous scene slowly 
 dissolved amid animated conversation and merry 
 laughter. To those who lingered in the Chamber 
 came the enthusiastic shouts of the crowds outside, 
 speeding the King and Queen on their way back to 
 Buckingham Palace.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE NEW. 
 
 As William Pitt lay dying at his villa on Putney 
 Heath in January, 1806, the news of the complete 
 rout of the Austrians and Russians by Napoleon at 
 Austerlitz in December cast a shadow over the 
 nation's rejoicing for the victory of Trafalgar. The 
 success of the French Emperor preyed also upon the 
 mind of the dying statesman. It counterbalanced, in 
 his opinion, the destruction by Nelson of the com- 
 bined French and Spanish fleets a month before. 
 " Roll up that map," said he, pointing to a map of 
 Europe, " it will not be wanted these ten years." 
 The end came on January 23rd. " Oh, how I love 
 my country ! " he cried in anguish with his last 
 breath. 
 
 So died Pitt of a patriot's broken heart. The 
 Whigs averred at the time that he died of port wine. 
 Half a century later Disraeli used to tell a humorous 
 story which gives a different version of the last words 
 of the dying statesman. " Late one night," said an 
 old waiter at the House of Commons to Disraeli, 
 shortly after he first entered Parliament, " I was 
 called out of bed by a messenger in a post-chaise, 
 shouting to me outside the window. ' What is it ? ' 
 I said. ' You're to get up and dress and bring some
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. 109 
 
 of your pork-pies down to Mr. Pitt at Putney.' So I 
 went ; and as we drove along the messenger told me 
 that Mr. Pitt had not been able to take any food, 
 but had suddenly said, * I think I could eat one of 
 Bellamy's pork-pies.' And so I was sent for post- 
 haste. When we arrived Mr. Pitt was dead. Them 
 were his last words : ' I think I could eat one of 
 Bellamy's pork-pies.' " 
 
 Bellamy was caterer to the Houses of Parliament 
 for more than half a century, embracing the last 
 decade of the eighteenth century, and the first forty 
 years of the nineteenth. He kept a hostelry in Old 
 Palace Yard (almost directly opposite St. Margaret's 
 Church), to which a passage gave access from the 
 old House of Commons ; and made a huge fortune 
 out of the chops and steaks and pork-pies, and 
 bottles of port, which he served to hungry Peers 
 and Commoners, when the Houses sat beyond the 
 dinner hour. 
 
 St. Stephen's Chapel, in which the Commons held 
 their conclaves for centuries (since 1327, to be pre- 
 cise), was consumed in the fire which in 1834 totally 
 destroyed the ancient Houses of Parliament. It was 
 an oblong building attached to Westminster Hall, at 
 its south-east angle, and extending towards the river. 
 St. Stephen's Hall, the public entrance to the present 
 Palace of Westminster, with its splendid marble statues 
 of famous Parliamentarians, occupies the exact site 
 of the old House of Commons, and a brass plate set 
 into the tesselated pavement close to the swing- 
 doors leading to the Central Hall marks the place 
 where stood the Speaker's Chair and the Clerk's 
 Table. The old House was much smaller and
 
 ' 
 
 no PARLIAMENT. 
 
 narrower than the present Chamber. Its ceiling and 
 its sides were lined with wainscot of a dark brown 
 hue, which gave it a gloomy appearance in the dim 
 light provided in the day by high windows at each 
 side, and at night by three chandeliers, rilled with 
 candles, hanging from the ceiling. The benches, as 
 in the present Chamber, rose on each side, tier above 
 tier, from the floor to the wall, and were divided 
 by gangways. The Strangers' Gallery faced the 
 Speaker's chair. Admission to this gallery was 
 obtained on an order from a member, or by payment 
 of 2s. 6d. to the attendants. The last of the five rows 
 of seats in the Gallery was allotted to the reporters 
 when after a long struggle the right of the Press to 
 admission was acknowledged and each newspaper 
 paid three guineas a session for its seat. These fees 
 were also distributed among the officers of the House 
 connected with the Gallery. Ladies were not admitted 
 into the House, but they had access to a loft between 
 the ceiling and the roof ; and through a hole in the 
 centre of the ceiling, for the purpose of ventilation, 
 above the principal chandelier, a dbzen might gaze 
 with much inconvenience and discomfort upon the 
 scene below, and as many more, while seeing nothing, 
 could hear the speeches. It was not, however, an 
 uncommon practice for ladies to frequent the 
 Strangers' Gallery disguised as men. Sir Nathaniel 
 Wraxall mentions in his "Memoirs" that he saw 
 the Duchess of Gordon habited as a man in the 
 Gallery. The story is also told that the beautiful 
 Mrs. Brinsley Sheridan attended in a similar disguise 
 in order to hear a speech by her husband. 
 
 Under the old House of Commons was St. Stephen's
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. in 
 
 Crypt, or, as it was first called, the Church of St. 
 Mary's Undercroft. It happily survived the great 
 conflagration of 1834. The crypt was, of course, 
 a place of worship like the old House of Commons 
 originally. But in modern times it was divided into 
 two parts, in one of which was placed the apparatus 
 for heating the legislative chamber, while the other 
 was used by the Speaker as a State dining-room. 
 The east windows, by which it was lighted, looked 
 out over the Speaker's gardens to the river. 
 The crypt was restored by Sir Charles Barry the 
 architect of the Palace of Westminster and is now a 
 beautiful chapel, in which there are services occasion- 
 ally for residents within the palace. The ancient 
 cloisters of St. Stephen's, which, like the Crypt and 
 Westminster Hall, escaped the destruction of the 
 old Houses of Parliament, have been used since the 
 opening of the new House of Commons as a cloak- 
 room for the members. 
 
 If the old Chamber was less imposing than the 
 new, its members were more picturesque in their 
 attire than the present representatives of the nation. 
 It was the general custom until the last quarter of 
 the eighteenth century for members to wear Court 
 dress, lace ruffles, and swords. Till a still later 
 day Ministers appeared in the House in levee costume, 
 with their stars and ribbons. Members then wore 
 cut-away coats, shirt frills, tights and riding-boots. 
 Wigs and powdered hair were also common. Pitt 
 wore a pigtail, and was always neat and precise in 
 his attire. His great rival, Fox, on the contrary, 
 was slovenly and untidy in his dress. His long 
 hose often hung loosely between his tights and his
 
 ii2 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 shoes. A sarcastic piece of fashionable intelligence 
 of the time in Tory prints ran : " Mr. Fox appeared at 
 St. Stephen's in a clean waistcoat." 
 
 The House of Commons, from the Union with 
 Ireland in 1801, consisted of 658 members until 
 the Reform Act of 1884, when the number was 
 increased to 670, at which it at present stands. 
 Not more than 400 members could be packed into 
 the old Chamber. The accommodation outside was 
 also very meagre. Besides the library, there were 
 only two rooms one for writing and the other for 
 smoking at the disposal of members. 
 
 We are indebted to Macaulay's letters to his 
 sister Hannah, written in the early 'Thirties, for 
 graphic glimpses of the smoking-room with passages 
 from the conversations heard in its cloudy atmo- 
 sphere. Writing from the smoking-room in 1831, 
 Macaulay says : "A large wainscoted place with 
 tables covered with green baize and writing materials. 
 On a full night it is generally thronged towards 
 twelve o'clock with smokers. It is then a perfect 
 cloud of fume. There have I seen (tell it not to 
 the West Indians) Buxton blowing fire out of his 
 mouth. My father will not believe it. At present, 
 however, all the doors and windows are open, and 
 the room is pure enough from tobacco to suit my 
 father himself." In another letter from the smoking- 
 room, dated July 23rd, 1832, he says: " I am writing 
 here at eleven at night in the filthiest of all filthy atmo- 
 spheres, and in the vilest of all vile company, with the 
 smell of tobacco in my nostrils, andthe ugly, hypocritical 
 
 face of Lieutenant before my eyes. There he 
 
 sits writing opposite to me. To whom, for a ducat ?
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. 113 
 
 To some Secretary of an Hibernian Bible Society, 
 or to some old woman who gives cheap tracts instead 
 of blankets to the starving peasantry of Connemara, 
 or to some good Protestant Lord who bullies his 
 Popish tenants." The letter thus concludes : " That 
 confounded chattering has just got into an argu- 
 ment about the Church with an Irish papist who has 
 seated himself at my elbow, and they keep up such a 
 din that I cannot tell what I am writing. There they 
 go. The Lord Lieutenant the Bishop of Derry 
 Magee O'Connell your Bible meetings your Agita- 
 tion meetings the propagation of the Gospel May- 
 nooth College the Seed of the Woman shall bruise 
 the Serpent's head. My dear Lieutenant, you will 
 not only bruise but break my head with your clatter. 
 Mercy ! Mercy ! However, here I am at the end of 
 my letter, and I shall leave the two demoniacs to 
 tear each other to pieces." 
 
 For refreshments members had to resort to 
 Bellamy's. A staircase from the lobby of the 
 Chamber led to a corridor giving access to the 
 tavern. Tea was served in the corridor, and here 
 also members sat and chatted over a bottle ol 
 wine. In what was known as " the kitchen " 
 dinners and suppers were served. A few tables 
 covered with damask tablecloths were scattered 
 about its bare floor. A huge fire blazed in the 
 grate, with a roasting-jack hanging before it for 
 joints, and on it a gridiron for steaks. At the 
 top of the staircase leading from the Chamber 
 stood a waiter, who called out the name of each 
 speaker addressing the House. 
 
 " Mr. Bumbleton upon his legs," cried the waiter; 
 
 p. i
 
 ii 4 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 and the eating and drinking went on undisturbed. 
 But if it were " Mr. Pitt upon his legs " ; or " Mr. 
 Brinsley Sheridan upon his legs " ; or in times 
 nearer to our own " Sir Robert Peel upon his 
 legs," or " Mr. Daniel O'Connell upon his legs," 
 members hurriedly finished their steak, their bottle, 
 or their pork-pie, and proceeded to the House. 
 The division-bell created even more confusion in 
 the kitchen of Bellamy's. At the first note of the 
 bell members jumped up from their seats, leaving 
 bottle and pie and steak unfinished, and rushed 
 downstairs headlong into the House, fearful lest 
 they might be shut out from giving their votes 
 upon a question which they had not heard debated. 
 But in those days, as in these, our representatives 
 are guided as much by the Whips as by their own 
 reason into the division lobbies. 
 
 Richard Lalor Sheil, the Irish politician and 
 orator, who came to London to hear a debate on 
 Catholic Emancipation, in 1825, wrote a sketch of 
 his experiences for a magazine, in which he gives us 
 an interesting description of Bellamy's. He writes : 
 
 " The scene which Bellamy's presents to a stranger 
 is striking enough. Two smart girls, whose brisk- 
 ness and neat attire made up for their want of 
 beauty, and for the invasions of time, of which 
 their cheeks showed the traces, helped out tea in 
 a room in the corridor. It was pleasant to observe 
 the sons of dukes and marquises and the possessors 
 of twenties and thirties of thousands a year, gathered 
 round those damsels, and soliciting a cup of that 
 beverage which it was their office to administer.
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. 115 
 
 Those Bellamy barmaids seemed so familiarised 
 with their occupation that they went through it with 
 perfect nonchalance, and would occasionally turn 
 with petulance, in which they asserted the superiority 
 of their sex to rank and opulence, from the noble 
 and wealthy suitors for a draught of tea, by whom 
 they were surrounded. The unfortunate Irish 
 members were treated with a peculiar disdain, 
 and were reminded of their provinciality by the 
 look of these Parliamentary Hebes, who treated 
 them as mere colonial deputies should be received 
 in the purlieus of the State." 
 
 Writing of the scene in " the kitchen " he says : 
 
 " Nearly opposite the door sat two English county 
 members. They had disposed of a bottle each, and, 
 just as the last glass was emptied, one of them called 
 out to the annunciator at the end of the passage for 
 intelligence. ' Mr. Foster on his legs ! ' was the 
 formidable answer. 'Waiter, bring another bottle!' 
 was the immediate effect of this information, which 
 was followed by a similar injunction from every table 
 in the room. I perceived that Mr. Bellamy owed 
 great obligations to Mr. Foster. But the latter did 
 not limit himself to a second bottle. Again and again 
 the same question was asked, and again the same 
 announcement returned ' Mr. Foster upon his legs ! ' 
 The answer seemed to fasten men in inseparable 
 adhesiveness to their seats. Thus two hours went by ; 
 when, at length, * Mr. Plunket on his legs ' was heard 
 from the end of the passage, and the whole convo- 
 cation of compotors rose together and returned to the 
 House." 
 
 I 2
 
 n6 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Charles Dickens, close on ten years after Sheil, 
 refers to Bellamy's in one of his " Shetches by Boz." 
 He tells us that " Nicholas," the chief butler, had 
 been a reformer, but after the passing of the Reform 
 Act of 1832 he became an inveterate Tory. The clauses 
 of the Act which gave members to the metropolitan 
 districts of London were especially obnoxious to the 
 honest old servitor. " We discovered the secret at 
 last," writes Dickens. " The metropolitan members 
 always dined at home ! The rascals ! As for giving 
 additional members to Ireland, it was even worse 
 decidedly unconstitutional. Why, sir, an Irish mem- 
 ber would go up there and eat more dinner than three 
 English members put together. He took no wine ; 
 drank table-beer by the half-gallon, and went home to 
 Manchester Buildings or Millbank Street for his whisky 
 and soda. And what was the consequence ? Why, 
 the concern lost actually lost by their patronage." 
 Tea was still served by two waitresses. If they were 
 not the same girls that Sheil saw ten years before, they 
 certainly were quite as impudent. "That female in 
 black not the one whom that Lord's Day Bill Baronet 
 has just chucked upon the chin, the shorter of the 
 two is 'Jane,' the Hebe of Bellamy's. Jane is as 
 great a character as Nicholas in her way. Her leading 
 features are a thorough contempt for the great majority 
 of her visitors ; her predominant quality, love of 
 admiration, as you cannot fail to observe if you mark 
 the way with which she listens to something the young 
 member near her mutters somewhat unintelligibly in her 
 ear (for his speech is rather thick from some cause or 
 other), and how playfully she digs the handle of a fork 
 into the arm by which he detains her, by way of reply."
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. 117 
 
 Bellamy's was famous for its cellar of port. Pitt, 
 who, as is well known, had a weakness for that wine, 
 probably cracked many a bottle of it like other 
 members in "the kitchen," during the dull intervals 
 of debate. An epigram of the time gives the following 
 dialogue between Pitt and his colleague and boon 
 companion, Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount 
 Melville : 
 
 " PITT I can't see the Speaker, Hal, can you ?" 
 " DUNDAS Not see the Speaker, Billy? I see two!" 
 
 On one occasion Pitt was so manifestly under the 
 influence of wine as he sat on the Treasury Bench, 
 that one of the clerks at the Table, in his distress at 
 the spectacle, got a violent headache. " An excellent 
 arrangement," remarked Pitt, when he was told of the 
 condition of the clerk, "I have the wine and he has the 
 headache." 
 
 But sometimes Pitt had the headache as well as the 
 wine. On February 2ist, 1783, he was assailed by 
 Fox for the terms of peace arranged with France, 
 Spain, Holland and the United States, who had been 
 combined in war against England, on the ground that 
 they were too favourable to the enemy. Unfortunately 
 Pitt was that evening sick from over indulgence in port. 
 Immediately behind the Speaker's Chair there was a 
 door, known as Solomon's Porch, leading to the 
 gardens of the Speaker's residence, laved by the 
 waters of the Thames. In the midst of Fox's speech 
 Pitt had to retire to the Porch. He held the door 
 open with one hand, and while he vomited into the 
 garden turned his ear to the House so that he might 
 not miss any of the arguments of Fox. " Never,"
 
 n8 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 writes William Wilberforce, who witnessed the in- 
 cident, " do I recollect to have witnessed such a 
 triumph of mind over physical depression. When 
 Fox sat down, he replied to him with great ability, 
 though with less brilliancy than usual." 
 
 One or two passages in the speech of Fox, as 
 recorded by Hansard, seem to point to Pitt's inebria- 
 tion. " I do not envy him the triumph of his situation 
 this day," said Fox. Pitt, too, in the course of his 
 reply made some veiled allusions to his condition. 
 He said, for instance : 
 
 " I will never engage in political enmities without 
 a public cause. I will never forge such enmities 
 without the public approbation ; nor will I be ques- 
 tioned and cast off, in the face of this House, by one 
 virtuous and dissatisfied friend. These, sir, the sober 
 and durable triumph of reason over the weak and 
 profligate inconsistencies of party violence ; these, sir, 
 the steady triumphs of virtue over success itself, shall 
 be mine, not only in my present situation, but through 
 every future condition of my life, triumphs which no 
 length of time shall diminish, which no change of 
 principle shall ever sully." 
 
 Of course, in those days it was the custom of all 
 classes of society to drink deeply rather than wisely. 
 Still there can be no question that the greatest aston- 
 ishment ever created in the House of Commons was 
 when Sir George Rose turned in drunk one evening 
 in the early years of the nineteenth century, and 
 called upon Mr. Speaker for a comic song. The 
 members, as well as the Speaker, were perfectly 
 paralysed with astonishment. As soon as the Speaker
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. 119 
 
 could collect his scattered senses, he ordered the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms to take the honourable member 
 into custody. Sir George Rose, who was a county 
 gentleman of great influence and wealth, was con- 
 sequently brought to the Bar of the House, not 
 Bellamy's but the wine he had drunk had made him 
 pugnacious and obstinate, and when he was called 
 upon to beg the Speaker's pardon, he avowed hard 
 and fast that he would beg no man's pardon, not even 
 King George's, and certainly not that little chap's 
 with the big wig. Sir George Rose was therefore 
 committed to a room, called the lock-up of the House 
 of Commons, to sleep off his debauch. Next day he 
 was penitent and sober, begged the Speaker's pardon, 
 was reprimanded, and discharged on payment of 
 Sergeant-at-Arms' costs, which were very heavy. 
 
 However, these incidents notwithstanding, it was 
 a common practice in the House of Commons for 
 members to find in the sucking of an orange a 
 sufficient stimulant. In the great days of Burke and 
 Pitt, and Fox and Sheridan, members used to lie full 
 length along the benches, amusing themselves sucking 
 oranges and cracking nuts. On February yth, 1828, 
 Henry Brougham delivered a famous speech on law 
 reform, which lasted over six hours, and filled ten 
 columns of The Times and sixty pages of Hansard. 
 On the bench beside the orator was his hat full 
 of oranges, and to these he resorted for refreshment 
 during the trying physical and mental ordeal of the 
 speech. In the first reformed Parliament William 
 Cobbett and Daniel O'Connell were probably the 
 most intemperate members as regards language. 
 The speeches of both were invariably inebriated with
 
 lao PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the exuberance of their fiery and combative tempera- 
 ments. But O'Connell was noted for his abstemious- 
 ness at table, and Cobbett was a strict teetotaller. 
 Probably Nicholas the butler was wroth with them 
 because they never spent a crown on a bottle of 
 Bellamy's port ; but, at the same time, he could not 
 complain as an additional grievance that they helped 
 themselves to the free table-beer of " the kitchen." 
 In the House they might be seen sitting together on 
 the Opposition benches, sucking oranges and telling 
 stories, discussing political questions, or rudely 
 cheering or interjecting embarrassing comments 
 during a speech by Peel. Their brother-in-arms, 
 
 rjoseph Hume, preferred pears. That stern financial 
 reformer, that rigid stickler for economy in all branches 
 
 , of public expenditure, was never absent from a sitting 
 of the House of Commons, from the moment the 
 
 ' Speaker took the Chair, to the adjournment. No 
 matter how dry or uninteresting the debate might 
 be, Hume was to be seen at all times reclining against 
 one of the posts supporting the gallery on the Opposi- 
 tion side. " There is Joseph, always 'at his post," was 
 a common saying. He was never known to have a 
 steak even in Bellamy's kitchen not to speak of 
 port or table-beer but he came down to the House 
 every day with his pockets stuffed with pears, and 
 these he munched in the Chamber for dinner and 
 supper. 
 
 Disraeli, writing to his sister, January 3ist, 1840, 
 describes a curious incident of the debate on the vote 
 of non-confidence in the Melbourne Government, three 
 nights earlier: "The Government put up Gisborne, 
 who is sometimes a wonderful rhetorician and pro-
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. 121 
 
 duces great effects in a crowded House, but uncertain. 
 There had been a general rumour he was to make a 
 great display, and when he got up, Freemantle came 
 to me and asked me to reply to him. He began 
 very well, but after some little time regularly broke 
 down, was silent for some moments, sent for oranges, 
 coughed, stuck again and again, and finally pleaded 
 ' some physical inability,' which had suddenly de- 
 prived him of his voice, sank overwhelmed with his 
 own exposure. We thought he was drunk, but the 
 Whigs say the fault was that he was not, and that 
 when he is tipsy, and is not prepared, he is very 
 good." Oranges were sucked in the House at an 
 even later date than this. Richard Cobden relates 
 that in 1845, when Ferrand, the Member for Knares- 
 borough, was making a ferocious attack upon him, 
 " Colonel Sibthorpe plied the fellow with oranges to 
 suck, in an affectionate way that resembled a monkey 
 fondling a bear." The custom of thus taking re- 
 freshment in the Chamber disappeared, like many 
 another quaint feature of Parliamentary life, with the 
 old House of Commons. 
 
 In the noble pile of buildings erected on the site of 
 the Old Palace, swept away by the fire of 1834, the 
 accommodation for members, outside the Chamber, 
 was greatly increased. There are now three dining- 
 rooms. One of them is reserved, by custom, to the 
 leading members of the Government and the Opposi- 
 tion. In this room there is a table for Cabinet 
 Ministers, and another for ex-Cabinet Ministers. For 
 a time the culinary department in the new palace was 
 looked after by Bellamy, or his successors. Then the 
 provision of meals to members was let out by contract.
 
 , 
 
 122 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 But for several years now a special Committee of the 
 House, known as u The Kitchen Committee," has 
 supervised the department ; and it enjoys a subsidy 
 of 1,000 a year from the public funds. During the 
 Session over ^500 a week is paid by members for 
 meals and refreshments. The amount of money spent 
 by individual legislators of course varies considerably ; 
 but as a rule M.P.'s are now noted for their ab- 
 stemiousness when dining in the House. They are 
 able to obtain a two-shilling dinner, consisting of 
 soup, joint and two vegetables, bread, butter, cheese, 
 salad and biscuits, and this modest repast is in good 
 demand throughout the Session. The wine-cellar of 
 the House contains, it is said, something like 5,000 
 worth of wines ; there is also an immense vat of 
 Scotch whisky ; and the cigar-room contains about 
 .2,000 worth of stock, the prices of the weeds ranging 
 from 3^. to 35. each. 
 
 There are smoking-rooms, of course, and tea-rooms, 
 in some of which the quiet games of chess and 
 draughts and dominoes may be played to while away 
 the dull hours between divisions when, as Disraeli 
 says in " Sybil," " Wishy is down and Washy is up," 
 and by means of "annunciators" in the smoking- 
 rooms members can tell who is speaking in the 
 Chamber. Mr. Herbert Gladstone signalised his 
 filling of the office of First Commissioner of Works 
 in the last Liberal Government 1892-95 by pro- 
 viding members with bath-rooms. Some time ago 
 the division bell rang out its summons to the Cham- 
 ber while a member was enjoying the luxury of the 
 parliamentary tub. For a moment the hon. gentle- 
 man was dismayed to find that Mr. Herbert Gladstone
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. 123 
 
 had neglected to provide dressing-gowns to meet an 
 emergency such as this, but, being a faithful follower 
 of the Government, he was determined to sustain 
 their majority at all risks to his sense of propriety and 
 dignity, and so, hastily donning a tall hat, a bath towel 
 and his boots, he dashed for the division lobby, 
 arriving just in time to record his vote. Then, his 
 duty done, amid the laughing, cheers and good- 
 humoured banter of his colleagues, he went back and 
 finished his bath. 
 
 The report of the annual cost of the Chamber of 
 Deputies of France shows that French representatives 
 are not satisfied with hot and cold water, soap and 
 towels for their toilets like the members of the House 
 of Commons. The year's bill for eau de Cologne 
 amounts to over 1,500 francs, and other toilet appli- 
 ances cost yearly about the same. 
 
 But the appetite of our members for comforts and 
 recreations at the Palace of Westminster apparently 
 grows by what it feeds on. The House has lost its 
 reputation as " the best Club in Europe." This, no 
 doubt, is due to the fact that it is not now so exclusive 
 as it was in the days of a restricted franchise, though the 
 inclusion in its membership of all sorts and conditions 
 of men, representative of the varied life and character of 
 the nation, must have really made its social side more 
 interesting and enjoyable. Anyway, members grumble 
 often about the discomforts attending the discharge of 
 their legislative duty recording their votes in the divi- 
 sion lobbies, for to that the functions of a private or 
 unofficial member of Parliament are practically now 
 reduced. There are several directions in which the 
 amusements of M.P.'s at Westminster might be
 
 124 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 developed. The public gardens near the Victoria 
 Tower might, for instance, be appropriated, and laid 
 out in tennis-courts, for members. Billiard rooms 
 might also be provided for the long winter evenings. 
 In the summer months, band performances on the 
 terrace during "five o'clock tea" would be most 
 enjoyable ; and at night when the Palace is crowded 
 with " strangers " ladies and gentlemen who have 
 come down to dine with members a light variety 
 entertainment on the terrace by artists from " the 
 Halls " would relieve the tedium of making the laws 
 of the land. 
 
 But while the old, frivolous members pine for tennis- 
 courts and band performances, the young, serious 
 representatives with political ambitions, and personal 
 and professional interests to serve, are quite content 
 with the excellent library of the House. The books 
 are housed in a series of rooms, five in number, over- 
 looking the Thames, and comprise a most useful 
 collection of Parliamentary records, historical and 
 political works, for a serious student of affairs. There 
 are also a map-room for geographical references ; and 
 a newspaper room with a selection of the leading 
 daily journals of the kingdom. 
 
 It is in the quiet rooms of the library, surrounded 
 with books, rather than in the Chamber itself, with 
 its languid, enervating atmosphere, and its oftentimes 
 irrelevant and unprofitable talk, that members think 
 out and prepare their speeches. Some members feel, 
 like Richard Cobden, their reasoning powers in abey- 
 ance while in the Chamber. " I don't know whether 
 you feel yourself similarly affected by the air of the 
 House," Cobden wrote to a friend in 1857, " but after
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. 125 
 
 sitting there for two or three hours I find my head 
 useless for any other purpose but aching. I find my 
 brain throbbing as though it were ready to burst, and 
 the pain returns upon me as soon as I wake in the 
 morning. It seems as if the air were dried and 
 cooked to such an extent as to rob it of its vital 
 properties." 
 
 Members of the two front benches on either side of 
 the table, having note-paper and envelopes, and ink 
 and pens close at hand, often occupy their idle time 
 in the House with a blotting-pad on their knees 
 writing their private correspondence. In the " Life 
 and Times ofW. H. Smith " (the leader of the House 
 of Commons during the Conservative Government of 
 1886-92) by Sir Herbert Maxwell, there are many 
 tender love-letters written by Smith to his wife from 
 the Treasury Bench amid the clamour of party con- 
 flict which filled the Chamber. One night in 1887 he 
 wrote to Mrs. Smith, who was at Greenlands, Henley: 
 " I have had a very nice letter from the Queen, which 
 I will show you to-morrow evening, if, as I hope, I am 
 able to get down to you, and this must come to you 
 as my first greeting on the anniversary of that happy 
 day when we became one. . . . God has blessed 
 us, and we do owe very much to Him, for all our 
 trials have brought us closer to each other and to 
 Him, and every day I realise more and more of the 
 strength and guidance which you ask and help me to 
 gain. . . . The debate is going on in a dull way, 
 and Childers is now speaking, but our Irish Attorney- 
 General, Mr. Holmes, made a very good speech 
 indeed, in opening." On August 22nd, 1887, he wrote 
 to his wife from the Treasury Bench : "As I grow
 
 126 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 older I realise that I am getting nearer to the end 
 myself, and while the close of life loses the terror it 
 once had, the duty of being useful to all around me 
 of so using my powers and my life, as to do every 
 day the very best I can under the circumstances in 
 which I find myself come home to me every day 
 with greater strength, so I must not disable myself 
 by fretting, or so entirely turn my thoughts in one 
 direction, as to find myself diverted from the daily 
 work of life." 
 
 On July 7th, 1888, Smith wrote : " Now Harcourtis 
 mouthing, declaiming, and denouncing us in violent 
 language, and the Attorney-General in particular. 
 Good-night ! God bless and keep you and my dear 
 children. And pray for me every day that I may 
 have wisdom and strength to do what is right. It is 
 a hard and difficult task." On August 3rd, 1888, he 
 wrote : " Here I am listening to Arthur Balfour, who 
 is answering Mr. J. Morley, and I have ears for him 
 and thoughts for my very dear one at home at the 
 same time." 
 
 What a change in social habits is typified by the 
 striking contrast between the leaders of the House of 
 Commons at the ends of the last two centuries 
 William Pitt at the close of the eighteenth and 
 William Henry Smith at the close of the nineteenth ! 
 The first is seen the worse for liquor on the Treasury 
 Bench ; the other writing from the same Bench epistles 
 to his wife full of marital affection and religious 
 devotion !
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE OLD HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE NEW. 
 
 MOST visitors to St. Stephen's experience a sense 
 of disappointment, if not of disillusionment, on seeing 
 for the first time the House of Lords in session. As 
 you pass down the corridor leading from the central 
 hall to the Upper Chamber, memories of readings in 
 English history in school days crowd upon the mind 
 memories rendered all the more vivid by the glow- 
 ing frescoes of many stirring episodes in our country's 
 story which adorn the walls of the corridor, so that 
 on reaching the massive brass gates giving access to 
 the House of Lords you expect in another moment to 
 be dazzled by a vision of old-time regal splendour 
 the assembled peers, dignified and impressive in 
 stature, arrayed in their robes of state, magnificently 
 jewelled to their tapering finger-tips, and with flash- 
 ing coronets of gold and pearls upon their noble brows. 
 But how commonplace is the reality contrasted with 
 one's expectations ! What an outrage upon one's 
 historical imagination ! You find that the peers are 
 ordinary-looking gentlemen, in prosaic every-day dress 
 and silk hats, sitting on red benches in easy and 
 indolent attitudes. They certainly do not frighten 
 or overawe one, as somehow one had anticipated. 
 Indeed, you feel yourself lifted to the level of these
 
 128 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 great hereditary lords on noticing that many of them, 
 careless of their dignity, are lolling back in their seats, 
 with their hands thrust deeply into their trousers 
 pockets as if for all the world they were ordinary 
 human beings and seem listless or inattentive as 
 regards the proceedings. 
 
 But if there is little or nothing that is imposing 
 in the personal appearance of the peers, their new 
 Chamber now half a century old with its frescoes, 
 stained-glass windows, its heraldic devices in gold 
 and colours, and its bronze statues of the Magna 
 Charta barons and its majestic Throne, fully satisfies 
 your sense of the fitness of things, and carries you 
 back from this modern world into the Middle Ages. 
 In the old House of Lords the situation was reversed. 
 Contemporary prints show us an assemblage of peers 
 with scarlet-and-ermine robes in a dingy and ill-lit 
 Chamber. There is, for instance, Copley's well- 
 known picture, " The Death of the Earl of Chat- 
 ham," in the National Gallery. In the House of 
 Lords on April yth, 1778, the Duke of Richmond, as 
 principal Secretary of State, moved an Address to the 
 King urging the necessity of immediately recognising 
 the independence of the revolted North American 
 Colonies. On learning of the intention to make peace 
 with America Chatham was filled with indignation, 
 and, rising from his bed of sickness, went to the 
 House of Lords to oppose the motion. He was in the 
 midst of a powerful speech, depicting the humiliation 
 and disgrace involved in the recognition by the 
 mother-country of the independence of her rebellious 
 colonies, when he fell back in a convulsive fit and 
 was carried out to die. The Chamber as we see it
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF LORDS. 129 
 
 in Copley's painting is plain and unadorned, save 
 for the dim tapestries which cover the dull wainscot 
 of the walls at each side ; but the group of peers 
 gathered around the dying Chatham are impressive 
 in their flowing robes of scarlet and white, their 
 powdered wigs, and their stars and decorations. 
 
 The old House of Lords was originally a banquet 
 hall, when St. Stephen's was a Royal residence, and 
 after the erection of Westminster Hall was converted 
 into a Court of Requests, where the King sat in 
 person to receive the petitions of his subjects, until 
 it was finally converted into a Chamber for the peers. 
 The tapestries on the walls represented the dispersal 
 of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and also contained 
 portraits of the English naval commanders. They 
 were presented to Queen Elizabeth by the States 
 of Holland "in testimony of their admiration of 
 the skill and bravery of the English fleet." In the 
 arrangement of the new Chamber the disposition of 
 things in the old destroyed by the fire of October i6th, 
 1834 was followed exactly. At the upper end of the 
 old House stood the King's Throne, a gilded high- 
 backed chair, on a dais, under a canopy of crimson 
 velvet, supported by gilded columns. In front of the 
 Throne, separating it, as it were, from the Chamber, 
 was, as now, a light brass railing, and in the space 
 about the Throne Privy Councillors and sons of peers 
 were admitted, as now, during the sittings of the 
 House. There were four rows of benches, lined in 
 crimson leather, at each side, and between them, on 
 the floor, first the Woolsack, then the clerks' Table, 
 and, nearer to the Bar, as now, four cross benches 
 for peers of independent political views, who did not 
 
 P. K
 
 i 3 o PARLIAMENT. 
 
 care to sit either with the Government or the 
 Opposition. At the Bar there was standing room 
 for almost 150 persons, and here the Commons, 
 and strangers introduced by the Commons, found 
 accommodation. It was not until the trial of Queen 
 Caroline, wife of George IV., for adultery, in the 
 House of Lords in 1820, that a gallery was provided 
 for the Press. Previous to that time after the re- 
 luctant recognition of the right of the newspapers to 
 publish the proceedings of Parliament the reporters 
 were permitted to take notes in the crowd at the Bar, 
 provided they attended in evening dress. The front 
 row of the gallery, erected in 1820, was allotted 
 to the London newspapers. Behind the journalists 
 sat the general public there were about sixty 
 seats for men and twenty for ladies admitted on 
 orders signed and issued by peers. As for the 
 peeresses, how they fared in the old House is best 
 explained by the following interesting extract from 
 Greville's " Memoirs " : 
 
 " The House of Lords was very full to hear the 
 Catholic Relief debates, particularly of women. The 
 steps of the Throne have been crowded with ladies. 
 Formerly, one or two got in who skulked behind the 
 Throne, or were hid in the box of the Usher of the 
 Black Rod ; but now they fill the whole space, and 
 put themselves in front with their large bonnets 
 without either fear or shame. Lady Jersey is in a 
 fury with Lord Anglesea, and goes about saying he 
 insulted her in the House the other night. She was 
 sitting on the lower step of the Throne, and the 
 Duchess of Richmond on the step above. After
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF LORDS. 131 
 
 Lord Anglesea had spoken he came to talk to the 
 Duchess, who said : ' How well you did speak ! ' 
 when he said, ' Hush, you must take care what you 
 say, for here is Lady Jersey, and she reports for the 
 newspapers.' Lord Jersey, overhearing this, said : 
 ' Lady Jersey is here for her own amusement. What 
 do you mean by reporting for the newspapers ? ' 
 This is his version. Hers, of course, is different." 
 
 The peers, like the Commons, dined in Bellamy's 
 kitchen. In this plain, unpretending apartment, in 
 which blazed an immense fire with hissing joints of 
 beef, and chops and steaks spluttering on gridirons, 
 the great hereditary peers, possessed of palaces and 
 stately dining halls, with powdered attendants, would 
 humbly eat their steak or chop, or cut from a joint, 
 and drink their beer or claret or port, attended by 
 two waiting-maids, on evenings when the House of 
 Lords sat late. The drowsiness or listlessness which 
 was a marked characteristic of noble lords in the old 
 House, as it is in the new, on all but a few evenings 
 of every Session, cannot have been due to these frugal 
 repasts, eaten in the very room in which the food 
 was cooked. The story goes that one evening in the 
 early 'Twenties the Duke of Norfolk was sound asleep 
 in the House and snoring loudly when a Bill was 
 brought up from the House of Commons. " This, 
 my lords," said Eldon, " is a bill relating to Great 
 Snoring " and the Lord Chancellor put immense 
 emphasis on "Great Snoring" - " to which the 
 Commons desire your lordships' concurrence." The 
 loud laughter of the peers awoke the Duke of Norfolk 
 from his slumbers, and when, on inquiry, he was told 
 
 K 2
 
 132 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the object of the measure was to enclose the commons 
 of" Great Snoring " a parish in Norfolk he guessed 
 the reason for the mirth and joined in it heartily. 
 
 Henry Brougham, in the House of Commons, was 
 satisfied, as we have seen, with the refreshment 
 afforded by an orange. But with his elevation to 
 the peerage came, not unnaturally, expensive tastes. 
 The spectacle of the Lord Chancellor sucking an 
 orange on the Woolsack would no doubt have shocked 
 the sense of propriety of the Upper Chamber. During 
 Brougham's long and impassioned appeal to the 
 Lords to refrain from rejecting the Reform Bill of 
 1832, five tumblers of mulled port, with a dash of 
 brandy, were brought to him at intervals. At the 
 fifth glass a Tory peer exclaimed : " There is another 
 
 half-hour good for us, and be d to him." When 
 
 the Lord Chancellor came to his final sentence " I 
 warn you, I implore you yea, on my bended knees 
 I supplicate you, reject not this Bill," he knelt on the 
 Woolsack, whence he slipped to the floor, and his 
 friends, rushing up to congratulate him, helped him 
 to his feet again. But John Campbell, in his " Lives 
 of the Lord Chancellors," makes an uncharitable 
 suggestion in referring to the episode. " He con- 
 tinued some time as if in prayer," Campbell writes of 
 Brougham kneeling on the floor ; " but his friends, 
 alarmed for him lest he should be suffering from the 
 effects of mulled port, picked him up and placed him 
 safely on the Woolsack." 
 
 Twelve years later Brougham told Father Mathew, 
 the celebrated Irish temperance advocate, that he was 
 extremely abstemious in the matter of wine. In 1844, 
 Father Mathew amused a large party at the house
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF LORDS. 133 
 
 of an Irish nobleman in London by his attempts to 
 convert the noble lord to teetotalism. " I drink very 
 little wine," said Brougham; "only half a glass at 
 luncheon, and two half glasses at dinner ; and though 
 my medical advisers told me I should increase the 
 quantity I refused to do so." " They are wrong, my 
 lord, for advising you to increase the quantity," said 
 Father Mathew, playfully, "and you are wrong in 
 taking even the small quantity you mention, but I 
 have my hopes of you ; " and despite the good- 
 humoured resistance of Brougham he invested his 
 lordship with the green ribbon and silver medal of the 
 Total Abstinence Society. "I'll tell you what I'll 
 do," said Brougham. " I'll take the ribbon to the 
 House of Lords, where I shall be sure to meet old 
 
 Lord the worse for liquor, and I will put it on 
 
 him." This announcement was received with much 
 laughter by the company, for the peer referred to was 
 notorious for his deep potations. A few evenings 
 later Brougham met him in the House of Lords. 
 " Lord - ," said he, " I have a present from Father 
 Mathew for you," and he passed the ribbon and 
 medal rapidly over the old peer's head. " Then I'll 
 tell you what it is, Brougham. By God, I'll keep 
 sober from this night ! " exclaimed the other, and to 
 the great amazement of all his friends he remained 
 faithful to his vow. 
 
 On the evening of July I7th, 1834, the indignation 
 of Brougham was deeply stirred by the flinging of the 
 quotation from Shakespeare, "potations pottle deep," 
 at his head as he sat on the Woolsack. Differences 
 had arisen in the Administration of Earl Grey as 
 to the renewal of a Coercion Act for Ireland many
 
 i 3 4 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 of the Whigs being desirous for an alliance with 
 Daniel O'Connell and, the Prime Minister having 
 resigned, a new Whig Administration was formed, 
 with Lord Melbourne at its head. The Duke of 
 Buckingham was a very prominent member of the 
 House in those days, for he was a man mountain of 
 immense girth, with a good-humoured, laughing face, 
 and a voice so loud that the reporters used to say that 
 in the noise of his speaking they could hardly hear his 
 words. " The noble and learned lord on the Wool- 
 sack, and his colleagues, think they have buried the 
 noble earl in his political sepulchre, and that he will 
 no more disturb them," Buckingham roared. " But 
 they will find themselves mistaken. The spirit of the 
 noble earl will burst its cerements and will haunt 
 them, and will disturb the noble and learned lord on 
 the Woolsack in his festivities, when he may attempt 
 to forget what has happened with ' potations pottle 
 deep ' to the health and prosperity of the new Adminis- 
 tration." The Marquis of Lansdowne and the Lord 
 Chancellor rose together. " Stop a. minute," cried 
 Brougham, waving his hand at Lansdowne, who at 
 once resumed his seat ; and then, turning on Bucking- 
 ham, the irate Lord Chancellor said : " I am in the 
 habit of meeting the noble duke elsewhere, but never 
 have I had the honour of seeing him at the alehouse, 
 where he must have visited often to pick up the slang 
 terms to which he has treated the House." Several 
 peers, fearing a personal conflict, tried to interpose. 
 " Let the noble and learned lord go on ; don't 
 interrupt him," cried the Duke of Buckingham ; " I 
 shall take everything that may fall from him with 
 perfect coolness." Cries of " Order, order ! " now
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF LORDS. 135 
 
 arose, and someone was heard to shout " It's a joke." 
 "Well," said Brougham, " if the noble duke's words 
 were intended as a joke, I am ready to receive them 
 in good humour. But if they were meant as a serious 
 charge, then I do not hesitate to say of it that it is as 
 gross and unwarrantable, as utterly and completely 
 devoid of foundation, as any, the most untrue asser- 
 tion or insinuation that has ever been made by 
 any individual whatsoever." " I meant it in good 
 humour," said Buckingham. " The allusion was 
 from Shakespeare." The Lord Chancellor nodded 
 and smiled to express his satisfaction with the explana- 
 tion. Obviously he was distressed lest the mulled 
 port with the soupcon of brandy from Bellamy's 
 should be regarded by noble lords as his favourite dis- 
 sipation. But it is still more curious that Brougham, 
 of whom Daniel O'Connell said, " He knows a little 
 of everything even of law," was ignorant of that 
 Shakespearean quotation. 
 
 A strange peculiarity of the House of Lords, both 
 new and old, is that the Lord Chancellor on the 
 Woolsack has no authority over the proceedings, and 
 is powerless to maintain the order and decorum ol 
 debate. If a peer is out of order, or is deemed to be 
 out of order for there are no rules on the subject 
 it is the House, and not the Chair or, rather, not 
 the Woolsack which calls him to account. During 
 the angry discussions on the Reform Bill, Earl Grey 
 cried "Order, order!" during what he regarded as 
 irrelevancies in the course of a speech by Lord 
 Falmouth. After the debate, Lord Falmouth ap- 
 proached the Prime Minister with a menacing air 
 and said, " My Lord Grey, I wish to inform you that
 
 136 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 if upon any future occasion you transgress in the 
 slightest degree the orders of the House I shall most 
 certainly call you to order." Earl Grey was relieved 
 immensely. He had anticipated from the clouded 
 brow and frowning face of Lord Falmouth at least a 
 challenge to a duel. " My lord," he replied, "your 
 lordship will do perfectly right ; and whenever I am 
 out of order I hope you will." 
 
 Yet Earl Grey himself was annoyed because, while 
 he was speaking on the Church Temporalities (Ire- 
 land) Bill on July nth, 1833, the Duke of Cumberland 
 shouted " No, no!" "I trust that the illustrious 
 duke will have the decency not to interrupt me," said 
 the testy Prime Minister. " The illustrious duke is 
 right to maintain his opinion ; he may, if he pleases, 
 rise and defend it ; but because he has an opinion he 
 is not justified in interrupting those who differ from 
 him." Lord Kenyon rose to a point of order. He 
 appealed to their lordships not, it will be noticed, to 
 the Lord Chancellor whether the dissent expressed 
 by using the word "No" deserved the character of 
 indecency which the noble earl had applied to it. 
 Earl Grey explained that it was the interruption and 
 not the word that was indecent. As for the Duke of 
 Cumberland that most unpopular son of George III., 
 who subsequently became King of Hanover he was 
 accustomed to hear uncomplimentary things in the 
 House of Lords. " Illustrious duke ! " cried Lord 
 Chancellor Brougham, with bitter sarcasm, a month 
 later. " Wellington is a duke illustrious by his 
 actions, but you are illustrious only by the courtesy 
 of the House." On this evening of July nth, 1833, 
 the Duke of Cumberland made a modest reply to the
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF LORDS. 137 
 
 attack of Earl Grey. " I believe there is no man in 
 this House," said he, " who would more unwillingly 
 commit an act of indecency than myself, but if a 
 noble lord were not to be allowed to call ' No, no,' 
 when he felt inclined to dissent from a proposition, 
 there would be an end to all liberty of speech." 
 
 In the House of Commons the police may be 
 called in to assist the Sergeant-at-Arms in expelling 
 obstreperous members directed to be removed by that 
 supreme arbiter of order, Mr. Speaker. But in the 
 House of Lords the only agency that exists for 
 calming a heated discussion, for throwing oil on 
 troubled waters, for quelling a riot, is the reading by 
 the clerk of a pious Standing Order, or resolution, 
 passed so long ago as 1626. The only modern 
 instance at least of the application of this ancient 
 Standing Order occurred in the new House of Lords 
 on June lyth, 1872. The Ballot Bill, which the 
 Peers had rejected contemptuously the year before, 
 only to be again introduced by the Gladstonian 
 Administration, then in power, was under considera- 
 tion in Committee. The Conservative Opposition 
 carried in the division lobbies amendments to the 
 Bill which were opposed by the Government. Then 
 came the Earl of Shaftesbury with an amendment 
 extending from four o'clock to eight o'clock the time 
 proposed in the Bill for the opening of the polling 
 booths. The Ministers objected to the amendment 
 in argument, but in the division they voted for it. 
 
 The Opposition were annoyed at being thus de- 
 prived of boasting of another defeat of the Govern- 
 ment. " They have had an unfortunate night, and 
 I suppose they desired to have something to their
 
 138 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 credit," said that master of gibes, the Marquis of 
 Salisbury. "Yes," replied Lord Chancellor Hatherley, 
 "you want a monopoly of spoiling the Bill." Then 
 the fun began. The Marquis of Bath declared that 
 the Lord Chancellor never rose to address the House 
 without showing acrimony and bitterness and im- 
 puting motives to his political opponents. Earl 
 Granville accused the Conservative peers of exercising 
 a " despotism " in the House of Lords, and, referring 
 to the Duke of Richmond, the leader of the Opposi- 
 tion, he said : "If the noble duke had known more 
 clearly than he seems to have done the line of voting 
 we should take, he would have been able to exercise 
 his influence on members of his own party in order to 
 prevent them from voting in the way they thought 
 right." Richmond was moved to righteous indig- 
 nation by this attack. " The noble earl," he ex- 
 claimed, "has no right to make personal remarks, 
 and to impute to me motives which, if I held them, 
 would render me unworthy to sit in this House and 
 to hold the position I have the honour to hold." 
 Other peers, at each side of the House, jumped to 
 their feet, eager to take part in the fray. But the 
 Marquis of Clanricarde got in first, and said, simply 
 enough : " I move that the clerk at the Table do read 
 the Order of the House relating to asperity of^speech." 
 The clerk, accordingly, read the Standing Order, as 
 follows : 
 
 " To prevent misunderstanding and for avoiding ol 
 offensive speeches when matters are debating, either 
 in the House or at Committees, it is, for honour 
 sake, thought fit, and so ordered, that all personal,
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF LORDS. 139 
 
 sharp or taxing speeches be forborne, and whosoever 
 answereth another man's speech shall apply his 
 answer to the matter without wrong to the person ; 
 and as nothing offensive is to be spoken, so nothing 
 is to be ill taken if the party that speaks it shall 
 presently make a fair exposition or clear denial of the 
 words that might bear any ill construction ; and if 
 any offence of that kind be given, as the House will 
 be very sensible thereof, so it will sharply censure 
 the offender, and give the party offended a fit 
 reparation and full satisfaction." 
 
 The reading of the Order had the mollifying effect 
 desired. It exorcised the spirit of dissension, and 
 their lordships proceeded quietly to consider the other 
 clauses of the Bill. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the House of Lords is not 
 always the dull and decorous assembly it is popularly 
 supposed to be. When Lord John Russell was elevated 
 to the Peerage as Earl Russell in 1861, Punch pub- 
 lished a cartoon showing old Lord Brougham meeting 
 the new peer at the door of the Upper Chamber, with 
 the exclamation: " Oh, Johnny, ye'll find it mighty 
 dull here." As a matter of fact, Earl Russell's first 
 greeting in the House of Lords was of the very oppo- 
 site nature. The Earl of Derby, shaking hands with 
 him warmly, cried : " Oh, Johnny, what fun we shall 
 have here ! " It would seem indeed that the pro- 
 ceedings of the House of Lords have never been 
 lacking in amusing incident. On looking through 
 Pepys' Diary, as far back as 1666, 1 found an interest- 
 ing story. The Duke of Buckingham of that time 
 digged his elbow rudely against the Marquis of
 
 140 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Dorchester, and the marquis as rudely shoved the 
 duke aside. How the encounter ended, let Pepys 
 tell in his own quaint way. " The Duke of Bucking- 
 ham asked whether he was uneasy, and the marquis 
 replied, Yes, and that he durst not do this anywhere 
 else. The duke replied that he would, and that he 
 was a better man than himself. Lord Dorchester 
 exclaimed that he lied, and upon this the Duke of 
 Buckingham struck his hat off, and took him by the 
 periwig and pulled it aside and held him. My Lord 
 Chamberlain and others interposed, and both were 
 ordered to the Tower." 
 
 The long history of the proceedings of Parliament 
 contains, so far as I have been able to discover, but 
 a single instance of an open disagreement or quarrel 
 between the spiritual peers, or the members of the 
 episcopal bench. This did not occur in the old House 
 of Lords, when manners were perhaps brusquer 
 in all classes than they are in these days, and 
 when, undoubtedly, there was less self-restraint, but 
 in the new House, and as recently as 1880. On June 
 24th of that year, the third reading of the Burials Bill 
 was under consideration in the Lords. The object of 
 the bill was to allow Nonconformist services at the 
 burial of the dead in churchyards. A clause had been 
 inserted, at the suggestion of Dr. Tait, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, providing that the services should be 
 "Christian"; but Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough 
 subsequently better known as Archbishop of York- 
 speaking in the debate on the third reading, as a 
 Broad Churchman, thought the provision would prove 
 illusory, and hinted that the measure would be just 
 as well without it. The Archbishop of Canterbury,
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF LORDS. 141 
 
 annoyed at the reflection from such a quarter on the 
 utility of his proposal, expressed the opinion that his 
 " right reverend brother " was suggesting that secular 
 services at the grave-side ought to be permitted. 
 " No, no," cried Dr. Magee. Dr. Tait said he had 
 understood his right reverend brother to contend that 
 the introduction of the word ''Christian" was in 
 opposition to the principle of religious equality. Dr. 
 Magee again asseverated that his Grace had mis- 
 understood him. The Archbishop of Canterbury de- 
 clared that he must be under a misapprehension, for 
 he thought the Bishop of Peterborough had argued 
 for the omission of the word "Christian." This for 
 the third time brought up the strenuous and pugna- 
 cious Dr. Magee. " Such an accusation," said he, 
 " is monstrous, perfectly monstrous." 
 
 The encounter between the two ecclesiastics was 
 followed with much interest and amusement by the lay 
 peers ; and the Earl of Beaconsfield, speaking later, 
 indulged in some of his cynical humour at the expense 
 of both. Next day the newspapers affected in their 
 leading articles to be scandalised or entertained by 
 the " scene." But what followed privately between 
 the two spiritual peers is more interesting, and of that 
 the public never heard until the publication of the 
 biography of Dr. Magee a few years ago. Writing to 
 Dr. Cotter MacDonnell, his biographer, on June 26th, 
 Dr. Magee says : 
 
 " Late in the evening, when all had gone save my- 
 self (as I was delayed conferring with Spencer and 
 others on other matters), I went to unrobe, and as I 
 was doing so I heard behind me the Primate's voice
 
 142 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 low and pained, evidently saying, ' It would never 
 do for two Christian prelates to part in anger.' 
 I turned and said that of course I could not refuse 
 his offered hand (which he was holding out to me), 
 but I must point out to him that he was offering a 
 private reconciliation after a public wrong, and that 
 I felt some public reparation due to me for accusations 
 so gross and injurious. I put this very gently, and 
 after a little discussion, in which he attempted to 
 excuse his language, he promised to put things right 
 in the House by a few words last night. I need not 
 say how fully I met him there, and so we parted. He 
 never came near the House, but sent me a letter to 
 say that on reading the papers he saw that his ad- 
 mission of ' misapprehension ' appeared in all, and 
 that it was, he thought, unwise to say any more." 
 
 Dr. Magee was dissatisfied with this explanation. 
 He wrote to the Primate pointing out that after the 
 admission of ' misapprehension ' his Grace had used 
 " utterances of a most wounding and injurious cha- 
 racter," which ought to be withdrawn as publicly as 
 they had been made, and concluding with the expression 
 of a hope that time and mutual charity would heal this 
 breach in a friendship of long standing. The day 
 after the despatch of this letter from Peterborough to 
 Lambeth was Sunday. In the evening of the Sabbath 
 Dr. Magee wrote the following letter to Dr. Tait : 
 
 " MY DEAR LORD ARCHBISHOP, 
 
 " Since I wrote to your Grace yesterday, the 
 night, which brings reflection and prayer, has passed, 
 and I have knelt at the holy table, where feelings of peace 
 and charity replace those of anger or of self-assertion.
 
 OLD AND NEW HOUSE OF LORDS. 143 
 
 " I feel that I can no longer maintain, or even wish 
 to maintain, that position of claiming debts or rights, 
 real or assumed, which I asserted in my letter of 
 yesterday. I feel, too, that it might be unwise to call 
 again the attention of the Press to differences between 
 ministers of that holy faith which many of them are 
 perhaps already too little disposed to preserve. 
 
 " I remember now, and wish only to remember, all 
 that I owe to your Grace of kindness and courtesy 
 abundantly shown in the past, and I trust entirely to 
 your Grace's desire to do me justice, as regards my 
 motives and actions, in the time to come. I will 
 therefore ask your Grace to accept, instead of my 
 letter of yesterday, this, my assurance of affectionate 
 friendship hereafter as heretofore. 
 "Believe me, 
 
 " Your Grace's very sincerely, 
 
 " W. C. PETERBOROUGH." 
 
 The reply of A. C. Cantuar was as follows : 
 
 " MY DEAR BISHOP, 
 
 " Most heartily do I thank you for your kind 
 and Christian letter. In this busy world, with so 
 many conflicts of opinion and duty, I feel I have 
 much to regret in the manner in which I do what I 
 feel right, but it is cheering to know that in you I have 
 to deal with a friend who makes allowance for failures. 
 
 " Yours ever, 
 
 "A. C. C." 
 
 The attitude of the lay peers towards the spiritual 
 peers, according to Archbishop Magee, is one of 
 indifference, if not of hostility. Writing to his friend
 
 144 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 MacDonnell, in 1878, Dr. Magee said : " I am 
 thoroughly sick of episcopal life in Parliament, where 
 we are hated by the peers as a set of parvenus whom 
 they would gladly rid themselves of if they dared, and 
 only allowed on sufferance to speak now and then on 
 Church questions after a timid and respectful sort." 
 But no one can deny that the bishops, in their black 
 and white gowns, contribute to the picturesqueness of 
 the House of Lords. The wigs they wore in former 
 times not curled or with a pigtail, like the familiar 
 bob-wig of the barrister, but puffed out at the sides 
 were discarded in the early years of the reign of 
 Queen Victoria. Dr. Charles James Blomfield, who 
 was Bishop of London from 1828 to 1857, was tne 
 last prelate who appeared with a wig in the House of 
 Lords. Thackeray, in his essay on " Political Snobs," 
 ridiculing pageantry of all kinds, says : "I respect 
 my Bishop of London, my Right Reverend Charles 
 James, just as much since he left off a wig as I did 
 when he wore one." Long before that the wearing 
 of pigtails and powdered hair by lay peers had 
 become unfashionable. The Duke^of Cleveland only 
 clung to the old style of dress, and after he died, in 
 1842, the pigtail and powder were seen no more in 
 the House of Lords. Since then the sway of the 
 tall silk hat has been unquestioned. Gladstone, in 
 conferring a peerage on Tennyson, expressed the fear, 
 half jestingly, that the Poet Laureate might insist on 
 wearing a wide-awake in the House ; but Tennyson, 
 on the few occasions he appeared there, laid his 
 favourite Caroline aside. As for the Chamber the 
 Gilded Chamber, as Gladstone first styled it that, 
 indeed, is a fit dwelling-place for statesmen and sages.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " PRIVILEGE ! PRIVILEGE ! " 
 
 ON the second day of the assembling of a new 
 Parliament, when the Speaker-elect receives, at the 
 Bar of the House of Lords, from the five Lords 
 Commissioners (the representatives of the Sovereign), 
 in presence of the assembled members of both Houses, 
 the Royal approval of his election to the Chair of 
 the House of Commons, he claims from the Crown 
 in accordance with an ancient ceremony that dates 
 from the reign of Henry VIII. the rights and privi- 
 leges of the representatives of the people, in the 
 following prescribed words : 
 
 /X^ "It i s m y duty, in the name and on behalf of the 
 ' Commons of the United Kingdom, to lay claim, by 
 humble petition to his Majesty, to all their ancient 
 and undoubted rights and privileges, particularly to 
 freedom of speech in debate, to freedom of arrest to 
 their persons and servants ; above all, to free access 
 to his Majesty when occasion shall occur, and that 
 the most favourable construction shall be put upon 
 all their proceedings." 
 
 This ceremony would be ludicrous, owing to its 
 
 remoteness, nowadays, from the realities of things, 
 
 if there were not great historic memories to invest it 
 
 with a noble dignity. The words breathe the very 
 
 p. L
 
 146 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 spirit of freedom, and no matter what manner of man 
 may be the Speaker who utters them at the Bar of the 
 hereditary Chamber, their notes of manly dignity and 
 * courteous firmness always ring out impressively. But 
 as spoken by Mr. Speaker Peel they stirred the heart of 
 the listener like a trumpet blast. This ceremony, at 
 the opening of a new Parliament in 1892, was one of 
 the finest things in its way that I have ever witnessed 
 at Westminster. As I gazed from the Reporters' 
 Gallery at the tall, striking personality of Mr. Peel 
 standing below at the Bar of the House of Lords, with 
 the Commons massed behind him, and saw the stern 
 decorum in which his impressive countenance was 
 set beneath his massive wig, and heard these words 
 declaimed with a thrilling emphasis that made clear, 
 and, as it were, brought up to date, their historic 
 significance, the actualities of the situation vanished. 
 I thought not of the gracious lady, Queen Victoria, to 
 whom the claim was addressed whose last thought 
 indeed would be to deprive " her faithful Commons " 
 of their rights and privileges ; who would not if she 
 could, and could not if she would ; nor did I think of 
 the five quaint figures in scarlet and ermine robes 
 and black beaver hats, sitting so reposefully all in a 
 row on a bench beneath the Throne, representing 
 her Majesty. But I felt as if it were only the day 
 before that Charles I. came down to the House 
 of Commons with his musketeers, and imperiously 
 demanded the five members that for freedom's sake 
 braved his royal wrath ; and I would not have been 
 the least surprised had the bronze statues of the bold 
 barons of Magna Charta, who stand on pedestals, 
 like sentinels, around the Chamber, shook in their
 
 "PRIVILEGE! PRIVILEGE!" 147 
 
 heavy armour with the electric excitement of the 
 moment, and with waving sword and lance made the 
 rafters ring with their cries of exultation, even as they 
 shouted on that famous June I5th, 1215, at Runny- 
 mede, on the banks of the Thames, within a few 
 miles of the Palace of Westminster. 
 
 Needless to say, the claim thus so splendidly vindi- 
 cated was acceded to at once. The Lord Chancellor, 
 as the spokesman of the Royal Commissioners, replied 
 as follows to Mr. Speaker : 
 
 " Her Majesty most readily confirms all the rights 
 and privileges which have ever been granted to or 
 conferred upon the Commons by her Majesty or any 
 of her royal predecessors." 
 
 But the ceremony, its historic associations notwith- 
 standing, is now an empty form, and its words signify 
 nothing. It but illustrates the national characteristic, 
 which is exemplified in so many things at St. Stephen's, 
 to adhere rigidly to the letter of the far-away past, 
 although the spirit has been changed absolutely for 
 centuries. The House of Commons holds its privileges 
 independently of the Crown, and enjoys them irre- 
 spective of Mr. Speaker's vindication. The Crown, in 
 point of fact, is constitutionally powerless in the matter. 
 The privileges of Parliament are beyond its control. 
 It coulcl not constitutionally refuse to confirm these 
 privileges, and by confirming them as the Lord 
 Chancellor says it " readily " does at the opening of 
 every new Parliament it gives to them no additional 
 weight, force, or authority. 
 
 But apart from that, some of those very immunities 
 claimed in the Speaker's petition have either been 
 expressly abolished or limited by statute or tacitly 
 
 L 2
 
 148 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 abandoned by desuetude. From tbe earliest time 
 the servants of members of both Houses, as well 
 as members themselves, enjoyed the privilege of 
 freedom from arrest in all civil suits. Towards the 
 end of the seventeenth century, two sheriffs' officers 
 had to ride back to back on a barebacked horse, from 
 Westminster to the Exchange, with placards on their 
 breasts, inscribed : " For arresting a servant to a 
 member of the House of Commons." This monstrous 
 privilege was grossly abused. Not only did servants 
 of members run heavily into debt, and then, relying 
 on their immunity from arrest, and from the distraint 
 of their goods, snap their fingers at their creditors ; 
 but members of both Houses frequently extricated a 
 friend, sore pressed by duns, from his financial difficulty 
 by giving him a " certificate of servf.ce " or a written 
 declaration that he was a servant. The privilege, so 
 far as it related to servants, was abolished by statute 
 in 1770. Since then, nevertheless, the Speaker has, 
 at the opening of every new Parliament, appealed to 
 the Crown for freedom from arrest on behalf of servants 
 of members of Parliament. 
 
 The privilege of freedom from arrest enjoyed by 
 members of Parliament is confined to civil matters ; 
 but, since the abolition of imprisonment for debt, this 
 immunity has been shorn of most of its utility. 
 Formerly, it was a very useful privilege. Disraeli 
 says of one of the characters in his first novel, " Vivian 
 Grey," that "the only way to keep him out of the 
 House of Correction, was to get him into the House 
 of Commons." Parliament was then a convenient 
 haven of refuge for "splendid paupers." There are 
 three at least well-authenticated instances on record
 
 "PRIVILEGE! PRIVILEGE!" 149 
 
 of members who got elected to the House of Commons 
 in order to escape the consequences of their heavy 
 liabilities. In one case an English member named 
 Mills, who owed 23,000, and for whose arrest a 
 warrant was in the hands of the sheriff, avoided 
 imprisonment by purchasing a seat for one of the old 
 " rotten boroughs," in 1807, for a sum of 1,000. In 
 another case, an Irishman, named Bourke, was con- 
 fined in the King's Bench Prison, about seventy years 
 ago, in execution for a considerable debt. His friends 
 had him returned for an Irish constituency, but he 
 never entered the House. On his release after election, 
 he fled to the Continent, and remained there. Again, 
 in 1825, tne vear before Disraeli published " Vivian 
 Grey," a man who was in prison for debt was returned 
 for Beverley, a small English borough, and was forth- 
 with released on a warrant issued by Mr. Speaker. 
 It was a case, in real life, of from the House of 
 Correction to the House of Commons. 
 
 Under the Act of 1770, which abolished the im- 
 munity of servants of members from arrest, the goods 
 of a peer or a member of the House of Commons may 
 be distrained for debt like the goods of any other 
 citizen. He is also subject to the procedure of the 
 Bankruptcy Act of 1883. An order of the Court 
 declaring him a bankrupt cancels his writ of summons 
 if a peer, and renders his seat vacant if a member of 
 the House of Commons. It should also be noticed 
 that this privilege of freedom from arrest in civil causes 
 is, like all the other privileges, enjoyed by members of 
 Parliament a term which properly includes peers as 
 well as commoners only during the Session, when they 
 are expected to be at Westminster, and for forty days
 
 150 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 before and after the meeting of Parliament, so as to 
 secure in the first instance their attendance at West- 
 minster, and when discharged from duty their safe 
 return home. These periods of forty days were fixed 
 when railways were unknown and travelling was 
 exceedingly slow. During the remainder of the year 
 a member of Parliament is as an ordinary citizen. 
 He has no special immunities. 
 
 The privilege of freedom from arrest is not allowed 
 to interfere with the administration of criminal justice. 
 But if a member is sent to prison on a criminal charge, 
 the House must be informed, through the Speaker, by 
 the judge or magistrate who sentenced him, of the 
 cause for which he is detained from his service in 
 Parliament. If the cause is a felony the member is 
 expelled from the House. 
 
 The House does not allow the sanctuary of its walls 
 to protect a member from the processes of the criminal 
 law. But here, again, the service of a criminal process 
 on a member within the precincts of the House while 
 the House is sitting may be a breach of privilege. 
 For instance, during the Session of ^1889, a constable 
 of the Royal Irish Constabulary served a summons 
 under the Crimes Act, or "Coercion Act," as it is often 
 called, on Mr. Sheehy, an Irish member, in the lobby 
 of the House. Mr. Sheehy at once rushed into the 
 House, and interrupting the proceedings, called the 
 Speaker's attention to this breach of privilege. An 
 angry debate ensued, and finally a Committee was 
 appointed to inquire into the affair ; but the result was 
 a report which stated that, as the constable had acted 
 in ignorance, the matter did not demand any action 
 on the part of the House. In 1815, Lord Cochrane,
 
 "PRIVILEGE! PRIVILEGE!" 151 
 
 during his imprisonment in London for conspiracy in 
 connection with a Chancery suit, was elected to the 
 House of Commons. He escaped from the prison 
 and made his way to Westminster, thinking, curiously 
 enough, that as a law-maker he would find within the 
 walls of the Legislature a refuge from the officers of 
 the law. But the Marshal of the King's Bench with 
 his myrmidons pursued the fugitive thither, and arrested 
 him as he sat on one of the benches of the House 
 of Commons, despite his protest that hands should 
 not be laid upon him in that place. The House, how- 
 ever, was not sitting at the time. A Committee was 
 appointed by the House to inquire whether the arrest 
 was a breach of privilege, and it reported as follows : 
 " That under the peculiar circumstances given in 
 evidence, it does not appear that the privileges of 
 Parliament have been violated so as to call for the 
 interposition of the House by any proceedings against 
 the Marshal of the King's Bench." 
 
 Members representing English and Welsh constitu- 
 encies are exempt during a Session from serving on 
 juries, their duties to Parliament being held to super- 
 sede that obligation of the citizen. Curiously enough, 
 Scotch or Irish representatives do not enjoy this 
 privilege. All members, however, are required, during 
 a Session, to attend as witnesses if summoned in any 
 case, in order that the administration of justice may 
 not be hindered. 
 
 The speech of a member of Parliament, delivered 
 in Parliament, cannot be made the subject of a 
 legal action. To take proceedings in a Court of law 
 for libel against a member for a statement made 
 by him in Parliament is a breach of privilege.
 
 i 5 2 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Indeed, the Court would refuse to hear any such action, 
 on the ground that it has no jurisdiction. 
 
 But if a member should circulate his speech in 
 pamphlet or newspaper, it is regarded as a separate 
 publication, unconnected with Parliament, and he 
 cannot claim privilege for any statement it may con- 
 tain. There are two very interesting cases bearing 
 on this point. In 1795, Lord Abingdon, in a speech 
 delivered in the House of Lords, accused his attorney 
 of improper professional conduct, and afterwards pub- 
 lished the speech in the newspapers at his own expense. 
 An action for libel was taken by the aggrieved attorney. 
 Lord Abingdon, in conducting his own case before the 
 Court of King's Bench, made the excellent point that 
 he had the right to print that which, by law of Parlia- 
 ment, he had the right to speak. But Lord Kenyon 
 replied that " a member of Parliament had certainly 
 the right to publish his speech, but that speech should 
 not be made a vehicle of slander against any individual. 
 If it was so made, it was libel." The defendant was 
 accordingly fined ;ioo and sent to prison for three 
 months. 
 
 The other case bearing on the point comes from 
 the House of Commons. In 1813, Mr. Creevy, a 
 member of Parliament, made a charge against an 
 individual in the course of a speech delivered in the 
 House. Garbled versions of the speech having 
 appeared, Mr. Creevy sent a correct report to the 
 editor of a paper, with a request to publish it. The 
 request was complied with, and on this report, which 
 the Court held to be a separate publication, the 
 individual attacked recovered 100 damages against 
 Mr. Creevy for libel. Mr. Creevy complained to the
 
 "PRIVILEGE! PRIVILEGE!" 153 
 
 House of the Court of King's Bench for fining him, 
 but the House refused to condemn the Court as guilty 
 of breach of privilege. 
 
 The latest legal decision on this interesting point 
 was delivered in 1867, when Lord Chief Justice 
 Cockburn declared : 
 
 " If a member publish his own speech reflecting 
 upon the character of any person, and omits to 
 publish the rest of the debate, the publication would 
 not be fair, and so would not be privileged. But a 
 fair and faithful report of the whole debate, if it 
 contained aspersions on character, would not be 
 actionable." 
 
 Parliamentary papers, or papers issued by order 
 of either House, were not privileged until 1840. In 
 1837, on tne eve f Queen Victoria's accession to the 
 Throne, Parliament decided for the first time to sell 
 its papers, including blue-books, reports, and returns, 
 to the public at the lowest possible rates ; in fact, at 
 rates much below the cost of production. One of the 
 earliest reports sold to the public under the order was 
 the means of getting Parliament into a very un- 
 pleasant and undignified conflict with the Law Courts, 
 which lasted two years. The report was written 
 by an inspector of prisons. In it he incidentally 
 mentioned that a " disgusting and obscene " book 
 published by Messrs. Stockdale, well-known publishers 
 at the time, was supplied from the gaol library to 
 prisoners in Newgate. An action for libel was at 
 once instituted by Messrs. Stockdale against Messrs. 
 Hansard, the Parliamentary printers, who printed 
 the report ; and although counsel, on behalf of
 
 i 5 4 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Parliament, urged the plea of privilege, a verdict for 
 the plaintiff with 600 damages was entered. 
 
 Lord Chief Justice Denman, before whom the 
 action was tried, said he was "not aware of the 
 existence in this country of any body whatever that 
 can privilege any servant of theirs to publish libels of 
 any individual." The House, therefore, passed on 
 May 3 ist, 1837, a resolution declaring that " the power 
 of publishing such of its reports, votes and proceedings 
 as it shall deem necessary or conducive to the public 
 interests, is an essential incident to the Constitutional 
 function of Parliament." But the decision of the 
 Court of King's Bench was confirmed on appeal by 
 the higher Court, with the result that in 1840 Parlia- 
 ment passed an Act which is the most unimpeach- 
 able expression of authority in the Realm giving 
 protection against actions at law to the printers of 
 its papers. 
 
 This protection was not, however, extended to 
 private printers who might publish the same papers, 
 nor to the newspapers for their reports of Parlia- 
 mentary proceedings. Shortly afterwards, an action 
 for libel was successfully brought against The Times 
 for the publication of evidence reflecting on an 
 individual, given before a Select Committee of the 
 House of Lords on affairs in New Zealand. The 
 Times, thereupon, petitioned Parliament for the 
 extension to newspapers of the protection afforded to 
 Messrs. Hansard ; but the sense of both Houses was 
 against the claim. However, without any statute 
 having been passed, the Courts of law, properly 
 interpreting public opinion on the subject, have 
 since held that newspaper reports of speeches in
 
 "PRIVILEGE! PRIVILEGE!" 155 
 
 Parliament containing defamatory statements are 
 privileged upon verification of their correctness. " A 
 newspaper," said Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, " is 
 not liable to an action for libel for the publication 
 of a fair and faithful report of a debate." 
 
 The privilege that has practically fallen into desue- 
 tude is that of free access to the Sovereign, which the 
 Speaker claims " above all " from the Crown. It was 
 never enjoyed by individual members of the House of 
 Commons (though it was, and according to the theory 
 of the Constitution is at present, enjoyed by Peers), but 
 by the House at large, with the Speaker at its head. 
 The only occasion on which it can be exercised 
 is when an Address is presented to the Sovereign 
 by the whole House, as, for instance, in reply to the 
 Speech from the Throne. 
 
 Now, however, the Address is always presented 
 by one of the officials of the Royal Household who 
 are members of the Administration. Probably few 
 members of Parliament know that in order to insure 
 their "free access " to the Throne on the occasion of 
 an Address being presented to the Sovereign by the 
 whole House, the forms and ceremonies of the Court 
 are dispensed with, and they may, if they please, 
 enter the very presence of the Sovereign in ordinary 
 attire " in hoddin grey and a' that," as Burns would 
 say instead of in the regulation velvet coat, knee- 
 breeches, ruffles and sword. But that is not all. 
 Should they decide to drive to St. James's or 
 Buckingham Palace, by the Mall, they need not as 
 on ordinary occasions they and everybody else are 
 bound to do take the sideway close to Green Park, 
 but they may use the central road of the boulevard
 
 156 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 which, save when Drawing-rooms and Levees are 
 held, is reserved exclusively for Royal personages. 
 
 Disraeli, who attended the presentation of the 
 Address of the House of Commons congratulating 
 the Queen on her marriage with Prince Albert, in 
 Buckingham Palace, February i8th, 1840, thus 
 describes the event in a letter to his sister : 
 
 " I went up with our House very strong in numbers 
 and very brilliant in costume, and it was generally 
 agreed that / am never to wear any other but a 
 Court costume, being, according to Ossulston, a very 
 Charles II. The Peers preceding our procession by 
 only half an hour the golden carriages of the Lord 
 Chancellor and the Speaker were almost blended in 
 the same crowd ; and the quantity of personages of 
 note, to say nothing of courtiers, gentlemen-at-arms, 
 and beefeaters, was very fine. All our men were 
 costumed ; but Scholefield and Muntz and a few 
 Rads, including, to my surprise, O'Connell, en 
 bourgeois. The Speaker, with John Russell on his 
 right and Peel on his left, both in Windsor uniform, 
 marched up to the Throne in good style, we followed 
 somewhat tumultuously. The Queen looked well ; 
 the Prince, on her left, in high military rig, very 
 handsome, and the presence was altogether effective. 
 Always having heard the Palace abused I was rather 
 agreeably surprised. The hall is low, but the stair- 
 case is not ineffective, and I was amused, for the 
 scene was busy and brilliant." 
 
 Parliament is omnipotent. It can pass any law 
 and alter any law it pleases, and when its word is 
 spoken, when its fiat is issued, all heads, from the
 
 "PRIVILEGE! PRIVILEGE!" 157 
 
 lowest to the highest in the Realm, must bow in 
 obedience. But it has placed perhaps it would be 
 more accurate to say attempted to place a restriction 
 upon its powers to create for itself new privileges. 
 A resolution to that effect was drawn up by a Joint 
 Committee of both Houses in 1704, and was then 
 passed by the Lords and endorsed by the Commons. 
 It declares : 
 
 " That neither House of Parliament have power by 
 any vote or declaration to create to themselves new 
 privileges not warranted by the known law and custom 
 of Parliament." 
 
 The resolution, however, has not a permanently 
 binding effect on either House. It is not irrevocable. 
 It may be repealed at any time by the same authority 
 that enacted it. The omnipotency of each Parliament 
 does not extend beyond the period of its own existence. 
 It cannot bind future Parliaments. Acts have been 
 passed containing provisions which were declared to 
 be fundamental and unalterable. But, nevertheless, 
 they have been altered or repealed by subsequent 
 legislation. 
 
 Either House of Parliament cannot abolish or limit 
 any of the privileges of the other. Each is the sole 
 arbiter in matters affecting the regulation of its own 
 proceedings, the maintenance of its own dignities, 
 and the immunities of its own members. At one time 
 the two Houses were, in that respect, very jealous of 
 each other. Each insisted on the punctilious obser- 
 vance by the other of that high respect for its dignity 
 which its abnormal self-esteem considered its due. 
 Edmund Burke once made a bitter complaint in the
 
 158 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 House of Commons that on going up to the House of 
 Lords with a Bill he had been kept three hours waiting 
 at the doors. The Commons were so indignant at 
 this disrespectful treatment of its distinguished mem- 
 ber that when next a Bill was brought down from the 
 Lords, they unanimously rejected it in a most ignomi- 
 nious fashion. That usually grave personage, Mr. 
 Speaker, contemptuously tossed the Bill across the 
 Table on to the floor, and a number of members rushed 
 forward and kicked it out of the House.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 
 
 AT the opening and prorogation of every Session of 
 Parliament, when the Sovereign is not present, a 
 proclamation styled " the Royal Commission " is read 
 in the House of Lords by one of the clerks to the 
 assembled Peers and Commons. This proclamation, 
 which is the Royal authority for the opening or pro- 
 rogation of Parliament by the Lords Commissioners 
 (the five Peers, including the Lord Chancellor, who sit, 
 arrayed in scarlet robes, slashed with ermine, on a 
 bench beneath the Throne), is engrossed on parch- 
 ment, and attached to it by a plaited silken cord is a 
 red seal, as round and as thick and as large as a 
 muffin. This is the " Great Seal of England "the 
 specific emblem of sovereignty. A document to which 
 the Great Seal is attached is the instrument by which 
 the will of the Sovereign is declared. The Great Seal 
 is therefore affixed to all proclamations of the 
 Sovereign, summoning or dissolving Parliaments ; 
 and to all Royal mandates and important documents 
 of State, such as charters to towns and institutions, 
 treaties with foreign Powers, patents of nobility, 
 credentials of ambassadors to foreign Sovereigns and 
 States, and appointments of Colonial Governors. 
 Green wax is used if the instrument be of a permanent
 
 160 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 character ; and red or yellow in cases of documents 
 of limited duration. 
 
 The Great Seal itself or the die from which this 
 massive wax impression is obtained consists of two 
 heavy silver discs, hinged together so as to form a 
 sort of mould into which the molten wax is poured 
 by an official of the Lord Chancellor's department 
 (comically known as " chaff- wax"), and allowed to 
 harden, when a seal is required. The disc which 
 forms the obverse of the Great Seal of Queen Victoria 
 is engraved with a youthful figure of her Majesty 
 enthroned, arrayed in her Coronation robes, crowned 
 and jewelled, and holding the sceptre in her right 
 hand. Classic figures of Religion and Justice stand 
 on either side of the Throne. Justice in on the right, 
 holding in her right hand a pair of scales, and resting 
 her left hand upon the hilt of her sword, which is 
 pointed downwards ; Religion is on the left, support- 
 ing a cross with her right arm, and with her left 
 hand a clasped Bible, on the corner of which is a 
 triangle, the sacred symbol of the Blessed Trinity. 
 The second disc, or the reverse of the Great Seal of 
 Victoria, has another figure of the Queen in a long 
 flowing State robe, with a crown on her head, and 
 round her neck the collar and badge of the Garter, 
 riding a horse richly caparisoned, and attended by 
 a young Page of Honour. Each side has an exquisite 
 border of roses, thistles, and shamrocks entwined. 
 Indeed, the Great Seal, viewed as an artistic specimen 
 of the engraver's art, is worthy of its great purpose. 
 
 A new Great Seal is made on the accession of every 
 Sovereign to the Throne, after the Coronation. Wax 
 seals are not very enduring. The material is prone
 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 161 
 
 to melt or crumble away, and the impressions are 
 liable to wear off. But, happily, well-preserved 
 examples of the Great Seals of England since the time 
 of William the Conqueror may be seen in the Gren- 
 ville Library, British Museum, in wax of various 
 colours green, red, chocolate, yellow and all, with 
 the exception of those used during the Commonwealth 
 and the Protectorate, have this in common, that on 
 one side is the Sovereign enthroned, as the supreme 
 authority of the Realm, and on the other, he sits on 
 horseback, equipped for war, as the head of the Forces. 
 The Lord Keeper of the Great Seal centuries ago was 
 the ecclesiastic most noted for his learning and piety, 
 who acted as chaplain and confessor to the Sovereign ; 
 or some powerful prelate like Cardinal Wolsey, around 
 whose neck it was hung with the injunction that he 
 was to "use it to the honour of God and his 
 Sovereign." The Lord Keeper also often used it to 
 his own profit. No royal document which conferred 
 a favour, such as a charter, a patent of nobility, or a 
 pardon, was allowed to "pass the Great Seal" as 
 the Parliamentary phrase has it until a big fee was 
 paid to the Lord Keeper. 
 
 But by an Act passed in the reign of Elizabeth the 
 hitherto separate offices of Lord Keeper of the Great 
 Seal and Lord Chancellor were united. When the 
 Lord Chancellor enters the House of Lords to pre- 
 side over its deliberations, he is accompanied by his 
 "Purse-bearer." This functionary, however, does 
 not carry the private purse of the Lord Chancellor. 
 That would be a weighty responsibility, as his lord- 
 ship draws a salary of 10,000 a year. The purse 
 the "Purse-bearer" solemnly carries, as, attired in 
 
 P. M
 
 162 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Court dress, he precedes the Lord Chancellor to and 
 from the House of Lords, is a gorgeous satchel, made 
 of finest silk, richly embroidered with the Royal Arms, 
 and other heraldic devices, in white and gold. It is 
 supposed to contain the Great Seal. As a matter of 
 fact, that sacred symbol of a mighty sovereignty is 
 never in the satchel. If it were, the responsibility of 
 the "Purse-bearer" would be great much greater, 
 indeed, than if he had to bear a purse that held a 
 salary of 10,000 a year. But the Great Seal is too 
 precious a thing to be carried about by an official, 
 even in the House of Lords. It lies, in its morocco- 
 covered box, in a strong safe, no doubt, at the 
 residence of the Lord Chancellor, whence it is taken 
 only when some important State document requires 
 the imprimatur of the Sovereign. The ceremony of 
 carrying the empty satchel in the House of Lords is 
 but one of many venerable fictions which play a 
 picturesque part in Parliamentary procedure. The 
 purse is placed on the Woolsack immediately behind 
 the Lord Chancellor, as he sits as Speaker of the 
 House of Lords. 
 
 The Great Seal played an historic part in the 
 long struggle between Parliament and the Stuart 
 Kings. In 1642 Charles I. removed his Court to York, 
 thinking he would be better able, out of London, 
 to flout the demands of the Parliamentary leaders 
 for constitutional government. Littleton, the Lord 
 Keeper of the Great Seal who was supposed at first 
 to be on the side of the Parliamentarians joined the 
 King, and to the great joy of Charles brought the 
 Great Seal with him. The Parliamentarians were dis- 
 mayed. The Great Seal was regarded as being really
 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 163 
 
 invested with the Royal power and authority of which 
 it was but the emblem. Indeed, the opinion seems to 
 have been generally entertained that the Great Seal 
 was a sort of wizard's charm. With it the King 
 could do anything ; without it he was powerless. 
 Besides, the policy of the Parliamentarians, at this 
 time, was to carry on the Government in the King's 
 name, according to the forms of the Constitution ; 
 and therefore the unexpected flight of Lord Keeper 
 Littleton, with the symbol of sovereignty, placed them 
 in an awkward dilemma. Several meetings of the 
 Commons were held to devise means to overcome the 
 difficulty, and even public prayers were offered up to 
 the Almighty to help them in their trouble. The 
 first practical step taken was that early in 1643 
 Parliament passed an Act making void all patents 
 and grants under the Great Seal since the time the 
 Great Seal " ceased " as the Act has it "to attend 
 the Parliament." But, of course, this did not remedy 
 matters. The Parliamentarians continued to be 
 seriously hampered in carrying on the Government 
 by the absence of the Great Seal. The question of 
 providing a new Great Seal was, therefore, brought 
 before the House of Commons in May of the same 
 year. Now, an old statute of Edward III. declared 
 to be high treason, carrying with it the penalty of 
 death (a crime, by the way, reduced to felony by an 
 Act passed early in the late reign), any attempt at 
 imitating, forging, or counterfeiting the Great Seal. 
 Many of the Commons were, as was natural in the 
 circumstances, very much perplexed. If the motion 
 to provide a new Great Seal were carried, and the 
 King ultimately came back, there would certainly be 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 a chopping off of heads, long imprisonments in the 
 Tower, confiscations of property, and other unpleasant 
 consequences. After a debate which was prolonged 
 over four days, the motion was carried in one of the 
 biggest divisions that had taken place for a long time 
 the numbers being : ayes 86, noes 74. 
 
 The Lords, however, refused their concurrence 
 with the vote of the House of Commons. The King, 
 hearing of this difference between the two Houses, 
 issued a proclamation at Oxford, dated June, 1643, 
 declaring that he would proceed with the utmost 
 severity under the Act of Edward III. against any 
 person whatsoever who should assist, vote, or concur 
 in the proposed counterfeiting of his Great Seal. But 
 the majority of the Commons at least were not to be 
 intimidated by these Royal threats, and refusing to 
 wait any longer for the Lords' concurrence, they 
 issued the following order to Thomas Simonds, an 
 eminent medallist often called Simon : 
 
 " Ordered, that Mr. Simonds be required and 
 enjoined, forthwith to make a new Great Seal for 
 England, and that he shall have 100 for his pains 
 40 in hand and three score pounds as soon as he 
 shall have finished the work." 
 
 In order to mitigate, as much as possible, the gravity 
 of this Constitutional departure, the new emblem of 
 sovereignty was an exact facsimile of the Great Seal 
 in the possession of the King. Charles was repre- 
 sented, on one side, enthroned and wearing the badge 
 and collar of the Garter ; and, on the other side, 
 riding on horseback in a suit of armour. The Lords 
 held out for a few months longer. They yielded their
 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 165 
 
 concurrence with the use of the new Great Seal in 
 October. " It must surely excite a smile," says 
 Hallam in his "Constitutional History," "that men 
 who had raised armies and fought battles against the 
 King should be perplexed how to get over so tech- 
 nical a difficulty. But the Great Seal in the eyes of 
 English lawyers has a sort of mysterious efficacy, and 
 passes for the depository of Royal authority in a higher 
 degree than the person of the King." However, a 
 few years later those constitutional scruples had 
 disappeared. On the capitulation of Oxford to the 
 Parliamentary Army, in 1646, the Royal Seal was 
 surrendered by Lord Keeper Lane (in whose posses- 
 sion it had been left by Charles I. when he rode away 
 disguised from the city) and was forwarded by General 
 Fairfax to the House of Commons. The House was 
 overjoyed at the recovery of the emblem, and resolved 
 that it should be defaced and broken. This curious 
 ceremony took place on August nth. Mr. Speaker 
 Lenthal appeared at the Bar of the House of Lords 
 at the head of the Commons, with the Great Seal of 
 the King, when it was ignominiously broken to pieces 
 with a hammer wielded by a brawny blacksmith, 
 amid the exultant cheers of the members of both 
 Chambers. 
 
 The Parliamentary Seal met with an exactly similar 
 fate. It continued in use until the beginning of 1649. 
 In January of that year, a few weeks before the 
 execution of Charles I. at Whitehall, Parliament again 
 ordered Simonds to make a fresh seal, and this time 
 voted him 200 for the work. It was delivered early 
 in February. On one side was shown, not the 
 Sovereign enthroned, but a view of the House of
 
 166 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Commons in Session, with the inscription, " In the 
 First Year of Freedom by God's Blessing Restored, 
 1648," and, on the other side, the King on horseback 
 was replaced by a map of England, Ireland, Jersey, 
 and Guernsey. The old Parliamentary Seal, which, it 
 will be remembered, contained the name and insignia 
 of the late Sovereign, was then broken to pieces by a 
 blacksmith at the Bar of the Lower Chamber, before 
 the assembled Commons, with the Speaker in the 
 Chair. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell had a new Great Seal made by 
 Simonds in 1653, when he established the Protecto- 
 rate. It contained no representation of the Long 
 Parliament. That had been rudely dispersed in 1653 
 by a file of musketeers acting under the orders of 
 Cromwell. Instead of the map of England and Ire- 
 land there were emblems, representative of England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland, surrounding the arms of the 
 Cromwell family ; and instead of the House of Com- 
 mons there was an effigy of Cromwell on horseback, 
 with head uncovered and sheathed sword, over which 
 was the inscription " Oliver Lord Protector." A 
 similar seal was also made by Simonds for Richard 
 Cromwell, when he succeeded his father as head of 
 the Protectorate in 1658. It contained a figure of 
 Richard on horseback, with the inscription " Richard 
 Lord Protector." 
 
 Meantime Charles II. possessed a Great Seal of 
 his own in exile. He had one made in Holland on 
 the news of his father's execution reaching him there 
 in 1649. He brought it with him to Scotland, where 
 he was crowned King at Scone, on June 1st, 1651, 
 preparatory to a descent on England, but lost it in
 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 167 
 
 his flight from the field of Worcester, where on 
 September 3rd, 1651, his followers were utterly routed 
 by the Parliamentarians. Charles escaped to France, 
 and had another Great Seal made in Paris in 1652. 
 
 The Restoration was accompanied by other in- 
 teresting Great Seal vicissitudes. The Long Parlia- 
 ment, which first met in November, 1640, and a 
 portion of which, known as " the Rump," Oliver 
 Cromwell ignominiously turned out in 1653, met again 
 in May, 1659 or rather the forty-two members of 
 it who survived, and on the I4th of that month the 
 Great Seal of Richard Cromwell was by their orders 
 demolished by a blacksmith at the Bar. Eleven days 
 later Richard Cromwell formally resigned the 
 Lord Protectorate. But Parliament did not again 
 requisition the services of Simonds to make a new 
 Great Seal. The second Great Seal of the Common- 
 wealth, in use before the Protectorate, had been pre- 
 served, and this was again brought into service, 
 though it ignored the King and the Lords, by giving 
 a representation of the House of Commons as 
 the supreme power of the land. The restoration of 
 Charles II. was, however, determined upon. The 
 Long Parliament was at length dissolved in March, 
 1660, the new Parliament met in April, and on May 
 28th the now familiar spectacle of a blacksmith 
 smashing a Great Seal was witnessed once more at 
 the Bar of the House of Lords before the assembled 
 members of both Chambers. It was the Great Seal 
 of the Commonwealth that was then destroyed. The 
 next day, May 2Qth, 1660, Charles II. came to White- 
 hall bringing with him the Great Seal he had made 
 at* Paris in 1652.
 
 1 68 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 But the strange and curious adventures of the 
 Great Seals of England were by no means at an end. 
 That year so memorable in our history, 1688, arrived. 
 William of Orange was in England, and the country, 
 weary of the despotism of James II., was flocking to 
 his standard. On the night of December loth in 
 that year the last of the Stuart Kings stole out of his 
 palace at Whitehall, disguised, accompanied only by 
 Sir Edward Hales, to fly to France. He had the 
 Great Seal with him. He got it the day before from 
 the Lord Chancellor, the notorious Jeffreys (whom, 
 however, he did not apprise of his intention to fly 
 from the country), intending at first to carry it with 
 him to France, and so, as he fondly imagined, render 
 difficult any exercise of the Royal authority by the 
 adherents of the Prince of Orange. James, with his 
 companion, went to the horse-ferry (where Lambeth 
 Bridge now spans the river), and procuring a boat 
 there, rowed up to Vauxhall, where he had arranged 
 for horses to meet him to bring him to the coast. 
 On the way down the Thames, fearing capture before 
 he could reach the coast, he dropped the Great Seal 
 into the river. He was no doubt delighted to think 
 that the emblem was irrevocably lost, and that his 
 opponents were thereby crippled in carrying on the 
 Government of the country. It would probably have 
 not mattered even if the wish of James had been 
 realised. A way would have been found out of the 
 difficulty. But the Great Seal was accidentally 
 recovered shortly afterwards by the nets of some 
 fishermen, who were plying their avocation in the 
 river near Lambeth, and was handed over to the 
 proper authorities.
 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 169 
 
 History records the irrecoverable loss of only one 
 Great Seal the first of George III. This untoward 
 event occurred when Lord Thurlow was Lord Chan- 
 cellor, he of whom Fox wittily said, " I suppose no 
 one was as wise as Thurlow looks that is impos- 
 sible." One morning in March, 1784, his lordship's 
 residence in Great Ormond Street at that time a 
 rather rural suburb was broken into by burglars, 
 who carried off the Great Seal, along with a sum 
 of money and two silver-hilted swords belonging 
 to officers of the Lord Chancellor. In the morning 
 Thurlow, in a very depressed condition of mind, went 
 to Downing Street, to tell the unpleasant news to 
 Pitt, who had just been appointed Prime Minister for 
 the first time by George III., and both immediately 
 repaired to the King at Buckingham Palace. By 
 command of his Majesty the Privy Council was 
 summoned within a few hours, to devise measures 
 for coping with this great and most unexpected 
 emergency ; and in obedience to the urgent command 
 of the Council the Royal engraver produced another 
 Great Seal a faithful replica of the one that had been 
 stolen in thirty-six hours, by working day and night. 
 It was said the burglars were in the employ of the 
 Whigs. On the 23rd of March, the day before the 
 Great Seal was stolen, Pitt decided to appeal to the 
 country, and as the Whigs desired to avert the 
 General Election, they were charged with stealing 
 the Great Seal, without which it was hoped so the 
 story ran the Sovereign would be unable to dis- 
 solve Parliament. Pitt evidently believed this 
 story. Writing to William Wilberforce, he said : 
 " Parliament will be prorogued to-day, and dissolved
 
 170 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 to-morrow. The latter operation has been in some 
 danger of delay by a curious manoeuvre, that of 
 stealing the Great Seal from the Chancellor, but we 
 shall have a new one ready in time." No doubt the 
 emblem was cast into the melting-pot of some thieves' 
 den. But it cannot have brought the burglars 
 more than a couple of pence, for at that time 
 the Great Seal was copper. It is only since 1815 
 that it has been made of silver. Lord Thurlow 
 was extremely careful of the new Great Seal. He 
 always slept with it under his pillow during the eight 
 subsequent years he was Lord Chancellor. 
 
 The Great Seal which was made after the union of 
 Great Britain and Ireland in 1800 is interesting for 
 the fact that it did not contain the old title " Rex 
 Franciae." This was first assumed by Edward III., 
 and was borne by all his successors. Even Charles II. 
 used it on the Great Seal he had made in Paris 
 while living there in exile, under the protection of the 
 King of France. The Great Seal of 1800 also 
 met with a misadventure. Lord Eldon was Lord 
 Chancellor from 1801 to 1827 (except for a brief 
 interval during the Greville Administration, which 
 followed the death of Pitt in 1806), and thus was 
 Lord Keeper of the Great Seal for twenty-five years, 
 the longest time the office has ever been held. He 
 relates in his " Diary " that when he waited on the 
 King in 1801 to receive the Great Seal, the Sovereign, 
 with whom he was a great favourite, produced it from 
 between his coat and waistcoat on the left side, and 
 handing it to him, said, " Here, I give it to you from 
 my heart." Eldon, therefore, was anxious to prove 
 himself a most careful Keeper of the Great Seal.
 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 171 
 
 Before retiring every night, he saw that it was safe 
 and secure in his bed-chamber. But with all his 
 precaution he nearly lost the emblem. One night, in 
 the year 1812, Eldon was aroused from his slumbers 
 by the cry that the house was on fire. His first 
 thought was for the Great Seal. Jumping from his 
 bed, he snatched up the box containing the symbol, 
 rushed down into the garden, and buried it in one of 
 the flower-beds. Returning to the house, he was 
 " so enchanted," as he confesses in his " Diary," 
 " with the pretty sight of the maids who had turned 
 out of their beds and were handing in buckets of 
 water to the fire-engine in their shifts," but, it is only 
 fair to mention, that he adds, " and so alarmed for 
 the safety of Lady Eldon," that next morning he had 
 quite forgotten the spot in which he had buried the 
 Great Seal. It was only after a long search in the 
 garden that it was discovered. " You never saw any- 
 thing so ridiculous," he writes, *' as seeing the whole 
 family down the walks dibbling with bits of sticks 
 until we found it." 
 
 But of all the Great Seals, that of William IV. 
 had probably the most extraordinary adventure, at 
 the time its Lord Keeper was the able but eccen- 
 tric Brougham, the Lord Chancellor of the Grey 
 Administration which carried Reform, and also of the 
 Administration that succeeded it, the first formed by 
 Lord Melbourne. In the autumn of 1834 Edinburgh 
 decided to celebrate the victory of Reform by enter- 
 taining the ex-Premier, Earl Grey, to a banquet. 
 Brougham had first intended "to go junketing on 
 the Rhine with Mrs. P." (so says Greville, who never 
 missed the opportunity of recording a bit of scandal
 
 172 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 in his " Memoirs "), but this project was relinquished 
 when he discovered that he could not leave the 
 country without putting the Great Seal in Commis- 
 sion, at a cost to himself of 1,400, which was a 
 larger price than he was disposed to pay for his 
 trip. He then decided to go to Scotland instead, 
 for the Grey festival, carrying with him the Great 
 Seal, which, in accordance with the ancient law, 
 must always be in the personal custody of the Lord 
 Chancellor. His progress through his native country 
 was triumphal, but his eccentric speeches and actions 
 created consternation among his colleagues, and pro- 
 vided amazement and amusement for the country at 
 large. 
 
 While staying at Rothiemurchus, then the residence 
 of the Dowager Duchess of Bedford, the ladies of the 
 party, in frolic, purloined the Great Seal from his 
 bedroom and hid it. Brougham was in great distress 
 of mind when he missed the Great Seal, fearing it 
 was lost ; so the ladies relieved him of his anxiety by 
 telling him of their joke, and, blindfolding him, they 
 sent him to search for the Great Seal in the drawing- 
 room. At last, to his intense joy, he dragged it forth 
 from a tea chest, and then, to appropriately celebrate 
 its recovery, he allowed the ladies to make pancakes 
 with it by pouring the ingredients between the discs. 
 He subsequently put the Great Seal to the same 
 culinary use at Taymouth to amuse the Marchioness 
 of Breadalbane. 
 
 News of these strange doings reached the ears 
 of King William, and he was greatly scandalised. 
 " There could not, indeed, be a more revolting 
 spectacle," wrote The Times on November iyth, 1834,
 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 173 
 
 " than for the highest law officer of the empire to be 
 travelling about like a quack doctor through the 
 provinces, puffing himself and his little nostrums, and 
 committing and degrading the Government of which 
 he has the honour to be a member. His Majesty 
 could not but be indignant with such conduct. And 
 it is a fact, notwithstanding all the fulsome adula- 
 tion heaped on his ' Gracious Master ' at Inverness, 
 Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and elsewhere, the peripatetic 
 keeper of the King's conscience has not once been 
 admitted since his return from his travels to the 
 honour of an interview with Royalty, either at Windsor 
 or Brighton." The Whig Ministers were in that month 
 of November dismissed by the King. Brougham, to 
 mark his resentment of the treatment he received 
 from William, sent him the Great Seal in a bag, 
 instead of following the established custom of deliver- 
 ing it personally into the Sovereign's own hands. 
 It is said that when, in the following year, Melbourne 
 was again commanded to form another Ministry, the 
 King stipulated that Brougham should not be replaced 
 in the office of Lord Chancellor. He lived until 1868, 
 but never again was he Lord Keeper of the Great 
 Seal. 
 
 The Great Seal cannot be legally taken out of the 
 Kingdom. Cardinal Wolsey took the Great Seal of 
 Henry VIII., of which he was Lord Keeper, with him 
 on a visit to the Low Countries in 1521. Proud, 
 imperious and masterful, a law unto himself in the 
 period of his prosperity, he thought, no doubt, that he 
 could ignore constitutional usages with impunity. But 
 for this act he was never forgiven, and when the days 
 of adversity came, it was one of the things remembered
 
 174 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 against him that contributed to his ruin. That of 
 Henry VIII. appears to have been the only Great 
 Seal which has ever been taken outside the Realm. 
 And as the Great Seal must remain within the borders 
 of the Kingdom, so, too, must its Lord Keeper. The 
 Sovereign may go abroad without any dislocation of 
 the affairs of State, or any inconvenience to the high 
 officials at the head of the Government. But there is 
 no provision in the Constitution for the absence of the 
 Lord Chancellor, as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, 
 except the cumbrous one of delegating the duties of 
 the office to a Commission. His lordship has, 
 therefore, to content himself in holiday time with 
 the health and pleasure resorts of the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 The three attacks of mental derangement from 
 which George III. suffered established the constitu- 
 tional principle that every Royal mandate and every 
 act of the Government, requiring the sign manual 
 of the Sovereign, is rendered legal by the imprimatur 
 of the Great Seal affixed by the Lord Keeper on the 
 advice of the Cabinet, of which he'himself, indeed, is 
 always a member. During an illness of George II. 
 in 1754, Lord Hardwicke affixed the Great Seal to 
 the Commission for opening Parliament without, of 
 course, the Royal authority, which the King was 
 incapable of giving ; and this rational common-sense 
 precedent was followed by William Pitt, as Prime 
 Minister, in 1788, when George III. was placed under 
 restraint by order of his physicians. It was then that 
 the famous constitutional question of the Regency led 
 to a complete reversal of the traditional policies of the 
 two great political parties. The Whigs became the
 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 175 
 
 champions of the divine right of Kings ; the Tories 
 the advocates of the supremacy of Parliament. Fox 
 advanced the opinion that the exercise of the Pre- 
 rogatives of the Crown during the King's illness lay 
 by right in the Prince of Wales, independent of any 
 decision of Parliament. The views of the great Whig 
 leader were coloured, no doubt, by the belief that the 
 first act of the Prince, as Regent, would be to dismiss 
 Pitt from office and appoint him Premier, for the 
 Prince was then a Whig. Pitt, influenced, doubtless, 
 by a natural desire to avert such a calamity, laid it 
 down that, except with the approval of Parliament, the 
 Prince of Wales had no more right in a strict legal 
 sense to assume the powers of the headship of the 
 State than any other subject. Before the question 
 could be settled by a vote of the House of Commons 
 the King recovered. This controversy between the 
 Whigs and Tories affords remarkable evidence of the 
 power of the Sovereign at that time to advance a 
 political policy. If such a contingency were to arise 
 in these days it would not be regarded, either from a 
 Constitutional or a Party point of view, with concern. 
 King George fell ill again in 1801 and 1804. It was 
 not, however, till the attack of 1811, which terminated 
 only with the old blind monarch's life in 1820, that it 
 again became necessary to issue, without the Sove- 
 reign's sign manual, letters patent under the Great 
 Seal for the opening of Parliament by Commission. 
 
 I have said that a fresh Great Seal is made on the 
 accession of every Sovereign to the Throne. One of the 
 first acts of a new Sovereign is to summon the Privy 
 Council for the purpose of having a Great Seal provided. 
 Designs are invited, and the one accepted is placed
 
 176 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 in the hands of the engraver to the Mint. When the 
 new Great Seal is made, the old undergoes a process 
 called " demasking." The new Sovereign, in presence 
 of the Privy Council, simply gives it a gentle blow 
 with a hammer, which leaves a slight mark. It then 
 becomes the perquisite of the Lord Chancellor of the 
 time. His lordship had another quaint and curious per- 
 quisite in addition to his salary of 10,000 a year. The 
 satchel that splendid specimen of art-needlework 
 which is supposed to contain the Great Seal, used to be 
 renewed every Session of Parliament, and the discarded 
 purse went to the Lord Chancellor. Lady Thurlow 
 was enabled to make several magnificent counterpanes 
 and bed-hangings from the satchels which fell to her 
 husband as perquisites during the many years he filled 
 the office of Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. 
 
 On the accession of William IV. to the Throne in 
 1830, there was an interesting contention between 
 Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham for the posses- 
 sion of the Great Seal of George IV. Lyndhurst was 
 Lord Chancellor at the death of George, but a change 
 of Government having followed, Brougham occupied 
 the office when the Great Seal of William was com- 
 pleted. The former argued that as the old Great Seal 
 really belonged to the preceding reign, and that as it 
 was vested in him at the death of the Sovereign, it was 
 his by every right and title ; while the latter contended, 
 in support of his claim to the emblem, that, as provided 
 by law, it continued in use until the Great Seal of the 
 succeeding Sovereign was actually provided. William 
 IV., to whom the dispute was referred for arbitration, 
 settled it to the mutual satisfaction of both statesmen. 
 He allotted to each of them one of the sides of the
 
 THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 177 
 
 Great Seal, and tossed up a coin to decide which 
 should have the King on his Throne and which the 
 King on horseback. But his Majesty's graciousness 
 did not end there. He had the two sides set in superb 
 silver salvers, and Brougham and Lyndhurst received, 
 thus mounted, their respective portions of the Great 
 Seal of George IV. 
 
 The action of William IV. may now be regarded as 
 a well-established precedent. In 1860 a new Great Seal 
 was ordered, as the one made at the accession of the 
 Queen to the Throne had become somewhat defaced. 
 Lord Chelmsford was Lord Chancellor at the time, 
 but before the new Seal was completed he was suc- 
 ceeded, on a change of Government, by Lord Campbell. 
 They decided that, with the consent of the Queen, 
 they would be bound by the judgment of William IV. 
 in the case of Lyndhnrst v. Brougham as to the disposal 
 of the old Great Seal. Campbell laid the matter before 
 her Majesty, who readily consented to follow the 
 precedent of her uncle, and accordingly Chelmsford 
 and Campbell received each a side of the Great Seal 
 set in a silver salver. The precedent was extended 
 by Lord Chancellor Cairns in 1878, when it again 
 became necessary to provide another Great Seal. 
 The old Seal fell, as usual, to Lord Cairns ; and, 
 though he was under no obligation to do so, he gave 
 one of the sides to his predecessor on the Woolsack, 
 Lord Selborne, who was Lord Chancellor in 1873. 
 The Great Seal made in 1878 was discarded in 1898. 
 It fell to Lord Chancellor Halsbury, to whom also 
 fell the last Great Seal of Victoria. The cost of a 
 Great Seal, I may add, ranges from 400 to 500. 
 Impressions of the Great Seals are of immense value 
 
 p. N
 
 I 7 8 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 to the antiquary and the historian. For nearly seven 
 hundred years the Royal armorial bearings have 
 appeared upon them, and they furnish heraldic illus- 
 trations of the progress of the history of the country. 
 They also supply students of armour and costume with 
 exact and contemporaneous illustration of the dress 
 worn by the Sovereigns throughout the many years of 
 English history since the days of Edward III.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 
 
 EVERY legislator, Peer and Commoner alike, must 
 publicly take the following oath, or make an affirmation 
 in equivalent terms, at the Table of the House of which 
 he is a member, before he can participate in the 
 deliberations of Parliament : 
 
 "I, A. B.j do swear that I will be faithful and bear 
 true allegiance to his Majesty King Edward VII., his 
 heirs and successors, according to law. So help 
 me God." 
 
 The history of the evolution of this concise and 
 simple oath of fealty to the reigning Sovereign from 
 the long and complex oaths of Allegiance, Supremacy 
 and Abjuration, and declarations against certain doc- 
 trinal tenets of the Roman Catholic faith, which for 
 centuries were administered at St. Stephen's, forms 
 one of the most curious and interesting chapters in 
 the annals of Parliament. In it are reflected the 
 storm and stress in religious and political thought 
 which attended the Reformation in the sixteenth, and 
 the Revolution in the seventeenth, centuries. With a 
 view to safeguard the Throne against the machinations 
 of its foes, the nature of the oath was, as we shall see, 
 altered from time to time, according as the enemy, 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o PARLIAMENT. 
 
 assuming different forms it is the Pope at one period, 
 and the Pretender at another appeared or vanished 
 from the public stage. In it we can also trace the slow 
 progress of freedom of thought in the nineteenth 
 century, until the final triumph of toleration in 
 questions of belief was attained but a few years ago. 
 
 It was in 1563, the fifth year of the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, that members of the House of Commons were 
 first obliged to take an oath as a condition precedent 
 to the discharge of their legislative functions. Four 
 years earlier an Act was passed by the first Parliament 
 of Elizabeth, entitled " An Act restoring to the Crown 
 the ancient jurisdiction over the State, ecclesiastical 
 and spiritual, and abolishing all foreign power repug- 
 nant to the same" popularly known as the Act of 
 Supremacy which, with the Act of Uniformity, passed 
 by the same Parliament, was designed to begin afresh 
 the work of the Reformation, interrupted by the reign 
 of Mary. The Act of Uniformity restored the use of 
 the English Prayer Book in the churches ; and the 
 Act of Supremacy required the taking of the following 
 oath by ecclesiastics of every degree, the clergy, and 
 all persons in the pay of the Crown : 
 
 "I, A. B., do utterly testify and declare in my 
 conscience, that the Queen's Highness is the only 
 supreme governor of this realm, and of all other Her 
 Highness' dominions and countries, as well in all 
 spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes as 
 temporal ; and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, 
 State or potentate hath, or ought to have, any juris- 
 diction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, 
 ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm, and
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 181 
 
 therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign 
 jurisdictions, powers, superiorities and authorities, 
 and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear 
 faith and true allegiance to the Queen's Highness, 
 her heirs and lawful successors, and to my power 
 shall assist and defend all jurisdictions, pre-eminences, 
 privileges and authorities, granted or belonging to 
 the Queen's Highness, her heirs and successors, or 
 united or annexed to the Imperial Crown of this 
 Realm. So help me God, and by the contents of 
 this Book." 
 
 In 1563, during the second Parliament of Elizabeth, 
 a statute entitled "An Act for the Assurance of the 
 Queen's Majesty's royal power over all estates and 
 subjects within Her Highness' dominions," extended 
 the application of the test of taking this oath to all 
 holders of office, lay and spiritual, with one exception. 
 It was provided in the Act that every person elected 
 a member of Parliament " shall from henceforth 
 before he shall enter into the Parliamentary House, 
 or have any voice there, openly receive and pronounce 
 the said oath before the Lord Steward, for the time 
 being, or his deputy, for the time to be appointed." 
 But the Peers were excluded from the operation of 
 the Act. " Provided always," says the statute, " that 
 forasmuch as the Queen's Majesty is otherwise 
 sufficiently assured of the faith and loyalty of the 
 temporal lords of Her Highness' Court of Parliament, 
 therefore this Act shall not extend to compel any 
 temporal person, of or above the degree of a baron of 
 this realm, to take the oath above-said." 
 
 So matters remained until 1610. In 1605 the
 
 i8a PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Catholic conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, or " the gunpowder plot," as it is popularly 
 called, was discovered. When the Houses met in 
 1606 they quickly passed an Act (3 & 4 James I. 
 cap. iv.) " for the better discovering and repressing 
 of Popish Recusants," which provided that a new 
 oath, consisting of a lengthy and vigorously worded 
 declaration of allegiance to the King, James I., and 
 of abjuration of the spiritual and temporal jurisdiction 
 of the Pope, might be tendered by a justice of the 
 peace or a judge of assize to any person above the 
 age of eighteen years, and by the Lords of the Privy 
 Council to any nobleman or noblewoman, suspected 
 of being a Papist. By an Act passed in 1610 (7 
 James I. cap. vi.) members of the House of Commons 
 were required to take this new oath of Allegiance 
 with the old oath of Supremacy, before the Lord 
 Steward. The following is the oath : 
 
 "I, A. B. t do truly and sincerely acknowledge, 
 profess, testify and declare, in my conscience before 
 God and the world, that our Sovereign Lord, King 
 James, is lawful and rightful King of this Realm and 
 of all other his Majesty's dominions and countries ; 
 and that the Pope, neither of himself, nor by any 
 authority of the Church or See of Rome, or by any 
 other means with any other, hath any power or autho- 
 rity to depose the King, or to dispose any of His 
 Majesty's kingdoms or dominions, or to authorize 
 any foreign prince to invade or annoy him or his 
 countries, or to discharge any of his subjects of their 
 allegiance and obedience to his Majesty, or to give 
 licence or leave to any of them to bear arms, raise
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 183 
 
 tumult, or to offer any violence or hurt to his 
 Majesty's royal person, State or Government, or 
 to any of his Majesty's subjects within his Majesty's 
 dominions. Also I do swear from my heart that, 
 notwithstanding any declaration or sentence of ex- 
 communication or deprivation made or granted, or 
 to be made or granted, by the Pope, or his successors, 
 or by any authority derived or pretended to be derived 
 from him, or his See, against the said King, his 
 heirs or successors, or any absolution of the said 
 subjects from their obedience, I will bear faith and 
 true allegiance to his Majesty, his heirs and suc- 
 cessors, and him or them will defend to the uttermost 
 of my power, against all conspiracies and attempts 
 whatsoever, which shall be made against his or their 
 persons, their Crown and dignity, by reason or colour 
 of any such sentence or declaration or otherwise, and 
 I will do my best endeavour to disclose and make 
 known to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, all 
 treasons and traitorous conspiracies, which I shall 
 know or hear of to be against him or any of them." 
 
 The oath did not end there. The clause which 
 follows " that sulphurous document," as Dean 
 Stanley once aptly described it survived through 
 several changes and through many years in the 
 Parliamentary oath : 
 
 " And I do further swear that I do from my heart 
 abhor, detest and abjure, as impious and heretical, 
 this damnable doctrine and position, that princes 
 which be excommunicated, or deprived by the Pope, 
 may be deposed or murdered by their subjects or any 
 other whatsoever."
 
 i8 4 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 It then goes on, in a concluding clause, to intro- 
 duce the words " upon the true faith of a Christian," 
 which, though they were not then expressly intended 
 to exclude Jews from office or Parliament for persons 
 of Jewish religion were at that time prohibited alto- 
 gether from entering the Realm did, as we shall 
 see, prevent Jews from sitting and voting in Parlia- 
 ment as recently as the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, when they were otherwise qualified for the 
 position. The clause is as follows : 
 
 " And I do believe, and in my conscience am 
 resolved, that neither Pope, nor any person whatso- 
 ever, have power to absolve me of this oath, or any 
 part thereof, which I acknowledge by good and full 
 authority to be lawfully ministered unto me, and 
 do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the con- 
 trary ; and all these things I do plainly and sincerely 
 acknowledge and swear, according to these express 
 words by me spoken, and according to the plain and 
 common sense and understanding of the same words, 
 without any equivocation or mental evasion or secret 
 reservation whatsoever ; and I do make this recogni- 
 tion and acknowledgment heartily, willingly and truly 
 upon the true faith of a Christian. So help me God." 
 
 In 1678 an important change in the procedure 
 of the administration of the Parliamentary oaths 
 took place. The oaths, as I have said, were taken 
 by members of the House of Commons alone, not 
 in the Chamber itself, but before the Lord Steward. 
 We learn what the exact procedure was from the 
 following interesting entry in the "Journals" of the 
 House of Commons, dated the 4th June, 1660 the
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 185 
 
 third day after Charles the Second had met Parlia- 
 ment for the first time, following the Restoration : 
 
 " The Commons were busy most of this day in 
 taking the Oaths to the new Government, or rather 
 to the old one re-established. The Right Hon. James, 
 Marquis and Earl of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland, and Lord Steward of his Majesty's house- 
 hold, came into the lobby at the door of the House 
 of Commons, where a table being set and a chair 
 prepared, being attended by the Clerk of the Crown 
 and the Clerk of the Commons House, with the 
 Rolls of such members as were returned to serve 
 in this Parliament, his lordship gave the oaths of 
 Supremacy and Allegiance to several members, whom 
 he had, by his Commission, deputed to administer 
 the same to other members in his absence." 
 
 In 1678 the country was driven into a panic by 
 the story of Titus Gates which was afterwards 
 proved to be an invention that a powerful and 
 widespread conspiracy existed among the Catholics 
 for the assassination of Charles the Second in order 
 to clear the way to the Throne for the Papist Duke 
 of York. A " Bill for the more effectual preserving 
 the King's Person and Government by disabling 
 Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament " 
 was rushed through the Legislature. Under this 
 Act the Peers were for the first time required to 
 take the Parliamentary oaths. The Act provided 
 that both Peers and Commoners should have ad- 
 ministered to them publicly, at the Table in their 
 respective Houses, the old oaths of Allegiance and 
 Supremacy, and, as these oaths were evidently not
 
 1 86 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 thought sufficiently drastic and comprehensive in 
 their terms to exclude Catholics from Parliament, it 
 was further enacted that both Peers and Commoners 
 should, at the same time, " make, subscribe and 
 audibly repeat" the following most stringent and 
 searching declaration against transubstantiation, the 
 invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the Mass, 
 taken from the Test Act, passed in 1672, with a view 
 to excluding Roman Catholics from all offices, civil 
 and military : 
 
 "I, A. B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence 
 of God, profess, testify and declare that I do believe 
 that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, there 
 is not any transubstantiation of the elements of Bread 
 and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, at or 
 after the Consecration thereof, by any person whatso- 
 ever. And that the invocation or adoration of the 
 Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the Sacrifice of 
 the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of 
 Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous. And I do 
 solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testify and 
 declare that I do make this declaration, and every 
 part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the 
 words read unto me, as they are commonly under- 
 stood by English Protestants, without any evasion, 
 equivocation, or mental reservation whatever ; and 
 without any dispensation already granted me for this 
 purpose by the Pope, or any other authority or person 
 whatsoever, or without any hope of any such dis- 
 pensation from any person or authority whatsoever, 
 or without thinking that I am or can be acquitted 
 before God or man, or absolved of this declaration,
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 187 
 
 or any part thereof, although the Pope, or any 
 other person or persons or power whatsoever should 
 dispense with or annul the same or declare that it 
 was null and void from the beginning." 
 
 The oaths continued in this form until after the 
 Revolution. In the first Parliament of William and 
 Mary, in 1689, the very first year of their reign, "An 
 Act for the abrogating of the oaths of Supremacy and 
 Allegiance and appointing other oaths " was passed. 
 The old oath of Supremacy passed in the fifth year 
 of Elizabeth, and the old oath of Allegiance passed in 
 the seventh year of James the First, were abolished, and 
 the following shorter and simpler oaths of Allegiance 
 and Supremacy were, with the declaration against 
 transubstantiation, the invocation of saints and the 
 sacrifice of the Mass, enjoined to be taken by Peers 
 and Commoners : 
 
 "l t A. B., do sincerely promise and swear that I will 
 be faithful and bear true allegiance to their Majesties 
 King William and Queen Mary. So help me God." 
 
 "I, A. B. } do swear that I do from my heart abhor, 
 detest and abjure as impious and heretical that 
 damnable doctrine and position that princes excom- 
 municated or deprived by the Pope, or any other 
 authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or 
 murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever. 
 And I do declare that no foreign Prince, Person, 
 Prelate, State or Potentate hath, or ought to have, 
 any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence 
 or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this 
 Realm. So help me God." 
 
 Thirteen years after the adoption of these new
 
 1 88 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy in the closing 
 months of the reign of William the Third a fresh 
 national danger arose, against which it was thought 
 needful to take full and stringent precautions in the 
 Parliamentary oaths. In 1701 the deposed King, 
 James the Second, died at St. Germains. His son, 
 James Frederick Edward, who was barred from the 
 Crown by the Act of Settlement, was nevertheless 
 proclaimed, by the adherents of the Stuart cause, 
 King of England de jure, and was ostentatiously 
 recognized as such by the French King, Louis the 
 Fourteenth. An Act of Parliament entitled "An 
 Act for the further security of his Majesty's person 
 and the succession of the Crown in the Protestant 
 Line, and for extinguishing the hopes of the Pretended 
 Prince of Wales and all other Pretenders, and their 
 open and secret abettors " was quickly passed to 
 meet the exigencies of the new situation. It added 
 to the Parliamentary oaths the following oath of 
 special and particular abjuration of the Pretender's 
 title : 
 
 v 
 
 "I, A. B., do truly and sincerely acknowledge, 
 profess, testify and declare in my conscience before 
 God and the world that our Sovereign Lord, King 
 William, is lawful and rightful King of this Realm 
 and of all other his Majesty's dominions and coun- 
 tries thereunto belonging. And I do solemnly and 
 sincerely declare that I do believe in my conscience 
 that the person who pretended to be the Prince of 
 Wales during the life of the late King James, and 
 since his decease pretending to be and taking upon 
 himself the style and title of King of England by the
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 189 
 
 name of James the Third, hath no right or title 
 whatsoever to the Crown of this Realm or any other 
 the dominion thereto belonging. And I do renounce, 
 refuse and abjure any allegiance or obedience to him. 
 And I do swear that I will bear faith and true 
 allegiance to his Majesty King William, and him 
 will defend to the utmost of my power against all 
 traitorous conspiracies and attempts whatsoever 
 which shall be made against his person, Crown or 
 dignity. And I will do my best endeavour to disclose 
 and make known to his Majesty and his successors 
 all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which I shall 
 know to be against him or any of them. And I do 
 faithfully promise to the utmost of my power to 
 support, maintain and defend the limitation and 
 succession of the Crown against him, the said James, 
 and all other persons whatsoever, as the same is and 
 stands limited (by an Act intituled * An Act declaring 
 the rights and liberties of the Subject and settling 
 the succession of the Crown ') to his Majesty during 
 his Majesty's life, and after his Majesty's decease to 
 the Princess Ann of Denmark, and the heirs of her 
 body, being Protestants, and for default of issue of 
 the said Princess and of his Majesty respectively, to 
 the Princess Sophia, Electress, and Duchess Dowager 
 of Hanover and the heirs of her body, being Protes- 
 tants. And all these things I do plainly and sincerely 
 acknowledge and swear according to these express 
 words by me spoken, and according to the plain 
 meaning and common sense and understanding of 
 the same words, without any equivocation, mental 
 evasion, or secret reservation whatsoever. And I do 
 make this recognition, acknowledgment, abjuration,
 
 igo PARLIAMENT. 
 
 renunciation, and promise heartily, willingly and 
 truly, upon the true faith of a Christian. So help 
 me God." 
 
 These oaths underwent two slight verbal alterations 
 during the eighteenth century, in addition, of course, 
 to the insertion of the title of the reigning Sovereign. 
 On the death of the Chevalier de St. George in 1765, 
 when his son Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, 
 succeeded to the hapless heritage of the Stuarts, the 
 abjuration was directed against " the person who 
 pretended to be Prince of Wales" a phrase which 
 was transformed into " any of the descendants of the 
 person who pretended to be Prince of Wales," by an 
 Act passed on the death of Charles Edward in 1788, 
 during the reign of George the Third. 
 
 The amount of swearing the solemn appeals to the 
 Deity and professions of faith which a representa- 
 tive returned to the House of Commons was com- 
 pelled to undergo before he could take his seat within 
 the Chamber was now certainly prodigious. He was 
 first obliged to swear to the oath of Allegiance and the 
 oath of Supremacy before the Lord Steward, even 
 before he was allowed to cross the Bar of the Legis- 
 lative Chamber ; and, next, to take at the Table of the 
 House the oath of Allegiance, the oath of Supremacy, 
 the oath of Abjuration, and, in addition, to make the 
 declaration against transubstantiation, the invocation 
 of the saints, and the sacrifice of the Mass. The Lord 
 Steward, before whom the "out-of-door" oaths, as 
 they were called, were taken since the first imposition 
 of an oath on members of Parliament in 1563, is an 
 official of the Court. It has been a political appoint-
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 191 
 
 ment for many years, the holder of the office being a 
 member of the existing Administration ; but in former 
 times it was supposed to represent the Crown ; and the 
 Crown, not content with the imposition of the oaths 
 at the Table of the House of Commons, required of 
 every representative of the people the further security 
 of a special sworn declaration of his allegiance before 
 its Lord Steward. 
 
 The next stage in the evolution of the Parliamen- 
 tary oaths was reached in 1829, the year of Catholic 
 emancipation. For twenty years previously Ireland was 
 the scene of a mighty popular agitation, led by Daniel 
 O'Connell, for the removal of the civil disabilities of 
 Roman Catholics. The Penal Laws, which were 
 passed after the Revolution, had been gradually 
 repealed. Catholics had long enjoyed full freedom of 
 worship. Only one civil disability existed, but it was a 
 disability of great magnitude. No Catholic could 
 become a member of either House of Parliament. 
 Catholic forty-shilling freeholders had the franchise in 
 Irish counties (though not in English counties), but they 
 could not exercise it on behalf of a member of their 
 own faith. Several Bills for the relief of the Catholics 
 had since the Union of 1800 passed through the 
 House of Commons, only to be rejected by the Lords. 
 The King, George the Fourth, like his father George 
 the Third, seemed invincibly determined to withhold 
 his assent to any measure which would impair the 
 Protestant character of Parliament. If he could 
 possibly help it, no Catholic should cross the thres- 
 hold of either the House of Lords or the House of 
 Commons. In that resolve the King was supported 
 by a large and powerful section of the Commons, by
 
 i 9 2 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 an overwhelming majority of the Lords, and, it would 
 seem, by popular opinion in Great Britain, although 
 no appeal to the constituencies on the question had 
 ever been directly made. 
 
 But in 1828 an event occurred in Ireland which 
 brought matters to a crisis. O'Connell, the leader 
 of the movement for Catholic emancipation, was 
 triumphantly returned for county Clare, and the lead- 
 ing members of the Administration, Sir Robert Peel 
 and the Duke of Wellington, who had hitherto been 
 opposed to emancipation, were now convinced that 
 the Catholics could no longer be safely denied admit- 
 tance to Parliament. Accordingly the Catholic Relief 
 Bill was introduced by Peel in the House of Commons 
 on March 5th, 1829. It passed rapidly through both 
 Houses, and a threat of resignation on the part of 
 the Ministers induced the King, much against his 
 will (Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst argued with him for 
 five hours at Windsor Palace before he yielded), to 
 give it the Royal Assent on April I3th, 1829. 
 
 The Act provided a special oath for Roman Catholic 
 members. It was as follows : 
 
 11 1, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear that I 
 will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty 
 King George the Fourth, and will defend him to the 
 utmost of my power against all conspiracies and 
 attempts whatever, which shall be made against his 
 person, Crown or dignity ; and I will do my utmost 
 endeavour to disclose and make known to his Majesty, 
 his heirs and successors, all treasons and traitorous 
 conspiracies which may be formed against him or 
 them. And I do faithfully promise to maintain,
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 193 
 
 support and defend, to the utmost of my power, the 
 succession of the Crown, which succession, by an 
 Act intituled ' An Act for the further Limitation of 
 the Crown and better securing the Rights and 
 Liberties of the Subject,' is and stands limited to the 
 Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and the heirs 
 of her body, being Protestants, hereby utterly renounc- 
 ing and abjuring any obedience or obligation unto 
 any other person claiming or pretending a right to 
 the Crown of this Realm. And I do further declare 
 that it is not an article of my faith, and that I do 
 renounce, reject and abjure the opinion that Princes 
 excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any 
 other authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed 
 or murdered by their subjects, or by any person what- 
 ever. And I do declare that I do not believe that the 
 Pope of Rome, or any other foreign Prince, prelate, 
 person, State or potentate hath, or ought to have, 
 any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority 
 or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this 
 Realm. I do swear that I will defend, to the utmost 
 of my power, the settlement of property within this 
 Realm, as established by the Laws ; and I do hereby 
 disclaim, disavow and solemnly abjure any intention 
 to subvert the present Church Establishment, as 
 settled by law within this Realm. And I do solemnly 
 swear that I never will exercise any privileges to 
 which I am or may become entitled, to disturb or 
 weaken the Protestant Government in the United 
 Kingdom, and I do solemnly, in the presence of God, 
 profess, testify and declare that I do make this 
 declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and 
 ordinary sense of the words of this oath, without
 
 i 9 4 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 any evasion, equivocation or mental reservation 
 whatsoever. So help me God." 
 
 It was also decided under the Act to abolish alto- 
 gether the declaration against transubstantiation, the 
 invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the Mass. 
 Sir Robert Peel, in the course of his speech introducing 
 the Catholic Relief Bill, said : 
 
 " I believe there are few Protestants who would not 
 have rejoiced in being relieved from the necessity of 
 making that declaration as qualification for the enjoy- 
 ment of a merely civil privilege, even if it had been 
 determined to continue Roman Catholic exclusion, 
 and if other means of effecting it could be devised. 
 But when exclusion is to cease let us be spared the 
 pain of pronouncing an opinion, for mere temporal 
 purposes, in regard to the mysteries of religion, and 
 branding as idolatrous the belief of others." 
 
 O'Connell, as already stated, had been returned in 
 July of the previous year for the county of Clare. He 
 refrained from any attempt to take his seat until the 
 promised Catholic Relief Bill was passed ; but that 
 measure was, in mere petty spite the work really of 
 the King expressly framed so as to exclude him from 
 its benefit. The new oath was restricted to members 
 elected after the passing of the Act. O'Connell, how- 
 ever, determined to present himself at the Table and 
 demand that the new oath be administered to him. 
 Accordingly on May I5th, 1829, in the old House of 
 Commons, which was on that occasion crowded to 
 excess by Commons, Lords, and the general public, 
 O'Connell appeared at the Bar, and was introduced by 
 an English and an Irish Whig, Lord Ebrington, M.P.
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 195 
 
 for Tavistock, and Lord Duncannon, M.P. for Kil- 
 kenny, acting as his sponsors. All the spectators 
 rose to their feet, and craned their necks to catch a 
 glimpse of the famous Irish agitator. He, Charles 
 Greville tells us in his " Memoirs," was in a great 
 fright when he reached the Table. 
 
 Ley, the Clerk of the House, carefully examined 
 O'Connell's credentials. At that time these consisted 
 of the return to the writ, proof of the possession of the 
 necessary property qualification, and a certificate from 
 the Lord Steward that the new member had taken the 
 " out-of-House " oaths. O'Connell had the required 
 certificate from the Lord Steward along with the other 
 credentials, but it transpired in the course of the sub- 
 sequent debate that he had taken only the oath of 
 Abjuration, having refused to subscribe to the oath of 
 Supremacy, which denied the right of the Pope to 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the kingdom. Satisfied 
 of the genuineness of these documents, the Clerk pro- 
 duced from the despatch-box on the Table cards con- 
 taining the words of the three old oaths, and tendered 
 them, with the New Testament, to O'Connell. " I 
 claim," said O'Connell, " that the new oath under the 
 Catholic Relief Act be administered to me." " If the 
 hon. member will not take the old oaths he must with- 
 draw," said the Speaker Charles Manners Sutton. 
 O'Connell bowed to the Speaker, but remained at the 
 Table and looked around the House, as if he expected 
 some one to come to his assistance. Brougham then 
 rose. The Speaker, however, intercepted him with 
 a cry of " Order, order," and again insisted that 
 O'Connell must withdraw. O'Connell bowed once 
 more to the Chair, and without a word retired below 
 
 o a
 
 ig6 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the Bar. Brougham then moved that O'Connell be 
 heard in support of his right of admission to his seat, 
 which was agreed to; and accordingly on May i8th, 
 in another crowded House, O'Connell delivered at the 
 Bar an able and impressive speech on the point that he 
 was legally entitled to subscribe to the new oath. His 
 claim was refused by 190 votes to 116. He was then 
 called in, and the Speaker asked if he would take the 
 old oaths. " Let me see them," replied O'Connell. 
 Amid the breathless attention of the crowded House 
 O'Connell put on his spectacles and scrutinised for a 
 minute the contents of the cards. " I cannot take the 
 oath of Supremacy," said he. " Part of it I know to 
 be false ; another part I believe to be untrue." The 
 House decided that a new writ for Clare must be 
 issued. O'Connell was, however, again returned, this 
 time without opposition, and he took his seat at the 
 opening of the Session of 1830. 
 
 The old oaths continued to be taken by Protestant 
 members. In 1833 Mr. Joseph Pease, the first 
 Quaker who had been elected for 140 years, was per- 
 mitted, under an Act passed that Session to enable 
 Quakers and Moravians to affirm where an oath was 
 required, to take his seat for South Durham on making 
 a solemn affirmation or declaration in the same terms 
 as the old oaths, but omitting the words " So help me 
 God." Earlier in the same reign that of William 
 the Fourth the " out-of-House " oaths, to which I 
 have already referred, were abolished by statute. The 
 Act was read the third time in the House of Commons 
 on July 3Oth, 1831. That the House of Commons 
 should have patiently endured for a century and a half 
 the absurdity of the administration of the same oaths
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 197 
 
 outside and inside its doors is a curious illustration 
 of the innate conservative temperament of our 
 Parliament. 
 
 The Jews were now the only sectarian body against 
 whom the doors of Parliament were closed. There 
 was no positive enactment to prevent them entering 
 Parliament. But the oath of Allegiance was required 
 to be sworn upon the Evangelists, and the oath of 
 Abjuration contained the expression : " Upon the true 
 faith of a Christian"; and these words shut the doors 
 of Parliament against the Jews as effectually as if 
 Israelites were expressly disqualified by statute. The 
 words, " Upon the true faith of a Christian," first 
 appeared in the oath of Allegiance framed in the 
 reign of James the First. They were revived in the 
 oath of special abjuration against the Pretender, which 
 was adopted in 1701. In both cases the words were 
 introduced to further guard against the admission of a 
 Roman Catholic to Parliament by strengthening the 
 proviso against mental reservation or equivocation, 
 and not in the slightest degree with a view to the exclu- 
 sion of the Jews. In the seventeenth century the 
 Jews formed an insignificant portion of the population; 
 they were regarded by all as outcasts ; outrage and 
 oppression was their common lot, and the idea that 
 they would at any time seek to enter Parliament 
 was too preposterous to have been then thought by 
 anybody worthy of suggestion or consideration. The 
 feeling against them was purely theological. It would, 
 indeed, be difficult to conceive any political reasons 
 for denying to them the rights of citizenship. They 
 were despised and oppressed for centuries simply on 
 religious grounds, and it was for similar reasons that
 
 ig8 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 several Bills for the removal of their civil disabilities 
 introduced between 1830 and 1858 were, after passing 
 through the Commons, rejected by the House of 
 Lords. 
 
 In 1847 tne Jews followed the example set by the 
 Roman Catholics twenty years before in electing 
 O'Connell for county Clare. A representative and 
 influential member of their persuasion, Baron Lionel 
 Nathan de Rothschild, was returned for the City of 
 London. Lord John Russell, who was then Premier 
 of a Whig Administration and leader of the House of 
 Commons, brought in a Bill to remove the barrier 
 which excluded his Jewish colleague in the representa- 
 tion of the' City from the House of Commons. The 
 Bill passed through the Commons, though strongly 
 opposed by the Tories, but was thrown out by the 
 House of Lords. Baron de Rothschild did not make 
 any attempt for three years to take his seat in the 
 House. As an object-lesson for the House of Lords 
 he sat below the Bar in the House of Commons, 
 a veritable stranger at the gates of the legislative 
 Chamber to which he had been legally elected by the 
 wealthiest and perhaps the most important consti- 
 tuency in the kingdom. But the Peers did not take 
 the object-lesson to heart. If Baron de Rothschild 
 would not swear "upon the true faith of a Christian " 
 which, of course, would be tantamount to a declara- 
 tion that he was of the Christian faith let him, 
 their lordships said, be content with his seat below 
 the Bar. 
 
 However, after four Sessions the member for the 
 City of London got tired of acting the part of the Peri 
 at the gate, and determined to make a bold effort to
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 199 
 
 obtain his seat within the Chamber. Accordingly, in 
 1850, he presented himself at the Table for the purpose 
 of taking the oaths. He asked permission to be sworn on 
 the Old Testament, and with his head covered, accord- 
 ing to the Jewish rite. This, after some discussion, 
 was allowed. He first took the oath of Allegiance, 
 then the oath of Supremacy, but from the end of the 
 third oath, or oath of Abjuration, he omitted the 
 words " upon the true faith of a Christian," declaring 
 that they were not binding on his conscience. But it 
 was all of no avail. The House declared by resolution 
 that Baron de Rothschild could not sit or vote until 
 he had taken the oath of Abjuration in the form pre- 
 scribed by the statute of William the Third. He had, 
 therefore, to content himself once more with a seat 
 below the Bar. 
 
 In the following year another Jew, Mr. Alderman 
 Salomons, was returned for the borough of Greenwich. 
 Like Baron de Rothschild, he presented himself at 
 the Table, and took the three oaths according to the 
 Jewish rite, but omitted from the oath of Abjuration 
 the words to which as a Jew he could not conscien- 
 tiously subscribe. He considered, however, that he 
 had been legally sworn, and, unlike Baron de Roth- 
 schild, he sat within the House; he even spoke in the 
 debate which arose on his case, and, what is more, 
 voted in three divisions. These actions led to pro- 
 tracted legal proceedings against Mr. Salomons in the 
 Court of Exchequer for the recovery of the penalties 
 incurred for sitting and voting without having taken 
 the oath. The judgment of the Court was against 
 Mr. Salomons. It was a foregone conclusion. The 
 Jewish disability was created by a statute, and only a
 
 2 oo PARLIAMENT. 
 
 statute could remove it. Another ten years were to 
 pass away before the melancholy controversy was 
 brought to a close. 
 
 Meantime Alderman Salomons had retired from the 
 Parliamentary field, and was elected Lord Mayor of 
 London in 1855 and 1856; but Baron de Rothschild 
 continued to be returned again and again for the City 
 of London, and to sit below the Bar, awaiting the Act 
 which .would enable him to exercise his duties as 
 a member of Parliament. It was a weary and dis- 
 heartening waiting. Every year a Jewish Relief Bill 
 passed through the Commons, only to be rejected by 
 the Lords. It was not until 1858 that the Lords, at 
 the persuasion of Lord Derby, who was then Premier, 
 agreed to a compromise on the question in dispute 
 between the two Houses. And an extraordinary 
 compromise it was. Either House was empowered, 
 by an Act introduced by the Earl of Lucan, and 
 entitled, humorously enough, "An Act to provide for 
 the relief of her Majesty's subjects professing the 
 Jewish religion," to permit by resolution a person of 
 the Jewish persuasion, otherwise entitled to sit and 
 vote in the House, to omit the words " upon the true 
 faith of a Christian " from the oath of Abjuration. 
 The right of a Jew to a seat in either House was 
 under this Act subject to the pleasure of that House. 
 The Commons were at liberty to admit a Jewish 
 member ; the Lords were at liberty to exclude a 
 Jewish peer. " It was as much as to say to the 
 Commons," said Lord Campbell, very truly, if some- 
 what luridly, in the House of Lords, u we know that 
 we should be damned if we agreed to admit a Jew to 
 sit among us ; but we give you authority to allow
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 201 
 
 Jews to sit among you, and if you please you may do 
 so and be damned to you." 
 
 The Commons immediately after the passing of the 
 Act adopted a resolution admitting Jews to their 
 House, and at last, on July 28th, 1858, close on 
 twelve years after his election to the House, Baron de 
 Rothschild was allowed, on taking the oaths in the 
 modified form, to exercise his privileges as a member 
 of Parliament. In the following year Mr. Salomons 
 (subsequently Sir David Salomons, Bart.) again 
 entered the House, this time without let or hindrance, 
 as member for Greenwich. The resolution under the 
 Act was only sessional. It had to be renewed at the 
 opening of every Session. By an Act passed in 1860 
 a Standing Order that is, an order of a permanent 
 character was substituted for the sessional resolu- 
 tion ; but not until six years later did the Jews hold 
 their right of admission to Parliament under the 
 ordinary law, like the members of all other religious 
 persuasions. 
 
 Meanwhile the year 1858 witnessed a further 
 transformation in the Parliamentary oaths. An 
 Act was passed in that year substituting one oath 
 to be taken by Protestants for the old oaths of 
 Allegiance, Supremacy, and Abjuration. It was as 
 follows : 
 
 "I, A . B., do swear that I will be faithful and bear 
 true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, and 
 will defend her to the utmost of my power against all 
 conspiracies and attempts whatever which shall be 
 made against her person, Crown, or dignity, and I 
 will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make
 
 202 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 known to her Majesty, her heirs and successors, all 
 treasons and traitorous conspiracies which may be 
 formed against her or them, and I do faithfully 
 promise to maintain, support and defend, to the 
 utmost of my power, the succession of the Crown, 
 which succession, by an Act intituled ' An Act for the 
 further Limitation of the Crown, and better securing 
 the Rights and Liberties of the Subject,' is and stands 
 limited to the Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 
 and the heirs of her body, being Protestants, hereby 
 utterly renouncing and abjuring any obedience or 
 allegiance unto any other person claiming or pre- 
 tending to a right to the Crown of this Realm, 
 and I do declare that no foreign Prince, person, 
 prelate, State, or potentate hath, or ought to have, 
 any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or 
 authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this Realm. 
 And I make this declaration upon the true faith of a 
 Christian. So help me God." 
 
 It will be noticed that this oath also contains the 
 words to which the Jews objected" upon the true 
 faith of a Christian " which, curiously enough, are 
 not to be found in the special oath for Roman 
 Catholics adopted by the Relief Act of 1829. In 1866 
 another Act dealing with the Parliamentary oath was 
 passed. It repealed all former legislation on the 
 subject, and by establishing a new form of oath, from 
 which the words " upon the true faith of a Christian " 
 and all reference to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of 
 the Pope within the Realm were omitted, Parliament 
 had at last evolved an oath which could be taken 
 conscientiously by members of all religions, either in
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 203 
 
 the form of an oath or an affirmation. It was as 
 follows : 
 
 "I, A. B., do swear that I will be faithful and 
 bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, 
 and I do faithfully promise to maintain and support 
 the succession to the Crown, as the same stands 
 limited and settled by virtue of the Act passed in the 
 reign of King William the Third, intituled * An Act 
 for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better 
 securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject' : and 
 of the subsequent Acts of Union with Scotland and 
 Ireland. So help me God." 
 
 The oath of Abjuration had, indeed, long been 
 superfluous, for the descendants of the Pretender had 
 long been extinct ; and to require Protestants to deny 
 on oath the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Pope in 
 this Realm was surely an absurdity. But this new 
 oath remained in force only for two years. By the 
 Promissory Oaths Act in 1868 a statute which 
 abolished about 600 oaths that had hitherto to be 
 taken by various officials outside Parliament the 
 oath common to both Houses was compressed into 
 the following brief declaration : 
 
 "I, A . J5., do swear that I will be faithful and bear 
 true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, her 
 heirs and successors, according to law. So help me 
 God." 
 
 Such was all that was left of the formidable and 
 elaborate bulwark of oaths with which Parliaments of 
 long ago girt themselves round for protection against 
 the dreaded machinations of the followers of Pope
 
 204 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 and Pretender. No man was any longer excluded 
 from citizenship and its full privileges because of his 
 religious faith. It seemed, indeed, as if the Parlia- 
 mentary oaths question, which had at many periods 
 during three-quarters of a century profoundly stirred 
 the odium theologicum of the kingdom, was, at last, 
 happily laid to rest. A single oath or affirmation 
 acceptable to members of all religious denominations 
 was in use. What more was needed ? Nothing more 
 was needed for twelve years, from 1868 to 1880 ; but 
 in 1880 the Parliamentary oaths question arose in a 
 form more acute and embittered than probably it had 
 ever assumed before. Provision had been made for 
 persons of all religious beliefs, but persons of no 
 religious beliefs had been overlooked. 
 
 Charles Bradlaugh was returned for Northampton 
 at the General Election of 1880. He had been 
 wooing the constituency for twelve years previously, 
 and during that period had three times contested it 
 before success at last crowned his ambition. But 
 there yet remained a barrier to his taking his seat in 
 the House of Commons. It was the Parliamentary 
 oath. He was an avowed Atheist indeed, an apostle 
 of unbelief and he felt that it would be a mockery, 
 a sham, and a scandal, if he were to conclude the 
 declaration of his allegiance with the words " So 
 help me God." Accordingly on presenting himself 
 at the Table on May 3rd, 1880, Bradlaugh claimed 
 to be allowed to make the affirmation Atheists were 
 permitted to make in Courts of law under the Evidence 
 Amendment Act. The Speaker (Henry Bouverie 
 Brand), being in doubt, asked Mr. Bradlaugh to with- 
 draw, and then referred the matter to the judgment
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 205 
 
 of the House. A Committee was appointed to con- 
 sider the question. On May 2oth the Committee 
 reported which report was carried only by the 
 casting vote of the Chairman (Mr. Walpole) that 
 persons entitled to affirm in Courts of law under the 
 Evidence Amendment Act (persons of no religious 
 belief) were not entitled to affirm in the House. 
 
 Mr. Bradlaugh then publicly intimated that while 
 the prescribed oath included words which to him were 
 " idle and meaningless " so that it would have been 
 an act of hypocrisy on his part to take it voluntarily 
 as no other course was open to him he would 
 subscribe to the oath, holding himself bound, not by 
 the words of assertion, but by the explicit affirmation. 
 On May 2ist, therefore, he went to the Table, amid 
 uproar, to be sworn. An objection having been 
 raised to his action, Bradlaugh again withdrew 
 below the Bar, at the request of the Speaker, who, 
 however, admitted that he knew of no precedent for 
 refusing the oath to a member offering to take it. 
 The long and fierce debate which ensued ended, after 
 several adjournments, in the appointment of another 
 Committee to report whether Bradlaugh was entitled 
 to take the oath. This question the Committee 
 decided in the negative, recommending, however, 
 that Bradlaugh be allowed to affirm at his own risk 
 at law. But the House rejected a motion to that 
 effect, and declared by resolution that the member 
 for Northampton could neither take the oath nor 
 make an affirmation. 
 
 All the same, Mr. Bradlaugh again presented him- 
 self in the House, and was grudgingly allowed to 
 plead his case at the Bar. It was an able speech a
 
 206 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 speech the brilliancy of which the bitterest opponents 
 of the outcast member admitted but nevertheless a 
 motion to rescind the resolution was defeated. He 
 was requested to leave the House and refused, urging 
 that the order was illegal, and on the motion of Sir 
 Stafford Northcote, the leader of the Conservative 
 Opposition (Mr. Gladstone, the Premier and leader ol 
 the House, having "washed his hands of the business" 
 at an early stage), the member for Northampton was 
 "committed to the Clock Tower," from which, how- 
 ever, he was next day released unconditionally. Later 
 on Mr. Gladstone moved as a Standing Order that 
 members be allowed to take the oath or affirm, at 
 their choice, which was carried on a division. Mr. 
 Bradlaugh accordingly made affirmation of allegiance, 
 took his seat in the House, and voted in various 
 divisions. 
 
 In the following year he was sued in the Law Courts 
 for penalties, for having voted illegally, and, the 
 action having been decided against him, a new writ 
 was issued for Northampton. Mr. Bradlaugh was 
 again elected for the constituency after a desperate 
 fight. Again he came to the Table to take the oath, 
 and again a motion to prevent him was carried. 
 Removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms again and again 
 to the Bar, he again and again returned to the Table, 
 demanding that the oath be administered to him, till 
 the House put an end to a most embarrassing and 
 painful situation by adjourning. Again next day he 
 presented himself at the House, but was induced to 
 refrain from further action by a promise that the 
 Government would introduce a Bill to settle the diffi- 
 culty. However, the Oaths Bill of the Government
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 207 
 
 made no progress owing to the determined opposition 
 offered it, and Bradlaugh again, on August 3rd, 
 1881, went down to Westminster to demand admission 
 to the House of Commons ; but this time he was 
 violently seized at the very door of the Chamber by 
 fourteen policemen and ushers, hauled through the 
 lobby and St. Stephen's Hall, and finally ejected 
 (hatless and bedraggled, and panting with the exer- 
 tion of resistance) into the Old Palace Yard, which 
 was thronged by a host of his enthusiastic followers. 
 
 Again next year, on the assembling of a new Session, 
 the indomitable member for Northampton presented 
 himself and made his third speech at the Bar ; and 
 again the majority refused to let him swear or affirm. 
 A few days later Bradlaugh took the strategic step of 
 administering the oath to himself. He appeared sud- 
 denly at the Table, produced a New Testament out of 
 his breast-pocket, repeated the words of the oath, 
 kissed the book, and then signing his name on a slip 
 of paper, which he deposited on the Table close to the 
 Clerk, with a direction to add it to the Test Roll, he 
 took a seat on one of the benches. Again he was 
 expelled from the House ; a new writ was again 
 issued for Northampton, and again he was elected for 
 the seat on the largest poll yet reached. Still the 
 House decreed his exclusion, though over a thousand 
 petitions, with a quarter of a million signatures, had 
 been presented in his favour. On May 3rd, 1883, 
 the anniversary of his appearance in the House, the 
 Government's Oaths Act Amendment Bill was lost 
 by three votes, and next day Bradlaugh was once more 
 refused, by a majority of one hundred and six, the right 
 to sit and vote as a member for Northampton.
 
 208 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 For several years the battle over the oaths question 
 was thus waged at the Bar of the House, in the Law 
 Courts, and more especially throughout the country, 
 where hundreds of meetings were held in favour 
 of Bradlaugh's claim. On February gth, 1884, at 
 the opening of another Session, Bradlaugh again 
 administered the oath to himself and voted, and was 
 again expelled. He then accepted the Chiltern Hun- 
 dreds, and was yet again triumphantly returned for 
 Northampton; but the majority of the House of 
 Commons was as obdurate as ever in refusing him 
 admission to the Chamber. The end of this long and 
 bitter controversy this splendid fight for freedom of 
 thought was brought about in a very remarkable 
 manner. Bradlaugh was again elected by North- 
 ampton in the General Election of 1885. On the 
 assembling of the new Parliament of 1886 he was 
 allowed to take the oath and his seat in the House, 
 the new Speaker (Viscount Peel) firmly refusing to let 
 any protest or question be interposed. The power 
 and authority of the Speaker have never been so 
 strikingly manifested as in that action. 
 
 Bradlaugh's Parliamentary career was brief, but he 
 lived long enough to become one of the most respected 
 and honoured members of the House. In 1888 he 
 carried the Affirmation Act, which enacts that for all 
 purposes an affirmation may be made in lieu of an 
 oath by every person who states as the ground of 
 such objection either that he has no religious belief or 
 that the taking of an oath is contrary to his religious 
 belief. In such a case " I do solemnly, sincerely, and 
 truly declare and affirm" are substituted for the words 
 "I swear," and the words "So help me God" are
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 209 
 
 omitted. The words " So help me God " had ceased to 
 be regarded by Parliament as the bulwark of Christi- 
 anity. But there still stood upon the "Journals " of 
 the House the resolution passed in 1880 which declared 
 him ineligible either to take the oath or make affirma- 
 tion. As he lay in the shadow of death in February, 
 1891, a motion, of which he had given notice, to 
 expunge this resolution from the records of the House 
 was moved in his absence and carried unanimously. 
 This final act of justice to Mr. Bradlaugh ended the 
 long struggle to make the Parliamentary declaration 
 of allegiance conformable to the views of persons ot 
 all religious beliefs and of no religious beliefs. 
 
 During the Bradlaugh controversy the question was 
 often asked, " Why should there be a Parliamentary 
 oath at all ? " The oath is now intended solely as a 
 test of loyalty. Its object is simply to secure the 
 election to Parliament of men who are loyal to the 
 reigning Sovereign. But, according to all jurists, 
 allegiance to the Throne which is all a member of 
 Parliament promises on oath or by affirmation 
 is the common law duty of every subject. Lord 
 Sherbrooke declared : 
 
 ' ' Every Peer who enters Parliament, every Commoner 
 who enters the House of Commons, is already bound 
 by the law of the land to be faithful and bear true 
 allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria. All the 
 execrations in the world cannot make it more binding; 
 all the promises that can be uttered can add nothing 
 to its force." 
 
 A member of Parliament found guilty of high 
 treason, or of treason-felony, or sedition, has the 
 p. p
 
 210 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 same punishment meted out to him, and no more, as 
 is imposed on any other subject convicted of any of 
 these crimes. William Smith O'Brien, M.P., the 
 leader of the Irish insurrectionary movement of 1848, 
 was, on conviction, sentenced to death after the old 
 form in cases of high treason to be hanged, beheaded 
 and quartered ; but the same sentence was pro- 
 nounced on other leaders of the movement who were 
 not members of Parliament, and Smith O'Brien was 
 included in the subsequent reprieve of these prisoners. 
 The proceedings in the House of Commons arising 
 out of the case of Smith O'Brien also show that a 
 member of Parliament adjudged guilty of high trea- 
 son, or the violation of the oath of allegiance which 
 he takes at the Table, is in a sense treated more con- 
 siderately than a member convicted of a common 
 felony. The latter is subjected to the degradation of 
 being expelled by resolution from the House ; the 
 former is more compassionately regarded " as dead." 
 Lord John Russell, in submitting to the House, on 
 the i8th of March, 1849, a motion declaring that 
 inasmuch as Smith O'Brien had been convicted of high 
 treason, he had become incapable of sitting in Parlia- 
 ment, confessed that there was no absolute precedent 
 for dealing with such a case. There was the case of a 
 Mr. Forster, respecting whom the following entry 
 appeared in the "Journals" under the date of the 
 loth of May, 1715, the time the Pretender made his 
 abortive descent upon Scotland : 
 
 " That T. Forster, Esq., a member of this House, 
 having been taken in open rebellion bearing arms 
 against his Majesty, be expelled this House. Ordered
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY OATH. 211 
 
 that Mr. Speaker do issue his warrant, &c., to make 
 out a new writ for electing, &c., for Northumber- 
 land, in the room of T. Forster, Esq., expelled this 
 House." 
 
 A kindred entry occurred in the "Journals " thirteen 
 months later, or on June 2nd, 1716 : 
 
 " The House being informed that J. Carnegie, Esq., 
 member for Forfarshire, had been in arms in Scotland 
 on the part of the rebels during the late rebellion, and 
 that there were two persons at the door who could 
 prove the same, they were called in and examined at 
 the Bar, and gave the House an account that they 
 had seen the said Mr. Carnegie in arms at Perth on 
 the part of the rebels ; and it was resolved nem. con. 
 that the said Carnegie be expelled this House." 
 
 Lord John Russell pointed out, however, that in 
 both these instances the House acted upon informa- 
 tion only, and did not wait for trial, whereas the case 
 of Smith O'Brien was that of a member who had 
 been actually convicted of high treason. Smith 
 O'Brien was, therefore, not expelled the House, but 
 was regarded as dead in a civil sense ; and a new 
 writ for his seat for the city of Limerick was issued 
 accordingly. 
 
 If, then, the oath is purely and simply a declaration 
 of loyalty to the reigning Sovereign, an obligation 
 which, oath or no oath, devolves upon every subject, 
 and if its violation entails no additional punishment 
 on a member of Parliament, it is little more than an 
 idle function. No oath or affirmation is required of 
 any member of the Legislature of either Germany or 
 
 P 2
 
 212 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 France ; but there is a solemn declaration of fidelity 
 to the Commonwealth. In the American Congress 
 the declaration runs : " To the best of my knowledge 
 and ability I will support and defend the Constitution 
 of the United States against all enemies, foreign and 
 domestic." In Italy there is a dramatic oath. The 
 President of the Chamber of Deputies solemnly reads 
 the words of the oath, which binds the members to 
 labour " with a single view to the inseparable welfare 
 of King and country," and the new deputy, extending 
 his right arm above his head, says " I swear."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 
 
 " SILENCE is the eternal duty of man," said Carlyle, 
 the loud-voiced and persistent railer at men and insti- 
 tutions. But if it be man's duty to hold his tongue 
 anywhere, it is certainly not so in the House of 
 Commons. There, speech is golden. The gift of 
 eloquence, or, at least, the knack of forcible exposi- 
 tion cleverness in stating a case, and in exposing 
 the weak points of an adversary is essential if a 
 member is to exercise any influence on legislation, 
 and is the surest passport to the highest offices of the 
 State. It is always interesting, therefore, to note the 
 first efforts at speaking in that Assembly (awkward 
 and halting struggles very often) of budding orators, 
 statesmen, and politicians ; to listen to the weak and 
 uncertain voice of the young and obscure member, 
 destined to rise to a position of predominance and 
 power, and to shake with the thunders of his 
 eloquence the House where now he is painfully 
 stammering out a few disjointed and unintelligible 
 sentences. 
 
 "The most peculiar audience in the world," was 
 Macaulay's description of the House of Commons. 
 11 A place where Walpole succeeded and Addison 
 failed ; where Dundas succeeded and Burke failed ;
 
 214 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 where Peel now succeeds and where Mackintosh 
 failed ; where Erskine and Scarlett were dinner-bells ; 
 where Lawrence and Jekyll, the two wittiest men, or 
 nearly so of their time, were thought bores, is surely," 
 he added, " a very strange place." To stand up to 
 address that Assembly, composed of men of various 
 political views, passions, and prejudices, coldly critical 
 and indifferent as a rule, is a feat requiring well- 
 braced nerves. John Bright was always in deep 
 distress on rising to speak, ^despite his outward aspect 
 of_ self-possession and composure. "I suppose I 
 ought to be ashamed of myself," he said, late in his 
 career, " but the fact is that I never rise in the House 
 without a trembling at the knees and a secret wish 
 that somebody else would catch the Speaker's eye 
 and enable me to sit down again." With what an 
 agony of apprehension, then, must the young and 
 inexperienced member of Parliament face the ordeal 
 for the first time ! It may be that only a few 
 incoherent sentences of the able speech which he 
 had repeated so glibly in his study comes to his 
 parched lips. That is an old experience in Parlia- 
 mentary annals. " My lords," said the Earl of 
 Rochester in the reign of Charles II., rising to make 
 his maiden speech in the House of Lords, " my lords, 
 I rise this time for the first time the very first time. 
 My lords, I divide my speech into four branches." 
 Here there was an embarrassing pause of some 
 seconds. "My lords," the earl then ejaculated, "if 
 ever I rise again in this House, you may cut me off 
 root and branches and all for ever." The brightest 
 wits as well as the dullest have lost the thread of 
 their thoughts in an access of helpless consternation
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 215 
 
 on finding themselves on their feet for the first time, 
 face to face with the House of Commons. 
 
 " The blare of trumpets, a thousand lookers-on, 
 have induced men to lead a forlorn hope. Ambition, 
 one's constituents, or the hell of previous failure, have 
 induced men to do a far more desperate thing speak 
 in the House of Commons." So wrote Benjamin 
 Disraeli. No one seemed more at ease when address- 
 ing the House of Commons than he. Yet he had 
 his full share of those terrors of anticipation from 
 which few orators are free on the eve of an important 
 speech, and when he was face to face with the House 
 of Commons u the most chilling and nerve-destroy- 
 ing audience in the world," as he called it it was 
 only by a desperate effort he could brace himself to 
 get through the first sentences of his speech, until the 
 cheers of his supporters and his opponents' cries of 
 dissent steadied his nerves and aroused within him 
 the spirit of conflict and the resolve to triumph. 
 
 11 Dizzy is the sweetest-tempered of men," his wife 
 used to say, " but he is always very irritable when he 
 is going to speak." 
 
 One night, early in 1833 (the year after he had 
 failed in his contest as a Radical for the borough of 
 High Wycombe), Disraeli, sitting in the Strangers' 
 Gallery of the House of Commons, listened to the 
 debate on the Address in which Lord John Russell, 
 Macaulay, Stanley, Bulwer, and other leading mem- 
 bers of the House took part. Next day he wrote to 
 his sister : " Was at the House of Commons yesterday 
 during the whole of the debate one of the finest we 
 have had for years. Macaulay was admirable, but, 
 between ourselves, I could floor them all. This entre
 
 ai6 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 nous. I was never more confident of anything than 
 that I could carry everything before me in that House. 
 The time will come ! " The time did come four years 
 later, when on December yth, 1837, Disraeli, having 
 been returned as a Tory for Maidstone in the General 
 Election of that year, stood up in the House of 
 Commons to make his maiden speech. The story of 
 that historic fiasco has never been fully told. What 
 is generally known is that Disraeli was interrupted by 
 bursts of ironical laughter almost from the beginning of 
 his speech, and that at length, utterly unable to catch 
 the ear of the House, he concluded by shouting to the 
 utmost pitch of his voice the famous phrase : " Though 
 I sit down now, the time will come when you will 
 hear me." But the whole episode, what led up to it 
 and what followed it, is most interesting. The subject 
 of the debate was a motion by Mr. Smith O'Brien for 
 a Select Committee to inquire into alleged practices 
 of vexatious petitioning against Irish members elected 
 in the popular interest. Daniel O'Connell supported 
 the motion, and it had been arranged that Sir Robert 
 Peel should reply, but the strongly-expressed wish of 
 Disraeli that the duty might be given to him, backed 
 as it was by many members of his party, induced the 
 Tory leader to give way to his ardent young recruit. 
 There had been an absurd, though very bitter, quarrel 
 between O'Connell and Disraeli. O'Connell was one 
 of Disraeli's sponsors when he carried the Radical flag 
 on the hustings at High Wycombe in 1832. Three 
 years later Disraeli, having turned Tory, attacked the 
 Melbourne Administration, which was retained in 
 power by the Irish Party, for having clasped, as he 
 put it, "the bloody hand of O'Connell." O'Connell
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 217 
 
 retorted in a speech of savage vituperation in which 
 he declared that Disraeli's life was "a living lie," 
 and that he was " a descendant of the impenitent 
 thief on the Cross." Disraeli challenged O'Connell, 
 but the Irishman, after killing D'Esterre in 1815, had 
 made a vow against duelling, and always wore a 
 black kid glove on his right hand as a token of his 
 life-long repentance for having shed another man's 
 blood. " Then," wrote Disraeli, in a scathing letter 
 to O'Connell, " we shall meet at Philippi." Now the 
 two antagonists were face to face at Philippi in the 
 House of Commons, with, happily, the floor between. 
 Disraeli's failure on this occasion was not due to 
 nervous timidity, but to the less amiable fault of over- 
 confident fluency, to the young member's irritating 
 self-assurance of manner, inspired, obviously, by the 
 conviction that he was about to leap into Parlia- 
 mentary fame at a single bound. This, with his 
 foppish attire, his affected gestures, and the knowledge 
 of his rapid change of political opinion, caused the 
 British Radicals and the Irish Repealers, both led by 
 the lusty lungs of O'Connell, to indulge in roars of 
 ironical laughter, and other disconcerting cries. The 
 conclusion of the speech was as follows : 
 
 " If the honourable gentleman thought this treat- 
 ment fair, he would submit. He would not do so to 
 others. That was all. (Laughter.) Nothing was 
 so easy as to laugh. He wished before he sat down 
 to show the House clearly their position. When 
 they remembered that in spite of the support of the 
 honourable and learned member for Dublin and his 
 well-disciplined band of patriots, there was a little
 
 ii 
 
 2i8 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 shyness exhibited by former supporters of her 
 Majesty's Government ; when they recollected the 
 ' new loves ' and the ' old loves ' in which so much 
 of passion and recrimination was mixed up between 
 the noble Tityrus of the Treasury Bench and the 
 learned Daphne of Liskeard (loud laughter), not- 
 withstanding the amantium ira had resulted as he 
 had always expected in the amoris integratio (renewed 
 laughter), notwithstanding that political duel had 
 been fought, in which more than one shot was inter- 
 changed, but in which recourse was had to the secure 
 arbitrament of blank cartridges (laughter), notwith- 
 standing emancipated Ireland and enslaved England, 
 the noble lord might wave in one hand the keys of 
 St. Peter, and in the other (the shouts that followed 
 drowned the conclusion of the sentence). Let them see 
 the philosophical prejudice of man. He would cer- 
 tainly gladly hear a cheer, even though it came from 
 the lips of a political opponent. He was not at all 
 surprised at the reception which he had experienced. 
 He had begun several times many things and he had 
 often succeeded at last. He would sit down now, 
 but the time would come when they would hear 
 him." 
 
 " The impatience of the House " writes " Han- 
 sard," lapsing into the quaintly descriptive " would 
 not allow the honourable member to finish his speech, 
 and during the greater part of the time the honour- 
 able member was on his legs he was so much 
 interrupted that it was impossible to hear what the 
 honourable member said." 
 
 Macaulay, writing to a friend in Paris, a few days
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 219 
 
 later, said, " Speaking of the House, D'Israeli nearly 
 killed it on Thursday night. You have, of course, 
 seen his speech in Galignam. Can you conceive 
 the impudence of the Attorney-General not knowing 
 him personally and going up to him in the Lobby, 
 saying, { A very pleasant speech of yours, Mr. 
 D'Israeli. Will you be kind enough to tell me what 
 Lord John held besides the keys of St. Peter ? ' 
 * The red cap of Liberty, sir.' During the performance, 
 Peel quite screamed with laughter." Disraeli, how- 
 ever, in an account of his interview with the Attorney- 
 General in the Lobby, states that Sir John Campbell 
 was most complimentary about the speech. " A very 
 good picture," was the remark when Disraeli, at 
 his request, finished the interrupted sentence by 
 describing Lord John Russell, secure on the pedestal 
 of power, wielding in one hand the keys of St. Peter 
 and in the other the red cap of Liberty. " Yes," 
 said Disraeli, " but your friends will not allow me 
 to finish my pictures." " I assure you," replied 
 the Attorney-General, "there was the liveliest desire 
 to hear you from us. It was a party at the Bar 
 over whom we have no control. But you have 
 nothing to be afraid of." 
 
 The next day Disraeli admitted his failure in a 
 letter to his sister, attributing it, naturally enough, 
 to no incompetence on his part, but to the physical 
 powers of his adversaries. " I can give you no idea 
 how bitter, how factious, how unfair they were," he 
 wrote. " It was like my first debut at Aylesbury, 
 and perhaps in that sense may be auspicious of 
 ultimate triumph in the same scene. I fought 
 through it all with undaunted pluck and unruffled
 
 220 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 temper, made occasionally good isolated hits, when 
 there was silence, and finished with spirit when I 
 found a formal display was ineffectual. My party 
 backed me well, and no one with more zeal and 
 kindness than Peel, cheering me repeatedly, which 
 is not his custom. The uproar was all organised 
 by the Rads and Repealers. They formed a com- 
 pact body near the Bar of the House, and seemed 
 determined to set me down, but that they did not 
 do. I have given you a most impartial account, 
 stated, indeed, against myself." He adds, " In the 
 Lobby at the division, Chandos, who was not near 
 me while speaking, came up and congratulated me. 
 I replied that I thought there was no cause for 
 congratulation, and muttered ' Failure ! ' * No such 
 thing,' said Chandos ; ' you are quite wrong. I 
 have just seen Peel, and I said to him, " Now tell 
 me exactly what you think of D." Peel replied, 
 " Some of my party were disappointed and talk of 
 failure ; I say just the reverse. He did all that he 
 could do under the circumstances. I saw anything 
 but failure ; he must make his way." 
 
 A few days later Disraeli wrote to his sister again 
 in a much more cheerful strain, quoting the very 
 flattering testimony of Richard Lalor Sheil, the Irish 
 orator, as to the merits of the maiden speech : 
 
 " I dined with Bulwer on Saturday, and, strange 
 enough, met Sheil. I should have been very much 
 surprised had I not arrived first and been apprised. 
 It thus arose : On Saturday Bulwer walked into the 
 Athenaeum. Sheil, who has just recovered from the 
 gout, was lounging in an easy-chair, reading the news-
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 221 
 
 pager ; around him was a set of low Rads (we might 
 guess them) abusing me and exulting in the dis- 
 crimination of the House. Probably they thought 
 they pleased Sheil. Bulwer drew near but stood 
 apart. 
 
 "Suddenly Sheil threw down the paper and said 
 in his shrill voice : ' Now, gentlemen, I have heard 
 all you have to say and what is more I heard this 
 same speech of Mr. Disraeli, and I tell you this, 
 if ever the spirit of oratory was in a man it is in that 
 man ; nothing can prevent him from being one of 
 the first speakers in the House of Commons. (Great 
 confusion.) Ay ! and I know something about that 
 place, I think ; and I tell you what besides, that 
 if there had not been this interruption, Mr. Disraeli 
 might have made a failure. I don't call this a failure, 
 it is a crush. My debut was a failure, because I was 
 heard ; but my reception was supercilious, his malig- 
 nant. A debut should be dull. The House will not 
 allow a man to be a wit and an orator unless they 
 have the credit of finding it out. There it is.' You 
 may conceive the sensation this speech made. I 
 heard of it yesterday from Eaton, Winslow and 
 several other quarters. The crowd dispersed, but 
 Bulwer drew near and said to Sheil, ' Di. dines with 
 me to-day ; would you like to meet him ? ' 'In spite 
 of my gout,' said Sheil, ' I long to know him ; I long 
 to tell him what I think.' So we met." 
 
 Sheil gave Disraeli some curious advice as to his 
 future conduct in the House of Commons. " If you 
 had been listened to," said he, " what would have 
 been the result ? You would have made the best
 
 222 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 speech that you ever would have made. It would 
 have been received frigidly, and you would have 
 despaired of yourself. I did. As it is, you have 
 shown to the House that you have a fine voice, that 
 you have unlimited command of language, courage, 
 temper, and readiness. Now get rid of your genius for 
 a Session. Speak often, for you must not show your- 
 self cowed, but speak shortly. Be very quiet. Try 
 to be dull, only argue and reason imperfectly, for if 
 you speak with precision they will think you are trying 
 to be witty. Astonish them by speaking on subjects 
 of detail. Quote figures, dates, calculations, and in 
 a short time the House will sigh for the wit and 
 eloquence which they all know are in you ; they will 
 encourage you to pour them forth, and then you will 
 have the ear of the House and be a favourite." 
 Disraeli followed the advice. Seven days after his 
 fiasco, he spoke again on the Copyright Bill, con- 
 tenting himself with a few sentences. In the following 
 Session he addressed the House several times ; but 
 it was not until 1839 that he made any great im- 
 pression by a sympathetic speech on the Chartists. 
 
 Perhaps a more remarkable display of confidence 
 and self-assurance was that of William Cobbett. In 
 the General Election which followed the passing ol 
 the Reform Act in 1832 he was elected member for 
 Oldham. The new Parliament met on January 2Qth, 
 1833, and on the very first question which arose that 
 evening (the choice of a Speaker) Cobbett, after a 
 few of the leading members on each side had spoken, 
 interposed with characteristic egotism and impudence. 
 His opening sentence astounded the House. " It 
 appears to me," said he, " that since I have been
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 223 
 
 sitting here I have heard a great deal of vain and 
 unprofitable conversation." Daniel O'Connell, who, 
 like Cobbett, always entertained a lofty disdain of the 
 House of Commons, also made his maiden speech on 
 the night he took his seat, February 4th, 1830. The 
 speech was in support of an amendment to the 
 Address moved by the Radicals. A stupendous oration 
 was expected by the crowded House, but " the wild 
 Irishman " spoke with tact and good sense, and on the 
 whole made a favourable impression. Another irre- 
 pressible speaker was Henry Brougham, who entered 
 the House as member for the borough of Camelford 
 on February 5th, 1810. Everyone whoTnevrTrfnT 
 expected he would deliver his maiden speech on the 
 same night, but he had made a vow of silence for a 
 month, and kept it. On March 5th, exactly one 
 month after he had taken his seat, he spoke in 
 support of a vote of censure on Lord Chatham, a 
 member of the Cabinet, for having written a narrative 
 of the expedition to the Scheldt and delivered it to 
 the King with a request that it should be kept secret 
 even from his colleagues. The speech made no 
 impression upon the House, Brougham, according to 
 contemporary records, sitting down without a single 
 cheer. He soon made up for his month's silence : 
 " It was remarked," writes Campbell in his " Lives 
 of the Lord Chancellors," "that for the future he 
 never was in his place the whole evening in either 
 House of Parliament, without, regularly or irregularly, 
 more than once taking part in the discussion." 
 
 But examples of perfect self-confidence in addressing 
 the House of Commons for the first time are the 
 exception. It is a trying ordeal even for the most
 
 224 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 practised speakers ; to some members, indeed, it is 
 attended by terrors which they can never brace up 
 their nerves sufficiently to overcome. The maiden 
 speech of Lord North's son, Frederic, afterwards 
 Lord Guildford, was also his last. " I once attempted 
 to speak in Parliament," he said, " and it was not 
 unnatural when I rose that my family name should 
 at once fix every eye upon me. I brought out two or 
 three sentences, when a mist seemed to rise before 
 my eyes. I then lost my recollection, and could see 
 nothing but the Speaker's wig, which swelled, and 
 swelled, and swelled, till it covered the whole House. 
 I then sank back on my seat and never attempted 
 another speech, but quickly accepted the Chiltern 
 Hundreds, assured that Parliament was not my 
 vocation." 
 
 Joseph Addison, the most charming and easy oi 
 writers, made but one attempt to speak, and that was 
 an unredeemed and unredeemable failure. Yet his 
 muteness was no bar to his promotion in office, for 
 though his voice was never heard in the House of 
 Commons he became a Secretary of State. In 1709 
 he went to Ireland as Chief Secretary and sat in the 
 Irish House of Commons as member for Cavan, while, 
 as was then the custom, retaining his seat in the 
 British Parliament. His maiden speech in the Irish 
 Legislature was even a more ludicrous failure. He 
 began : " Mr. Speaker, I conceive," and then paused 
 as if frightened by the sound of his own voice. ." I 
 conceive, Mr. Speaker," he said again in louder tones, 
 as if to drown the still small voice of self-depreciation 
 that spoke upbraidingly to him within. Again he 
 stopped and stood silent, until aroused by the ironical
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 225 
 
 cries of "Hear him ! Hearhim !" when he once more set 
 out with," Sir, I conceive." But power of further utter- 
 ance was denied him, and he had, perforce, to resume 
 his seat. A witty member rising immediately indulged 
 in rather a broad joke. " Sir," said he, " the honour- 
 able member has conceived three times and brought 
 forth nothing." 
 
 As a rule the House has always been noted for the 
 encouragement it accords to a maiden speech, but 
 Mr. Disraeli's is not the only exception to the rule ; 
 to Addison's friend, Sir Richard Steele, that notoriety 
 also belongs. Steele entered the House of Commons 
 as member for Stockbridge and a stout literary cham- 
 pion of the Whigs, at the meeting of the new Parlia- 
 ment, the twelfth of Queen Anne, on February 
 i6th, 1714, and on the same afternoon he joined 
 in the compliments that were paid to Sir Thomas 
 Hanmer on his re-election as Speaker. " I rise 
 up," said Steele, "to do him honour in some measure 
 and distinguish myself by saying I wish him our 
 Speaker." The Tories, forming the overwhelming 
 majority of the House, determined not to hear the 
 man who had so often ridiculed them in his satirical 
 political writings. "'The Tatlerl' 'The Tatler! 1 " 
 they roared, and kept up the cry so persistently, that 
 Steele had to sit down ; and as he walked out of the 
 House they continued their attacks. " It is not so 
 easy a thing to speak in the House," they said. " He 
 fancies that because he can scribble he can address 
 an assembly of gentlemen. Out upon him !" Steele's 
 first Parliamentary career was exceedingly brief. 
 Within a month of his maiden speech a motion was 
 made to expel him from the House of Commons for 
 p. Q
 
 226 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 having accused the Tory Ministry in a pamphlet 
 called " The Crisis " of an intention to prevent the 
 Protestant succession in the House of Hanover by 
 proclaiming the Chevalier St. George as King when 
 the Queen died. On March i8th, 1714, during the 
 debate on the motion, a remarkable maiden speech, 
 which began as a failure and ended as a triumph, was 
 delivered in defence of Steele by his young friend, 
 Lord Finch, eldest son of the Earl of Nottingham. 
 Shortly before, the sister of the young nobleman, 
 Lady Charlotte Finch (afterwards Duchess of Somer- 
 set), had been attacked in The Examiner for alleged 
 misbehaviour in church, and Steele had written in 
 The Guardian a scathing exposure of the libel. Lord 
 Finch, therefore, felt he could not remain silent when 
 Steele in his turn was assailed, but on rising to 
 address the House, his modesty, and his awe of the 
 Assembly, struck him almost dumb. A few confused 
 sentences were all he could utter. " It is strange," 
 he cried aloud, as he sat down utterly discomfited, 
 " that I cannot speak for this man when I would 
 readily fight for him." The exclamation touched the 
 chivalrous instinct of the House, bitterly hostile though 
 it was against Steele, and in response to inviting cries 
 of " Hear him ! Hear him !" from both sides, the 
 young speaker rose again, and this time made an 
 eloquent appeal on behalf of his friend. It did not, 
 however, save Steele, the motion for whose expulsion 
 was carried by two hundred and forty-five votes to 
 one hundred and fifty-two. 
 
 About a quarter of a century before, another break- 
 down in a maiden speech was, by a happy thought, 
 turned into a telling rhetorical success. Lord Ashley
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 227 
 
 sat in the House of Commons as member for Poole 
 for four years before he succeeded his father as third 
 Earl of Shaftesbury in 1699 and became celebrated 
 as the author of " Characteristics." He was a staunch 
 supporter of a Bill to grant the services of counsel to 
 prisoners indicted for high treason ; but when he rose 
 to make his maiden speech in its behalf, he found 
 himself devoid of language. The House encouraged 
 him by their cheers to collect his thoughts and find 
 words to give them expression ; but he was unable to 
 proceed. One sentence only did he utter before sitting 
 down. " If, sir," said he, " I, who now rise only to 
 give my opinion on the Bill now pending, am so con- 
 founded that I am unable to express the least of what I 
 proposed to say, what must the condition of that man 
 be who, without any assistance, is pleading for his life, 
 and is apprehensive of being deprived of it?" The 
 elaborate speech which Lord Ashley had probably pre- 
 pared with exceeding care could hardly have been more 
 effective than this happy inspiration of the moment. 
 
 In the early years of the nineteenth century a Mr. 
 James Johnston was member for Sandwich. He care- 
 fully prepared his maiden speech, and committed it 
 to memory ; but when he rose to address the House 
 his utterance failed him completely. Again and again 
 he essayed to speak, but in vain, for the words would 
 not come, and he resumed his seat without having 
 uttered a single syllable. An Irishman named Mark 
 Supple, a celebrated Parliamentary reporter of the 
 time, and a practical joker, had a squib in the form of 
 a broad-sheet issued, and, as was then the fashion in 
 London, cried through the streets of Westminster and 
 the City. On the top of the broad-sheet appeared in 
 
 o 2
 
 228 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 large type the words : " The maiden speech of James 
 Johnston, Esq., M.P. for Sandwich, as delivered yes- 
 terday in Parliament." The rest of the paper was 
 blank ! 
 
 "Then there was a maiden speech so inaudible 
 that it was doubted whether, after all, the young orator 
 really did lose his virginity." So writes Disraeli in 
 "The Young Duke." He had, no doubt, in his mind 
 an amusing incident which occurred in the House of 
 Commons on November 2ist, 1837, when the Address 
 in reply to the Speech from the Throne was moved by 
 Lord Leveson (subsequently the well-known peer, 
 Lord Granville), and seconded by Gibson Craig. 
 Disraeli, in a letter to his sister, thus describes what 
 happened : " Gibson Craig, of whom the Whigs had 
 hopes, rose, stared like a stuck pig, and said nothing. 
 His friends cheered ; he stammered ; all cheered ; then 
 there was a dead and awful pause, and then he sat 
 down, and that was his performance." Turning to 
 " Hansard " for an account of this mute and inglorious 
 maiden speech, I find that while two pages and a half 
 are given to Lord Leveson, Craig's effort is dismissed 
 in this fashion : 
 
 " The hon. member appeared to have entertained 
 the intention of addressing the House at great length, 
 and referred to his notes, remaining a few minutes on 
 his legs without speaking; but after some time he was 
 understood to apologise for so far trespassing upon 
 their indulgence, and sat down." 
 
 Among the famous statesmen whose first words in 
 the House of Commons firmly established their repu- 
 tation, William Pitt and Sir Robert Peel are the most
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 229 
 
 notable. Pitt entered the House as member for 
 Appleby on January 23rd, 1780, in his twenty-first 
 year. On February 26th following he made his 
 maiden speech in support of a Bill introduced by 
 Edmund Burke for the reduction of the Civil List. 
 Lord Nugent was speaking against the Bill, when 
 Pitt, as a member of the Opposition, was asked by 
 some supporter of the measure to reply. He gave a 
 doubtful answer to the request, and later on, while 
 Lord Nugent continued his speech, decided that, as 
 he thought he had nothing of importance to say, he 
 would not interpose in the debate. But his friends, 
 understanding that he had agreed to speak, called upon 
 him the moment Lord Nugent sat down. Pitt was, 
 therefore, forced to rise; but though somewhat unpre- 
 pared, he was neither embarrassed nor disconcerted, 
 and he spoke very effectively in favour of economical 
 reform. The young member's first appearance is thus 
 described in " The Parliamentary History " (which we 
 now call " Hansard ") : " The Honourable William 
 Pitt, son of the late Earl of Chatham, now rose for the 
 first time, and in his speech directly in answer to a 
 matter that had fallen out in the course of the debate, 
 displayed great and astonishing powers of eloquence. 
 His voice is rich and striking ; his manner easy and 
 eloquent ; his language beautiful and luxuriant. He 
 gave, in this first essay, a specimen of eloquence not 
 unworthy the son of his immortal parent." We learn 
 from other sources that Burke was moved to tears. 
 11 It is not a chip of the old block," he exclaimed to 
 those sitting near him, " it is the old block itself." 
 Lord North, the Prime Minister, declared that it was the 
 best first speech he had ever heard. " Young Pitt will
 
 230 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 be one of the first men in Parliament," said a member 
 of the Opposition to Charles James Fox. " He is 
 already," was Fox's reply, and the moment Pitt re- 
 sumed his seat Fox hastened to congratulate him on 
 his success. While they were talking an old member 
 named General Grant joined them. "Aye, Mr. Fox, 
 you are praising young Pitt for his speech," said the 
 new comer ; " you may well do so, for except yourself 
 there is not a man in the House can make such 
 another, and old as I am I expect and hope to hear 
 you both battling it within these walls, as I have heard 
 your fathers before you." Fox was disconcerted by 
 the awkward turn of the compliment ; but Pitt with 
 great readiness and wit answered, "I have no doubt, 
 General, you would like to attain the age of Methu- 
 selah." Peel's father bought him the representation 
 of the borough of Cashel, in Ireland, and he entered 
 the House of Commons in April, 1809, at the age ot 
 twenty-one. On January 23rd, 1810, he seconded 
 the Address to the King in reply to the Speech from 
 the Throne. " Yhe best first speech since that of 
 Mr. Pitt," was the judgment of the Speaker, Charles 
 Abbot. 
 
 There is no record of Edmund Burke's maiden 
 speech in " Hansard " or in the newspapers of the 
 time, but it would seem from the political gossip of 
 the day to have been successful. He took his seat 
 as member for the borough of Wendover on January 
 I4th, 1766, at the opening of the Session, being then 
 thirty-seven years old, and on the 2yth of the same 
 month he spoke on the complaints of the American 
 Colonists, restless and discontented under the rule of 
 the mother-country. The elder Pitt, who was still
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 231 
 
 the Great Commoner, honoured him by a compli- 
 mentary notice of the speech. " The young member 
 has proved himself a very able advocate," said he. " I 
 congratulate him on his success, and his friends on the 
 value of the acquisition they have made." Burke was 
 told by his friends that the praise of Pitt alone was 
 a sure passport to fame. Dr. Johnson wrote to his 
 friend, Bennet Langton, that Burke had gained more 
 reputation than any Parliamentarian at his first 
 appearance had ever gained before, which, as Burke 
 had preceded William Pitt, was probably true. It is 
 curious that the maiden speech of Charles Fox should 
 have been in censure of Burke, to whose influence he 
 subsequently surrendered himself. In March, 1768, 
 Fox was returned for the borough of Midhurst, in 
 Sussex, and entered the House under age, being then 
 just over nineteen years, thus exposing himself to a 
 penalty of 500, if any " common informer" as the 
 legal phrase goes took action for its recovery in the 
 Law Courts. On March gth in the following year he 
 made his first speech during the debate on the Address. 
 Lord North defended the Grafton Ministry against 
 the charge of having alienated the affections of the 
 American people from their Sovereign, and Burke 
 rose to reply on behalf of the Opposition. Members 
 usually left the House when Burke spoke, but if all 
 his speeches were as full of eccentric humour and as 
 empty of philosophy as his reply to Lord North it is 
 probable that he never would have been given the dis- 
 paraging nickname of " the dinner-bell." " Sir," he 
 began, " the noble lord who spoke last, after extending 
 his right leg a full yard before his left, rolling his flaming 
 eyes, and moving his ponderous frame, has at length
 
 232 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 opened his mouth. I was all attention. After these 
 portents I expected something still more awful and 
 tremendous. I expected that the Tower would have 
 been threatened in articulated thunder, but I have 
 heard only a feeble remonstrance against violence and 
 passion. When I expected the powers of destruction 
 to ' cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war,' an over- 
 blown bladder has burst, and nobody has been hurt 
 by the crack." Fox followed Burke. " He observed," 
 " Hansard " records, "that from the license gentle- 
 men had taken in their language that day, it seemed 
 as if the old decent freedom of debate was at an end, 
 and they were endeavouring to establish new forms." 
 It was, perhaps, Burke's occasional display of bad 
 taste, as in these passages, which excited the criticism 
 of John Wilkes : " His oratory would sometimes make 
 one suspect that he eats potatoes and drinks whiskey." 
 It is difficult to decide, so contradictory are the 
 contemporary verdicts, how Sheridan fared in his 
 maiden speech. Elected for Stafford in his twenty- 
 ninth year, he took his seat on September I2th, 
 1780. In the account of his election expenses there 
 is the following item : " Two hundred and forty-eight 
 burgesses paid 5 55. each." It is, therefore, not 
 surprising that his first speech, on November 2Oth, 
 should have been in reply to a charge of bribery and 
 corruption brought against him and his colleague, 
 Monckton, in a petition presented by their defeated 
 opponent, Benjamin Whitworth. William Woodfall, 
 the famous Parliamentary reporter of the Morning 
 Chronicle, used to relate that Sheridan went up to the 
 gallery where he sat taking notes, and asked him, 
 with apparent anxiety, what he thought of the speech.
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 233 
 
 " I am sorry to say I do not think that this is your 
 line," replied Woodfall. " You had much better have 
 stuck to your former pursuits." Sheridan, much 
 perturbed by this judgment, stroked his forehead with 
 his hand, and then exclaimed : " It is in me, however, 
 and by God it shall come out." On the other hand Sir 
 Nathaniel Wraxall states in his " Historical Memoirs" 
 that it was a successful speech and was well received. 
 " Even while pronouncing the few sentences which 
 he uttered," writes Wraxall, "the fame of the author 
 of ' The Duenna,' * The School for Scandal,' and 
 ' The Critic,' was already so well established as to 
 procure him the greatest attention." Another verdict 
 was: "Nature never intended him for an orator." 
 Yet he was destined to become, according to con- 
 temporary opinion, one of the greatest orators of 
 his day. 
 
 The unspoken maiden speeches are, in their way, 
 as interesting as the delivered. One of the most 
 notable of these " might-have-beens " was that of 
 Edward Gibbon. To what conjectures as to its 
 character never, alas ! to be satisfied does the un- 
 spoken maiden speech of the great historian of the 
 Roman Empire give rise ! Returned for the borough 
 of Liskeard at the General Election of 1774, he sat 
 in Parliament for eight Sessions until 1783, when he 
 retired to Lausanne to devote himself entirely to 
 " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." He 
 never made a speech ; yet he had intended to become 
 a talking member. " If my confidence was equal to 
 my eloquence, and my eloquence to my knowledge, 
 perhaps I might make no very intolerable speaker," 
 he says in his " Autobiography." " At all events I
 
 234 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 shall try to expose myself." After some experience of 
 the House he decided not to expose himself, but to 
 remain in his seat " safe but inglorious." Timidity 
 and want of readiness, he says, condemned him to 
 silence. In a letter to a friend, years after he entered 
 Parliament, he writes: "I am still a mute; it is 
 more tremendous than I imagined ; the great speakers 
 fill me with despair ; the bad ones with terror." 
 
 Sir Philip Francis is prominent among the literary 
 men who have been failures in Parliament. In April, 
 1784, he was returned for the borough of Yarmouth, 
 in the Isle of Wight. On July 2nd he delivered 
 his maiden speech on the affairs of the East India 
 Company, a subject on which he might certainly have 
 been expected to succeed ; but though he devoted 
 great care to its preparation, the result was a dismal 
 failure. Indeed, he never made his mark as a speaker. 
 To account for his unreadiness, which was his greatest 
 defect, he used to quote Lord Bacon's well-known 
 axiom: "Reading makes a full man; writing an 
 exact man ; speaking a ready man." " I had enough 
 and too much of the former and none of the latter in 
 my youth," said he. " A vessel may be too full to 
 part easily with its contents, and few orators are very 
 exact men. Besides, I had too much sensibility and 
 felt that the House was against me. The House was 
 Pitt's, and Pitt could not despise me ; but he tried 
 to make it believe he did." Lady Francis advanced 
 another and very curious reason for her husband's 
 failure as a speaker : his over-caution lest he might 
 say anything that would give corroboration to the 
 popular suspicion that he was " Junius." 
 
 On the other hand, Lord Byron's debut as a politician
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 235 
 
 in the House of Lords was, for a poet, a most promis- 
 ing performance. On February 27th, 1812, he made 
 his maiden speech in opposition to a Bill which aimed 
 at the suppression of the labour riots in Nottingham 
 by extending the penalty of death to the breaking of 
 the newly-invented stocking frames. Being for the 
 people, though, as he was always careful to add, not 
 of the people, he had espoused the Radical side in 
 politics. In the course of his speech he said he was 
 glad to think that the Bill would be ineffective. Two 
 things were wanting to consign to the gallows a 
 desperate weaver who wreaked his vengeance on 
 the machinery which deprived him of employment 
 "twelve butchers for a jury and a Jeffreys for a 
 judge." Writing to a friend on the speech, which he 
 thought would be a good advertisement for " Childe 
 Harold," just about to be published, Byron said : 
 " I have had many marvellous eulogies repeated to 
 me since, in person and by proxy, from divers persons, 
 Ministerial yea, Ministerial! as well as Opposi- 
 tionists ; of them I shall only mention Sir F. Burdett. 
 He says it is the best speech by a lord since the Lord 
 knows when, probably from a fellow-feeling in the 
 sentiments. Lord Holland tells me I shall beat them 
 all if I persevere ; and Lord Granville remarked that 
 the construction of some of my periods are very like 
 Burke 's! ! And so much for vanity. I spoke very violent 
 sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused 
 everything and everybody, and put the Lord Chancellor 
 (Eldon) very much out of humour, and, if I may 
 believe what I hear, have not lost my character by 
 the experiment. As to my delivery, loud and fluent 
 and enough ; perhaps a little theatrical." He adds
 
 236 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 an adverse reflection upon the Parliamentary report- 
 ing of the time. " I could not recognise myself, or 
 anyone else, in the newspapers." He, therefore, con- 
 tributed a report in the first person to " Hansard " (a 
 practice still prevailing), which, like all such con- 
 tributions, reads more like an essay than a speech. 
 Probably the most eloquent speaker which the 
 English Bar has produced was the great advocate 
 Thomas Erskine, who became Lord Chancellor. 
 Yet^Tik^^Siy another brilliant lawyer, he was a 
 failure in Parliamentary debate. His maiden speech 
 was disastrous. Entering the House of Commons in 
 1783 as member for Portsmouth when thirty-three 
 years old, with a splendid reputation as a forensic 
 orator, he made his maiden speech on November 
 20th on the first reading of Fox's East India Bill. 
 He began with an attack on Pitt, who opposed the 
 Bill, for his solicitude on behalf of the chartered rights 
 of the East India Company. Pitt, providing himself 
 with pen and paper, took notes for a speech in reply. 
 But Erskine's address was strangely destitute of the 
 force and animation which characterised his efforts 
 at the Bar ; and, as he proceeded, it was noticed 
 that Pitt paid less attention to him and took fewer 
 and fewer notes, till at last he dashed the pen through 
 the paper and, with a contemptuous smile, flung them 
 on the floor. Erskine, who witnessed this act of 
 disdain, struggled dispiritedly through the remainder 
 of his speech and sank into his seat shorn of much 
 of his fame. Later on, Pitt rising to reply struck 
 Erskine another cruel blow. " I will reply to both 
 speeches," said Pitt, referring to Fox and Erskine; 
 " but I shall make no mention of what was said by
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 237 
 
 the honourable gentleman who spoke last. He did 
 no more than regularly repeat what was said by the 
 honourable member who preceded him and regularly 
 weaken all he repeated." 
 
 George Canning's first speech was remarkable 
 neither way. He was twenty-four years old when 
 he entered the House as member for Newport, in 
 January, 1794. A few days later, on January 2ist, 
 he made his maiden speech in support of Pitt's pro- 
 posal to grant a subsidy to the King of Sardinia. 
 But far more interesting than the speech is the 
 graphic narrative of his feelings during the ordeal 
 which he gives in a letter to his friend Lord 
 Boringdon : 
 
 " I intended to have told you, at full length, what 
 were my feelings at getting up and being pointed 
 at by the Speaker and hearing my name called from 
 all sides of the House ; how I trembled lest I should 
 hesitate or misplace a word in the first two or three 
 sentences, while all was dead silence around me, and 
 my own voice sounded to my ears like some other 
 gentleman's how, in about ten minutes or less, I 
 got warmed in collision with Fox's arguments and 
 did not even care twopence for anybody or anything ; 
 how I was roused, in about half an hour, from this 
 pleasing state of self-sufficiency by accidentally cast- 
 ing my eyes towards the Opposition Bench, for the 
 purposes of paying compliments to Fox, and assuring 
 him of my respect and admiration, and there seeing 
 certain members of the Opposition laughing (as I 
 thought) and quizzing me ; how the accident abashed 
 me ; and, together with my being out of breath,
 
 238 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 rendered me incapable of uttering ; how those who 
 sat below me on the Treasury Bench, seeing what it 
 was that distressed me, cheered loudly and the House 
 joined them ; and how, in less than a minute, straining 
 every nerve in my body, and plucking up every bit 
 of resolution in my heart, I went on more boldly than 
 ever, and getting into a part of my subject that I 
 liked, and having the House with me, got happily 
 and triumphantly to the end." 
 
 Lord Palmerston was first returned to Parliament 
 as member for Newport, Isle of Wight, at the General 
 Election, 1807, being then twenty-three years old. 
 He was appointed a Junior Lord of the Admiralty 
 in the Duke of Portland's Administration, and on 
 February 3rd he made his maiden speech. The 
 Whigs moved for the production of papers to show 
 on what grounds the Government had advised the 
 expedition against Copenhagen. Palmerston dis- 
 played in his first speech on this motion (a vindication 
 of the necessity of secrecy in diplomatic correspon- 
 dence) the shrewdness, tact, and humour that charac- 
 terised most of his Parliamentary addresses. Writing 
 to his sister the next day in an unwarranted mood of 
 self-depreciation, he said : " You will see by this 
 day's paper that I was tempted by some evil spirit to 
 make a fool of myself for the entertainment of the 
 House last night ; however, I thought it was a good 
 opportunity of breaking the ice, although one should 
 founder a little in doing so, as it was impossible to 
 talk any very egregious nonsense upon so good a 
 case." On February 6th he wrote again to his 
 sister : " Many thanks for your congratulations. I
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 239 
 
 certainly felt glad when the thing was over, though 
 I began to fear I had exposed myself; but my* friends 
 were so obliging as to say I did not talk much 
 nonsense, and I began in a few hours afterwards to 
 be reconciled to my fate. ... I was about half an 
 hour on my legs ; I did not feel so much alarmed as 
 
 I expected." 
 
 The speech with which Lord John Russell opened 
 a Parliamentary career that lasted for close on half 
 a century escaped the attention of the reporters and 
 has consequently passed into oblivion. In 1813, 
 while he was still somewhat under age, he was 
 returned to the House of Commons for the family 
 borough of Tavistock. All that is known of his 
 maiden speech is that it was in opposition to the 
 union of Norway and Sweden, to which England and 
 Russia had made themselves parties in 1814. His 
 first important speech was delivered on February 26th, 
 1817, against the proposal of the Tory Government, 
 under Lord Liverpool, to suspend the Habeas Corpus 
 Act owing to the increasing outbreaks of crime 
 among the distressed classes of the community. The 
 speech, which " Hansard," with a view, perhaps, to 
 make up for its neglect of his maiden effort, reports 
 fully in the first person, contained an announcement 
 of Lord John's intention to retire from public life on 
 account of ill-health. " I am determined," he added, 
 
 II for my own part that no weakness of frame, no 
 indisposition of body, shall prevent my protesting 
 against the establishment of the most dangerous 
 precedent which this House ever made." Shortly 
 afterwards he resigned his seat in the House of 
 Commons, with the design of never re-entering the
 
 240 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Chamber again, so disappointed was he with the failure 
 of the Whigs to make any headway in the country 
 against the Tories. His friend Tom Moore published 
 an eloquent remonstrance in verse. It began 
 
 " What ! thou, with thy genius, thy youth and thy name 
 
 Thou born of a Russell whose instinct to run 
 The accustom'd career of thy sires is the same 
 As the eaglet's, to soar with his eyes on the sun ! " 
 
 and ended 
 
 " Like the boughs of that laurel of Delphi's decree, 
 
 Set apart for the fane and its service divine, 
 So the branches that spring from the old Russell tree, 
 Are by Liberty claim'd for the use of her shrine ! " 
 
 This flattering appeal induced Lord John to conse- 
 crate to politics the leisure and talents he had intended 
 to devote to travel and literature, and he was re-elected 
 for Tavistock on June i8th, 1818. 
 
 " A more terrible audience there is not in the 
 world," said Macaulay of the House of Commons, 
 but he was on good terms with it from the first. 
 Before he was quite thirty he entered the House of 
 Commons as member for Calne in 1830, and on 
 April 5th of that year he made his maiden speech, 
 which was a powerful appeal in support of a motion 
 for the removal of the civil disabilities of the Jews. 
 In the battle of Reform, which had just begun, he 
 became a conspicuous fighter. Writing to his sister 
 from the House of Commons in July, 1831, he makes 
 some interesting comments on his style of oratory : 
 
 " I said a few words the other night. They were 
 merely in reply, and quite unpremeditated, and were 
 not ill received. I feel that much practice will be
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 241 
 
 necessary to make me a good debater on points of 
 detail ; but my friends tell me that I have raised my 
 reputation by showing that I was quite equal to the 
 work of extemporaneous reply. My manner, they 
 say, is cold, and wants care. I feel this myself. 
 Nothing but strong excitement and a great occasion 
 overcomes a certain reserve and mauvaise honte which 
 I have in public speaking ; not a mauvaise honte which 
 in the least confuses one, or makes me hesitate for a 
 word, but which keeps me from putting any fervour 
 into my tone or my action. This is, perhaps, in some 
 respects an advantage, for when I do warm, I am the 
 most vehement speaker in the House, and nothing 
 strikes an audience so much as the animation of an 
 orator who is generally cold." 
 
 In the following August Macaulay, again writing 
 to his sister of a dinner given by Lord Althorp, deals 
 with the nervousness which seizes most members 
 when they are about to address the House of 
 Commons : 
 
 " We talked about timidity in speaking. Lord 
 Althorp said he had only just got over his appre- 
 hensions. 'I was as much afraid,' he said, Mast 
 year as when I came into Parliament. But now I 
 am forced to speak so often that I am quite hardened. 
 Last Thursday I was up forty times.' I was not 
 much surprised at this in Lord Althorp, as he is 
 certainly one of the most modest men in existence. 
 But I was surprised to hear Stanley say that he never 
 rose without great uneasiness. ' My throat and lips,' 
 he said, * when I am going to speak, are as dry as 
 those of a man who is going to be hanged.' Nothing
 
 242 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 can be more composed and cool than Stanley's 
 manner. His fault is on that side. A little hesita- 
 tion at the beginning of a speech is graceful, and 
 many eminent speakers have practised it, merely 
 in order to give the appearance of unpremeditated 
 reply to prepared speeches ; but Stanley speaks like 
 a man who never knew what fear, or even modesty, 
 was. Tierney, it is remarkable, who was the most 
 ready and fluent speaker almost ever known, made a 
 confession similar to Stanley's. He never spoke, he 
 said, without feeling his knees knock together when 
 he rose." 
 
 Gladstone's first appearance as a speaker in the 
 arena in which he was for so long a period the most 
 eloquent and predominant personality, was obscure 
 and disappointing. He took his seat as member for 
 Newark on January 2Qth, 1833 the opening day of 
 the first Session of the first Parliament elected under 
 the Reform Act being then twenty-three years old. 
 Three weeks later, on February 2ist, he made his 
 maiden speech. A petition signed by 3,000 Whigs 
 of Liverpool was presented, alleging bribery and 
 corruption against the Tory representatives of the 
 town, and in the discussion which followed, Gladstone 
 said a few words on behalf of the electoral honour of 
 his native place. " Every great orator from Demos- 
 thenes to Burke," Gladstone once said, " has suffered 
 from nervousness on the eve of an important speech, 
 and although I cannot claim to share their gift of 
 golden speech, I can claim more than a fair share of 
 their defect of nerves." Certainly he was extremely 
 nervous on this occasion, as his indistinctness of
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 243 
 
 utterance and hesitancy of manner only too obviously 
 showed. That voice which subsequently held so 
 many thousands spellbound by its music was in- 
 audible from the Gallery in which the reporters were 
 taking notes. The Times' report began : " Mr. W. 
 Gladstone was understood to protest against the 
 statements made against the petitioners"; and the 
 Morning Chronicle wrote: "Mr. Gladstone made a 
 few remarks which were not audible in the Gallery." 
 So little notice did this debut attract, that a speech 
 delivered in the House on May iyth by his brother 
 Thomas Gladstone (member for Portarlington) on 
 presenting a petition in favour of the abolition of 
 slavery, from his constituency has been described 
 in biographical sketches as Gladstone's maiden effort. 
 But his first important speech was made on June 3rd 
 in the same year on the Government's proposals for 
 the emancipation of slaves within the British Empire. 
 Lord Howick, in the course of the debate, had said 
 that the slaves employed in the production of sugar 
 on the estate of Gladstone's father in Demerara 
 had been cruelly overworked. The young member 
 earnestly defended his father in the treatment of his 
 slaves, and this concluded his speech : 
 
 " If the labours of the House should be conducted 
 to a satisfactory issue it would redound to the honour 
 of the nation and to the reputation of his Majesty's 
 Ministers, whilst it would be delightful to the West 
 India planters themselves, for they must always feel 
 that to hold in bondage their fellow-men must always 
 involve the greatest responsibility. But let not any 
 man think of carrying this measure by force. England 
 
 R 2
 
 244 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 rested not her power upon physical force, but upon 
 her principles, her intellect and virtue ; and if this 
 great measure were not placed on a fair basis, or 
 were conducted by violence, he should lament it as a 
 signal for the ruin of the Colonies and the downfall 
 of the Empire." 
 
 Stanley, the Colonial Secretary, and the Minister 
 who had charge of the Negro Emancipation Bill, paid 
 a compliment to the young member, who he supposed 
 had then addressed the House for the first time. 
 " Whatever cause," he said, " shall have the goodfortune 
 of his advocacy will derive from it great support." 
 
 Lord Salisbury was twenty-four when, as Lord 
 Robert Cecil, he took his seat in the House of Com- 
 mons as member for Stamford, in February, 1854. 
 Two months later, on April yth, he delivered his first 
 speech on Lord John Russell's University Bill. 
 " Hansard " devotes only eighteen lines of its narrow 
 columns to it, and the members who immediately 
 followed in the debate made no reference to it ; but 
 Gladstone, speaking later in the evening, recognised 
 in generous terms the abilities of the young man who 
 was destined after the lapse of thirty years to become 
 his chief political rival. " This first effort, rich with 
 promise," said he, " indicates that there still issue 
 forth from the maternal bosom of the University men 
 who in the first days of their career give earnest of what 
 they may afterwards accomplish for their country." 
 The most successful maiden speech of recent 
 times was that of Sir William Harcourt. He was 
 forty-one years old when he took his seat as member 
 for Oxford, on February i6th, 1869, and just a week
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 245 
 
 later addressed the House for the first time. The 
 subject was happily one in which he was well versed. 
 Viscount Bury asked for leave to introduce a measure 
 entitled the Vacating of Seats Bill, to repeal the 
 statute of Queen Anne, which makes it necessary for 
 members of the House to seek re-election on accept- 
 ing office in the Government, on the ground that it 
 served no useful purpose. Mr. Vernon Harcourt (as 
 he was then called) protested against leave being 
 given even to bring in such a Bill. The speech, 
 which occupies six columns in " Hansard," and was 
 loudly applauded throughout, induced Viscount Bury 
 to withdraw his motion. It thus concluded : 
 
 " The principle involved in the Statute of Anne he 
 regarded as part of the essential and living fabric of 
 the Constitution. His noble friend, however, appeared 
 to be dealing with it as if it were some old sword 
 which, having been a long time in the family, was of 
 no further use, and which might, therefore, be sold off 
 to some old curiosity shop. But he, for one, did not 
 look at the statute from that point of view. It had 
 done great service, and he believed it might do great 
 service again. It was the sword of our forefathers, 
 and it was our duty to keep it bright and burnished 
 as we had received it from our ancestors. While 
 sailing on a calm and unruffled sea we ought not to 
 confine our thoughts solely to the present because it 
 seemed prosperous, but we should make provision 
 also for the future when a political tempest might 
 arise, and jealously preserve those safeguards which 
 our forefathers had provided, those safeguards which 
 had proved hitherto, and might prove hereafter, alike
 
 246 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 a security for the stability of the Throne and for the 
 liberties of the people." 
 
 The maiden speeches of Lord Rosebery and Mr. 
 Chamberlain also gave promise of the pre-eminence 
 they have both attained in Parliamentary debate. 
 Lord Rosebery was twenty-four when he addressed 
 the House of Lords for the first time, on the loth 
 February, 1871, at the opening of the Session. 
 Dressed in the uniform of the Royal Scottish Archers, 
 he seconded the Address in reply to the Speech from 
 the Throne. " I would plead," said he, in his opening 
 sentence, "that that favour and indulgence which 
 your Lordships are accustomed to show to all who 
 for the first time address this House may be extended 
 to me in even a larger measure, on account of my 
 extreme youth and inexperience " ; and, in conclusion, 
 after thanking their Lordships for " the patience and 
 indulgence with which they had listened to him," he 
 added, " I believe there is no more solemn moment in 
 the life of an Englishman than that at which he is 
 first privileged to take part in the deliberations of the 
 National Senate." Speeches moving the Address in 
 both Houses are usually jejune and commonplace, 
 but, besides good elocution, there was a freshness of 
 treatment and a touch of genuine eloquence in the 
 maiden effort of the youthful peer which raised it far 
 above its class. He referred to the terrible conflict 
 between France and Germany, and paid the following 
 sympathetic and graceful tribute to the defeated 
 nation : 
 
 " But, my Lords, what shall we say of France ? 
 I believe that to those who have faith in the great
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 247 
 
 destinies of that great country and I confess that I 
 am one of them that faith will be not more unshaken, 
 but rendered more profound by the events of the 
 present war. I believe that the time will come when 
 France will look back to these bitter calamities with 
 even thankfulness, as being the trial the crucial 
 trial from which she emerged to a higher and purer 
 state of liberty than she had ever previously known. 
 She may well be thankful if they have taught her to 
 despise the empty love of military glory, the endless 
 desire of territorial aggrandisement, the restless 
 anxiety for supremacy in Europe, which have so long 
 distinguished her policy. This miserable war is due, 
 not so much to the Emperor and his advisers as to 
 those quack orators who for four years preached to 
 France that the aggrandisement of Prussia was an 
 insult to France ; that the establishment of a powerful 
 nationality on her borders was a menace ; that France 
 should be an Empire surrounded by duchies and 
 provinces. My Lords, I believe that we shall live to 
 see France far greater in the Councils of Europe by 
 her moral authority than she ever was by her 
 armies." 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain was forty years old when, after a 
 successful municipal career as a Radical in Birming- 
 ham, he entered the House as member for Birmingham 
 on the iyth July, 1876. On the 4th August, in the 
 same Session, the Education Bill, introduced by Lord 
 Sandon, was under discussion ; and some attacks by 
 the supporters of the measure on the Birmingham 
 School Board induced its Chairman, Mr. Chamber- 
 lain, to break the resolution which he had formed, not
 
 248 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 
 to speak until he was a complete master of Parlia- 
 mentary rules and procedure. He began modestly 
 and, therefore, well. "As he had so recently come 
 into the House, he felt reluctant to trespass on its 
 time, being of opinion that he should best show his 
 respect for the Assembly he was so proud to enter by 
 refraining from addressing it while inexperienced in 
 its form and practices." Mr. Chamberlain was 
 thoroughly self-possessed, yet not assertive, although 
 he surveyed the House while addressing it through 
 an eye-glass. The speech made a good impression. 
 Disraeli, then Prime Minister, emerged from his 
 private room on hearing that " Chamberlain, the 
 Radical, is up." 
 
 Mr. Arthur James Balfour was two and a half years 
 in the House of Commons before he ventured to 
 address it. He was in his twenty-sixth year when, 
 on August loth, 1876, he delivered his maiden speech. 
 It was in the debate on the Indian Budget, which is 
 usually introduced at the fag end of the Session, and 
 excites but little interest among members generally. 
 The point at issue was the technical one of the 
 depreciation in the value of silver, and its injurious 
 effect on the Indian tax-payers. Mr. Balfour delivered 
 a brief and technical speech on the subject, in the 
 course of which he warned the Government against 
 meeting the emergency, as had been suggested, by 
 increasing the face value of the rupee. " The position 
 of India towards us," said he, " was that of a country 
 paying tribute to another. He believed the ultimate 
 form the tribute took was not silver or gold currency, 
 but goods." The first appearance of Mr. Balfour in 
 debate attracted no special attention. Eleven or
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 249 
 
 twelve years were yet to elapse before he established 
 firmly, while filling the office of Chief Secretary for 
 Ireland, his conspicuous ability as debater, adminis- 
 trator, and statesman. 
 
 Richard Cobden and Charles Stewart Parnell, two 
 of the most eminent Parliamentarians of the nine- 
 teenth century, seem to have been absolutely tongue- 
 tied before they entered the House of Commons. In 
 1835 Cobden, then in his thirty-first year, made his 
 first public speech at a meeting in support of the 
 demand of Manchester for a Corporation. It was 
 a humiliating failure. " He was nervous," says a 
 contemporary newspaper account; " confused, and, in 
 fact, practically broke down, and the Chairman had to 
 apologise for him." At the General Election of 1841 
 he was returned for Stockport. He took his seat at 
 the opening of the new Parliament on the 24th 
 August of the same year, and two nights later delivered 
 his maiden speech in opposition to the Tory amend- 
 ment to the Address, which led to the defeat of the 
 Melbourne Government and the return to power of 
 the Tories, with Peel as Prime Minister. " My speech 
 had one good effect," he wrote to his brother. 
 " I called up a booby who let fly at the manufacturers, 
 very much, I suspect, to the chagrin of the leader of 
 his party." He added, " All my friends say I did 
 well. But I feel it very necessary to be cautious in 
 speaking too much. I shall be an observer for some 
 time." Cobden was no longer devoid of words. His 
 first speech was an eloquent appeal for the abolition 
 of the Corn Laws. " It sounded a new key," writes 
 Mr. John Morley, " and startled men by an accent 
 that was strange in the House of Commons. The
 
 250 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 thoughtful among them recognised the rare tone of 
 reality, and the note of a man dealing with things and 
 not words. He produced that singular and profound 
 effect which is perceived in English deliberative 
 assemblies when a speaker leaves party recriminations, 
 abstract arguments, and commonplaces of sentiment 
 in order to inform his hearers of telling facts in the 
 condition of the Nation." Cobden's great common 
 sense and his intuition in arriving early at an under- 
 standing of the House, are shown by a letter written 
 a few nights subsequently to his brother : "I observe 
 there are a great many busy men of our party who 
 like to see their names in print, and who therefore 
 take up small matters continually. They are very 
 little attended to by the House." 
 
 When Parnell entered public life in 1874, at the 
 age of twenty-eight, by contesting Dublin in the 
 Home Rule interest, he struck most observers as 
 having no political faculty, and as being utterly devoid 
 of any capacity for speaking. A. M. Sullivan de- 
 scribes the scene at the public meeting where Parnell 
 made his ddbut as a politician. " The resolution 
 which I had moved in his favour having been adopted 
 with acclamation, he came forward to address the 
 assemblage. To our dismay, he broke down utterly. 
 He faltered, he paused, went on, got confused, and 
 pale with intense but subdued nervous anxiety, which 
 caused every one to feel deep sympathy for him. The 
 audience saw it all, and cheered him kindly and 
 heartily, but many on the platform shook their heads, 
 sagely prophesying that if ever he got to Westminster, 
 no matter how long he stayed there, he would either 
 be a ' silent member ' or be known as ' single speech
 
 MAIDEN SPEECHES. 251 
 
 Parnell.' ' Parnell was defeated in that contest. But 
 on the 22nd April, 1875, he entered the House of 
 Commons as member for Meath, and soon found his 
 tongue. That night a Coercion Bill for Ireland was 
 under discussion in Committee, and Joseph Gillies 
 Biggar, who was as much at ease in addressing the 
 House as Cobbett or O'Connell, inaugurated the 
 policy of obstruction by speaking for four hours, 
 ramblingly and irrelevantly, on an amendment to the 
 measure. Four nights later, Parnell, joining in the 
 discussion on the same Bill, made his maiden speech. 
 He was obviously and painfully nervous. He could 
 only stammer out a few barely intelligible sentences, 
 in protest against a description of Ireland applied in 
 the course of the discussion as a geographical frag- 
 ment of England ! 
 
 Nervousness is not commonly recognised as an 
 Irish failing, but at least two celebrated Irishmen have 
 in this century owned its mastery when up for the first 
 time before the House of Commons. Eighty years or 
 so ago a distinguished Irish member named Dogherty, 
 who subsequently became Chief Justice of Ireland, 
 asked Canning what he thought of his maiden speech. 
 "The only fault I can find with it," said Canning, "is 
 that you called the Speaker Sir too often." " My 
 dear friend," said Dogherty, " if you knew the mental 
 state I was in while speaking, you would not wonder 
 if I had called him Ma'am.' 1 Whiteside, another 
 Irish member who also became Chief Justice of Ire- 
 land, used to relate that on seeing, during his maiden 
 speech, the Speaker's wig surrounded by blue flames 
 he knew it was time to sit down.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 EVERY human institution, probably, has an element 
 of the quaint or the ridiculous in its composition. 
 Certainly, Parliament, solemn and majestic though it 
 be, as befits the greatest and most powerful Legisla- 
 ture in the world, has its quaint side, without which 
 the business of law-making at Westminster would 
 often be dull and prosaic indeed. 
 
 The rules of procedure that for centuries have 
 regulated the proceedings of the House of Commons 
 are a fruitful source of embarrassment and confusion 
 to new members. Some members, indeed, never 
 master the usages of the House thoroughly, and they 
 go through their Parliamentary life with a reproving 
 cry of " Order, order ! " from Mr. Speaker ringing 
 perpetually in their ears. 
 
 Even old official members often betray their ignor- 
 ance of the rules of procedure. Lord Palmerston was 
 in the House many years before he became its leader 
 on his first appointment as Prime Minister ; but he 
 then found that he was inadequately acquainted 
 with the customs of the House, and with a grim 
 determination he sat on the Treasury Bench from the 
 opening of each sitting till its close, with only an 
 hour's interval for dinner, for weeks, eagerly on the
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 253 
 
 watch for incidents illustrative of Parliamentary pro- 
 cedure. Again, W. H. Smith, while Leader of the 
 House, was unaware, on being appointed Lord 
 Warden of Walmer, that it was necessary for him to 
 vacate his seat, having accepted an office of profit 
 under the Crown ; and as he actually entered the 
 House and spoke after his appointment, without 
 having first gone to his constituents for a renewal of 
 their trust, he incurred penalties amounting to 1,500 
 if any one chose and the choice was open to every 
 citizen of the Kingdom to bring an action against 
 him in the courts of law. Mr. Smith did subsequently 
 resign, and was returned again without delay as 
 member for the Strand Division of Westminster. 
 
 " How can I learn the rules of the House ?" was 
 the question put by a newly-elected Irish member to 
 Parnell. " By breaking them," was the prompt reply 
 of the Irish leader, who, as is well known, spoke from 
 experience on the point. Few members, however, 
 would care to adopt that heroic method of mastering 
 the rules, and the task of obtaining the knowledge by 
 study is complicated by the curious circumstance that 
 many of these regulations are unwritten. Points of 
 order and procedure are settled by the Standing Orders 
 or permanent rules passed from time to time by the 
 House to regulate its proceedings, but the rules ot 
 etiquette and decorum have not been officially recorded. 
 Members are, nevertheless, expected to make them- 
 selves acquainted with these regulations, and every 
 breach of etiquette, however slight even if it be due 
 solely to inexperience and ignorance meets with a 
 stern rebuke, not only from the Speaker, but from the 
 House generally.
 
 254 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Every sitting of the House of Commons opens with 
 prayers, which are recited by the Chaplain. It is a 
 curious circumstance that the two front benches are 
 always deserted at these devotions. Now, it is on 
 the Treasury bench and on the front Opposition 
 bench that the men who really control the destinies of 
 the Empire sit, and surely they stand more in need of 
 divine light and guidance in the discharge of their 
 duties than the unofficial members of the House. 
 Nevertheless, a Minister or an ex-Minister is rarely, if 
 ever, seen in the Chamber at prayers. 
 
 It must not be inferred, however, that the great, 
 wise, and eminent occupants of the front benches 
 of the House of Commons in thus absenting them- 
 selves from devotions deem themselves so exalted 
 above ordinary mortals that they stand not in need of 
 prayers. Nor is it, even, that they think themselves 
 past praying for. On the other hand, the regular 
 attendants at devotions must not be regarded on that 
 account as men of sincere piety. Probably some of 
 the members who may be seen every evening listening 
 devoutly to the invocations of the v Chaplain never 
 attend service elsewhere. 
 
 What, then, is the explanation ? Well, the House 
 consists of 670 members, but only about half that 
 number can be accommodated with seats in the 
 Chamber. Consequently, on important and interest- 
 ing nights there is always a keen competition for 
 seats, which is regulated by certain rules. A member 
 present at prayers has a right to the place he 
 then occupies until the rising of the House. Each 
 evening stands absolutely independent and by itself, 
 and, therefore, the title to a seat secured by attend-
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 255 
 
 ance at prayers lapses at the termination of the 
 sitting. 
 
 On the Table, in a little box, is a supply of small 
 white cards with the words " At prayers " in large old 
 English letters. Obtaining one of these cards and 
 writing his name on it under the words " At prayers," 
 the member slips it into a receptacle in the bench at 
 the back of the seat, and thus secures the place for the 
 night against all comers. He may immediately leave 
 the House, and remain away as long as he pleases. 
 The place may be occupied by another member in the 
 meantime, but whenever the master of the seat the 
 gentleman whose autograph is written on the card 
 in the little brass slit returns to the Chamber, the 
 temporary occupant of the seat must give place to 
 him. 
 
 Thus does piety in the House of Commons meet 
 immediately with the substantial reward of a seat in 
 which to listen in comfort to a great speech. The 
 consequence is that at times of great excitement in 
 the House there is a most edifying display of devotion 
 on the part of members ; while in the dull seasons the 
 attendance at prayers is deplorably lax, and as the 
 occupants of the front benches have their seats secured 
 to them by custom a custom which now possesses 
 all the force of a law they never lend the eclat of 
 their superior presence to the daily devotions of the 
 House. Old and respected unofficial members of the 
 House, who are in the habit of using certain seats, 
 are, by courtesy, also allowed to occupy these places 
 without dispute or question. 
 
 No unoccupied seat can after prayers be retained, 
 as a matter of right, by a member who has been
 
 256 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 absent from devotions placing a card or a hat or 
 gloves thereon ; but it may be so secured as a matter 
 of courtesy. But how is a member to retain a seat 
 until he establishes a right to it for the evening by 
 being present at prayers ? Must he enter the Chamber 
 early and sit in the seat until the Speaker takes the 
 Chair ? He is mercifully spared that ordeal. He 
 may leave his hat on the seat, and then betake himself 
 to the reading-room, or the dining-room, or to any 
 other part of the Palace of Westminster he pleases. 
 But the hat must be his own workaday hat. If it be 
 discovered that he has brought with him a second hat 
 and leaves the precincts of the House wearing that 
 hat, he forfeits all right to the seat. 
 
 These two regulations have been the subjects of 
 definite and specific rulings by the Speaker. When 
 the personal relations between the rival sections of 
 the Nationalist Party were strained after the split in 
 1891, an Irish member took possession of a seat on 
 which another Irish member had placed his hat after 
 prayers. The owner of the hat, finding his seat 
 occupied, indignantly told the story of his eviction to 
 the sympathetic House, and the Speaker declared 
 that the action of the other member in thus taking 
 forcible possession of the seat was a violation of the 
 etiquette of the House. Again, a large crowd of 
 members gathered at Westminster in the early morn- 
 ing of the evening on which Mr. Gladstone introduced 
 the Home Rule Bill of 1893 ; and when, after hours 
 of waiting, the door giving immediate entrance to 
 the Chamber was opened at seven a.m., so mad 
 was the rush to secure seats that several members 
 were crushed, knocked down, and trampled upon*
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 257 
 
 Subsequently the Speaker was informed that an Irish 
 member had brought down a dozen soft hats, with 
 which he secured twelve seats for colleagues who did 
 not appear in the House till the ordinary hour of meet- 
 ing in the afternoon ; and the Speaker repeating a rule 
 made in 1880 laid it down that the only hat which 
 can secure a seat is the real bond fide headgear of the 
 member, and not any "colourable substitute" for it. 
 However, during the influenza epidemic of 1893, tne 
 Speaker, in pity for the hatless wanderers through 
 draughty corridors and lobbies, departed from the old 
 usage so far as to recognise a card left on the bench 
 instead of a hat, as a sentinel of a seat to be occupied 
 later on. Curiously enough, the innovation, which is 
 now one of the recognised unwritten rules, was a 
 reversion to an ancient practice. On February 2ist, 
 1766, according to the "Annual Register" for that 
 year, " by eight o'clock the seats in the House of 
 Commons were begun to be taken for the members by 
 pinning down a ticket with their names in such seats 
 as they chose, which was reserved for them till prayers 
 began." The reason for the unusual rush for seats 
 on that occasion (422 members were present in the 
 House) was the introduction of the Bill for the repeal 
 of the famous Stamp Act of 1765, which, imposing 
 certain obnoxious stamp duties on the American 
 Colony, had met with the most strenuous resistance 
 from the people of that country. 
 
 The hat, indeed, plays an important part in Par- 
 liamentary customs. It also contributes occasionally 
 to the gaiety of life in the House of Commons. No 
 incident is greeted with more hearty laughter than 
 that of a member, after a magnificent peroration, 
 
 p. s
 
 258 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 plumping down on his silk hat on the bench behind 
 him. The bashful and awkward member generally 
 figures in these accidents. But the misfortune of 
 forgetfulness has befallen even a cool and collected 
 Parliamentary hand, and the result a misshapen 
 hat has completely spoiled the effect of his most 
 eloquent speech. A few years ago a London 
 member, after his maiden speech, sat upon a new 
 silk hat which he had provided in honour of the 
 auspicious occasion, and as he was ruefully surveying 
 his battered headgear, to the amusement of the unfeel- 
 ing spectators, an Irish representative rose and gravely 
 said: "Mr. Speaker, permit me to congratulate the 
 honourable member on the happy circumstance that 
 when he sat on his hat his head was not in it." The 
 call of " Order, order ! " from the Speaker was drowned 
 in roars of laughter. 
 
 When men meet together in public assemblies or 
 in social life as in a theatre or at a reception the 
 ordinary custom is to uncover while they are seated, 
 and to wear their hats as they enter or leave the 
 place. In Parliamentary life that rule is reversed. 
 Members have their heads covered as they flit about 
 the Palace of Westminster, but in the Chamber they 
 can wear their hats only when they are seated on the 
 benches. As they walk to their seats or rise to leave 
 the Chamber they must uncover. This custom is the 
 source of much confusion to new members. The 
 House never fails to show its resentment of a breach 
 of etiquette, however trivial. It will, without distinc- 
 tion of party, unanimously shout indignantly at a new 
 member who, ignorant or unmindful of the Par- 
 liamentary custom, wears his hat as he walks up and
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 259 
 
 down the floor of the Chamber. I saw, a few years 
 ago, an amusing incident from the Reporters' Gallery. 
 A new member, startled by the shout which greeted 
 him as he was leaving the Chamber with his hat on 
 his head instead of in his hand, paused in the middle 
 of the floor and looked around with a mingled expres- 
 sion of fright and perplexity. " Hat, hat ! " shouted 
 the House. This only embarrassed him the more. 
 He felt his trousers pockets and his coat tails for the 
 offending article of attire. He even looked at his feet 
 to see if he were wearing it at that extremity of 
 his person. Then an Irish member, amid the loud 
 laughter of the House, politely took off the hat of 
 the confused legislator and handed it to him with a 
 courtly bow. 
 
 But the story of the humours of the Parliamentary 
 hat is not yet ended. When a member is alluded to 
 in the course of a speech he raises his hat, and he 
 performs a similar act of politeness when a Minister 
 answers a question put by him. A member address- 
 ing the House stands, of course, uncovered. But 
 that rule does not always prevail. There is an occa- 
 sion when it is positively out of order for a member 
 to speak on his feet and with his hat off. He must 
 speak in his seat with his hat on his head. When a 
 debate has terminated, and the question is put from 
 the Chair, an interval of two minutes during which 
 the electric division-bells ring out their summons all 
 over the precincts of St. Stephen's is allowed to 
 enable members to get to the Chamber. The time is 
 taken by a sandglass on the Table, and when it has 
 elapsed the doors of the Chamber are locked. At this 
 particular juncture it is essential that a member who 
 
 s 2
 
 260 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 desires to address the Chair on a point of order 
 should retain his seat and wear his hat. If he were 
 to follow the ordinary practice and stand up uncovered, 
 he would be roared at and shouted at from all sides of 
 the House for his breach of etiquette. Mr. Gladstone 
 had occasion once to address the Chair just as a divi- 
 sion was about to be taken, and, forgetful of the rule 
 for the moment, he rose to his feet. A shout of 
 " Order, order ! " forced him to his seat again on the 
 front Opposition bench ; and as he never brought his 
 own hat into the Chamber, he was obliged to put 
 on that of one of his lieutenants who sat on the 
 bench beside him. Now Mr. Gladstone's head was 
 of an abnormal size. He had to get his own hats 
 made to order. It is improbable that the hat of any 
 other member in the House would have fitted him ; 
 but the hat available on the occasion of which I write 
 only just covered his crown, and members roared with 
 laughter at his comical efforts to balance it on his 
 head during the few minutes he occupied in presenting 
 his point of order. 
 
 An exception to the rule that a member must stand 
 uncovered when addressing the House on all other 
 occasions is made in cases of sickness or infirmity. 
 I have seen the infirm Sir Charles Forster, member for 
 Walsall, addressing the House of Commons from his 
 seat, in the later years of his Parliamentary life ; and 
 during the debate on the Home Rule Bill of 1893, 
 in the House of Lords, the Marquis of Waterford, 
 who had met with an accident in the hunting field, 
 speaking while he reclined on a bench propped up 
 with air cushions. 
 
 Forty members constitute a quorum ; but once
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 261 
 
 a House is made, it proceeds uninterrupted, even 
 although there be one member only with the Speaker 
 present. The Speaker himself cannot take notice of 
 the absence of a quorum. His attention must be 
 directed to it. This is done by a member rising in 
 his place and saying : " Mr. Speaker, I beg to call your 
 attention to the fact that there are not forty members 
 present." That being said, the Speaker must pro- 
 ceed to count the House. He does not, however, 
 simply count the members who are present in the 
 Chamber at the moment. He rises and says : 
 " Notice having been taken that there are not forty 
 members present, strangers will withdraw," and then 
 sets going the electric bells, which ring in every room 
 of the vast building a summons to members to return 
 to the House. The members come rushing in from 
 all quarters, and after the lapse of two minutes the 
 doors are locked. Then, but not till then, the Speaker, 
 using as a pointer his black beaver three-cornered 
 hat (which, by the way, he never wears over his huge 
 wig), proceeds to count the number in the House. 
 When he arrives at the fortieth member, he cries 
 out " Forty! " in a loud voice, resumes his seat, and 
 business again proceeds from the point at which it 
 was interrupted by the motion for a count. But if 
 there were not forty present, he would simply say 
 " Order, order!" quit the Chair without another 
 word, and thus bring the sitting to an end. 
 
 In these days there is not much danger of the 
 absentees running the risk of being made to stand 
 the fire of the severe displeasure of the Chair. But 
 it was evidently different in the middle of the eigh- 
 teenth century. Lord Southampton (then Colonel
 
 262 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Fitzroy) once fell under the censure of Mr. Speaker 
 Onslow. He was acting as a Lord-in-Waiting, and 
 entered the House just too late to complete a quorum, 
 but time enough to receive from the Speaker, in a 
 loud, hectoring voice, a severe reprimand. The 
 hon. and gallant member excused himself by saying 
 he had been "waiting upon His Majesty." Mr. 
 Onslow at this thundered out: "Sir, don't tell me 
 of waiting ; this is your place to attend in this is 
 your first duty." Bold speaking, truly, for the days 
 of George the Third. 
 
 It is a favourite device for a member who desires 
 to secure an audience for a colleague, to move " a 
 count." The object, however, is not always attained. 
 Members rush out again when the Speaker announces 
 "forty," and leave the benches as deserted as before. 
 A few Sessions ago a London member, who was 
 to have resumed a debate when the Speaker returned 
 after the then brief adjournment for dinner at 
 8.30 o'clock, found no one in the House but himself, 
 the Speaker, and the clerks at the Table. Not caring 
 to waste his facts and figures upon empty benches, 
 he gravely called the attention of the Speaker to 
 the obvious fact that there were not forty members 
 present. The division bells rang out their summons. 
 Only thirty-six legislators responded to the call, and 
 the unfortunate member, instead of obtaining the 
 audience he desired, had the sitting suspended. 
 
 There is on record a still more amusing story 
 of a member who unintentionally "counted out" 
 the House to his own confusion. He was not an 
 engaging speaker, so when he arose to "address the 
 House " few were present to listen to him. He
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 263 
 
 began ironically. " Mr. Speaker," he said, "look at 
 the condition of these benches. Is it not disgraceful 
 that the weighty topic on which I propose to address 
 the House has not attracted even the presence of a 
 quorum ?" 
 
 "Order, order!" cried the Speaker. "Notice 
 having been taken that there are not forty members 
 present, strangers will withdraw." The member 
 murmured curses not loud but deep on his unlucky 
 expression of indignation. The bells rang out their 
 summons, but no one answered. In another minute 
 the Speaker disappeared behind the Chair. 
 
 A rare and curious circumstance, worth recording, 
 happened in the Session of 1882. A division disclosed 
 the fact that there were only twenty-five members in 
 the House, which accordingly stood adjourned. 
 
 Formerly it was the custom for a member who 
 moved a count to go covertly behind the Chair and 
 whisper in the Speaker's ear, " There are not forty 
 members present," and then disappear through the 
 doors which gave convenient access from the Chamber 
 immediately at the Speaker's back. But for several 
 years past there has been no secrecy in connection 
 with the matter. Counts are now moved by members 
 from their places. Two minutes are allowed, the 
 same time as in the case of a division, to enable 
 members to get to the Chamber ; but in order to 
 distinguish a count from a division, the bells ring 
 three times for a division and once only for a count, 
 so that those who have no sympathy with the business 
 under consideration need not trouble themselves to 
 quit the reading-room, the smoking-room, or the 
 dinner-table, in order to " keep a House," The doors
 
 264 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 are not locked as in the case of a division. When the 
 two minutes are past, members, therefore, come in 
 after the Speaker has begun counting. Oftentimes 
 one man arriving breathless in the nick of time saves 
 the situation. Without him there would have been 
 only thirty-nine members present, and the Speaker 
 would have left the Chair. 
 
 A speech can be interrupted at any moment, if 
 there are not forty members present, by a motion 
 to count the House. This leads occasionally to an 
 amusing if not very edifying spectacle. Say it is a 
 "private members' night" that is, a night given 
 over to the discussion of notices of motion by un- 
 official members. The Government do not trouble 
 about " keeping a House " on such a night. In fact 
 it is often their interest to have an awkward and 
 troublesome motion quietly suppressed by a count- 
 out. It therefore altogether depends on the interest 
 of the motion on the paper, or on the popularity ot 
 the member in whose name it stands, whether or not 
 a quorum is retained within the precincts of the 
 House. But it invariably happens ^in the case of a 
 motion of doubtful interest or importance that a count 
 is demanded by an opponent, perhaps just as the 
 mover has begun his speech, but certainly after he 
 has concluded. Immediately all the opposers of the 
 motion clear out into the Lobby and try to dissuade 
 those who have turned up in reply to the summons of 
 the bells to remain outside with them, instead of 
 going into the Chamber to help to "keep a House." 
 They crowd round the portals of the Chamber, eagerly 
 watching the Speaker as he slowly oh, with what 
 exasperating slowness! counts the members present.
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 265 
 
 " One, two . . . thirty-nine!" With a cry of " Order, 
 order ! " the Speaker has disappeared, to the great 
 delight of the group in the Lobby, the bitter vexation 
 of spirit of the honourable gentleman in charge of the 
 motion, and the utter bewilderment of the strangers 
 in the galleries. The visitors on such a night are 
 indeed deserving of commiseration. They had come 
 to see the great House of Commons at work ; and, lo ! 
 just after the Speaker resumed possession of the 
 Chair at nine o'clock, and the curtain was rung up, 
 the play was most inexplicably ended, and a minute 
 afterwards they found themselves puzzled and dis- 
 consolate in Palace Yard. 
 
 If the House is in Committee when a count is 
 called and a quorum is not made up, an adjournment 
 does not thereupon take place. The House can only 
 be adjourned with the Speaker in the Chair. The 
 Speaker is therefore sent for, and the state of affairs 
 having been reported to him by the Chairman, he 
 counts again. If forty members are not then present, 
 the adjournment takes place ; but if a sufficient number 
 of members to form a quorum have meantime arrived, 
 the proceedings in Committee are resumed. 
 
 The only occasion on which the Speaker can leave 
 the Chair without a motion to that effect being carried 
 is when a count has taken place. After midnight, 
 when the " Orders of the Day" are gone through, a 
 formal motion for the adjournment of the House is 
 made by a Minister. Until this is done the Speaker 
 must remain in the Chair. The same rule also 
 applies in the House of Lords. On one occasion the 
 Minister in charge of that House forgot to make the 
 usual motion and left the Chamber with the other
 
 266 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Peers. But the Lord Chancellor could not follow 
 their example. He had to remain on the Woolsack 
 until one of the doorkeepers brought back a Peer to 
 make the motion necessary to set his Lordship free. 
 
 " Strangers will withdraw." This direction is 
 always given by the Speaker when a division is 
 challenged or a count moved. But all the same, 
 strangers do not nowadays withdraw from the 
 Chamber. They still remain in the galleries above, 
 and look down with interest on the progress of a 
 division, or the strange proceedings which attend a 
 count. Formerly, however, the Chamber was entirely 
 cleared of strangers during a count or a division. 
 That custom originated in the days before the division 
 lobbies were introduced, when the members were 
 counted in the House (the numbers only, and not the 
 names of members, being recorded), and when there 
 was a possibility of strangers slipping into the 
 Chamber unnoticed and being reckoned by the tellers 
 on one side or the other. One of the last divisions 
 under the old system took place on February igth, 
 1835, when the last Speaker chosen from the Con- 
 servative Party, Mr. Manners Sutton, was driven 
 by the Whigs from the Chair to give place to Mr. 
 Abercrombie. The scene is described by McCullagh 
 Torrens in his " Life of Lord Melbourne." It took 
 place in the temporary structure used by the Houses 
 of Parliament between the destruction of the old 
 buildings by fire and the erection of the present 
 Palace of Westminster. 
 
 " The question was at length put by the Clerk at 
 the table, Mr. Ley, who as bound" (writes Mr. 
 Torrens) " in courtesy to the former Speaker, declared
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 267 
 
 him to have the majority. The galleries were cleared, 
 and the counting began. It was customary then for 
 both sides to remain in their places and then to be 
 reckoned by the tellers, who stood between them 
 with their wands of office. The Ministerialists were 
 declared to be 306, and already those about him 
 congratulated Sutton on having manifestly won. 
 Then came the reckoning for his opponent (Aber- 
 crombie). Except the Opposition whips, few felt sure 
 that so great a number could be beaten, but when 300 
 had been told, and some difficulty was found in seeing 
 accurately into the last corner of the crowded gang- 
 way on the left, the suspense for the moment was 
 breathless. * Three hundred and five,' and then 
 there was a slight pause. ' Three hundred and six ' 
 a briefer pause and then ' Three hundred and 
 seven ' called forth such a cheer as wholly drowned 
 the rest of the announcements, which went on until 
 the final numbers were declared to be for Abercrombie 
 1 three hundred and sixteen.' ' 
 
 In the following year, 1836, the present system, by 
 which members voting on different sides of a question 
 walk through separate division lobbies and have their 
 names recorded, was introduced ; but it was not till 
 1853 that the House came to the conclusion that 
 strangers present in the galleries might be allowed to 
 remain during a division without any embarrassment 
 to the tellers. The Speaker's order, " Strangers will 
 withdraw," is now enforced only in regard to visitors 
 who occupy the two benches under the clock, which 
 are level with the back benches of the House itself, 
 whence it might be possible for a stranger, if allowed 
 to remain, to pass into one of the division lobbies,
 
 268 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 But that he could be counted even if he succeeded 
 in getting into the Lobby is an utter impossibility, 
 for the names of members voting are ticked off 
 by division clerks as they pass through the Lobby. 
 In the Session of 1888 I saw from the Reporters' 
 Gallery Dr. Croke, Roman Catholic Archbishop of 
 Cashel, climb over the low barrier which divides these 
 seats from the House, and thus enter, unobserved by 
 the Sergeant-at-Arms or his attendants, the sacred 
 precincts of the Chamber. Of course Dr. Croke did 
 not know at the moment of his breach of order. Mr. 
 Parnell, who sat at the other side of the barrier, 
 conversing with the Archbishop, invited him to 
 accompany him to the members' quarters ; and his 
 Grace, unaware that the proper way was out 
 through the Lobby, stepped over the barrier before 
 Mr. Parnell could stop him, and then quickly dis- 
 appeared with the Irish leader through the side door 
 giving access to one of the division lobbies. 
 
 The House, however, has the right to clear all the 
 galleries, including the gallery in which the reporters 
 work, and to go into secret session, with closed doors, 
 when it pleases. Formerly any member could at any 
 time have the galleries cleared by simply rising in 
 his place and saying, " Mr. Speaker, I espy stran- 
 gers." But after a curious incident which occurred 
 on April 2yth, 1875, this autocratic power was very 
 properly removed from the hands of the irresponsible 
 unofficial member. On that evening there was a 
 debate on a motion by Mr. Chaplin in relation to the 
 breeding of horses. It attracted a brilliant sporting 
 audience. The Prince of Wales was a prominent 
 spectator in the Royal seat of the Peers' Gallery over
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 269 
 
 the clock. Suddenly the thread of Mr. Chaplin's 
 discourse was severed by Mr. Joseph Biggar, the 
 well-known Irish member, who, to the amazement of 
 the crowded House, informed the Speaker that he 
 espied strangers. Of course all strangers were 
 ordered out forthwith ; and out the Heir to the 
 Throne and the representatives of "the Fourth 
 Estate " had to go, with the less distinguished occu- 
 pants of the galleries. But the Standing Order 
 regulating the admission of strangers was at once 
 suspended on the motion of Mr. Disraeli, the then 
 Leader of the House, and visitors and journalists 
 were quickly re-admitted. It was also enacted then 
 that for the future the galleries should only be 
 cleared on a motion regularly moved, and, if neces- 
 sary, carried on a division ; power, however, being 
 reserved to the Speaker, or the Chairman of Com- 
 mittees, to order the withdrawal of strangers whenever 
 he thought it necessary. That order has been put in 
 force only once in 1879 when on the motion of Colonel 
 King-Harman, which was carried on a division, the 
 galleries were cleared for four or five hours during a 
 debate on the murder of Lord Leitrim in Ireland. 
 
 Members are not allowed to refer to each other by 
 name in debate. The only member who is properly 
 addressed by name is the Chairman who presides 
 over the deliberations of the House in Committee. 
 On a member rising to speak in Committee he begins 
 with " Mr. Lowther" and not with " Mr. Chairman," 
 as at public meetings. When the Speaker is in the 
 Chair the formula is, " Mr. Speaker, sir." In debate 
 a member is distinguished by the office he holds, as 
 "The Right Honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of
 
 270 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the Exchequer," or by the constituency he represents, as 
 " The Honourable Gentleman the Member for York." 
 Some make use of the terms " My Honourable Friend," 
 or " My Right Honourable Friend." In case of family 
 relations the same form is usually used. Occasionally 
 " My Honourable Relative," or " My Right Honour- 
 able Relative," is heard ; but "My Right Honourable 
 Father," or " My Right Honourable Brother," though 
 no doubt allowable, has not been hitherto used. 
 
 During the Session of 1879 Mr. James Lowther, 
 the Chief Secretary for Ireland, rose from his seat and 
 was hurriedly leaving the House just as Mr. Synan, 
 an Irish representative with a very loud voice, began 
 to call attention to some Irish grievance. Another 
 Irish member, thinking it strange that the Chief 
 Secretary should leave the Chamber when a question 
 relating to Ireland was being brought forward, called 
 out, " Hi, hi ! Lowther ! where are you going ?" And 
 turning as he reached the door, Mr. Lowther coolly 
 replied, "I am going out on the terrace to hear 
 Synan." But the Chair does not encourage these 
 familiarities between members in the House. 
 
 The rule is in every case, when referring to a 
 member, to use the word " Honourable " or " Right 
 Honourable." This custom undoubtedly tends to 
 keep the standard of debate on a high level of order, 
 courtesy, and dignity, but it has sometimes led to odd 
 results. During the Parliament of 1886-92 two 
 members were ignominiously expelled from the House 
 after their conviction for gross immoral offences ; 
 and yet in the discussion that took place on each 
 occasion the criminal was still punctiliously described 
 as " The Honourable Gentleman." Again, lawyers are
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 271 
 
 styled " Honourable and Learned," and officers of 
 the army and the navy " Honourable and Gallant." 
 Mr. W. H. Smith, who was not a lawyer, was once 
 referred to in a speech as " The Right Honourable 
 and Learned Gentleman." " No, no," exclaimed the 
 simple old gentleman not without a touch of humour 
 disclaiming the distinction amid the merriment of 
 the House, " I beg the Honourable Gentleman's 
 pardon ; I am not learned." 
 
 A member on his feet must, as I have said, address 
 " Mr. Speaker." But occasionally one may hear 
 some amusing slips of the tongue in the course of a 
 debate. Members who have had a civic training in 
 public life begin by apostrophising " Mr. Mayor," and 
 others who are largely in demand at public meetings, 
 by " Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen." A good 
 story went round the Press recently, that an Irish 
 member who had been called to order by the Speaker 
 saluted that august personage as " Your Reverence." 
 But it was an amusing case of mishearing on the 
 part of the journalists in the Press Gallery. The 
 member in question wrote to the newspapers that 
 what he actually said was, "With all due deference 
 to your ruling, Mr. Speaker." 
 
 As the Speaker and not the House generally is 
 addressed, it is considered a breach of propriety for 
 any one to pass between the Chair and the member 
 " in possession of the House." This violation of 
 order is common for some time after the election of 
 a new Parliament ; but it is always reprimanded with 
 a loud and angry cry of " Order, order! " the cry 
 that is most frequently heard in the House which is 
 very disconcerting to the blundering member against
 
 272 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 whom it is directed. A member, therefore, has often 
 to get to his seat by a long, circuitous route. But if 
 it be impossible to do this without crossing the line 
 between the Chair and the member addressing Mr. 
 Speaker, he must wait until the speech is concluded, 
 or if he cannot wait if the getting to his place at 
 once be imperative he has to offer humble atone- 
 ment for his act of impropriety by sacrificing his own 
 native dignity of demeanour. He must cautiously 
 and respectfully approach the sacred line, and then 
 get over it quickly with a light step and a duck of the 
 head, or with his back lowly bent. He is fortunate 
 if the cry of " Order, order ! " inspired by the breach 
 of etiquette is not accompanied by ironical laughter 
 over his grotesque antics. 
 
 It is a breach of order for a member to read a 
 newspaper in the House. He may quote an extract 
 from one in the course of a speech, but if he attempted 
 to peruse it as he sat in his place, his ears would 
 soon be assailed by a stern and reproving cry of 
 "Order, order!" from the Chair. Some members 
 resort to the deception practised by the young lady 
 who had " Vanity Fair" bound like a New Testament 
 and was observed reading it during service in St. 
 Paul's Cathedral. Members often slip a newspaper 
 or periodical into the "Orders of the Day" and 
 read it while the Speaker imagines they are 
 industriously studying the clause of a Bill or its 
 amendments. 
 
 The House of Lords is less strict, oddly enough, in 
 little matters of this kind than the House of Commons. 
 The Peers allow the attendants to pass up and down 
 their Chamber delivering messages ; and they have a
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 273 
 
 reporter the representative of the " Parliamentary 
 Debates " sitting on the floor of the House. But in 
 the House of Commons, the clerks at the Table, and 
 the Sergeant-at-Arms and his deputy, are the only 
 officers of the House who are allowed within the tech- 
 nical limits or boundaries of the legislative Chamber, 
 or, in other words, across the Bar, while the House is 
 sitting. An attendant, even when he has letters and 
 telegrams to deliver, dare not pass beyond the line of 
 the Bar. He gives the messages to some member 
 sitting near the Bar, and they are passed on from 
 hand to hand till they reach the members to whom 
 they are addressed. 
 
 Every member is under a constitutional obligation 
 to attend the service of the House. The attendance, 
 however, is not now compulsory. The House, pro- 
 bably, considers the force of public opinion in the 
 constituencies sufficient to correct any laxity on the 
 part of members in the discharge of their Parliamen- 
 tary duties. But there is an old procedure known as " a 
 call of the House," for taking the full sense of the 
 House on any question of great importance. Not 
 less than a week or ten days is allowed to members 
 to respond to the call, and any member not present 
 in the House to answer to his name when the roll is 
 read by the clerk, without due cause for his absence, 
 may be sent for in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. 
 This procedure would now be resorted to only on the 
 occasion of some supreme crisis in the affairs of the 
 nation if even then when it may be essential that 
 every member should be at his post. The last time 
 " a call of the House " was made was on April 
 igth, 1876, on the motion of Mr. Whittle Harvey, 
 
 P. T
 
 274 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 who subsequently moved for the appointment of a 
 select committee to revise the Pension List. The 
 division on the latter motion (which was rejected 
 by a majority of 122) showed that there were 414 
 members in the House. The last occasion on which 
 a motion for " a call " was moved was on March 
 23rd, 1882, when Mr. Sexton, in accordance with 
 notice, moved " That this House be called over on 
 Thursday, the 3Oth of March." The House on that 
 day was to enter on the consideration of the proposed 
 new rules of procedure (including the closure of 
 debate), and Mr. Sexton's object was to secure the 
 attendance of Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and 0' Kelly, 
 M.P.'s, who at the time were confined as " suspects " 
 in Kilmainham Prison, Dublin. The motion, which 
 was opposed by the Liberal Government, was de- 
 feated. It was pointed out that the procedure was 
 useless for the purpose for which it was originally 
 intended namely, to take the full sense of the 
 House on a Bill or motion, as there is no compulsory 
 process in the procedure of the House by which 
 members, even if they answered the " call," can be 
 obliged to vote on the question at issue. The " call " 
 to which members are most alive, nowadays, is " the 
 crack of the party Whip." 
 
 That absenteeism was a dire offence in the time of 
 the Stuart Kings is proved by the number and variety 
 of "orders touching motion for leave into the country" 
 to be found in the Journals during the seventeenth 
 century. Here are a few of them: " I3th of February, 
 1620. No member shall go out of town without open 
 motion and licence in the House." By the next rule 
 it will be seen that knights of the shire were ranked
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 275 
 
 much higher than the representatives of cities or 
 boroughs: u 25th of March, 1664. The penalty of 
 10 to be paid by every knight and 5 by every 
 citizen, &c., who shall make default in attending." 
 Absence evidently became a crying sin, and was 
 visited accordingly : " i6th of November, 1666. To be 
 sent for in custody of the Sergeant." From the suc- 
 ceeding string of resolutions it is evident that under 
 the restored Monarchy there was a marked inclination 
 amongst members to " play the truant": " i8th of 
 December, 1666. Such members of the House as 
 depart into the country without leave to be sent for in 
 custody of the Sergeant-at- Arms." Even this terror 
 does not seem to have effectually deterred "runaways," 
 for two months later marks the imposition of a penalty 
 which, in those days, must have seemed formidable 
 indeed: " I3th of February, 1667. That every de- 
 faulter in attendance, whose excuse shall not be 
 allowed this day, be fined the sum of 40 and sent for 
 in custody, and committed to the Tower till the fine 
 be paid." A similar fine was at the same time 
 imposed on " every member who should desert the 
 service of the House for the space of three days," 
 without special leave, incarceration in the Tower being 
 part of the penalty. The stringency of this rule was 
 relaxed by common consent in 1668, and a fine of 10 
 was substituted as sufficiently onerous ; in all cases 
 "the fines to be paid into the hands of the Sergeant- 
 at-Arms, to be disposed of as the House shall 
 direct." 
 
 The individual freedom of members in our times is 
 not so much restricted ; but that absenteeism is still 
 an offence is proved by the fact that occasionally the 
 
 T 2
 
 276 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 "Orders of the Day" contain a notice such as the 
 following in the name of one of the Whips : 
 
 " SIR WILLIAM WALROND. 
 
 " To move that leave of absence for two months be 
 granted to Mr. J. R. Flemming." 
 
 Such motions are made by the Whips on behalf of 
 a member who desires to absent himself from the 
 House of Commons on the ground of urgent business, 
 ill-health, illness in his family, or domestic affliction, 
 and the leave of absence applied for is always granted 
 by the House. This, however, is only done when the 
 member concerned is serving on a Private Bill Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 A member of the House of Commons cannot, 
 according to the ancient law of Parliament, resign his 
 seat. Once he is duly elected he must retain the 
 trust confided in him by his constituents till the 
 dissolution of Parliament, unless he is removed by 
 death, or becomes a bankrupt or a lunatic, or is 
 expelled the House, or accepts an office of honour or 
 profit under the Crown. The latter condition, how- 
 ever, affords a practical, though rather ludicrous, 
 means of escape for a member who desires to rid him- 
 self of his representative and legislative responsibilities. 
 He accepts the office of " Steward of the Chiltern 
 Hundreds." It seems that centuries ago the Chiltern 
 Hills a portion of the high lands of Buckinghamshire 
 being covered with timber afforded protection to 
 numerous banditti, and it was the duty of the Steward 
 of the Chiltern Hundreds an officer appointed by the 
 Crown to protect the inhabitants of the neighbour- 
 ing districts from their depredations. The duties have,
 
 QUAINT SIDE OF PARLIAMENT. 277 
 
 of course, long since ceased, but the nominal office 
 has been retained. By accepting it a member who 
 wishes to resign vacates his seat, and a writ for a new 
 election is, in consequence, issued on the application 
 of the Whip of the Party to which the retiring member 
 belonged. The office is resigned as soon as another 
 member desires to escape from Westminster. It is in 
 the gift of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It cannot 
 be conferred twice in one day, but there are two other 
 offices of a similar nature "Steward of the Manors of 
 Hendred,Northsteadand Hempholme," or "Escheator 
 of Munster" at the disposal of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer in case he should receive two or more appli- 
 cations from retiring members on the same day. 
 
 But there is nothing more amusing, perhaps, in all 
 the quaint and curious customs of the House of Com- 
 mons, than the strange ceremony which marks the 
 termination of its every sitting. The moment the 
 House is adjourned, stentorian-voiced messengers and 
 policemen cry out in the lobbies and corridors, " Who ( 
 goes home?" These mysterious words have sounded 
 every night for centuries through the Palace of West- > 
 minster. The custom dates from a time when it was 
 necessary for members to go home in parties accom- 
 panied by links-men for common protection against 
 the footpads who infested the streets of London. But 
 though that danger has long since passed away, the 
 question " Who goes home ? " is still asked, night 
 after night, during the session of Parliament. No 
 reply is given, and none is expected.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THE CURRENT COIN OF THE POLITICIANS. 
 
 IT is interesting and instructive to trace the origin 
 of our party nomenclature and of those effective and 
 picturesque phrases and familiar colloquial expressions 
 which are the common property, or the current coin, 
 of all politicians. Most of these striking sayings are 
 associated with the names of eminent statesmen. 
 Indeed it is one of the ironies of Parliamentary 
 history that the memory of many a politician, dis- 
 tinguished and powerful in his day, lives mainly in 
 his phrases. In some instances the sayings or catch- 
 words were really coined by the speakers who first 
 contributed them to our political currency ; but in 
 other cases they were not so much original expressions 
 as apt quotations from obscure sources so strikingly 
 applied as to fire the popular imagination. Take, for 
 example, the phrase " a leap in the dark" which is 
 generally associated with the name of Lord Derby 
 in reference to the Act of 1867 establishing house- 
 hold suffrage in boroughs. Lord Derby was Prime 
 Minister of a Conservative Government for the third 
 and last time, and to this measure, introduced by his 
 own Administration, he gave only a half-hearted 
 support. The Franchise Bill was denounced by a dis- 
 tinguished member of the Conservative Party in the
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 279 
 
 House of Commons, Lord Cranborne (better known 
 now as the Marquis of Salisbury) as " a leap in the 
 dark." " No doubt," said Lord Derby, on the third 
 reading of the Bill in the House of Lords, " no doubt 
 we are making a great experiment and taking a leap 
 in the dark, but I have the greatest confidence in the 
 sound sense of my countrymen." The phrase was 
 used eight years before by Lord Palmerston, in a 
 private letter to Lord John Russell under, curiously 
 enough, somewhat similar circumstances. Lord 
 Russell had in contemplation certain proposals for 
 electoral reform which included a 10 county fran- 
 chise. "As to our county franchise," wrote Lord 
 Palmerston, " we seem to be taking a leap in the 
 dark." But we hear of the phrase having been used 
 two hundred years earlier. Thomas Hobbes, the 
 political writer of the seventeenth century, is reported 
 to have said on his death-bed, " I am taking a frightful 
 leap in the dark." " Meddle and muddle," one of the 
 most expressive terms in our political currency, which 
 is also associated with the name of Lord Derby, was 
 really coined by that statesman. In 1864 Lord John 
 Russell (or rather Earl Russell, for he was then a peer) 
 was Premier and Foreign Secretary. He claimed that 
 the policy of the Liberal Government in foreign affairs 
 was a policy of non-intervention. " The foreign policy 
 of the noble earl, so far as the principle of non- 
 intervention is concerned, may be summed up," said 
 Lord Derby, " in two short, homely, but expressive 
 words meddle and muddle. During the whole course 
 of his diplomatic correspondence wherever he has 
 interfered and he has interfered everywhere he has 
 been lecturing, scolding, blustering and retreating."
 
 2 8o PARLIAMENT. 
 
 " Johnny's upset the coach" is another happy political 
 expression for which we are indebted to the imagi- 
 nation and humour of Lord Derby. In 1834, as 
 Mr. Edward Stanley and subsequently Lord Stanley, 
 he was Secretary of State for the Colonies in the 
 famous Grey Administration which carried the great 
 Reform Act of 1832. His tenure of that office was 
 distinguished by the emancipation of the negro slaves 
 in all the Colonies of Great Britain. The Cabinet 
 was divided in opinion as to the wisdom or the justice 
 of the alienation of the surplus revenues of the Irish 
 Church to secular purposes ; and when on the night of 
 May 6th, 1834, Lord John Russell, speaking on the Irish 
 Tithe Bill, supported the appropriation of the surplus 
 revenues to educational purposes, Stanley wrote on a 
 slip of paper, " Johnny's upset the coach," and passed it 
 to Sir James Graham, another Minister on the Treasury 
 Bench who, like himself, was opposed to the alienation 
 of Church property. Stanley and others including 
 Graham left the Whig Party. It was in reference to 
 this secession that Daniel O'Connell quoted in the 
 House of Commons the couplet from Canning's 
 " Loves of the Triangles " : 
 
 " Still down thy steep, romantic Ashbourne, glides 
 The Derby Dilly, carrying six insides." 
 
 " Cave," the designation of a discontented section 
 of a party which breaks away from their allegiance, 
 arose out of a humorous sally made by Mr. John 
 Bright during the debates on Mr. Gladstone's abor- 
 tive Reform Bill of 1866, basing the franchise in 
 boroughs on a 6 rental. The measure was opposed
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 281 
 
 by a group of Liberals, including Mr. Horsman. 
 " The right honourable gentleman," said Mr. Bright, 
 in the course of a speech in the House of Commons 
 " is the first of a new party who has expressed his 
 great grief, who has retired into what may be called 
 his political Cave of Adullam, and he has called about 
 him everyone who is in distress, and everyone who is 
 discontented." The phrase caught the popular fancy, 
 and was accepted even by the malcontents. " No 
 improper motive," said Lord Elcho (known in later 
 years as Lord Wemyss) , " has driven us into this cave, 
 where we are a most happy family, daily I may say 
 hourly increasing in number and strength, where 
 we shall remain until we go forth to deliver Israel 
 from oppression." The Bill was defeated and the 
 Government resigned, only to be replaced by Lord 
 Derby's Administration, which passed the Household 
 Suffrage Act of 1867. A colleague expressed to Lord 
 Derby the opinion that the Bill "the leap in the 
 dark " went too far in a democratic direction. 
 " Yes," said Derby, " but we have dished the 
 Whigs," thereby making an important contribution 
 to our political phraseology ; and Mr. Robert Lowe 
 (subsequently Lord Sherbrooke), who had joined Mr. 
 Horsman in the Cave of Adullam, invented the 
 happy phrase, " We must now, at least, educate our 
 masters" (apropos of the new electorate) in a speech 
 expressive of his amazement at this surrender of 
 the Conservative Government on the question of 
 Reform. 
 
 "The greatest happiness of the greatest number" 
 first appeared (according to Jeremy Bentham, in his 
 " Liberty of the People ") in one of the innumerable
 
 282 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 pamphlets written by Dr. Joseph Priestley, in reply 
 to Edmund Burke's " Reflections on the French 
 Revolution." " He rose like a rocket and fell like the 
 stick " was first used by Tom Paine, the notorious 
 Republican writer, in reference to Burke. " One half 
 the world knows not how the other lives" will be 
 found in " Holy Observations," by Dr. Joseph Hall, 
 Bishop of Exeter and of Norwich in the seventeenth 
 century. " The majesty of the people " was coined 
 by Charles Fox. In 1798 a political dinner was 
 given at the " Crown and Anchor" tavern in celebra- 
 tion of Fox's birthday, with the Duke of Norfolk in 
 the chair. Concluding his speech in reply to the 
 toast of his health, the great Whig leader said : 
 " Give me leave, before I sit down, to call on you to 
 drink our Sovereign's health, the Majesty of the 
 People." For this sentiment Fox was deprived of 
 two offices he held under the Crown, the Lord- 
 Lieutenancy of the West Riding of Yorkshire and the 
 command of a militia regiment, and was also struck 
 off the list of the Privy Council. Carlyle, on the 
 other hand, thought the people were " mostly fools." 
 It has been stated that this declaration occurs in 
 Carlyle's appeal (printed in The Spectator) to Lord 
 John Russell, then Premier, to do something for the 
 industrial improvement of Ireland. In that appeal 
 Carlyle merely speaks of his countrymen as "twenty- 
 seven millions, many of whom are fools " ; but in the 
 " Latter-Day Pamphlets," in the chapter on Parlia- 
 ment, he says : 
 
 " Consider in fact, a body of six hundred and 
 fifty - eight miscellaneous persons set to consult
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 283 
 
 about business, with twenty-seven millions, mostly 
 fools, assiduously listening to them, and check- 
 ing and criticising them, was there ever since 
 the world began, will there ever be till the world 
 ends, any business accomplished in these circum- 
 stances ? " 
 
 It is plain that it was from the latter, and not from 
 the former, passage that the celebrated phrase came 
 into popular use. 
 
 Among the political sayings for which we are 
 indebted to Disraeli are: "Reaction is the conse- 
 quence of a nation waking from its illusions " (1848) ; 
 "A tu quoque should always be good-humoured, for it 
 has nothing else to recommend it " (1855) ; " Finality 
 is not the language of politics " (1859) ; " To assist 
 progress, to resist revolution, is the policy of the 
 Conservative Party" (1859); "Party is organised 
 opinion" (1864). "England does not love coali- 
 tions" is another saying of that great political 
 phrase-maker. On that night in 1852 when Lord 
 Derby's first Ministry, in which Disraeli filled the 
 office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, was defeated 
 on an amendment by Gladstone to the Budget 
 an amendment which united Whigs, Radicals, and 
 Peelites Disraeli, in a defiant speech before the 
 fatal division, said : " I know that I have to face a 
 coalition. The combination may be successful 
 combination has before this been successful but 
 coalitions, though they may be successful, have 
 .always found that their triumphs have been brief. 
 This I know, that England does not love coalitions." 
 That particular coalition under Lord Aberdeen and
 
 284 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Lord John Russell was certainly not successful. 
 " There is one indisputable element of a Coalition 
 Government," said Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, " and 
 that is that its members should coalesce." In this 
 case they drifted widely apart. 
 
 But Disraeli's most popular phrase was " Peace 
 with Honour." The occasion on which the words 
 were used is well known. On the return of the two 
 .British plenipotentiaries at the Berlin Congress in 
 1878, Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, an enthu- 
 siastic reception was given them in London ; and 
 speaking on July i6th the former said : " Lord Salis- 
 bury and myself have brought you back peace, but 
 peace I hope with honour, which may satisfy our 
 Sovereign and tend to the welfare of the country." 
 The phrase, however, like so many of his epigrammatic 
 utterances, was not Lord Beaconsfield's own invention. 
 It had been used before by two eminent statesmen, 
 but it was Lord Beaconsfield's fine and apt application 
 of it on a dramatic occasion that fixed it for ever on 
 the public memory and made it a current coin of every- 
 day political speech and writing. Lord John Russell, 
 in the course of a speech at Dundee in 1865, said, 
 " As Secretary for Foreign Affairs it has been my object 
 to preserve peace with honour." The phrase is also 
 to be found in one of the best known of Burke's 
 speeches, that imperishable oration on Conciliation 
 with America delivered in the House of Commons 
 March 22nd, 1775. "Great and acknowledged force," 
 he said, " is not impaired either in effect or in opinion 
 by an unwillingness to exert itself. The superior force 
 may offer peace with honour, and with safety." Yet 
 it is to poetry and not to politics that we are really
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 285 
 
 indebted for the phrase. Shakespeare uses it in 
 " Coriolanus," iii. 2 : 
 
 " If it be honour in your wars to seem 
 The same you are not, which, for your best ends, 
 You adopt your policy, how is it less, or worse, 
 That it shall hold companionship in peace 
 With honour, as in war, since that to both 
 It stands in like request ? " 
 
 An amusing story is told in connection with the 
 phrase. In the course of a political lecture, illustrated 
 by a magic-lantern, in a country village, portraits of 
 Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, with the words 
 " Peace with Honour," were thrown upon the screen. 
 An old lady among the audience, whose head was full 
 of recollections of a notorious criminal, innocently 
 inquired, amid great laughter, " Which is Peace ? " 
 
 " Every man has his price." This cynical saying 
 is generally ascribed to Sir Robert Walpole ; "yet," 
 writes Mr. John Morley, " he never delivered himself 
 of that famous slander on mankind." One night in 
 the House of Commons he insisted that self-interest, 
 or family-interest, was at the bottom of the fine and 
 virtuous declamation of the Opposition. "All these 
 men," he said, " have their price." It was, therefore, 
 not a general, but a political proposition. " Mend it, 
 or end it," was used by Mr. John Morley in reference 
 to the House of Lords, in a speech made at St. James's 
 Hall on July 3Oth, 1884. Mr. Morley was much 
 praised by the Radical newspapers for his happy jingle. 
 They did not know, though we may be sure so staunch 
 a lover of good literature as Mr. Morley did not forget, 
 that the speaker was only borrowing a phrase from 
 Sir Walter Scott. " My fate calls me elsewhere," says
 
 ii 
 
 286 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Halbert Glendinning in "The Monastery," "to scenes 
 where I shall end it or mend it." " Property has its 
 duties as well as its rights " appeared in a public letter 
 addressed by Thomas Drummond, Under Secretary 
 for Ireland in the Melbourne Administration, to the 
 Tipperary landlords in 1838, in reply to their applica- 
 tion to the Government for the aid of the military in 
 the collection of their rents. Attempts have been made 
 to deprive Drummond of the title to the authorship of 
 this sentiment, which is engraved on the pedestal of 
 his statue in the City Hall, Dublin. It is said that 
 the letter was really written by the Chief Secretary, 
 Lord Mulgrave, but no reason can be imagined why 
 Mulgrave should not have put his name to the docu- 
 ment were he its author. There is another statement 
 that the phrase was used by Stephen Woulfe, an Irish 
 lawyer, in a pamphlet entitled "The State of Ireland, 
 Past and Present," which appeared in 1808. Woulfe's 
 phrase is, " A landlord is not a land merchant, he has 
 duties to perform as well as rents to receive." 
 
 One of the most quoted of all sayings, "The school- 
 master is abroad," we owe to Brougham. In a speech 
 on education delivered in 1820 he used the following 
 eloquent passage : " Let the soldier be abroad if he 
 will ; he can do nothing in this age. There is 
 another personage abroad, a person less imposing, in 
 the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The school- 
 master is abroad, and I trust to him, armed with his 
 primer, against the soldier in full military array." 
 Brougham was also the originator of the phrase "The 
 pursuit of knowledge under difficulties." To him also 
 we owe "The Bill, the whole Bill and nothing but the 
 Bill," which became the battle-cry of the Reformers
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 287 
 
 in the contest with the Lords, in 1831, over the Reform 
 Bill. "A revolution by due course of law" was 
 Wellington's happy description of that measure when 
 it became law in 1832. " I'll un-Whig that gentle- 
 man " is one of Pitt's most famous sayings. During 
 the mental incapacity of George the Third, the Whigs 
 maintained that the Prince of Wales had the absolute 
 right to assume the Regency, having every reason to 
 believe that one of his earliest actions in the exercise 
 of the Royal Prerogative would be the substitution of 
 a Whig for a Tory Administration. When Fox pro- 
 pounded in the House of Commons this theory, which, 
 to say the least, was not quite in accord with Whig 
 principles, Pitt slapped his thigh triumphantly and 
 turning to a colleague who sat beside him on the 
 Treasury Bench he exclaimed, " For this doctrine, 
 I'll un-Whig the gentleman for the rest of his life." 
 But there was an earlier use of the expression. In 
 1782 the Duke of Grafton threatened to leave the 
 Rockingham Administration, and Lord Camden, in a 
 letter deprecating such a step, said, "Your retreat 
 would certainly be followed by other resignations and 
 would totally un-Whig the Administration, if I may 
 use the expression." In recent years Sir William 
 Harcourt used the phrase in the House of Commons 
 in reference to a prominent Liberal Unionist. He 
 was comically made by one newspaper to say, " I'll 
 unwig the gentleman for the rest of his life." Sir 
 Francis Burdett began his fifty years of Parliamentary 
 life as a Radical and ended it as a Conservative. In 
 the course of an attack which he made on a Bill ot 
 the Liberal Government in his Conservative days, he 
 stigmatised "the cant of patriotism." The phrase
 
 288 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 was happy, but it left its author, the whilom patriot, 
 open to as clever a retort as the House of Commons 
 has ever heard. "There is something worse than 
 the cant of patriotism," said Lord John Russell in 
 reply, " and that is the recant of patriotism." The 
 readiness of the retort, and its personal appositeness, 
 greatly excited the House, which rang with cheers 
 and laughter for several minutes. Mr. Gladstone is 
 said to have declared that no cleverer retort than this 
 was ever made. It has, however, transpired that the 
 repartee had been given an earlier publication in 
 " Eraser's Magazine " for June, 1845. 
 
 "It is impossible that the whisper of a faction 
 should prevail against the voice of a nation." This 
 phrase has an interesting history. During the 
 struggle for Reform, after the Lords had thrown out 
 the first Bill of 1831, a public meeting, held at 
 Birmingham, the headquarters of the Radical orga- 
 nisation known as " The Political Union," and 
 attended by 150,000 persons, adopted an address to 
 the Crown, praying the King to create as many peers 
 as might be necessary to carry the measure, and 
 pledging themselves to pay no taxes if Reform were 
 not carried. Lord John Russell, in a letter acknow- 
 ledging a vote of thanks from the meeting, used the 
 words, " It is impossible that the whisper of a faction 
 should prevail against the voice of a nation." The 
 King, William IV., expressed to Earl Grey, the Prime 
 Minister, his strong objection to the phrase. Russell 
 wrote to the King modifying the expression. 
 " Although," he said, " not intended to apply to the 
 majority of the House of Lords, it was certainly a 
 phrase which, had he not written in the first moments
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 289 
 
 of disappointment at the rejection of a measure, the 
 object of so much labour, and such protracted dis- 
 cussion, he would not have used." Attention having 
 been also called in the House of Commons to the 
 words, Russell sought to explain them away in a 
 similar manner. He said, "There was a faction in 
 the Lords which had swelled the majority, but the 
 majority was not in itself a faction." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone himself has enriched our political 
 colloquialisms with such useful and striking phrases 
 as " The flowing tide is with us," "Advancing by leaps 
 and bounds," "Within measurable distance," "Within 
 the range of practical politics," "Our friends across the 
 seas," "The ringing of the Chapel bell" (a reference 
 to the attempt of the Fenians to blow up Clerkenwell 
 prison), and " a Nation rightly struggling to be free " 
 (applied to the Mahdists). At the opening dinner of 
 the Palmerston Club, before his accession to office in 
 1880, he gave utterance to his definition of Liberalism 
 and Conservatism "Trust in the people qualified 
 by prudence ; distrust of the people qualified by 
 fear." His also was the happy phrase, " Greater 
 freedom and less responsibility," as a description of 
 his state after quitting office. On being called to 
 account in the Parliament of 1880-85 for some uncom- 
 plimentary expressions he had used towards Austria 
 before he came into office, he pleaded in extenuation 
 that when he uttered the words he occupied "a posi- 
 tion of greater freedom and less responsibility." The 
 famous watchword "the Masses against the Classes" 
 was first uttered by Gladstone in a speech at Liver- 
 pool on June 28th, 1896. " I will venture to say," 
 he cried, " that upon one great class of subjects, the 
 p. u
 
 2go PARLIAMENT. 
 
 largest and most weighty of all, when the determining 
 considerations that ought to lead to a conclusion are 
 truth, justice, and humanity, upon these, gentlemen, 
 all the world over, I will back the Masses against the 
 Classes." The celebrated phrase, " an old Parlia- 
 mentary Hand," was happily applied by Mr. Gladstone 
 to himself in the House of Commons, January 22nd, 
 1886, on the opening of a new Parliament. " I stand 
 here," he said, " as a member of the House where there 
 are many who have taken their seats for the first time 
 upon these benches, and where there may be some to 
 whom, possibly, I may avail myself of the privilege of 
 old age to offer a recommendation. I would tell 
 them of my own intention to keep my counsel and 
 reserve my own freedom, until I see the occasion 
 when there may be a prospect of public benefit in 
 endeavouring to make a movement forward, and I 
 will venture to recommend them, as an old Parlia- 
 mentary hand, to do the same." The authorship of 
 "bag and baggage" has also been imputed to Mr. 
 Gladstone. But with him, in this case, it was simply 
 the apt application of an old phrase, expressing what 
 his followers wanted to express, with the utmost force 
 and in a way that everybody could understand. In a 
 pamphlet on the Bulgarian atrocities he called for 
 the expulsion from Bulgaria of the official Turk "bag 
 and baggage," thus giving the phrase an extensive 
 currency in the world of politics. The phrase has, 
 however, been in existence for ages. Touchstone, for 
 instance, says to Corin ( " As You Like It," iii. 2) : 
 " Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; 
 though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and 
 scrippage." The description of Turkey as the Sick
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 291 
 
 Man was first used by the Emperor Nicholas of Russia 
 when discussing Turkish affairs in January, 1853, 
 with Sir Hamilton Seymour, the English ambassador. 
 "We have on our hands," said Nicholas, "a sick 
 man, a very sick man ; it will be, I tell you frankly, a 
 great misfortune if one of these days he should slip 
 away from us, especially before all necessary arrange- 
 ments are made." But perhaps the most striking 
 phrase coined in this connection is Carlyle's " un- 
 speakable Turk," of a later date. 
 
 " I may say that I have myself been credited with 
 the invention of the phrase ' Home Rule,' " writes the 
 Honble. George Brodrick (Warden of Merton College) 
 in his " Memories and Impressions " : " nor is it easy 
 to find authority for it earlier than an article of mine 
 speaking of a ' Home-Rule Party ' which appeared in 
 The Times on February gth, 1871, and another article 
 of mine on the past and future relations of Ireland to 
 Great Britain which appeared in * Macmillan's Maga- 
 zine' for the following May." Mr. Brodrick, however, 
 does not believe that he coined the phrase, the con- 
 text of the aforesaid articles showing indeed that he 
 was using a term " almost current " at the time. 
 
 The phrase " Home Rule " has also been attributed 
 to Isaac Butt. It really owes its origin to the Rev. 
 Joseph Allen Galbraith, a distinguished Fellow of 
 Trinity College, and Professor in the University of 
 Dublin, who was, with Butt, one of the founders of 
 the Irish Home Government Association in 1871. 
 Mr. Galbraith used the words at a meeting of that 
 association in Wicklow Street, Dublin, for the first 
 time in 1870. Butt, in a speech at the Home Rule 
 Conference in Dublin, in November, 1873, referred to 
 
 U 2
 
 292 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the expression in terms which show that he made no 
 claim to be its inventor. " Over a torn and distracted 
 country," he said, " a country agitated with dissen- 
 sion, weakened by distrust, is raised the banner on 
 which were emblazoned the magic words ' Home Rule.' 
 Wherever the legend we had emblazoned in its folds 
 was seen, the heart of the people moved to its words, 
 and the soul of the nation felt their power and their 
 spell." It is curious that the phrase has now become 
 the aceepted description of autonomy all over the 
 world. " Found salvation " was used by Sir Henry 
 Campbell-Bannerman as a humorous explanation of 
 his adoption of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule policy in 
 1885, on being offered the post of Secretary for War. 
 He is also the author of the happy term " Ulsteria," 
 as a description of the Orange demonstrations against 
 Home Rule in the North of Ireland. The term 
 "Nonconformist Conscience" was first used in the 
 letter of "A Wesleyan Minister" to The Times on 
 November 28th, 1890, demanding " the unconditional 
 abdication of Mr. Parnell, and his immediate retire- 
 ment from Parliamentary life. 'Nothing less will 
 satisfy the Nonconformist Conscience now," said the 
 writer. The Times in the same issue referred in its 
 leading columns to "what a correspondent calls the 
 Nonconformist Conscience," and afterwards repeated 
 the phrase on many occasions. Other papers fol- 
 lowed suit, and the expression soon passed into the 
 list of current political colloquialisms. Another useful 
 phrase, arising out of the Irish controversy, is the 
 " Killing Home Rule with kindness " of Mr. Gerald 
 Balfour. Speaking at Leeds on October lyth, 1895, 
 Mr. Balfour, who was then Chief Secretary for
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 293 
 
 Ireland, said, in reference to the ameliorative policy 
 of the Government : " We should be glad enough, no 
 doubt, to kill Home Rule with kindness if we could ; 
 but whatever may be the result of our efforts, our 
 intention is to do our utmost to introduce and pass 
 such measures as will really promote the interests 
 and moral prosperity of Ireland." Daniel O'Connell 
 used to boast that he would "drive a coach and six 
 through any Act of Parliament." The origin of the 
 phrase is in the " Memoirs of Ireland," published 
 anonymously in 1718, but commonly attributed to 
 Oldmixon. In speaking of Stephen Rice, who was 
 made Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer by James 
 the Second in 1686, and was removed by William in 
 1690, Oldmixon says : " He distinguished himself by 
 his inveteracy against the Protestant interest and the 
 settlement of Ireland, having been often heard to say, 
 before he was a judge, that he would drive a coach 
 and six horses through the Act of Settlement." 
 " Popular agitation," which was happily described by 
 Peel the first English statesman to yield to its 
 pressure as "the marshalling of the conscience of 
 a nation to mould its laws," was the invention of 
 O'Connell ; and here are three sayings of the great 
 Irish tribune which contain practically his whole 
 political philosophy as a constitutional agitator. 
 " Nothing is politically right which is morally 
 wrong " (I have seen this phrase erroneously 
 ascribed to Gladstone). "He who commits a crime 
 gives strength to the enemy." " No political change 
 is worth a drop of human blood." It has been stated 
 that the famous "three tailors of Tooley Street" 
 were a mythical creation of O'Connell during the
 
 I 
 
 394 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 agitation for the removal of Catholic disabilities, and 
 it is certainly just such a phrase as the Irish agitator 
 would send forth in a vein of sarcasm. It is also 
 attributed to Canning. Others assert that the three 
 tailors were real persons, who prepared a petition to 
 the Houses of Parliament, commencing, " We, the 
 people of England." It is, however, more probable 
 that the legend of the three pretentious political 
 nobodies is of considerable antiquity. " Repeal the 
 Union ! Restore the Heptarchy as soon !" exclaimed 
 George Canning in the House of Commons in 1812. 
 
 " Measures, not men, have always been my mark," 
 is a saying in Goldsmith's ''Good-natured Man," 
 published in 1768. Canning was for "men, not 
 measures." He it was who sang 
 
 " Pitt is to Addington 
 As London is to Paddington," 
 
 and in a speech attacking the Addington Government, 
 and urging the national need of recalling Pitt to the 
 head of affairs in 1801, he said: "Away with the 
 cant of ' measures, not men ' the idle supposition 
 that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the 
 chariot along. No, sir, if the comparison must be 
 made, if the distinction must be taken, men are every- 
 thing, measures are comparatively nothing. I speak 
 of times of difficulty and danger, when systems are 
 shaken, when precedents and general rules of conduct 
 fail. Then it is that not to that or to this measure 
 however prudently devised, however blameless in 
 execution but to the energy and character of indi- 
 viduals, a State must be indebted for its salvation." 
 Brougham, on the other hand, was for " measures,
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 295 
 
 not men." Speaking in the House of Commons in 
 1830, he said : " I beg here to state that as a general 
 principle my intention is to support measures which 
 meet with my approbation, and to oppose those of 
 contrary tendency, let the one or the other come from 
 whom they may." Why he supported "measures, 
 not men," he thus explained " In a Monarchy it is 
 the duty of Parliament to look at the men as well as 
 the measures, because a set of men might make a 
 treaty which would render war inevitable at some 
 distant day, unless the honour and safety of the 
 country were sacrificed. I say, therefore, as long as 
 a set of men can act secretly, that we are imperatively 
 called upon to look at them and their character, as 
 well as at the measures they propose." 
 
 " Register! Register! Register ! " was the cry of Sir 
 Robert Peel. " It may be disagreeable, and indeed in- 
 convenient, to attend to the registration of voters which 
 annually takes place throughout the country," he said, 
 addressing the electors of Tamworth in 1837. "All 
 this may be revolting ; but you may depend upon it 
 that it is better that you should take that trouble, than 
 that you should allow the Constitution to become the 
 victim of false friends, or that you should be trampled 
 under the hoof of a ruthless democracy. The advice 
 which was given by some persons was ' Agitate ! 
 Agitate ! Agitate ! ' The advice which I give you is 
 this Register! Register! Register!" 
 
 " The Judicious Bottle-holder " was given currency 
 to by Lord Palmerston. The struggle for the in- 
 dependence of Hungary in 1849 was suppressed 
 by Austria and Russia. Some of the Hungarian 
 patriots, Kossuth among them, escaped across the
 
 296 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Turkish frontier, and the Porte, supported by 
 Palmerston, who was Foreign Secretary at the time, 
 refused the joint demand made by Austria and 
 Russia that they should be delivered up. The Porte, 
 however, detained the fugitives in prison, and it was 
 not until September, 1851, that Palmerston succeeded 
 in securing their release. In the course of his reply 
 to a London deputation which tendered him congratu- 
 lations on the event, Palmerston said " During the 
 struggle a good deal of judicious bottle-holding was 
 obliged to be brought into play." This simile, 
 borrowed from the prize-ring, appealed immensely to 
 the people. "Punch" published a cartoon in which 
 the Foreign Secretary figured as " The Judicious 
 Bottle-holder." 
 
 The evolution of the word "Jingoism," to express 
 strong warlike feelings or ultra-patriotic sentiments, 
 for which "Chauvinism" does duty in France, is 
 peculiarly interesting. The popular derivation of 
 course is from a couplet in a song which was very 
 popular at the music halls in 1877, when some trouble 
 seemed likely to arise with Russia over her war with 
 Turkey. 
 
 " We don't want to fight, but by Jingo, if we do, 
 We have the men, we have the ships, we have the money too." 
 
 But according to an explanation in The Times, which 
 appeared while this song was in vogue, " Jingo " was 
 a direct descendant of the Persian "Jang," meaning 
 "war," and that the phrase "By Jingo" was an 
 equivalent for " By Mars." However to that erudite 
 poet, Thomas Ingoldsby, "Jingo " is no more than a 
 popular corruption of the name of the worthy saint
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 297 
 
 Gengulphus; but I have also seen it explained as the 
 Basuto for " evil." The first political use of the 
 phrase, however, was in a letter, with the heading 
 "The Jingoes in the Park," written by Mr. George 
 Jacob Holyoake and published in the Daily News of 
 March I3th, 1878, while Professor Minto introduced 
 the word "Jingoism" into a leading article in the same 
 journal in 1879. The Saturday Review prophesied 
 as early as 1880, when the term was beginning to be 
 generally used, that it might become as widely known 
 and as respectable as "Whig" and "Tory," and 
 pointed out in an amusing passage the inappropriate- 
 ness of the term for the purpose to which it was 
 applied : " If we turn to the celebrated refrain 
 which has given currency to the word, and which will 
 be remembered longer than many verses of great 
 lyrical value, we can find nothing more in it than the 
 expression of a modest firmness and self-reliance. 
 It breathes defence, not defiance. It affirms that we 
 have no desire for war, but that should war arise we 
 have the means to face it. This temperate affirmation 
 is clinched with an oath, reprehensible, indeed, and 
 by no means refined, but far less objectionable than 
 many other such words that we unfortunately hear 
 even from the Liberal working-man when we walk in 
 the streets." 
 
 It was George Canning, of course, who, as Foreign 
 Secretary in the Liverpool Administration, having 
 recognised the South American republics, said in 
 December, 1826 : " I called in the New World to 
 redress the balance of the Old"; and likewise, of 
 course though the conjunction may appear strange 
 "three acres and a cow," the Radical panacea for
 
 298 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the labour difficulty in agricultural districts, belongs 
 to Mr. Jesse Collings. With regard to the first 
 phrase, it is said that the use of the personal pronoun 
 " I " was not at all relished by Canning's colleagues in 
 the Cabinet. Then as to the second, there is a very 
 old Scottish nursery song, which has this refrain : 
 
 " Awa' to bed, e'en noo, e'en noo, 
 An' sleep for silla to buy a coo ; 
 Three yikkers o' grass to feed her weel 
 Fear God, an' fecht the de'il." 
 
 I wonder whether Mr. Jesse Collings heard this 
 lullaby as he lay in his cradle in the long ago ? If 
 so, what an illustration of the truth of the old 
 saw, " The hand that rocks the cradle rules the 
 world ! " 
 
 " Defence, not defiance," was first suggested as 
 the motto of the Manchester Volunteers in 1860 by 
 Mr. John B. Marsh, a journalist, and a member of 
 the Corps. At that time there was much jealousy in 
 France at the existence of the Volunteers in England, 
 but the Emperor Napoleon, in a speech on military 
 questions soon afterwards, said: " We cannot find 
 fault with a nation which has enrolled her citizens for 
 defence, not defiance." The National Rifle Associa- 
 tion afterwards adopted the motto. " Peace, Retrench- 
 ment, and Reform " is the motto of the Cobden 
 Club. "Peace and Reform" was the old Radical 
 watchword, and to it Joseph Hume, the celebrated 
 economist, added the middle word "retrenchment." 
 It was Mr. John Bright who used the expression " the 
 great bulk of the Nation do not live in mansions, 
 they live in cottages ; " and Lord Castlereagh who
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 299 
 
 gave us " ignorant impatience of taxation." The 
 phrase " masterly inactivity," expressive of so much 
 prudence and caution and advantageous inertness in 
 political affairs, was coined by Sir James Mackintosh. 
 " It is the duty of the Opposition to oppose," said Lord 
 Randolph Churchill some twenty years ago ; but 
 sixty years before Lord Randolph, Tierney, the Whig 
 leader, had said : " The duty of an Opposition is 
 threefold : always to oppose, never to propose, and 
 to turn out the Government," an excellent piece of 
 advice, indeed, for the political Party which finds 
 itself on the left of Mr. Speaker. " Jack Cade legis- 
 lation " is Sir James Graham's. " A majority is always 
 better than the best repartee," may be found in 
 Disraeli's " Tancred." It was Major Cartwright, a 
 famous Radical in the first quarter of the nineteenth 
 century, who coined " One man, one vote." In recent 
 years the Conservatives have added the tag, " One 
 vote, one value." " The most valuable commercial 
 asset of the Empire," is Mr. Cecil Rhodes' descrip- 
 tion of the Union Jack. " The balance of power in 
 Europe " is a phrase for which we are indebted to Sir 
 Robert Walpole. 
 
 " Thank God, there is a House of Lords ! " Disraeli 
 throws some light on the origin of this well-known 
 phrase in a speech delivered at a meeting of Conserva- 
 tives, in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, April, 1872, 
 when there was an outcry against the House of Lords 
 for their reluctance to pass Liberal measures. He first 
 referred to the fruitless campaign which O'Connell, 
 "the greatest popular orator that ever existed," con- 
 ducted throughout England against the House of 
 Lords in 1836 for rejecting the Irish measures of
 
 300 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the Melbourne Administration. " There was a dis- 
 solution of Parliament. The great Liberal majority 
 vanished. The balance of parties was restored. It 
 was discovered that the House of Lords had behind 
 them at least half of the English people." He went 
 on : " Such was the enthusiasm of the nation in 
 favour of the Second Chamber that at every public 
 meeting its health was drunk with the additional 
 sentiment for which we are indebted to one of the 
 most distinguished members that ever sat in the 
 House of Commons ' Thank God, there is a House 
 of Lords.'" 
 
 " Red Tape," as a description of Departmental 
 pedantry and delay, was brought into circulation by 
 Dickens. It was suggested to him, of course, by the red 
 tape used in tying up packages in Government offices. 
 In "Little Dorrit," published in 1855, Dickens refers 
 to the "form-filling, corresponding, minuting, memo- 
 randum-making, signing, counter-signing, counter- 
 counter-signing backwards and forwards, and referring 
 sideways, crosswise and zig-zag" business done by 
 the Circumlocution Office. As a result of this, " an 
 ingenious gentleman connected with the Department" 
 made the remarkable discovery that " the sheets of 
 foolscap it had devoted to the public service would 
 pave the footways on both sides of Oxford Street from 
 end to end and leave nearly a quarter of a mile to spare 
 for the Park (immense cheering and laughter), while 
 of tape red tape it had used enough to stretch 
 in graceful festoons from Hyde Park Corner to the 
 General Post Office." This mention of red tape at the 
 time of a Commission of Inquiry into the mismanage- 
 ment of the Crimean War immortalised the phrase.
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 301 
 
 Carlyle's description of Government officials, as 
 "doleful creatures in a jungle of red tape, deaf or 
 nearly so to human reason," is well known. " Iron- 
 bound in red tape " was an Irish member's description 
 of the condition of the Chief Secretary. " Platform," as 
 a description of the programme of a party or of a candi- 
 date, is often thought to be American, but it is really 
 of very ancient and highly respectable English origin. 
 It is a revival of the old verb, "platformed," meaning 
 " to lay down principles." Milton, in his controversial 
 work, ' ' Reason of Church Government, ' ' says that some 
 people " do not think it for the ease of their inconse- 
 quent opinions to grant that Church Discipline is 
 platformed in the Bible." 
 
 " The policy of pin-pricks " is the most expressive 
 and useful phrase that has for a long time been added 
 to our political currency. It arose out of the difference 
 between France and England with regard to Fashoda in 
 1898, and had a French origin. Mr. Chamberlain first 
 drew attention to it in this country in a speech at 
 Manchester on November loth, 1898. He said: " Let 
 me read you one short extract from Le Matin, a French 
 paper published in Paris. They say: 'We [the French] 
 have inaugurated the policy of playing tricks on Great 
 Britain, a policy which had no definite object, and 
 which was bound to turn out badly. We now find 
 ourselves confronted by a people who have at last been 
 exasperated by the continual pin-pricks which we have 
 given them.' I venture to say that that is absolutely 
 true." The article in Le Matin, which was unsigned, 
 appeared on November 8th. "The policy of pin- 
 pricks " has since been frequently used in the news- 
 papers and by speakers on public platforms, and is,
 
 302 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 indeed, a striking contribution to the common stock 
 of our political phrases. There is, however, a much 
 earlier record of the use of the phrase. In the official 
 account of the meeting between Napoleon and the 
 Czar Alexander at Tilsit in June, 1807, the French 
 Emperor said : " For the maintenance of peace, 
 nations should avoid the pin-pricks which forerun 
 cannon-shots." 
 
 Coming to party names, we find that most of them 
 were originally terms of derision or abuse. "Whig" and 
 " Tory," which for generations have been proudly borne 
 by the two great and permanent political parties in the 
 State, were at first contemptuous nicknames. ' ' Tory " 
 was first bestowed, according to Macaulay, on those 
 who "refused to concur in excluding James the Second 
 from the Throne." It was the most opprobrious term 
 which Titus Gates could think of to apply to the 
 disbelievers in his imaginary Popish Plot. But there 
 had been an earlier application of it as a description 
 of the Irish who remained faithful to the Stuarts during 
 the Commonwealth. It is derived from the Gaelic 
 words, Tar a Ri, meaning, " Come, King ! " and 
 was constantly in the mouths of the Irish Loyalists ; 
 but in the years following the Revolution bands of 
 outlaws who had fought for James, and were at large 
 among the mountains, were called Rapparees or Tories, 
 and hence the term was imported to England as a 
 nickname for the adherents of the Stuarts. To return 
 the compliment, the Tories borrowed another Gaelic 
 word, " Whig," used in Scotland to describe, first, 
 horse and cattle thieves, secondly, the adherents of 
 the Presbyterian cause in the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, and bestowed it upon their opponents. Gilbert
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 303 
 
 Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, the Whig politician and 
 historian, writing of the period after the Revolution, 
 says in reference to the term : " From Scotland the 
 word was brought into England, where it is now one 
 of our unhappy terms of disunion;" and Swift in 1725 
 wrote : "There is hardly a Whig in Ireland who would 
 allow a potato and butter-milk to a reputed Tory," 
 which could hardly be exceeded as a description of 
 strong partisan feeling. 
 
 Some years ago a controversy rose in the news- 
 papers as to the meaning of "Whig," and other 
 ingenious derivations were suggested. One was that 
 it was a Scottish term equivalent to "whey," and 
 implied a taunt against the " sour-milk faces " of the 
 Western lowlanders. Another writer traced it to 
 the initials of the motto of the Scottish Covenanters, 
 " We hope in God " ; but dealing with the latter 
 suggestion a Tory paper unkindly asserted that the 
 motto of the Whig party was, " We believe in gold." 
 According to Gilbert Burnet it was derived from a 
 cant word, " whiggam," used by the Scotch peasants 
 in driving their horses. 
 
 During the negotiations in 1852 between Lord 
 John Russell and the moderate Whigs and Lord 
 Aberdeen and the Peelites for the formation of a 
 Coalition Administration that coalition which Dis- 
 raeli prophesied England would not love interesting 
 letters passed between the negotiators on the subject 
 of the name by which the new Party was to be 
 known. Lord John Russell thought the word " Whig" 
 would best convey the principles of the proposed 
 coalition ; but the Duke of Newcastle, a supporter of 
 Aberdeen, insisted that "Whig" was impossible, and
 
 3 o 4 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 must be discarded. Lord Aberdeen then wrote the 
 following letter to Lord John Russell : 
 
 " HADDO HOUSE, Sept. i6th, 1852. 
 " MY DEAR LORD JOHN, 
 
 " It was no doubt rather a strong proceeding 
 on the part of the Duke of Newcastle to suggest to 
 you, of all men, the propriety and expediency of 
 sinking the title Whig. It is true that neither he nor 
 I have the least desire or intention of assuming the 
 appellation ; but I presume you would never think of 
 acting with us unless you were persuaded that our 
 views were Liberal ; and assuredly in any connection 
 with you we should not be prepared to abandon a 
 Conservative policy. Although the term may appear 
 a little contradictory, I believe that ' Conservative 
 progress ' best describes the principles which ought 
 practically to influence the conduct of any Govern- 
 ment of the present day. This was Peel's policy 
 and, I think, will continue that of all his friends. 
 For one, looking at the actual state of affairs, I have 
 no objection that the progress should be somewhat 
 more rapid than perhaps he ever intended. 
 " Ever most sincerely yours, 
 
 " ABERDEEN." 
 
 Lord John Russell, as may be imagined, stood up 
 for that blessed word " Whig." " The term Whig," 
 he wrote, "has the convenience of expressing in one 
 syllable what Conservative Liberal expresses in seven, 
 and Whiggism in two syllables means what Conser- 
 vative Progress means in another six." The Coali- 
 tion Administration was formed, and was soon too 
 engrossed in the management or mismanagement of
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 305 
 
 the Crimean War to trouble itself about a political 
 designation. 
 
 There is no longer, as we know, neither a Whig 
 party nor a Tory party ; but undoubtedly there are 
 still Whigs and Tories, for the political principles 
 expressed by these terms survive in individuals who 
 diminish in number as time progresses. " Conserva- 
 tive " was, it is generally assumed, first suggested by 
 John Wilson Croker in an article in the " Quarterly 
 Review," January, 1830, as a more appropriate party 
 name than " Tory." Canning, however, seems to 
 have been the first to use the word in a political 
 sense. Speaking of the middle class in a speech at 
 Liverpool, March, 1820, he said: " Of that important 
 Conservative portion of Society, I know not where I 
 could look for a better specimen than I now see 
 before me." " Conservative," said O'Connell in the 
 House of Commons in 1832, "that is the fashionable 
 term, the new-fangled phrase now used in polite 
 society to designate Tory ascendency." The term 
 was disliked by Lord Lyndhurst, who prided himself 
 on being a Tory. Conservative, he said, implied a 
 compromise or cross. Disraeli fought hard for 
 the retention of the older name, and to the last 
 called himself a Tory. In " Coningsby," published in 
 1844, occurs the sentence : " ' A sound Conservative 
 Government,' said Taper, musingly. * I understand 
 Tory men and Whig measures.' ' Bulwer Lytton, 
 in an essay on " The Genius of Conservatism," 
 written in 1858, says: "In 1831 there was intro- 
 duced into the English language a new barbarism 
 ' Conservative ' passed from a pedantic adjective into 
 a familiar noun. No one knows by whom it was first 
 
 p. x
 
 306 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 applied to a political signification. It was heard of 
 one day, and the next it was the popular title of a 
 party. In vain Sir Robert Peel strove to discounten- 
 ance the neologism. ' I hate,' said he in the House 
 of Commons, ' that un-English name of Conservative 
 which we have heard lately.' The word triumphed 
 over the man. A very short time afterwards Sir 
 Robert Peel called himself a Conservative, and his 
 party the Conservative Party." 
 
 The designation "Conservative" caught the fancy 
 of the bulk of the party, and in time " Tory" came to 
 be used only in its original sense as a contemptuous 
 nickname by the party's opponents. "Whig" shared 
 the same fate. "Liberal," which, like "Conservative," 
 is broad and vague, and at the same time catching, 
 may be said to have been finally adopted by the 
 Whigs when Mr. Gladstone became leader. The 
 " Edinburgh Review" of January, 1877, m an article 
 entitled " The Principles and Prospects of the Liberal 
 Party," says: " When the party to which we belong 
 adopted the name of ' Liberal,' it did so, not because 
 it was ashamed of the old title or meant to disown 
 it, but because the new appellation stretched wider 
 than the old, because it proclaimed the identity of 
 our principles not only with a time-honoured band of 
 patriots in our own country, but with those who have 
 toiled and bled for freedom in every age and all 
 over the world." " One of the most beautiful and 
 powerful words in the English language" is Lord 
 Rosebery's description of Liberal. " Liberal " and 
 "Conservative" are certainly happy and expressive 
 terms; but unlike "Whig" and "Tory," they are 
 not exclusively applicable as party denominations.
 
 CURRENT COIN OF POLITICIANS. 307 
 
 " Constitutionalist " was at one time suggested as 
 an appropriate name for the Tory party ; but it did 
 not find favour. " Reformer," once a favourite term 
 with a wing of the Whig party, has long gone out of 
 fashion. But " Radical," which was first applied 
 about 1818 to Major Cartwright, Sir Francis Burdett, 
 Henry Hunt, and others who advocated a radical 
 reform of Parliament, has still a strong hold on the 
 advanced Liberals. Joseph Hume claimed that -he 
 was the first to use the term. " Tory Democrat," an 
 invention of Lord Randolph Churchill, is heard of 
 no more. " Peelite " and " Gladstonian " we have 
 known ; but, of course, personal names for parties, 
 such as these, cannot hold a place for long. 
 " Nationalist," which under the leadership of Mr. 
 Parnell was substituted for " Home Ruler," seems 
 likely to be more enduring. So also, perhaps, has 
 " Liberal Unionist," the designation, of course, of 
 those Liberals who ceded from Gladstone on the 
 question of Home Rule ; and it would seem as if the 
 rival party names " Imperialist " and " Little Eng- 
 lander," which have been waxing and waning in 
 popular use for some time, have now taken a per- 
 manent place in political controversy. 
 
 x 2
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 
 
 PROBABLY the most difficult and unpleasant of the 
 duties which the Speaker of the House of Commons 
 is called upon to discharge is that of deciding whether 
 an offensive personal allusion to a member, in the 
 course of debate, is or is not a breach of Parliamentary 
 decorum. There are no definite rules of order to 
 guide the Speaker in this delicate matter. The decision 
 is left entirely to his own taste and discretion. But 
 there has always been a rather curious distinction 
 drawn between remarks that reflect adversely on a 
 member as a man, and on a member as a politician. 
 According to well-established precedents, the former 
 are in all cases considered unparliamentary, while the 
 latter rarely meet with a reprimand from the Chair. 
 Illustrations of both categories of personal allusions, 
 and the light in which they are regarded by the 
 Speaker, were afforded one night in the Session of 
 1896, during the debate on the new rule of procedure 
 in regard to Supply. The expressions were applied 
 respectively to a prominent member of the Oppo- 
 sition and to the Leader of the House. It was said 
 of the former that he had been a " monumental 
 instance of inconsistency throughout his political life." 
 Here we have an allusion to a member as a politician.
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 309 
 
 It was met with cries of" Order, order ! " and " With- 
 draw, withdraw ! " from the occupants of the Oppo- 
 sition benches ; but Mr. Speaker Gully stopped the 
 interruptions by saying: " The honourable member 
 has not used any unparliamentary language." Later 
 on in the debate the Leader of the House was told 
 that " by a * subterfuge.' he was going to palm upon 
 the House a resolution." " That," said the Speaker, 
 " is hardly proper language to use." The word " sub- 
 terfuge " was withdrawn by the offending member, and, 
 amid laughter, " misapprehension " was substituted 
 in its place. 
 
 Now, for a member of Parliament to be told that 
 he is a " monumental instance of political inconsis- 
 tency " must surely be as offensive to him as to be 
 charged with having resorted to u a subterfuge" in 
 Parliamentary tactics. Yet the different treatment 
 accorded by the Speaker to these two personal allu- 
 sions is strictly in accordance with precedence. One 
 interesting instance of a similar ruling by a former 
 occupant of the Chair may be given. The House 
 was engaged on April lyth, 1823, in a debate 
 on the vexed question of Catholic Emancipation. 
 George Canning, while in opposition, was a consis- 
 tent champion of the right of Roman Catho 1 ics to 
 admission to Parliament ; but now, as the Leader of 
 the House of Commons, and from the point of vantage 
 of the Treasury Bench, he regarded as inopportune 
 the pressing of the Catholic question on the attention 
 of the House. " The right honourable gentleman," 
 said that great master of invective, Henry Brougham, 
 "has exhibited the most incredible specimen of 
 monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining
 
 3io PARLIAMENT. 
 
 office that the whole history of political tergiversa- 
 tion can furnish." Canning immediately exclaimed : 
 11 1 rise to say that that is false ! " The Speaker, 
 Charles Manners Sutton, who heard with equanimity 
 the sweeping charge of Brougham, was evidently 
 greatly shocked by Canning's emphatic denial. 
 " I hope," said he, in a low voice, " the right 
 honourable gentleman will retract that expression. 
 An individual of his high rank and station must be 
 fully aware that such an expression is a complete 
 violation of the customs and of the orders of the 
 House." " I am sorry I should have used any word 
 which is a violation of the decorum of the House," 
 replied Canning ; " but nothing no consideration on 
 earth could induce me to retract the sentiment." In 
 order to prevent the duel in which, as was the custom 
 in those days, the incident was almost certain to 
 culminate, a motion was made that the Leader of the 
 House be committed to the custody of the Sergeant- 
 at-Arms ; and it certainly would have been carried 
 had it been put from the Chair. But happily Canning, 
 yielding to the entreaties of his colleagues on the 
 Treasury Bench, declared that he would think no 
 more of the matter. In this case also we have a 
 charge of political tergiversation used without reproof 
 from the Chair, while the natural retort that the 
 charge was false implying, as it did, that in the 
 making of the accusation a lie had been told elicited 
 an immediate reprimand. Brougham, in his sub- 
 sequent explanation, coined a phrase, which has since 
 been used to give decorous unreality to abuse, and 
 to cover a multitude of unparliamentary expressions. 
 He said that he had employed the words which so
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 311 
 
 grievously offended Canning " only in a Parliamentary 
 sense." 
 
 The heat of political controversy has at all periods 
 led occasionally to the exchange of personalities and 
 of contemptuous language across the floor of the House 
 of Commons. But on the passing of the Reform Act 
 of 1832 which, though it admitted only half a million 
 citizens of the middle class to the franchise, was 
 received with amazement and alarm by the House of 
 Commons, as Lord John Russell described its purposes 
 in grave and solemn tones there was a widespread 
 feeling in political circles that, as a result, the cha- 
 racter of the elected Chamber would undergo a com- 
 plete change for the worst. Hitherto the House of 
 Commons had consisted exclusively of gentlemen by 
 birth and training of landlords, retired military and 
 naval officers ; of men, it was said, of polished 
 manners and refined language ; and it was feared 
 that under the new order of things there would be an 
 influx of members of a coarse material commercial 
 men, writers for the Press, barristers-at-law, persons 
 of rough and uncouth ways, and of unrestrained and 
 turbulent tongues. 
 
 The Whig Government that carried the Reform 
 Act were not free from those apprehensions. Charles 
 Manners Sutton was still Speaker. He was a pro- 
 nounced Tory, and had used his influence against 
 Reform. He desired to retire from the Chair, on the 
 assembling of the first reformed Parliament, but the 
 Whig Government, confirmed as it was in office by 
 the appeal to the enlarged constituencies, induced 
 him to remain to keep the new House in order. " He 
 would undertake," says Charles Greville, in his
 
 312 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 " Memoirs," "to rule the new House, but it must be 
 with a snaffle bridle." However, experience soon 
 showed that the snaffle bridle was not needed. The 
 new House went well in the old harness. Indeed, 
 the Reform Act wrought very little change in the 
 personnel of the House, and the fears of the dominant 
 Whigs on this ground being two years later dissipated, 
 they ejected Manners Sutton from the Chair, and 
 elected as Speaker James Abercromby, a man of less 
 stern decorum, but a member of their own party. 
 
 The first member of the reformed Parliament 
 reproved by the Chair for unseemly language was 
 Daniel O'Connell. The incident, which occurred in 
 the first week of the meeting of the House of Commons, 
 is also remarkable for having evoked from the 
 Speaker a definite ruling on an interesting constitu- 
 tional point. The "Speech from the Throne " called 
 attention, amongst other things, to the insecurity of 
 life and property in Ireland, and asked for coercive 
 measures for the repression of crime. In the course 
 of the debate O'Connell characterised the Speech from 
 the Throne as " brutal and bloody." Lord John 
 Russell at once moved that the words be taken down. 
 "Oh!" exclaimed O'Connell, "when we speak of 
 Ireland and her wrongs it must be 
 
 in bondsman's key, 
 With bated breath and whispering humbleness." 
 
 Lord John Russell objected to the word "bloody" 
 being applied to a speech which had, only a few days 
 previously, been delivered by the King William the 
 Fourth in person in the House of Lords. O'Connell 
 insisted that it was not the speech of the King, but
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 313 
 
 the speech of the Ministers. The Speaker agreed 
 with the honourable and learned member on the con- 
 stitutional point, but informed him that his language 
 was not calculated to preserve the order and decency 
 of debate. The "bloody and brutal Whigs" subse- 
 quently became a popular phrase with O'Connell in 
 his speeches in Ireland, and indeed is not unknown 
 to-day in Irish political controversies. 
 
 On March 4th following, the promised Coercion 
 Bill was before the House. Sir Robert Bateson 
 described the Irish members as "the mere slaves 
 of faction ; the representatives of the mob ; and 
 the organs of a bigoted priesthood." " I have 
 never in any assembly heard such opprobrious 
 language," exclaimed an Irish representative named 
 Finn. But he only got snubbed by the Speaker for 
 this natural expression of his indignation. " I hope 
 the honourable member will see," said Charles 
 Manners Sutton, " that there is a difference between 
 what he considers good taste and what the House 
 considers out of order." Mr. Finn was a hot-tem- 
 pered man, and as great an adept as O'Connell in 
 the use of unparliamentary expressions ; but on this 
 occasion he seems to have been rendered dumb by the 
 censure of the Speaker, and the words of Sir Robert 
 Bateson are probably the most offensive that stand 
 unreproved by the Chair. 
 
 Two days later an incident occurred which gives an 
 interesting glimpse, as it were, behind the scenes in 
 the House of Commons in that historic period. Then, 
 as now, the front Bench to the right of the Speaker 
 was devoted to Ministers, and the front Bench to the 
 Speaker's left to ex-Ministers. But on March 4th
 
 3H PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Sir Robert Inglis called the Speaker's attention 
 to the fact that Sir Robert Peel, the Leader of 
 the Opposition, was unable to obtain a seat on the 
 front Opposition Bench owing to the occupation of 
 that Bench by members who had never been in office. 
 William Cobbett, sitting at the time on the front 
 Opposition Bench, rightly took the remark as apply- 
 ing to himself. But he was not in the least abashed. 
 Indeed, he boldly declared that whenever on entering 
 the House he saw a seat vacant on either of the front 
 Benches he would occupy it. " I know," he went on, 
 " of nothing pre-eminently worthy in the right 
 honourable baronet alluded to which would justify 
 the pretensions put forward as to his right to a 
 particular seat. I am not inclined to concede that 
 right to him, and if he was present I would give him 
 my reasons, fully and plainly, for thinking he of all 
 men in the House ought not to enjoy pre-eminence 
 on either side." " Order, order! " said the Speaker. 
 " I hope that whatever seat the honourable member 
 may choose to occupy in the House, he will at least 
 conform to the rules and orders x>f the House, and 
 not presume to state opinions respecting any indi- 
 vidual in either his public or private character, such 
 as he is not warranted in stating." 
 
 In this connection I may quote a story related by 
 Lord Ronald Gower. At a dinner given by Lord 
 Beaconsfield at Hughenden the conversation turned on 
 Cobbett, when the host told the following anecdote. 
 " On one occasion Cobbett insisted upon taking Sir 
 Robert Peel's seat on the Treasury Bench. Sir 
 Robert did all he could to show the intruder that he 
 objected to this proceeding ; but all was in vain. At
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 315 
 
 last Sir Robert requested Cobbett to move, politely 
 but firmly. ' I'll be d- if I do ! ' was all the 
 answer he got ; and Peel had perforce to take a lower 
 seat elsewhere." 
 
 On May 6th in that same Session Cobbett got 
 the opportunity, for which he evidently pined, of 
 telling Sir Robert Peel " fully and plainly " what he 
 thought of him as a statesman. He moved, in a 
 speech of two hours' duration, an extraordinary 
 resolution, which alone fills four columns of small 
 type in " Hansard," censuring Peel for the Cash Pay- 
 ments Act passed in 1819 (the first of the measures 
 upon which Peel's fame as a great financier is based), 
 which, according to Cobbett, had wrought ruin and 
 desolation in the land by requiring debts contracted in 
 depreciated paper to be paid in cash ; and praying 
 that his Majesty might be graciously pleased to 
 dismiss the author of the measure from the Privy 
 Council. Peel not only defended the Act in a masterly 
 speech, but carried the war into the enemy's 
 country. " Nine-tenths of the right honourable 
 baronet's reply," retorted Cobbett subsequently, amid 
 cries of disapprobation from both sides of the House, 
 " consisted of extracts read from books written by 
 me, and the rest was made up of vulgar abuse and 
 falsehood." " The honourable member has used 
 language which no gentleman is entitled to use, and 
 for which he is bound to apologise," said the Speaker 
 severely. " Sir," replied Cobbett, " I most readily 
 apologise to the House." In the division only four 
 voted for the resolution, while there were 298 against 
 it. The Speaker had previously pointed out that it 
 would be extremely inconvenient to place upon the
 
 316 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Journals of the House elaborate arguments or 
 pamphlets ; and accordingly, on the motion of Lord 
 Althorp,the Leader of the House who admitted that 
 he was not aware of any precedent for the course he 
 proposed it was decided by the same majority not to 
 insert Cobbett's resolution in the Journals. 
 
 During the consideration of the Liverpool Freemen 
 Bill on March I2th, 1834, a dispute arose between 
 Lord Sandon and Mr. Wason as to whether certain 
 freemen who had voted in a recent election had or 
 had not been bribed. Lord Sandon said he would 
 leave the House to decide from experience which of 
 the two, Mr. Wason or himself, was more likely to 
 be cautious in making assertions on the subject. Mr. 
 Wason retorted that the insinuation was one no 
 honourable man would have given utterance to. The 
 Speaker here interposed and asked the honourable 
 member what he meant by the employment of this 
 phrase. " The noble lord," replied Wason, "in- 
 sinuated that I was not as worthy of belief as the 
 noble lord. That insinuation, Sir, in deference to 
 you as Chairman though I may differ from you in 
 that ruling I treat lightly in this House ; but out of 
 this House the noble lord knows how I would treat it." 
 "The honourable member speaks Parliamentary," 
 said the Speaker, " when he says that the deference he 
 pays is not to me but the Chair." However, the 
 incident ended with expressions of mutual apology 
 between the members concerned. Happily most of 
 the verbal encounters between our representatives in 
 Parliament have a pacific termination. On July 22nd 
 in the same year Wason was charged by the Earl 
 of Darlington with being actuated with vindictive
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 317 
 
 feelings. " That statement is untrue," retorted 
 Wason. " I must remind honourable members," 
 said Mr. Speaker Manners Sutton, "that both the 
 expressions which have been used are unparliamen- 
 tary." The Earl of Darlington magnanimously 
 declared that he was ready to withdraw his words if 
 Mr. Wason promised to follow his example. " Sir," 
 exclaimed Wason, " I will not accept any conditional 
 apology either in the House or out of it." The 
 honourable member was evidently of a bellicose dis- 
 position. There is here, as in the former case, the 
 exciting suggestion of a duel. But after a long 
 debate the ruffled feelings of Wason were soothed, 
 and the two belligerents almost swore eternal friend- 
 ship in the fervour of their reconciliation. 
 
 But of course it occasionally happens that while a 
 member apologises in response to the demand of the 
 Speaker, he will try, by a trick in dialectics, to leave 
 his sting behind. On May 2nd, 1834, during 
 the consideration of the Tithes (Ireland) Bill, Mr. 
 Ronayne, an Irish member, complained of the meagre- 
 ness of the attendance of members when there was 
 before the House a proposal to give Ireland over to 
 the military and police. The remark appears to have 
 called up a smile to the face of Edward Stanley 
 (afterwards Earl of Derby and Tory Premier), who 
 was lolling at the time on the Treasury Bench. " I 
 am too well accustomed to the insolence with which 
 the right honourable gentleman treats the House on 
 all occasions," said the irate Mr. Ronayne, "to be 
 annoyed by the contemptuous smile with which he now 
 honours me. The right honourable gentleman may 
 smile contemptuously as much as he pleases ; he may
 
 318 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 throw his legs upon the Table like a man in a North 
 
 American coffee-house " Here there were cries 
 
 of "Order, order!" and " Chair, chair!" and the 
 Speaker, interposing, said that if Mr. Stanley had 
 been guilty of disrespect to the House, the House 
 would not have failed to take notice of it at the time. 
 Mr. Ronayne nevertheless again expressed the indig- 
 nation he felt at "the gross insolence which was far 
 beyond disrespect " with which the right honourable 
 gentleman habitually treated the House. This 
 induced "the Rupert of Debate" (as Edward Bulwer 
 Lytton described Stanley) to take his feet off the 
 Table and to stand on them, in order to deny that he 
 had ever been, intentionally at any rate, guilty of 
 disrespect to the House. When the honourable 
 member complained of the paucity of attendance, he 
 smiled because he saw there was only one O'Connell 
 present. (At this time three sons of Daniel O'Connell 
 were also members of the House.) Daniel O'Connell 
 retorted by saying that the remark of the right honour- 
 able gentleman was distinguished by his usual 
 disregard for veracity. The Speaker rose to demand 
 a retractation of this unparliamentary expression ; but 
 O'Connell, seeing the movement of Mr. Speaker 
 Manners Sutton, quickly exclaimed, "Well, I with- 
 draw that statement," and then went on to say that 
 nothing could be more unfounded nothing could be 
 " a greater falsity." " That, Mr. Speaker," continued 
 the Irish agitator, " is a Parliamentary word which I 
 believe I may use." There is no reply by the Speaker 
 recorded. 
 
 An encounter between O'Connell and Sir Robert 
 Inglis on June agth, 1835, gave rise to an interesting
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 319 
 
 ruling by the Speaker James Abercromby, who had 
 that year succeeded Charles Manners Sutton in 
 the Chair in regard to personal reflections which 
 are nevertheless in order. "If a man," said 
 O'Connell, " accuses me of perjury, I cannot find so 
 hard a term to answer him, but in more moderate 
 language I can accuse him of wilful lying." Sir Robert 
 Inglis said the honourable and learned member had 
 in a hypothetical form been guilty of the grossest 
 outrage that one man could, in a substantive shape, 
 commit upon another ; and he called upon the 
 Speaker, who sat there to protect the freedom of 
 debate, to interpose. The Speaker, in reply, laid down 
 a rule which ought to give full license to the abusive 
 or caustic tongue : 
 
 " I always understood that terms only conditionally 
 applied were not such as called for the interposition 
 of the Chair. Thus I recall one of the oldest members 
 of the House using this phrase without reproof: ' I 
 state in answer to the honourable gentleman, in the 
 strongest terms that can be hypothetically put, that 
 what he has said is false.' When the hypothetical 
 form is once adopted, the Chair is not required by his 
 office to interfere." 
 
 Here is another example of a nice distinction in 
 dialectics. On February gth, 1836, the subject 
 of building the new Houses of Parliament was under 
 consideration. Joseph Hume proposed that the 
 buildings should be erected in St. James's Park, on 
 the sites of Maryborough House and St. James's 
 Palace, which he thought afforded greater advantages
 
 320 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 in the way of light and air. (It is curious to read, in 
 this age of gas and electric lighting, that the old 
 Houses of Parliament were so overshadowed by West- 
 minster Abbey that they lost an hour or an hour and 
 a half of daylight.) It was true, Hume went on to 
 say, that 3,000 had been spent on the preparation of 
 plans for erecting the buildings on the old site by the 
 Thames ; but that was a matter of little importance. 
 Now Hume's great forte as a parliamentarian was the 
 advocacy of rigid economy in the public service, and 
 this indifference of his to the loss of 3,000 was 
 certainly inconsistent with his past career. " The 
 observation of the honourable member is humbug 
 sheer humbug," exclaimed Mr. Kearsley. " When he 
 talks about a loss of 3,000 being a matter of no 
 importance, he certainly is not acting an honest part." 
 The Speaker interposing, said it was out of order to 
 impute dishonesty to a member. " Oh," replied 
 Kearsley, in virtuous astonishment, " I cannot speak 
 differently from what I think ; I cannot say what I do 
 not think." Then Mr. Thomas Attwood pointed out 
 that the word " unfair " might have been applied just 
 as effectively and without any infringement of the rules 
 of Parliamentary decorum ; but the phrase used was, 
 he thought, one unfit for the society of gentlemen. 
 However, Kearsley explained that his remark was 
 intended to apply to Hume's argument, and not to 
 Hume himself. The proposal to erect the new Palace 
 of Westminster in St. James's Park was, it is interest- 
 ing to note, rejected by 141 votes to 42, or by a 
 majority of 99. 
 
 In 1886 Matthew Harris, an Irish member, found 
 himself in a somewhat similar predicament to that
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 321 
 
 from which Kearsley was rescued by Attwood fifty 
 years previously. Harris, in the course of a speech, 
 had been called to order by Mr. Speaker Peel. 
 "Well, to be sure!" he exclaimed. "A poor man 
 finds it very hard to say what he thinks in this 
 House. I can't open my lips but there's a cry of 
 * Order, order ! ' I'm afraid St. Peter would find it 
 hard to keep within order in this House." Mr. John 
 Redmond had an earlier experience than his com- 
 patriot, Mr. Harris, that the rules of the House are 
 frequently an inconvenient impediment to freedom 
 of expression. On April aoth, 1882, there was a 
 debate on the promotion of a famous Irish resident 
 magistrate, named Mr. Clifford Lloyd. " If the Chief 
 Secretary [Mr. Forster] had been an honest man or 
 an honest politician, he would have taken a different 
 course," said Mr. Redmond. Mr. Speaker Brand 
 said the expression was unparliamentary and must be 
 withdrawn. " I am sorry, Sir, that the rules of the 
 House militate against telling the truth," replied Mr. 
 John Redmond. "The honourable member has not 
 withdrawn the expression which I declared to be 
 unparliamentary," said the Speaker severely. " I 
 rise, Sir, for the purpose of withdrawing the expres- 
 sion," said Mr. Redmond ; " and I would only say 
 this, that I am sorry it is not in my power within the 
 rules of Parliament to make use of the expression." 
 The Speaker declared that the conduct of the honour- 
 able member was offensive to the House, and he 
 " named " him for having disregarded the authority of 
 the Chair. Mr. Redmond was accordingly suspended 
 for the remainder of the sitting. 
 
 Parnell on April i6th, 1878, characterised a 
 p. Y
 
 322 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 statement made by Mr. Henry James as " a legal 
 quibble," worthy of the honourable and learned 
 member from whom it proceeded. " I must inform 
 the honourable member," said Mr. Speaker Brand, 
 " that an expression of that kind is unwarrantable 
 and must be withdrawn." Parnell apologised for 
 having used the expression. " I will say," he added, 
 " that the statement was more worthy of the inge- 
 nuity of a petty sessions attorney than of a lawyer of 
 the ability of the honourable and learned gentleman." 
 This anecdote recalls the famous retractation by Lord 
 Salisbury of a comparison he had instituted between 
 Gladstone and an attorney. During the debate on 
 Gladstone's historic Budget of 1861 the Budget 
 which abolished the stamp duties on newspapers and 
 thereby led to the establishment of the penny daily 
 Press Lord Robert Cecil said the tactics of the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer were worthier rather of 
 an attorney than of a statesman. The remark was 
 not ruled out of order by the Chair, but it was received 
 with cries of " Oh, oh!" and "Withdraw!" from 
 Liberal members. Subsequently, on the night of 
 May 1 3th, Lord Robert Cecil rose to make a per- 
 sonal explanation in connection with the incident. 
 " The expression I used is thought to be too violent," 
 said he ; " and when any gentleman in the heat of 
 debate drops an expression which on reflection he 
 feels to be stronger than was necessary, he ought, I 
 think, to take the first opportunity to apologise or to 
 retract. (Hear, hear.) Therefore I feel that I am 
 only doing justice to my feelings when I avow that 
 on that occasion I did great injustice (Hear, hear) 
 to the attorneys. (Laughter, and cries of ' Oh !
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 323 
 
 oh ! ') They are a very honourable body of men, and 
 
 I am sure " But the shouts of disapproval from 
 
 the Ministerial Benches waxed so loud that the conclu- 
 sion of the sentence was lost to the Reporters' Gallery. 
 Gladstone seems to have been called to order once 
 only in his long Parliamentary career. On July nth, 
 1884, Lord Randolph Churchill moved the adjourn- 
 ment of the House in order to call attention to 
 the compromise between the House of Lords and 
 the House of Commons on the Representation of the 
 People Bill, and in the course of his speech accused 
 the Liberal party of " traducing and falsely represent- 
 ing their opponents." Gladstone, who was then 
 Prime Minister, characterised this charge as "the 
 foul language of the noble lord." Lord Randolph 
 Churchill asked Mr. Speaker Brand whether it was 
 in order for the Prime Minister to use words which 
 would not be tolerated from any other member of the 
 House. "I do not think the Prime Minister will 
 insist upon using the term 'foul language,'" replied 
 the Speaker; "though of course the charge made by 
 the noble lord is a very serious one and a very grave 
 one." Gladstone withdrew the expression. "The 
 noble lord," he went on, " has distinctly accused me, 
 and accused the Liberal party, of traducing our adver- 
 saries." " Hear, hear," exclaimed Lord Randolph. 
 "It is impossible," added Gladstone, "to conceive 
 a charge more disgraceful." " The noble lord," said 
 Gladstone, on another occasion, of Churchill, in a 
 happy sentence of characterisation, " has many 
 striking qualities, and if half of them could be cut 
 out of him, the remainder would make a valuable 
 public servant." 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Macaulay, writing in his " Diary " under date 
 June nth, 1840, says: 
 
 " The House was engaged upon Stanley's Irish 
 Registration Bill. The night was very stormy. I 
 have never seen such unmannerly demeanour or 
 heard such scurrillous language in Parliament. Lord 
 Norreys was whistling and making all sorts of noises; 
 Lord Maidstone was so ill-mannered that I hope he 
 was drunk. At last, after much grossly indecent 
 conduct, a furious outbreak took place. O'Connell 
 was so rudely interrupted that he used the expression 
 ' beastly bellowings.' Then rose such an uproar that 
 no O.P. mob at Covent Garden Theatre, no crowd of 
 Chartists in front of the hustings, ever equalled. Men 
 on both sides stood up, shook their fists, and bawled 
 at the top of their voices. Freshfield, who was in the 
 Chair, was quite unable to keep the slightest order. 
 O'Connell roared like a mad bull, and our people 
 I for one while regretting and condemning 
 his violence, thought it was much extenuated by 
 provocation." 
 
 Turning to " Hansard's" record of the scene thus 
 graphically described by Macaulay, I find that 
 O'Connell said : " This is a Bill to trample on the 
 rights of the people of Ireland," and when the state- 
 ment was followed by ironical laughter and cries of 
 "No, no," he added: " If you were ten times as 
 beastly in your uproar and bellowing, I should still 
 feel it my duty to interpose to prevent this injustice." 
 Sir Stratford Canning demanded the retractation of 
 "the excessively offensive expression beastly " which 
 the honourable and learned member had used. The
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 325 
 
 Chairman (the House being in Committee on the Bill) 
 appealed to O'Connell to withdraw the words. " The 
 word I used," replied O'Connell, "was 'bellowing,' 
 and did you ever hear any other bellowing than 
 ' beastly ' ? What were the sounds that we heard ? 
 Were they human sounds ? No, they were what I 
 described them." Mr. Lambton said the hon. 
 member for Dublin had been subjected to " extremely 
 indecent interruption," and Mr. C. Buller thought the 
 House had been disgraced by members who had intro- 
 duced "the manners of an ale-house." The Chair- 
 man ruled that enough had been said about the 
 matter, and so O'Connell got off without having to 
 withdraw the words " beastly bellowing." 
 
 But there was more in the incident than " Hansard" 
 tells us. Macaulay continues : 
 
 " A short and most amusing scene passed between 
 O'Connell and Lord Maidstone which in the tumult 
 escaped the observation of many, but which I watched 
 carefully. 'If,' said Lord Maidstone, 'the word 
 beastly is retracted, I shall be satisfied. If not, I 
 shall not be satisfied.' ' I do not care whether the 
 noble lord be satisfied or not,' replied O'Connell. 
 Lord Maidstone : ' I wish you would give me satis- 
 faction.' O'Connell advised the noble lord 'to carry 
 his liquor meekly.' ' 
 
 This was not the first encounter between O'Connell 
 and Lord Maidstone. On February 23rd, 1838, 
 Lord Maidstone called the attention of the House to 
 a speech delivered by O'Connell at a political dinner 
 in London, in which he asserted that the Tory Elec- 
 tion Committee of the day or the Committees
 
 326 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 appointed by the House to try election petitions, a 
 practice which has since been abolished had stooped 
 to " foul perjury," in order that their friends might 
 retain their seats. A vote of censure on O'Connell, 
 which was moved by Lord Maidstone, was carried by 
 a majority of nine. A few days later a curious scene 
 was witnessed in the House. O'Connell had to stand 
 up in his place in the crowded chamber, while Mr. 
 Speaker Abercromby solemnly reproved him for "the 
 false and scandalous imputation " he had cast upon 
 "the honour and conduct of members of the House." 
 " It now only remains," said the Speaker, in conclu- 
 sion, "that in obedience to the commands of this 
 House, I should reprimand you, as I now accordingly 
 do." The reprimand, however, made no impression 
 upon O'Connell. " I have repented of nothing, I have 
 retracted nothing," said he in the course of a speech he 
 delivered after he had been reproved from the Chair, 
 and he concluded by moving for a Committee before 
 which to prove his charges. He subsequently described 
 the members of the House of Commons in a speech 
 delivered outside as " Six Hundred Ruffians." 
 
 Forty years later O'ConnelPs historic phrase 
 "beastly bellowings " was again heard in the House 
 of Commons. On March 8th, 1881, while the 
 House was in Committee on the Peace Preserva- 
 tion (Ireland) Bill, Mr. Finigan, an Irish member, 
 described the cries of "Divide!" with which his 
 remarks were interrupted as "beastly bellowing." 
 The Chairman (Mr. Lyon Playfair) at once called on 
 the honourable member to withdraw the expression, 
 or else he would have to " name " him. " I withdraw 
 the words," said Mr. Finigan, " but I wish to point
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 327 
 
 out to you, Sir, that I am simply withdrawing them 
 upon your order rather than suffer the penalty with 
 which you have threatened me." Mr. Frank Hugh 
 O'Donnell then endeavoured to point out that the 
 words had already been used by O'Connell, but he was 
 "named" for disputing the ruling of the Chair, and 
 was suspended for the remainder of the sitting. A 
 few months later Mr. O'Donnell got an opportunity 
 of explaining that it was neither his desire nor inten- 
 tion to disregard the authority of the Chair on that 
 occasion ; and on the motion of Sir William Harcourt, 
 acting on behalf of Gladstone, the Leader of the House, 
 the explanation was accepted. 
 
 During a debate on the state of Ireland, on June 3rd, 
 1880, Mr. T. P. O'Connor said: " The honour- 
 able member in attributing as I put it, mendaciously 
 attributing to the Land League the responsibility 
 
 of these outrages " when he was interrupted by 
 
 Sir Stafford Northcote, who called the Speaker's 
 attention to the use of the word " mendaciously." 
 "If the honourable member," said Mr. Speaker Brand, 
 "when he made use of the word 'mendaciously' 
 applied it to a member of the House, he is clearly out 
 of order, and I must ask him to withdraw the word." 
 Mr. O'Connor did withdraw " mendaciously " and 
 substituted " incorrectly " for it. Then Mr. James 
 O'Kelly exclaimed: "I want to know, Sir, whether 
 there is any protection in this House for honourable 
 members on these benches against any gentlemen 
 making statements that are calumnious and lying! " 
 Mr. O'Kelly was not called upon to withdraw the words 
 "calumnious and lying." The Speaker said that, after 
 the warning which had been given to the honourable
 
 328 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 member for Galway for the use of the word " menda- 
 ciously," he would "name" the honourable member for 
 Roscommon ; and accordingly, on the motion of Glad- 
 stone, Mr. O'Kelly was suspended for the remainder 
 of the sitting. 
 
 Then ensued an interesting conversation between 
 Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Justin McCarthy two men 
 who had a long and intimate acquaintance with 
 the House of Commons as to the use of the words 
 " calumnious and mendacious statements." Mr. 
 McCarthy insisted that a previous Speaker had ruled 
 that Lord Palmerston was not out of order in using 
 that expression. " If it is not an impertinence on my 
 part," said Mr. Gladstone modestly, " I may say that 
 I think I recollect the incident to which the honour- 
 able member refers, and the statement which he has 
 just made is only very partially accurate. The 
 objection was to the word 'calumnious,' and that 
 word was not used by Lord Palmerston, but by 
 another member. The House and Lord Palmerston 
 objected to it. The word ' mendacious ' did not come 
 into the case at all." " There were two occasions 
 on which the words were used," replied Mr. 
 McCarthy. " On the second occasion Lord Palmer- 
 ston objected to them but he had formerly used 
 them himself, and reference was made to that former 
 occasion as a precedent." The Speaker, however, 
 interposed with the remark that this discussion was 
 altogether irrelevant. 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, the word "calumnious" 
 received the imprimatur of Mr. Brand's two immediate 
 predecessors in the Speaker's Chair Mr. Shaw- 
 Lefevre and Mr. Denison as being a word that may
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 329 
 
 be applied without offence in the House of Commons. 
 On April 27th, 1855, the attention of the House 
 was called to a statement made by Mr. Layard at a 
 dinner in Liverpool, to the effect that some recent 
 promotions in the Army were due to favouritism at 
 the War Office. " Every reasonable man," said 
 Lord Palmerston, " must be convinced that these 
 charges were false and calumnious." Mr. Otway 
 asked the Speaker (Mr. Shaw-Lefevre) whether the 
 noble lord could charge another member with having 
 stated that which was false and calumnious. " What 
 I understood the noble Viscount to say," replied the 
 Speaker, " was that the charges made by the member 
 for Aylesbury were false and calumnious." 
 
 Lord Palmerston was therefore not called to account 
 for the use of the word " calumnious." But, curiously 
 enough, when next the word was heard in the House 
 of Commons nine years later it was again applied 
 to a statement by Mr. Layard ; and Lord Palmer- 
 ston entered his protest against the action of the 
 Speaker this time, Mr. Denison in not ruling that 
 the phrase was unparliamentary. On July 7th, 
 1864, there was a debate on a motion moved by 
 Disraeli expressing want of confidence in Palmerston's 
 Administration in regard to its relations with Den- 
 mark. Layard, who was now Under-Secretary for 
 Foreign Affairs, was charged by Gathorne-Hardy 
 with having made a "calumnious statement" in a 
 speech he delivered earlier in the debate. Layard 
 moved that the words be taken down. " There does 
 not appear to be anything to call for my interference," 
 said Mr. Speaker Denison. Lord Palmerston, who 
 appeared to be annoyed by the indifference with
 
 330 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 which the Speaker treated the charge, pointed out 
 that it was one of the fundamental rules of the House 
 that motives should not be imputed to members. 
 " I appeal to you, Sir," he continued, "whether when 
 one member imputes to another that he has made a 
 calumnious statement, it does not imply that he made 
 that statement with the motive of distorting the 
 truth?" Disraeli then came to the assistance of 
 Gathorne-Hardy by pointing out that what the 
 honourable member had characterised as a "calum- 
 nious statement " was the charge made by Layard, 
 namely, that the Opposition had been guilty of 
 "falsification." Gladstone, who was Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer in the Administration, argued that the 
 attention of the Chair should have been called to 
 Layard's language at the moment the words were 
 spoken. " But," said he, " I apprehend that I am 
 safe in laying it down that a breach of order, much 
 less a mere alleged breach of order, committed by one 
 speaker, will not justify a subsequent speaker in 
 violating order. I hope that will be clearly understood 
 whether the imputation of a calumnious statement is 
 or is not to be henceforward within the bounds of 
 Parliamentary discussion." " The debate has been 
 a warm and exciting one," replied the Speaker ; " but 
 it would put the House into a false position if heated 
 language on one side is to be a justification for any 
 passing of the bounds of order on the other." But 
 though there were mutual retractations by Layard 
 and Gathorne-Hardy of the words complained of, Mr. 
 Speaker Denison did not modify in any way his 
 ruling that the use of the phrase " calumnious state- 
 ment" called not for his interference.
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 331 
 
 In " Notes from my Journal when Speaker of the 
 House of Commons," by Viscount Ossington (Mr. 
 Denison), which was published since the original 
 appearance of this article in " The Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury," the Speaker writes in reference to the incident : 
 " From all I have heard, the House was satisfied 
 with my course. I heard great disapprobation of 
 Lord Palmerston's course. For myself, I did not 
 object to Lord Palmerston's mild expostulation. 
 As to the word ' calumnious,' I could say of this 
 word, as might be said of many others, they must 
 be taken with the context and under the condition 
 of the moment. Under the circumstances of the 
 moment I saw no reason to interfere. Under the 
 circumstances the same word might be used in a 
 manner to give offence, and in a manner which might 
 call for interference." 
 
 The word " calumnious " was again used in 
 the House on March 22nd, 1867. Mr. O'Reilly 
 moved a vote of censure on the Government for 
 granting an allowance out of the Civil List to Mr. 
 Robert Young, described as an " agricultural and 
 historical poet" (whatever that may mean), who had 
 fallen under the ire of the Irish members for writing 
 Orange ballads. " The statements which have been 
 made in the course of this debate," said Mr. Whalley, 
 are " malicious and calumnious." Mr. O'Reilly ob- 
 jected to the phrase. " The words used," said Mr. 
 Speaker Denison, ''were 'malicious and calumnious'; 
 and I think those words should not have been used." 
 Mr. Whalley accordingly withdrew the expression. 
 However, on May 26th, 1870, a definite ruling 
 was again made from the Chair that "calumnious"
 
 332 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 was unimpeachable. The expression " calumnious 
 accusation" was used, and a motion was made that 
 it be taken down. " The word," said Mr. Speaker 
 Denison, " has been called in question before, and 
 was considered to be a word which was not un- 
 parliamentary." 
 
 It would seem, too, that the phrase " an atrocious 
 calumny " may be used in the House of Commons 
 with impunity. At any rate, on April igth, 
 1839, Daniel O'Connell stigmatised a statement that 
 the Irish Catholic clergy were " ignorant, benighted, 
 and immoral" as "an atrocious calumny, for which 
 there can be no excuse except ignorance to the extent 
 of brutality such as was familiar in Kent, which the 
 honourable member represents." Strong language 
 this, surely ; but Mr. Speaker Abercromby took no 
 action when his attention was called to it. He pro- 
 bably regarded as an extenuating circumstance the 
 provocation of the languagewhich inspired O'Connell's 
 full-blooded retort. Abercromby's predecessor in the 
 Chair, Charles Manners Sutton, occasionally allowed 
 members to attack each other personally with con- 
 siderable freedom. During one exciting debate on a 
 motion for the abolition of tithes in Ireland, on 
 July 2nd, 1833 the first Session of the reformed 
 Parliament he was appealed to not to allow the 
 discussion to degenerate into mere personal attacks. 
 " No one," he replied, " is more sensible than I am of 
 the impropriety of personal attacks being introduced 
 into the discussions of this House. But I am afraid 
 it is rather too late in the night, after what has 
 already occurred, to complain of those attacks." 
 
 There are also several interesting instances of
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 333 
 
 charges of wasting the time of the House, objected to 
 by the members concerned as disorderly, being held 
 to be quite Parliamentary by the Chair. " Was there 
 ever such deliberate waste of time as the moving of 
 such an instruction?" indignantly asked Sir William 
 Harcourt, Home Secretary, on the Hares and 
 Rabbits Bill, August loth, 1880. "The whole 
 object and intention of this sort of thing is to waste 
 time." Mr. Henry Chaplin asked the Speaker 
 whether it was competent for the right honourable 
 gentleman to impute motives to other members. " So 
 far as I have followed the right honourable gentle- 
 man," replied Mr. Speaker Brand, "no expression 
 fell from him which was of an unparliamentary cha- 
 racter." Again, in the Session of 1882, Sir William 
 Harcourt said of Mr. Warton that he was "wantonly 
 and unjustifiably wasting the time of the House," and 
 when Mr. Speaker Brand was asked to rule the 
 statement out of order he replied : *' The right honour- 
 able gentleman is responsible for these expressions. 
 I am bound to say that I do not see that they are out 
 of order." A charge of wasting time was also 
 uttered from the Treasury Bench against members of 
 the Opposition during the Session of 1884. " I cannot 
 say that such an observation is altogether out of order," 
 said Mr. Speaker Brand, when asked to declare that 
 the words were unparliamentary. " It is an observa- 
 tion that has been frequently made in this House, and 
 it has not been confined to one side of the House or 
 the other." 
 
 The amusing spectacle of Parnell hotly protesting 
 against a charge of obstruction and being told from 
 the Chair that there was nothing unparliamentary in
 
 334 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the charge, was witnessed on the night of September 
 2nd, 1886. Lord Randolph Churchill was Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer and Leader of the House. In 
 replying to a motion that the debate on the Address 
 be adjourned, he accused the Opposition of obstruc- 
 tion. " I rise to order, Sir," said Parnell, addressing 
 Mr. Speaker Peel. "I wish to know whether the 
 noble lord is entitled to impute a Parliamentary 
 offence to any member or party in this House the 
 offence of obstruction?" "I never understood," 
 replied the Speaker, " that there was anything un- 
 parliamentary in attributing that quality to any 
 honourable member." General laughter followed, and 
 was renewed when Lord Randolph Churchill remarked : 
 " I am sorry that the nerves of the honourable member 
 for Cork are so sensitive." 
 
 Mr. Speaker Brand widened the bounds of Parlia- 
 mentary expressions more perhaps than any other 
 occupant of the Chair of the House of Commons. On 
 August 23rd, 1880, Mr. Mitchel Henry accused 
 another Irish member of having said to the farmers of 
 Kildare, " Don't pay your just debits." The member 
 referred to denied that he had ever used such words. 
 Mr. Mitchel Henry having said that he did not pre- 
 tend to quote the honourable gentleman's exact words, 
 added, " Nothing could be more contemptible than a 
 denial of this kind." The Speaker was then asked 
 whether such an expression was Parliamentary. " I 
 do not," replied Mr. Speaker Brand, "observe any- 
 thing in what the honourable member for Galway 
 said that was out of order, or of an unparliamentary 
 character." In the Session of 1881 Mr. Childers said 
 that in his opinion the language used by a member
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 335 
 
 in a previous speech was unparliamentary. The 
 Speaker was asked whether the right honourable 
 gentleman was in order in using such an expression. 
 "Yes," he replied, "the right honourable gentleman 
 is entitled to say that." 
 
 In the Session of 1881, on July 2ist, Sir Charles 
 Dilke, who was then Under-Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs, characterised a statement of Lord Randolph 
 Churchill as " distinctly opposed to the fact." Sir 
 H. Drummond- Wolff moved that the words be taken 
 down, as they contained an imputation on the noble 
 lord's veracity. "I have been many years in this 
 House," remarked Mr. Childers, " and I have heard 
 these words used over and over again, and they have 
 not been considered to be unparliamentary." " I am 
 not prepared to say," Mr. Speaker said, "that those 
 words are unparliamentary." 
 
 During the Session of 1883 a member imputed that 
 a Committee of the House had acted "partially and 
 in a partisan spirit." On Mr. Speaker Brand's atten- 
 tion being called to the words, he replied : " The 
 honourable member has made the statement on his 
 own responsibility, and I do not feel called upon to 
 interfere." In the same Session one member charged 
 another with having "grossly misstated" a matter 
 in the course of a speech. " I do not see anything in 
 that expression that is irregular," said the Speaker. 
 The last ruling of Mr. Brand on a question dealing 
 with language was made on February aoth, 1884, on 
 the eve of his vacating the Chair. Mr. T. M. Healy 
 describing an Irish peer as "this bigoted and male- 
 volent young puppy," the Speaker was asked whether 
 it was competent for a member of the House of
 
 336 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Commons to apply such language to a member of 
 the House of Lords. " The honourable member is 
 responsible for his own words," replied Mr. Speaker 
 Brand. " I am here to give my opinion on matters 
 of order. If I were called upon to give my opinion 
 on a matter of taste, it would be a different thing." 
 There was no withdrawal of the words. Mr. Healy 
 retorted that he would leave to the people of Ireland, 
 and to his constituents in particular, the decision of 
 the matter of taste. It is interesting to note in this 
 connection that the statement that the House of Lords 
 were " the hereditary enemies of the Irish people " 
 was ruled out of order by Mr. Speaker Brand in 1881. 
 Mr. Speaker Gully has also made an interesting 
 ruling, which shows that expressions which if used 
 in reference to an individual member would be un- 
 parliamentary, may with impunity be applied to a 
 Government. During the Session of 1897 ^ e was 
 asked whether a member was in order in attributing 
 fraud to the Treasury Bench, and in using the word 
 " alleged " in reference to the statements of the 
 Secretary to the Treasury. The 'Speaker replied : 
 
 " The use of the word ' alleged ' is improper 
 if it was used in the sense, as it seems to me 
 that it was, of suggesting that something stated 
 by the right honourable gentleman was not true. 
 As to the word ' fraud ' in connection with the 
 Treasury, such words are extremely objectionable 
 in debate, but, unless they can be pointed to a 
 specific allegation against an honourable member, 
 they are hardly out of order. The action of the 
 Government as a whole can be denounced in much
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 337 
 
 stronger language than can be used about an in- 
 dividual member of the House. But the honourable 
 and learned member goes extremely near the line." 
 
 Happily, the use of strong language in the House 
 of Commons is occasionally softened by an element 
 of humour. On June I3th, 1845, tne House was 
 in Committee on the Bill for establishing Queen's 
 Colleges in Ireland. Mr. Roebuck made an attack on 
 Mr. Smith O'Brien. " I treat his attack," said the 
 Irish representative, "with unutterable contempt, and 
 accompany that contempt with intense pity." Sir 
 R. H. Inglis evoked "peals of laughter," according to 
 " Hansard," by asking the Chairman " whether any 
 member could express unutterable contempt." The 
 Chairman fortunately was saved from the difficulty ot 
 deciding the point by Mr. Smith O'Brien abandoning 
 the expression. 
 
 Major O'Gorman, an Irish member of the House 
 during the 'Seventies, was one of the most amusing 
 humorists of the unconscious order that has ever 
 appeared at Westminster. On April 28th, 1874, 
 there was a debate on a motion for the acquisi- 
 tion and control of Irish railways by the Government. 
 Major O'Gorman said that if the project Were carried 
 out the Irish officials of the companies would be told 
 to "goto hell or Connaught." " I must remind the 
 honourable gentleman," said Mr. Speaker Denison 
 (who was evidently unaware that the Major had 
 merely quoted an historic Cromwellian expression), 
 "that his language exceeds the licence of Parlia- 
 mentary debate." " Mr. Speaker," replied Major 
 O'Gorman, "the language I used was perfectly 
 
 p. z
 
 338 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 historical. It was used by the man who took the 
 mace from off the Table. But of course I will with 
 pleasure beg pardon if I have gone beyond the rules." 
 On April 6th, 1878, a speech by Colonel Stanley, the 
 Secretary of State for War, was punctuated by 
 frequent irrelevant and embarrassing cries of " Hear, 
 hear" from Major O'Gorman in his stentorian voice. 
 The Speaker called on the honourable and gallant, 
 member to desist from these interruptions. " I am 
 not interrupting," roared the Major ; " I say I am 
 not interrupting," he repeated in reply to cries of 
 " Order, order ! " and " Chair ! " "I am entitled to 
 call 'Hear, hear,'" he went on. "Yes, I have a 
 right to call * Hear, hear,' after every sentence, after 
 every semicolon ; after every comma, if I think 
 proper, and I mean to exercise it." As he persisted 
 in refusing to apologise, he was "named" by the 
 Speaker and was suspended. On the morrow he 
 apologised fully, amply, and with the most heartfelt 
 expressions of regret. 
 
 The cry of " Order, order," so familiar in the 
 House of Commons, was once ruled "out of order" 
 by Mr. Speaker Peel. On April i6th, 1885, Mr. 
 Arthur O'Connor was speaking on a motion relating 
 to the Post Office, and as members generally were 
 not paying attention to his remarks, his colleague 
 Mr. T. M. Healy endeavoured to recall the wandering 
 thoughts of the House by persistent cries of " Order, 
 order." "The honourable and learned member should 
 not be so demonstrative in his remarks," said the 
 Speaker. "Am I to understand that it is out 
 of order to cry ' Order ! ' in this House ? " asked 
 Mr. Healy. "The tone and the way in which the
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 339 
 
 honourable member expresses himself is out of order," 
 
 answered the Speaker. "In that case " said Mr. 
 
 Healy ; but the Speaker pulled him up sharply with 
 the reproof: "The honourable member is not in 
 order in addressing the Chair in that way. If the 
 honourable member continues, I shall have to take 
 notice of his interruption." 
 
 On May 2Oth, 1884, when the House was in Com- 
 mittee on the Representation of the People Bill, Sir 
 Patrick O'Brien, an Irish Liberal member, made an 
 observation which his Nationalist fellow-countrymen 
 received with cries of " Order." " It is not out of 
 order," continued Sir Patrick. " If it were out of 
 order the Chairman would take notice of it." Mr. 
 Matthew Kenny again cried " Order, order ! " " Per- 
 haps," said Sir Patrick O'Brien, " the young sea- 
 serpent from the county of Clare would " But 
 
 before he could conclude his sentence the Chairman, 
 with a sad lack of appreciation of Irish humour, 
 interposed with the reprimand, "The honourable 
 member must not apply language of that kind to any 
 member of the House." " Then, Sir Arthur Otway, 
 I will withdraw 'the young sea-serpent,'" said Sir 
 Patrick O'Brien. 
 
 The only other occasion on which a member was 
 compared to a viper was on May I4th, 1849, during 
 a debate on the Land Improvement and Drainage 
 (Ireland) Bill, which was a Government measure to aid 
 distressed Irish agriculturists after the great famine. 
 Mr. Roebuck opposed the Bill, and made a scathing 
 attack on the Irish members for always coming to 
 Parliament for assistance in times of need. Mr. John 
 O'Connell (son of Daniel O'Connell), who followed, 
 
 Z 2
 
 340 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 said, in filial imitation of his father, " The honourable 
 member had enforced his attack with all the grimaces 
 of a mountebank and the spite of a viper." The 
 Speaker (Mr. Shaw-Lefevre) at once interposed. " I 
 must inform the honourable and learned gentleman," 
 he said, "that these expressions are quite unparlia- 
 mentary." Mr. John O'Connell replied, " And I con- 
 fidently appeal to you, sir, whether on any occasion 
 when it was my misfortune to fall under your rebuke 
 I did not bow to it at once, and I am ready to with- 
 draw the expression." 
 
 The cries, " Shame," u Gag," " Scandalous," are 
 altogether out of order, and have been so ruled re- 
 peatedly. "Humbug," and "Tommy-rot" are also 
 under the ban. One honourable member may say 
 that another's statement is untrue in fact, but not that 
 it is knowingly untrue ; and there are abundant pre- 
 cedents for saying that honourable gentlemen have 
 deliberately broken faith. One must not talk of the 
 "sharp practice" of hon. members, or call the sup- 
 porters of the Government " subservient creatures," 
 or allude to the utterance of a Minister as a "swin- 
 dling speech," or use the phrase "another Treasury 
 swindle." Mr. John Burns once spoke of a peroration 
 as couched in the " language of the pot-house and 
 breathing the spirit of the prize-ring," and on being 
 called to order substituted the words " language of 
 the Stock Exchange," which were allowed to pass. 
 Mr. T. W. Russell was called to order for applying 
 the term "Handy Andy" to another honourable 
 member from Ireland. Col. Saunderson spoke of the 
 Rev. Father McFadden, an Irish priest, as " a mur- 
 derous ruffian," and a tempest arose which the gallant
 
 UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS. 341 
 
 member appeased by asking leave to substitute 
 " excited politician." 
 
 Observations which are ruled out of order by the 
 Chair are, in the majority of cases, withdrawn ; and 
 the House is satisfied with this atonement to its 
 offended dignity and decorum. On June I5th, 1863, 
 the phrase "scandalous and unfounded assertions" 
 was applied to a speech. It was condemned by the 
 Speaker and at once retracted. However, some 
 members declared themselves dissatisfied with the 
 mere withdrawal of the objectionable phrase, and 
 contended that its use should be visited by some 
 signal punishment. But the Speaker ruled other- 
 wise. "The honourable member," said he, "having 
 expressed his regret for the language he used, that 
 expression of regret must be satisfactory to the House." 
 If a member who has used an unparliamentary ex- 
 pression refuses to withdraw it when ordered to do so 
 by the Chair, he is "named" and suspended for a 
 certain period from the service of the House. " Suspen- 
 sion " means entire exclusion, for the period stated, 
 from the Palace of Westminster. 
 
 Viscount Peel, speaking once of the House of 
 Commons, said : " There, passions are strewed about 
 the floor like gunpowder, and though every reasonable 
 precaution is taken, as in powder factories, yet now 
 and then an explosion will occur." But it seems to 
 me that a study of the volumes of "Hansard" both 
 before and since the Reform Act of 1832 will show 
 that expressions used in the heat of debate which have 
 been reproved from the Chair as unparliamentary, are 
 on the whole very mild indeed, especially when com- 
 pared with the language used in the Legislatures of
 
 342 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 other countries ; that since 1832, notwithstanding the 
 democratic franchise on which the House of Commons 
 is elected, there has been no deterioration in the 
 behaviour of members, that respect for the Chair is 
 as strong as ever, and that the courtesies of debate 
 are still 'strictly observed. "When gentlemen cease 
 to be returned to Parliament," said Lord Beaconsfield, 
 in 1879, "this Empire will perish."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " HANSARD." 
 
 " LET me tell you how to get on in the House 
 of Commons," said Disraeli to the late Sir John 
 Pope Hennessy. "When the House is sitting, be 
 always in your place. When it is not sitting, read 
 1 Hansard.' " " He was a constant student of 
 1 Hansard,' ' writes Mr. John Morley of Richard 
 Cobden ; " and for one who seeks, for purposes ol 
 action and controversy, to make himself well versed 
 in the political transactions of the present century, 
 there is no book so well worth the labour of ran- 
 sacking." 
 
 I am not a member of the House of Commons. I 
 am not even a politician. But, whether it be the 
 Parliamentary Session, or the Parliamentary Recess, 
 my favourite corner in my club library is just beneath 
 the rows of shelves on which are ranged, in serried 
 files, the volumes 523 in number of " The Parlia- 
 mentary History" and " The Parliamentary Debates" 
 (popularly known as " Hansard"), containing a con- 
 tinuous and unbroken record of the proceedings of 
 Parliament from the Norman Conquest, in 1066, to 
 the end of the first session of the first Parliament of 
 the Twentieth Century ; and my favourite pastime is 
 dipping into the pages of this mammoth work. I
 
 344 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 cannot say that these long lines of volumes in sombre 
 bindings are outwardly inviting to the eye. They 
 have, in truth, a funereal aspect, which must appear 
 singularly appropriate to those who mistakingly regard 
 " Hansard " as a vast necropolis of dead political 
 debates, of extinct Party war-cries, of the reputations 
 of forgotten politicians. It would seem, also, as if 
 those who planned the disposition of the books in 
 this club library assumed that " Hansard" would be 
 seldom consulted. The volumes are not easy of 
 access. To get at them one must climb a slippery 
 ladder, in fear and trembling lest it should collapse. 
 And, indeed, I rarely notice any of the frequenters of 
 the library resorting to the volumes of" Hansard," save 
 an odd journalist searching for the date of the passing 
 of some Act, or the numbers in a historic division, 
 with which to fill a blank in a leading article or a 
 London Letter paragraph ; or an odd member of the 
 House of Commons hunting for a happy quotation to 
 add point to the argument of the speech he proposes 
 to contribute to an impending debate should he succeed 
 in catching the Speaker's eye. If y you watch these 
 casual consulters of " Hansard," you will see they 
 turn immediately to the end of the volume in order to 
 consult the index. It is only within comparatively 
 recent years that " Hansard " has been equipped with 
 adequate indices, so that if the volume referred to is 
 old it is found to contain only a list of names, with a 
 row of figures after each, affording no clue whatever 
 to the contents ; and baffled thus in their quest for a 
 date or a passage, these occasional delvers for a chunk 
 of fact in the mine of " Hansard" throw the volume 
 on the shelf with a gesture of impatience. But if the
 
 "HANSARD." 345 
 
 index has enabled them to locate the fact they are 
 seeking, they quickly turn over the leaves of the 
 volume in a hurry to get to the page never, by any 
 chance, lingering lovingly on the way and, having 
 found it, they scribble a note on a piece of paper, put 
 back the volume again, and hastily disappear. 
 
 It is not my habit to ransack " Hansard " in that 
 perfunctory fashion. I take down a volume at random 
 the date does not matter, provided it is before the 
 time I began to take an interest in current politics 
 and, carefully blowing off the dust which has accumu- 
 lated upon it during the months the years, mayhap 
 it has lain undisturbed on the shelf with its fellows, 
 I retire to a quiet corner close at hand for a couple 
 of hours of delightful reading. What appeals to me 
 is the human side of these long-forgotten political 
 debates. I think there is no field of man's activity 
 the study of which is more fascinating, or which will 
 yield more instruction and entertainment yielding, as 
 it does, innumerable examples of tragedy and farce, 
 of humour and pathos, of hopes frustrated, of noble 
 ambitions grandly realised, of human weakness and 
 human passion, of the inanities and vanities of man, 
 of the narrow views and pettiness of some, of the 
 exalted aspirations and great-heartedness of others 
 than the record of the development of the Government 
 of this Realm by Parliament, and of the final word in 
 the solution of the political problems of nine centuries. 
 We also witness in these volumes the gradual broaden- 
 ing out of popular rights and liberties, and the steady 
 progress of legislation tending to general happiness 
 and social well-being. We see how the political 
 heresies of one generation become the political
 
 346 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 commonplaces of the next ; how the impossible 
 Radical programme of one Parliament is embodied 
 in the Statute Book by its Conservative successor. 
 We also witness the interesting working-out of the 
 dual Party system, upon which our Parliamentary 
 Government is based, in the struggle at close quarters 
 between the " ins " in the sunshine of possession and 
 the " outs " in the shades of Opposition ; and as we 
 read these animated and often angry debates we 
 cannot fail to notice the paramount influence of Party 
 loyalty in the tendency of our representatives to regard 
 all questions from the point of view of Party, indepen- 
 dently of intellectual conviction. 
 
 It is to William Cobbett that the credit of inaugu- 
 rating this unique record of our Parliamentary history 
 and proceedings is due. In 1802 he began the pub- 
 lication of his famous newspaper, Cobbetfs Weekly 
 Political Register ; and two years later, struck by the 
 inadequacy of the existing reports of the proceed- 
 ings in Parliament, which he rightly declared reflected 
 very little credit on the nation, he brought out com- 
 pilations of the current debates v as supplements to 
 the Register. In the second year the reports were 
 issued separately under the title of " Cobbett's Par- 
 liamentary Debates." The work of compiling the 
 debates from the current newspaper reports with the 
 occasional assistance of manuscripts of speeches from 
 members was performed by John Wright, the sub- 
 editor of the Register, a man whose name deserves 
 to be at least as eminently associated with the publi- 
 cation of our Parliamentary proceedings as the names 
 of Cobbett and Hansard. A few years before, Wright 
 was a publisher and bookseller in Piccadilly, his
 
 " HANSARD." 347 
 
 failure in 1801 being due, according to Cobbett, partly 
 to his taking " more delight in reading books than in 
 selling them," and partly to " the misfortune of being 
 bookseller to the Anti-Jacobins, by whose works, though 
 such a puffing was made over them, he lost many 
 hundreds of pounds." The "Anti-Jacobin," of which 
 George Canning and William Gifford were the leading 
 spirits, was, in fact, published by Wright at his shop, 
 "No. 169, opposite Old Bond Street, Piccadilly." 
 
 In 1806 the idea of a Parliamentary work of still 
 greater magnitude emanated from the fertile brain of 
 Cobbett. This was " Cobbett's Parliamentary History 
 of England from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to 
 1803." In the latter year, it will be remembered, 
 " Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates" commenced. In 
 the preface to the first volume of this work, dated 
 " Botley, October, 1806," Cobbett writes : " With the 
 literary aid the compiler has received, the public has, 
 perhaps, strictly speaking, little to do ; but he cannot 
 for one hour exist under the idea that the whole of 
 the merit, whatever it may be, should be ascribed 
 to himself to the exclusion of the invaluable talents 
 and exertions of the gentleman who is his principal 
 assistant and upon whom no small share of the exer- 
 tion has devolved." Wright is the gentleman referred 
 to in this passage. He was also the editor of this 
 invaluable work, and in the discharge of his duties 
 displayed a thorough acquaintance with the existing 
 sources of Parliamentary history. It was compiled 
 from the Journals of both Houses of Parliament, from 
 diaries kept by Commoners and Peers, from Constitu- 
 tional and general histories, from private MSS. collec- 
 tions in country houses and in the British Museum,
 
 348 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 and from the meagre reports supplied by the news- 
 papers and magazines of the eighteenth century, 
 despite the pains and penalties heavy fines or 
 imprisonment in the Tower or Newgate with which 
 Parliament visited any breach of the secrecy of its 
 sacred proceedings. 
 
 The " Debates" and the "History" were printed 
 by T. Curson Hansard, eldest son of Luke Hansard, 
 then the printer of the Journals of the Houses of 
 Parliament. In 1809 the printing of the Weekly 
 Political Register was also transferred to Han- 
 sard, with important after-effects on the fate of the 
 " Debates." Before a year had elapsed Hansard had 
 a most unpleasant experience of the risks attending 
 even the printing of a political newspaper less than a 
 century ago. The Government instituted a prosecu- 
 tion for seditious libel against Cobbett and Hansard 
 in respect of an article severely condemning flogging 
 in the Army, which appeared in the Register, and, 
 as the result, the editor was sentenced to two years' 
 imprisonment and a fine of one thousand pounds, and 
 the printer to three years' imprisonment. Cobbett, 
 finding himself unable to raise the money to pay the 
 fine, held, while in prison, an investigation into his 
 business affairs. Wright, who was described in the 
 " Satirist " in 1809 as " the poor devil who corrects 
 Cobbett's bad English, edits his * Parliamentary 
 History,' brushes his coat, puffs him in coffee-houses 
 and debating shops, and does all his dirty work," was 
 responsible also for the management of the commer- 
 cial side of Cobbett's various publications. There 
 was no annual stock-taking or balancing of accounts. 
 According as Cobbett wanted ten, twenty, or one
 
 " HANSARD." 349 
 
 hundred pounds, he asked Wright for it ; and in this 
 hand-to-mouth fashion the business was conducted 
 until the failure of Wright to produce on the demand 
 of Cobbett in the usual fashion the thousand pounds 
 fine in 1810. It was then found as the result of 
 the inquiry that, while the Register paid, the " Par- 
 liamentary History," the " Parliamentary Debates," 
 and the " State Trials " another of Cobbett's excel- 
 lent ventures were produced at an enormous loss. 
 Cobbett in the circumstances was glad to transfer 
 his interest in the three latter publications to Han- 
 sard, and Wright went over with them to the new 
 proprietor. 
 
 Eight years later, Cobbett attacked Wright with 
 characteristic virulence of language. In 1818 there 
 was an election for Westminster in which the Radicals 
 were divided, Henry Hunt being the standard-bearer 
 of one section, and Sir Francis Burdett and John 
 Cam Hobhouse the favourites of the other. One of 
 the incidents of the campaign was the publication of 
 a letter from Cobbett to Wright written ten years 
 before disparaging the private character of Hunt. 
 Cobbett, incensed by the action of Wright in making 
 the letter public, denounced him in the Register as 
 "a wretch unequalled in the annals of infamy" by 
 whom he had been " foully robbed" for years. The 
 inquiry into his affairs in 1810 showed, he said, that 
 the accounts had been kept by Wright "in such a 
 state that the devil himself could not unravel them." 
 "There is my son John," continued Cobbett, "who, 
 though he was then a child, will never forget the big, 
 round drops of sweat that on a cold winter's day rolled 
 down the caitiffs forehead when he was detected in
 
 350 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 fabricating accounts ; and when I took Johnny by the 
 hand (who had begun whimpering for poor Wright) 
 and said, ' Look at that man, my dear. Those drops 
 of sweat are the effect of detected villainy. Think of 
 that, my dear child, and you will always be an honest 
 man.' ' But Wright brought an action for libel 
 against Cobbett, and got a verdict for 1,000. In 
 addition to his services to Parliamentary history, for 
 which he is entitled to be remembered with gratitude, 
 this accomplished man also wrote a memoir of the 
 Right Hon. William Huskisson, the statesman and 
 financier, who was killed by a locomotive engine at 
 the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway 
 in 1830, and assisted John Wilson Croker in the 
 preparation of the well-known edition of BoswelPs 
 Johnson. He died in 1844. 
 
 Cobbett's name was eliminated from the title-page 
 of the " Parliamentary History " from Vol. 10, pub- 
 lished in 1812 ; and thence to the concluding volume 
 (Vol. 36) which, appearing in 1820, supplied the 
 last connecting link between the " History " and the 
 " Debates " the work was called "The Parliamentary 
 History of England." In the case of the " Debates," 
 Hansard in 1812 had new title-pages printed for all 
 the volumes which had appeared, omitting Cobbett's 
 name, describing the work as " The Parliamentary 
 Debates," and stating that they were " published 
 under the superintendence of T. C. Hansard." It 
 was not until 1829 that the title " Hansard's Parlia- 
 mentary Debates " first appeared. 
 
 On April 3rd, 1865 the day after Cobden's death 
 Disraeli, taking part in the brief Commemoration 
 debate on the great Free Trader, in the House of
 
 "HANSARD." 351 
 
 Commons, used some striking and picturesque pas- 
 sages. " There is," he said, "this consolation 
 remaining to us, when we remember our unequalled 
 and irreparable losses, that those great men are not 
 altogether lost to us, that their words will be often 
 quoted in this House, that their examples will often 
 be referred to and appealed to, and that even their 
 expressions may form part of our discussions. There 
 are, indeed, I may say, some members of Parliament 
 who, though they may not be present, are still mem- 
 bers of this House, are independent of dissolutions, of 
 the caprices of constituencies, and even of the course 
 of time. I think that Mr. Cobden was one of these 
 men." That is true, indeed, of great members of 
 Parliament. Pitt, Fox, Canning, Peel, Russell, 
 Disraeli, Gladstone, have passed away, but their light 
 will ever be reflected on the horizon of politics ; their 
 characters and policies will never cease, perhaps, to 
 be subjects of controversy, and their speeches in 
 Parliament will always be read, at least by members 
 of both Houses of the Legislature and by students of 
 history. In addition to those eminent statesmen, a 
 few strong, masterful spirits like O'Connell, Cobden, 
 Parnell, who exercised immense influence on the 
 destinies of Parliament, or on the course of social 
 legislation, and whose careers were rich in all the 
 elements that in all ages excite the interest, the 
 curiosity, the wonder of mankind, are also immortal 
 in the House of Commons. 
 
 But as one turns over the leaves of the five hundred 
 and twenty-three volumes of "Hansard" one meets 
 with hundreds nay, thousands of names of members 
 of Parliament, more or less renowned in their day,
 
 352 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 which are now absolutely forgotten. That is the 
 pathetic side of " Hansard." Many of these repre- 
 sentatives of the people were preachers and propa- 
 gandists of noble political ideals. Here are set out, in 
 column after column, their earnest and powerful and 
 oftentimes vehement advocacy of their plans for 
 making straight the crooked twists in our social polity 
 speeches which, perhaps, they fondly thought would 
 serve as monuments in "Hansard" to send their 
 names down in an imperishable halo of reverence to 
 remotest posterity. But how sadly have their high 
 hopes been disappointed ! One curious feature of 
 "Hansard" is that, while the entrance of every 
 member into the House of Commons is recorded 
 " Mr. W. F. Watkins took the oath and his seat for 
 Barchester " no notice is taken of his exit save the 
 application for the writ for an election to fill his vacant 
 place unless he happens to be a very distinguished 
 occupant of either Front Bench, when, after death, a 
 eulogium is pronounced by his political colleagues 
 and his political opponents. But the vast majority of 
 members pass out into darkness unnoticed ; and soon, 
 alas ! their very names are forgotten in the House 
 in which they were once conspicuous figures. The 
 evanescence of Parliamentary fame, the fleeting nature 
 of the reputation of political personages, is, indeed, 
 brought vividly home to the reader of " Hansard." 
 
 And yet, as we all know, the influence exercised in 
 the government of our Commonwealth, not only by 
 the genius of the golden-tongued orator, but by the 
 moderate gifts of an attractive and persuasive speaker, 
 is enormous. In politics, the man with the power 
 of speech the man able to express with point and
 
 " HANSARD." 353 
 
 force the sentiments of his Party soon achieves fame 
 and position. His renown in his day is great. His 
 name is on the lips of all men, for the morning journals 
 record his utterances, and the illustrated weeklies 
 come later with his portrait. But this lesson " Han- 
 sard " teaches, that unless the politician links his 
 name with a great Act of Parliament, a brilliant feat 
 of statesmanship, or an epoch-making agitation, his 
 splendid speeches will be of little avail in keeping his 
 memory green to future generations, or in securing 
 for him a place in history. It is not in their speeches 
 that the memory of politicians live for these, after 
 they have served the purposes of the hour, few read 
 outside the historian and the publicist but in their 
 achievements as statesmen or agitators. 
 
 And this leads us to another interesting point. 
 " Publicity is now the soul of our political life," said 
 Disraeli in 1872. " We owe to the principle of pub- 
 licity our chief blessings ; we have introduced pub- 
 licity into the affairs of Parliament, into the Judicial 
 Bench, into the Press." In our day, when publicity 
 is also the very breath of life to the politician, when 
 speeches are delivered in Parliament, not so much in 
 the hope that they will carry conviction to the minds of 
 opponents, and thus influence divisions, as because they 
 will be read through the newspapers by the electors 
 outside, it is not easy to understand the determination 
 with which Parliament, as lately as the eighteenth 
 century, suppressed the attempts of the newspapers 
 to justify their existence by giving their readers news 
 of the debates and proceedings at St. Stephen's. In 
 the struggle between the Crown and Parliament for 
 supremacy during the Stuart period of the seventeenth 
 
 P. A A
 
 354 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 century, the secrecy of the proceedings of the House 
 of Commons was essential, for members ran the risk 
 of being summoned before the Privy Council if they 
 said anything disagreeable to the King, and of being 
 sent to the Tower if they did not give a satisfactory 
 explanation or apologise. But that state of things 
 was over and done with for ever in the eighteenth 
 century. The human craving for fame and notoriety 
 must have been in those days, as in these, the inspir- 
 ing motive, with most men, in seeking a seat in the 
 House of Commons ; and yet, as it appears to us, 
 members of Parliament in the eighteenth century 
 were practically unanimous in thinking that a heavy 
 fine, or imprisonment in the Tower or Newgate, was 
 richly deserved by those "News-writers" who had 
 the presumption to attempt to give the public some 
 idea of the oratory, the dialectical skill, and the argu- 
 ments with which the leading personages of both 
 Houses supported or opposed the political questions 
 of the time. This feeling is not, of course, altogether 
 unaccountable. A contempt for the newspapers was, 
 at the time, widely entertained. A member of Parlia- 
 ment would then no more dream of enlarging his fame 
 by the agency of the Press than he would court noto- 
 riety now by proclaiming his opinions from the top 
 of an omnibus to the passing crowds in Fleet Street 
 or the Strand. But, above all, there existed a high and 
 mighty idea of Parliament that publicity of its pro- 
 ceedings was derogatory to its dignity and to its freedom 
 of debate and, as the result of an extremely narrow 
 franchise, a supreme indifference to public opinion. 
 
 Most of the great speeches of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury have been lost through this determination of
 
 "HANSARD." 355 
 
 
 
 Parliament to conduct its debates, as far as possible, 
 with closed doors. No speech that has ever been 
 delivered in Parliament created so much excitement 
 and ferment, or left an impression more profound and 
 lasting on all its hearers, than the oration with which, 
 in the House of Commons, Richard Brinsley Sheridan 
 sustained the charge against Warren Hastings of the 
 spoliation of the Begums of Oude. But we turn in 
 vain to "Hansard" for an adequate report of that 
 brilliant performance. The speech was delivered 
 on February 7th, 1787, and lasted five hours and 
 forty minutes. The report of the speech in " Han- 
 sard " occupies nineteen of its short columns, and 
 is a dry and trite record, manifestly compiled from 
 the accounts of various hearers. "It is utterly 
 impossible," it says, " to attempt more than an outline 
 of this unprecedented exertion of talents and judg- 
 ment. We have endeavoured to prepare a faithful 
 miniature of an unequalled original." At the end 
 comes the following descriptive passage : "On the con- 
 clusion of Mr. Sheridan's speech he sat down. The 
 whole House, the members, peers and strangers, in- 
 voluntarily joined in a tumult of applause, and adopted 
 a mode of expressing their approbation, new and 
 irregular in that House, by loudly and repeatedly 
 clapping with their hands." The day after, Sheridan 
 was offered 1,000 if he would write the speech for 
 publication, but for some reason or another indolence 
 it is generally believed he refused. Burke described 
 the speech at the time as "the most astonishing effort 
 of eloquence, argument and wit united, of which there 
 is any record or tradition," and when Fox was asked, 
 fifteen years later, by his nephew, Lord Holland, 
 
 A A 2
 
 V 
 
 356 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 which was the best speech ever made in the House ot 
 Commons, he replied, without hesitation, " Sheridan's, 
 on the Begum Charge." 
 
 One also notices, going through the volumes of 
 " Hansard," a significant change in the tone and 
 temper of the speeches delivered in both Houses. 
 Party spirit was narrower and more fanatical in years 
 past, as was natural, perhaps, when greater and more 
 fundamental questions divided politicians ; and the 
 amenities which now soften Parliamentary strife were, 
 as a rule, unknown. The attack and reply were more 
 virulent, inspired, as they often were, as much by 
 personal enmities as by political differences, and, 
 generally speaking, all party opponents carried their 
 quarrels into private life. The style of debating, from 
 the oratorical point of view, has also undergone a 
 marked change. The dividing line is, roughly speak- 
 ing, the Reform Act of 1832. Debates on questions 
 which did not arouse the vehement expression of 
 bitter party animosity have often that want of 
 reality, that absence of the note of conviction, 
 noticeable in a discussion in a debating club. 
 Members spoke as if their one object was to amuse 
 and charm ; to display their scholarly attainments, 
 or their skill in turning out epigrams and nicely- 
 turned phrases. Nowadays, there is little appeal to 
 sentiment, imagination, passion, or emotion in either 
 House of Parliament. It is all plain, straightforward, 
 common-sense talk. 
 
 It must be confessed that " Hansard " is mainly 
 used by members of both Houses of Parliament for 
 the purposes of personal and Party recrimination. 
 To " Hansardise " is an expressive phrase. It means
 
 " HANSARD." 357 
 
 to convict a member of political inconsistency by 
 quoting from the volumes of the Parliamentary debates 
 different views formerly expressed by him on the same 
 subject. " I have no desire to Hansardise the noble 
 Earl by referring a second time to his speeches 
 on life peerages," said the Earl of Derby, coin- 
 ing the phrase, in the House of Lords, in 1867. 
 Lord Granville, to whom the term was thus first 
 applied, used it himself in his speech on the Irish 
 Church Disestablishment Bill, June, 1869. " I," said 
 he, " will venture now to use a word, an admirable 
 word, invented by a noble lord opposite to Han- 
 sardise ; " and he then proceeded to quote extracts 
 from former speeches of noble lords. Professor 
 Huxley endeavoured to bring the word into common 
 circulation. Writing in May, 1869, a month before 
 Lord Granville's application of the term, he said : 
 " I do not wish to Hansardise Sir William Thompson 
 by laying much stress on the fact that fifteen years 
 ago he entertained a totally different view of the 
 origin of the sun's heat." " Hansardising " is, indeed, 
 a common, and oftentimes owing to the mutability 
 of political opinion a very effective form of Par- 
 liamentary controversy. In 1846 Sir James Graham 
 was taunted in the House of Commons with incon- 
 sistency in supporting the repeal of the Corn Laws, 
 which for years he had, like Peel, supported strenuously. 
 " I freely admit," said he, in reply, " that past declara- 
 tions of opinion made by members of the House, 
 who have subsequently arrived at power, or who 
 aspire to power, much more the declarations made by 
 the First Minister of the Crown, if at all in variance 
 with the course which he has subsequently pursued,
 
 358 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 are subjects worthy of reference, and which call for 
 explanation. The hon. member for Northampton- 
 shire made 'a direct appeal to the Government, and 
 challenged us, if we had changed our opinions, man- 
 fully to own it. I answer that challenge. I do 
 frankly avow my change of opinion, and by that 
 avowal I dispose of whole volumes of ' Hansard,' 
 and of all the charges which have been made on 
 the ground of inconsistency." 
 
 The publication of " Hansard " does not seem to 
 have been a commercial success. It was produced 
 at the expense of its owners, without any assistance 
 whatever from the State, until as recently as forty- 
 five years ago. The Hansards the original T. C. 
 Hansard, dying in 1833, was succeeded by his son, 
 another T. C. Hansard relied solely on the sale of 
 the " Debates," and in a country like this, which has 
 all its interests centred in the present and the future, 
 where a speech, after it has fulfilled its immediate 
 purpose, is regarded by people generally as a sucked 
 orange a thing that can give sustenance to no one 
 it is not surprising to learn there^ was no money in 
 "Hansard" as a commercial speculation. Yet for 
 thirteen years it had a rival in the field entitled "The 
 Mirror of Parliament." That publication began in 
 January, 1828, and, continuing till January, 1837, 
 thirty-six volumes in folio were brought out. It was 
 resumed again in November, 1837, in 8vo (the form 
 and size in which " Hansard " has been uniformly 
 published), and lasted until October, 1841, when it 
 finally disappeared. Of the second series twenty-four 
 volumes were published. The editor of "The Mirror 
 of Parliament" was J. H. Barrow, a Parliamentary
 
 " HANSARD." 359 
 
 reporter, and, like " Hansard," it was mainly com- 
 piled from the reports which had already appeared 
 in the newspapers. 
 
 In 1855, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, then Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, directed the Controller of 
 the Stationery Office to subscribe for 100 copies of 
 the yearly issue of " Hansard " for distribution among 
 the different State departments and the Colonial 
 Legislatures. The price of the yearly issue of 
 "Hansard," at that time, was fifteen guineas. This 
 was the first pecuniary assistance which Parliament 
 afforded to the publication of " Hansard." In 1858 
 the number of copies purchased by the State was 
 increased to 120 ; but in 1878, when for the first time 
 in the history of the work a staff of reporters was 
 engaged to report specially for it the proceedings in 
 Parliament, the State gave it a yearly subsidy of 
 3,000, in addition to an annual sum of between 
 ,600 and 700 for copies, which continued until 
 1881, when the subsidy was increased to 4,000. In 
 1882 the grant in aid took the form of the payment 
 of 500 for each volume of not less than 960 pages, 
 and under this arrangement, ten volumes having 
 been published, 5,000 was paid. In 1887 another 
 change took place. The Treasury agreed to pay 
 a subsidy of 6,000 and 645 for the purchase of 
 copies, provided twelve volumes a Session were 
 brought out. In 1889 Mr. T. C. Hansard sold his 
 interest in the work to the Hansard Publishing 
 Union, which undertook to bring out the " Debates" 
 without any subsidy from Parliament, relying for a 
 return on sales and advertisements. The following 
 year saw the bankruptcy of the company and the
 
 360 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 disappearance of " Hansard " from the title-pages of 
 the " Parliamentary Debates," though they are still 
 referred to in both Houses of Parliament by that old- 
 familiar name. Since then the production of the 
 " Debates " has been carried on by various printing 
 firms, and as the amount paid by the Treasury was 
 totally inadequate, each contractor has been consider- 
 ably out of pocket by the venture. For the past few 
 years, however, each Peer and Commoner is entitled 
 to a copy of the daily issue of the "Debates," and, 
 as a consequence, the grant-in-aid has had to be 
 substantially increased. 
 
 It seems almost incredible that a great and rich 
 nation like ours should have left to chance, until 1877, 
 the reporting of the proceedings of its Parliament 
 the most important factor in the making of its history 
 simply because the Treasury grudged the expendi- 
 ture of a few thousand pounds per annum on the work. 
 Indeed, of all the legislatures of the world, ours the 
 progenitor of them all, "the Mother of Parliaments" 
 is the only one that has not got an official corps of 
 reporters, employed direct by the State, to record its 
 debates and proceedings. Perhaps the parsimonious 
 action of the Treasury is due to the curious indifference 
 with which some statesmen have regarded " Hansard." 
 Mr. Gladstone, during his visit to Ireland in 1877, 
 inspected Maynooth College, the famous training 
 school of the Irish priesthood. On entering the 
 library of the College, one of the first things shown 
 him were the volumes of " Hansard's Parliamentary 
 Debates." The authorities of the institution thought 
 Mr. Gladstone would be pleased to find they had 
 among their books the official record of the doings of
 
 " HANSARD." . 361 
 
 that Assembly in which he was so great a figure ; but 
 he told them he had always made it a rule never to 
 allow a volume of " Hansard " to be brought into his 
 house at Hawarden. Unfortunately, Mr. Gladstone 
 did not explain why he took this course. Again, Mr. 
 Arthur Balfour has contemptuously referred in the 
 House of Commons to "+ht> ""ffltjinrpqhle bng nt 
 1 Hansard.' : In proposing the toast of the health of 
 Sirjonn Tenniel, at the banquet to which this great 
 cartoonist was entertained by his admirers on his re- 
 tirement from "Punch," in 1900, Mr. Balfour delivered 
 a most interesting speech, in the course of which he 
 said : 
 
 " The only form of history which is really immortal 
 is the contemporary record from which future his- 
 torians draw their materials. Every generation will 
 insist on rewriting the history of the past in its own 
 fashion and in accordance with its own view of these 
 original sources. But the original sources remain. 
 They only remain ; they only are perpetual ; and our 
 guest of this evening has, I venture to say, been no 
 small contributor to the original sources of English 
 history in the latter half of the nineteenth century. 
 (Cheers.) When I said that the sources of contemporary 
 history were immortal, I meant they were immortal for 
 students, I did not mean that they were immortal for 
 the general public. As a rule, I regret to have to say 
 it, they are deplorably dull. Is there any man in this 
 room whose tastes are so unnatural and debased that 
 he would sit himself down in an armchair before a 
 good fire, put his feet on the hob or fender, and take 
 down a volume of ' Hansard ' for his recreation ?
 
 362 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 (Laughter.) I do not think so ; I hear no answering 
 response from any quarter of the room. But I go 
 much further. I have among my audience many 
 gentlemen whose business it is to make themselves 
 acquainted with the history of their country, and I 
 would like to put it to them whether they have ever 
 read through from cover to cover the selected speeches 
 of any of our greatest orators ? " (Laughter.) 
 
 Undoubtedly few people read the collected orations 
 01 statesmen. A scheme for the publication of 
 Gladstone's speeches, a few years ago, collapsed for 
 want of public support. A volume of addresses by 
 the same man is uninspiring and wearisome reading, 
 with their few bald lines of introduction as to the 
 occasion on which they were spoken, without the 
 punctuating "hear, hears," "laughter" and "loud 
 cheers," that give a touch of vitality to reports of 
 speeches ; and with nothing about them of the electric 
 atmosphere of the place and circumstances of their 
 delivery. " Hansard," however, is entirely different. 
 In these delightful volumes, one- seems to be an 
 actual listener to the flights of eloquence, the powerful 
 arguments, the flashes of wit and humour, of the great 
 political giants who march across their pages ; for 
 in reading a great oration in " Hansard " one sees 
 the crowded Benches, knows what had led up to the 
 speech, and can ascertain, from the subsequent pro- 
 gress of the debate, its varied effects upon the House. 
 
 But do we find an adequate explanation of this 
 warning-off by our statesmen of readers from 
 " Hansard" in these passages from Disraeli's famous 
 attack upon Peel a propos the Maynooth Grant in
 
 " HANSARD." 363 
 
 1845 ? " What, after all, do our statesmen see on 
 looking over a quarter of a century, or more even, of 
 their speeches in * Hansard ' ? What dreary pages 
 of interminable talk, what predictions falsified, what 
 pledges broken, what calculations that have gone 
 wrong, what Budgets that have blown up ! And all 
 this, too, not relieved by a single original thought, or 
 a single generous impulse, or a single happy expres- 
 sion ! Why, ' Hansard,' instead of being the Delphi 
 of Downing Street, is but the Dunciad of politics ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HUMOURS OF PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING. 
 
 ONE morning, during the Session of 1887, the 
 newspapers reported in exactly similar terms a 
 brief but curious and amusing conversation between 
 Lord Salisbury and Lord Rosebery in the House ot 
 Lords on the previous evening. The topic was a 
 rumour to the effect that Sir Drummond Wolffs ap- 
 pointment as British Plenipotentiary at Constanti- 
 nople had terminated. Lord Rosebery inquired if 
 the news were true. Lord Salisbury, as Foreign 
 Secretary, intimated that the rumour did not quite 
 accurately describe Sir Drummond Wolffs position. 
 What followed is thus recorded by the newspapers. 
 Lord Rosebery: "Are we to understand then that 
 Sir Drummond Wolff is in a state of suspended 
 animation?" Lord Salisbury: "No; rather in a 
 state of animated expectancy." 
 
 On the evening of the day this report appeared in 
 the Press, Lord Salisbury called attention to it in the 
 House of Lords. He denied in the most emphatic 
 manner that he had ever used such language, and 
 Lord Rosebery on his part was equally assertive that 
 the remark attributed to him never crossed his lips. 
 But their lordships gave no indication of the nature 
 of the conversation that had really passed between
 
 PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING. 365 
 
 them on the subject of Sir Drummond Wolff; they 
 simply contented themselves with denying the accu- 
 racy of the newspaper report. However, months 
 afterwards, Lord Rosebery, presiding at the Inter- 
 national Shorthand Congress, alluded to this remark- 
 able instance of the humour of Parliamentary 
 reporting. He then said that his own words were; 
 " Are we to understand that Sir Drummond Wolff is 
 in a state of agitated expectancy ? " and that Lord 
 Salisbury, leaning across the table, had answered 
 jocosely, in a low voice so that it should not reach 
 the Reporters' Gallery, " I will telegraph and ask 
 him, if you like." But what puzzled Lord Rosebery, 
 as he confessed at the Congress, was the extraordinary 
 agreement between all the reports of the conversation 
 which appeared in the newspapers. Such unanimity 
 would have convinced anyone else but the two prin- 
 cipals that the conversation had really taken place as 
 it was reported. The explanation of the mystery is, 
 however, simple : all the newspaper reports came 
 from one common source. It is difficult to hear in 
 the Reporters' Gallery of the House of Lords, and the 
 reporters being, for that reason, doubtful that they 
 could, independently, provide accurate reports of the 
 speech, made up between them, as best they were 
 able, a version for the common benefit. 
 
 Mishearing is the source of some of the errors in 
 Parliamentary reporting. To it must be attributed 
 the various renderings given in the London morning 
 papers of a line from Macaulay's "Armada" quoted 
 by Lord Rosebery. Two gave the line correctly : 
 
 " Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales."
 
 366 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Two others rendered it 
 
 " Like volcanoes flamed to heaven the stormy hills of Wales." 
 But the version in a fifth was extraordinary 
 
 " Like volcanoes flame the heavens, 
 The stormy hills of Wales." 
 
 Three distinct versions of an amusing parody used 
 by Daniel O'Connell in the course of a speech in the 
 House of Commons in the Thirties are given in 
 the newspapers of the time. O'Connell had been 
 attacked by three colonels in succession Colonel 
 Verner, member for Armagh, Colonel Gore, member 
 for Sligo, and Colonel Sibthorpe, member for Lincoln, 
 of whom the two former were clean-shaven, while the 
 latter was remarkable for a full and flowing beard. 
 Rising subsequently, O'Connell convulsed the House 
 with laughter by a ready parody of William Dryden's 
 well-known lines on Milton. One version of this 
 parody ran as follows : 
 
 " Three colonels in three different counties born, 
 Armagh, Sligo, and Lincoln did adorn ; 
 The first in gravity of face surpassed ; 
 Sobriety the next : in impudence the last. 
 The force of nature could no farther go, 
 To beard the third, she shaved the other two." 
 
 This was a second 
 
 " Three colonels in three distant counties born, 
 Did Armagh, Sligo, and Lincoln adorn. 
 The first in impudence all men surpassed, 
 The next in ignorance, in both the last ; 
 The force of folly could no further go, 
 To beard the third, she shaved the other two."
 
 PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING. 367 
 
 And this was the third 
 
 " Three colonels in three distant counties born, 
 Armagh, Sligo, and Lincoln did adorn ; 
 The first in direst bigotry surpassed ; 
 The next in impudence, in both the last. 
 The force of nature could no farther go, 
 To beard the third, she shaved the other two." 
 
 Quotations are not often mangled. I have been 
 able to discover only a few examples. Mr. John 
 Bright once quoted the lines from Milton 
 
 " I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and steer 
 Right onward." 
 
 An inexperienced reporter was not familiar with 
 the passage, and having no idea that Mr. Bright was 
 quoting poetry, he turned it into prose, in the third 
 person, as follows : " He would not argue against the 
 hand or will of heaven, nor would he bate a jot of 
 heart or hope. He would still bear up and steer 
 right onward." Still more amusing was the render- 
 ing given to the two well-known lines from Tenny- 
 son's " Lady Clara Vere de Vere " by a young 
 reporter who was brought into the Gallery one night 
 on trial: "The honourable gentleman concluded by 
 declaring that kind hearts were far more than coronets, 
 and simple faith much better than Norman blood." 
 
 The famous saying of Drummond, the Irish Under- 
 secretary, " Property has its duties as well as its 
 rights," has been given as " Prosperity has its duties \ 
 for which it fights." " Great is^ Diana of the Ephe- 
 sians !" once exclaimed Sir William Harcourt in the 
 course of a terrific onslaught on Mr. Chamberlain ;
 
 3 68 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 but a provincial paper improved the quotation in this 
 novel fashion : " Great Dinah, what a farce this is !" 
 Perhaps there was more in that rendering than met 
 the eye ; but if the editor was not cynically expressing 
 his own convictions, it is probably to the telegraph 
 and not to the reporter that the credit of the joke is 
 due. Indeed the telegraph has indulged in many 
 witticisms at the expense of the members of both 
 Houses of Parliament. It has transformed a classical 
 allusion to " Cato and Brutus" into " Cats and 
 Brutes"; the celebrated phrase used by the late 
 Mr. W. E. Forster, in a speech on his Irish policy, 
 " mauvais sujets and village ruffians" into " wandering 
 savages and village ruffians"; "the cow was cut 
 into halves" into "the cow was cut into calves" ; 
 and " the militia is a great constitutional force " into 
 the militia is a great constitutional farce." 
 
 Indeed, when one thinks of the number of stages 
 through which the report of a Parliamentary speech 
 has to pass from the time the words leave the lips of 
 the speaker until they appear in print in the morning 
 paper, the wonder is that the report so often escapes 
 without any distortion of meaning in the process. 
 The speaker may have an indistinct enunciation, or 
 the reporter may have a difficulty in hearing him. 
 But even if the reporter has succeeded in getting the 
 words correctly in shorthand on his note-book, he 
 may misread them in transcription, for the forms of 
 shorthand are sometimes bewildering, even to the 
 writer ; or he may transcribe them in a longhand so 
 vile, or with such a plenitude of contractions, that the 
 telegraph-clerk cannot be blamed for confusing them 
 in transmission. And even if the report has been
 
 PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING. 369 
 
 plainly written, faulty signalling by careless tele- 
 graphists, or mechanical or electrical defects in the 
 wires, will make a sad mess of it in sending it to 
 newspapers in the provinces. Then there is the 
 ruthless blue pencil of the sub-editor to be taken 
 into account ; or it may be only in the last stages, 
 when the compositor " sets up " the report, or when 
 the reader corrects it in proof, that the error occurs. 
 It is, therefore, difficult to bring home the blame ot 
 any blunder in the provincial report of a Parliamentary 
 speech. 
 
 Dr. Magee, the late Archbishop of York, was 
 once reported to have said in the House of Lords 
 that " drunkenness is jolly. 11 Though no correction 
 appeared, it may be safely assumed that what his 
 Grace said was "drunkenness is folly. 11 On another / 
 occasion he was represented as having applied the 
 uncomplimentary epithets " hardened and insolent " 
 to advocates of teetotalism. The sub-editor, the 
 compositor, and the proof-reader may have had in 
 mind the supposed declaration of his Grace that 
 " drunkenness is jolly," and may, therefore, have 
 passed as natural this sweeping onslaught on the 
 enthusiastic friends of temperance. But the indignant 
 letters which, in this instance, the speaker received 
 from some teetotallers led him to explain publicly that 
 he had used the words " ardent and excellent" and not 
 "hardened and insolent. 11 Here is another extract '[ 
 from a reported speech of his: "There is nothing 
 ascertainable in what you call spiritual things. The 
 Post Office Telegraph, which best interprets this age, 
 tells you the most you can come to in that line of 
 thought." Readers were naturally mystified by this 
 
 P. B B
 
 370 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 extraordinary allusion to the Post Office Telegraph, 
 till they were informed next day that it was the Poet 
 Laureate to whom his Grace had referred. Curiously 
 enough, it was established beyond all doubt that this 
 prank was played in the Post Office itself. 
 
 In a discussion on a Factory Bill, one member, 
 according to a report in one of the provincial papers, 
 urged its acceptance on the House in order to put 
 a stop to the practice of "shaving factory boys to 
 death." During the last Parliament Mr. Gladstone 
 indulged one evening in some genial bantering of 
 Lord Hartington, and the following appeared in one 
 of the provincial reports of the speech : " Such is the 
 modesty of my noble friend that he shaves his head. 
 But I must insist upon placing upon his head the 
 crown which he is entitled to wear." A reference to 
 the report, published in the London journal, shows 
 that Lord Hartington did not shave his head, but only 
 shook it. 
 
 Telegraphic humour is not, however, always uncon- 
 scious or unintentional. There is a well-authenticated 
 story current in the Reporters' Gallery of a strange 
 freak of a telegraph-clerk in the transmission of the 
 report of a Parliamentary speech by Mr. Forster to 
 a daily paper in Bradford. The subject of the speech 
 was education ; the word " children " was frequently 
 used, and, for the sake of brevity, the clerk substituted 
 " kids," trusting that the alteration would be corrected 
 by the operator at the other end of the wire. The 
 message, however, was not only written, but printed 
 just as it was transmitted. Imagine the faces of the 
 right honourable gentleman's constituents when they 
 read next morning: "You know of Wordsworth's
 
 PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING. 37I 
 
 profound saying, ' The kid is father to the man.' 
 I need not dwell on the vital importance to the 
 community of imparting a sound moral and secular 
 education to kids in their impressionable years. It is 
 for the kids that this Bill is introduced, and asking 
 the House to remember that the kids of this genera- 
 tion will be the fathers and mothers of the next I 
 confidently appeal to it to support our proposals." 
 
 "These are all friends, well-known friends," ex- 
 claimed Mr. Cobden, after citing the names of many 
 authorities in support of the views he was laying 
 before the House : " They are all fiends, well-known 
 fiends," said a newspaper for him. One of the bishops 
 in the House of Lords was represented as having 
 spoken of the iniquities instead of the antiquities of an 
 old church. " My lords," remarked another prelate, 
 11 we take these children out of the streets ; we 
 watch over them, we clothe them, and we tend 
 them;" but his words were read, "we wash them, 
 we clothe them," etc. In an Irish report of a 
 debate in the House of Lords, after the execution of 
 Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien at Manchester in 1867, 
 the Earl of Mayo was reported to have " condemned 
 the Fenian executions as sanctimonious murder," 
 and in consequence much amazement was naturally 
 aroused in Ireland. But next day came the correc- 
 tion ; his lordship had condemned "the Fenian 
 processions as sanctioning murder." An Irish mem- 
 ber, describing one of the processions to the House, 
 was represented as having said : " The people rent 
 the air with ten thousand snouts." 
 
 The late Earl of Carnarvon was credited with 
 having said, " In these days clergymen are expected to 
 
 B B 2
 
 372 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 have the wisdom and learning of a journeyman tailor," 
 instead of " the wisdom and learning of Jeremy 
 Taylor" " Personally he violated the Lord's Day as 
 much as any member of the House," asserted a 
 member for Leicester in the local paper ; but when 
 some scandalised and indignant constituents de- 
 manded an explanation, it turned out that venerated 
 was the word he had used. The following sentence 
 appeared in a despatch that was read in the House 
 during the Crimean war : " Our troops had marched 
 across Belbec and drawn up in front of the North 
 forts." It appeared in some of the newspapers as : 
 " Our troops had marched across the Baltic and 
 drawn up in front of the North Foreland." 
 
 These witticisms may be attributed to the antics 
 of the telegraph wires, or to the carelessness of the 
 telegraph-clerks, the compositors, or the proof-readers. 
 But there are many blunders equally amusing to be 
 laid at the doors of the reporters. Most of them, 
 however, are due to the difficulty of hearing in the 
 Reporters' Galleries of both Houses of Parliament. 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury once referred to " M. Kenan's 
 pestilential book, ' Vie de Jesus ' " ; and the reporter 
 gave the adjective as penitential. An Irish member, 
 smarting as usual under a sense of his country's 
 wrongs, once told the House that " The constabulary 
 fired a shower of bullets on the people " ; but the 
 point of the honourable gentleman's denunciation of 
 Saxon tyranny was sadly blunted when it appeared 
 in print as "a shower of pullets" "We have a 
 greater stake in the land than politics," exclaimed 
 another Irish member ; and the reporter rendered it, 
 " We have a greater stake in the land than potatoes"
 
 PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING. 373 
 
 Ludicrous misconceptions of a speaker's words, 
 arising from imperfect hearing, frequently occur on 
 the floor of the House as well as in the Reporters' 
 Gallery. Here is an extract from a Parliamentary 
 report during the session of 1876 : 
 
 SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL said he had some experience 
 of the Glasgow Irish. 
 
 MAJOR O'GORMAN (indignantly) : " Mr. Speaker, I 
 rise to order, Sir ! I wish to know, Sir, whether the 
 hon. member is justified in stigmatising my beloved 
 country-people as ' the blasted Irish.' ' 
 
 SIR G. CAMPBELL : " Mr. Speaker " 
 
 THE SPEAKER : " Order, order ! I did not catch 
 the expression of the hon. member." 
 
 SIR G. CAMPBELL: "Will you allow me, Mr. 
 Speaker " 
 
 THE SPEAKER: " Order, order. But if the expres- 
 sion was used it is certainly unparliamentary and 
 most improper" (hear, hear). 
 
 SIR G. CAMPBELL : " Mr. Speaker, it is an entire 
 misconception of my remarks on the part of my 
 honourable and gallant friend. What I said was 
 'Glasgow Irish,' and not 'blasted Irish' ' (much 
 laughter and cheering). 
 
 Mr. Swift MacNeill once quoted in the House the 
 judicial declaration of the late Baron Dowse of the 
 Irish Bench that " The resident magistrates could no 
 more state a case than they could write a Greek ode" ; 
 and it was deliciously rendered by a reporter as, 
 " The resident magistrates could no more state a case 
 than they could ride a Greek goat." Baron Dowse 
 must have immensely enjoyed this rendering. He 
 stated, in the course of a judgment in an action for
 
 374 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 libel against a newspaper arising out of an incorrect 
 report, that once in a speech in the House of Commons 
 he had quoted Tennyson's line, 
 
 " Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay," 
 
 and read next day that he had edified his audience 
 with the following declaration 
 
 " Better fifty years of true love than a circus in Bombay." 
 
 Mr. Swift MacNeill figures in another amusing case 
 of mishearing in the Reporters' Gallery. He once 
 complained of having been roughly treated by the 
 constabulary while attending some evictions in his 
 constituency in Donegal. " But," said the honour- 
 able member, " I took measures to put a stop to this 
 conduct. Whenever I was hustled or knocked about 
 by a policeman, I simply chalked him, and by that 
 means was able to identify him afterwards." This 
 was rendered : " Whenever I was hustled or knocked 
 about by a policeman I simply choked him.' 11 The 
 innocent readers of that newspaper must have won- 
 dered at the privileges of members of Parliament which 
 permitted them to choke policemen with impunity. 
 When Mr. Balfour was Irish Secretary he figured in 
 a London paper as having charged some persons in 
 Ireland (including several members of Parliament) 
 with being " filthy with crime " ; the expression he 
 really used was guilty of crime. But Mr. John Bright 
 was the victim of what is perhaps the most curious 
 and the most serious instance of misreporting on 
 record. He was represented by one of the London 
 journals as having said in the House of Commons : 
 " But I deny altogether that the rich alone are quali- 
 fied to legislate for the poor ; and I say more, that
 
 PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING. 375 
 
 the poor alone are qualified to legislate for the rich." 
 The report was a total perversion, though of course 
 unintentional, of Mr. Bright's words, which were : 
 "But I deny altogether that the rich alone are qualified 
 to legislate for the poor, any more than that the poor 
 are qualified to legislate for the rich." On another 
 occasion also Mr. Bright suffered vicariously at the 
 reporter's hands, when a certain speaker was made to 
 refer to him as u the Gamecock of Birmingham" 
 instead of "the Gamaliel of Birmingham." There 
 was some speculation as to what Mr. Asquith meant 
 when in a speech he was reported as having denied 
 that the Liberal Government were in " a peacock 
 temper " in refusing the Lords' amendments to the 
 Employers' Liability Bill. It was pointed out sub- 
 sequently that the words he had used were "pique or 
 temper." 
 
 These blunders are sometime due, no doubt, to bad 
 handwriting of the reporters, or to the longhand con- 
 tractions they use in transcribing their shorthand 
 notes. Lord Chancellor Eldon once indignantly 
 denied in the House of Lords that he annually re- 
 ceived ^"5,000 in perquisites accruing from cases of 
 bankruptcy, and declared that never during any one 
 year had his income from that source exceeded three- 
 fourths of the amount. The reporter in his haste 
 used the contraction " 3/4 " for " three-fourths " ; the 
 printer thus interpreted him : " The learned lord 
 solemnly declared that during no one year of his office 
 had his income from that source exceeded three shillings 
 and four pence ." 
 
 The mistakes which occur in Parliamentary re- 
 porting in our days may chiefly be traced to the
 
 376 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 high pressure at which the work is necessarily done, 
 for the integrity no less than the ability of the 
 members of the Reporters' Gallery is universally 
 admitted. Reporters have political opinions like most 
 people ; they have also their favourities and aversions 
 among members of Parliament ; but unlike Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson, one of their most distinguished 
 predecessors, who confessed that in his day he took 
 care that the " Whig dogs " always had the worst of 
 it, they never allow their prejudices or their tastes to 
 colour their reports. Members of Parliament may 
 complain, and often do complain, of the scanty allow- 
 ance of print given to their speeches ; but they never 
 attempt to say that they have been wilfully mis- 
 represented in the newspapers of their political 
 opponents. That happy state of things has not 
 always existed. The records of the House of 
 Commons, for instance, show that O'Connell fre- 
 quently complained of the mutilation and suppression 
 of his speeches by the Parliamentary reporters. In 
 the session of 1833 he brought under the notice of the 
 House, as a breach of privilege, the report of one of 
 his speeches on Church tithes in Ireland, which had 
 appeared in a London paper not alone grievously 
 abbreviated, but, as he complained, in some passages 
 entirely perverted ; and threatened that unless he 
 received a satisfactory explanation he would move 
 that the proprietor of the newspaper be brought to the 
 Bar for a breach of privilege. The reporter waited 
 upon O'Connell and made a most remarkable defence. 
 He said that during his walk from Westminster to 
 Fleet Street, the rain, which was falling heavily at 
 the time, had most unfortunately streamed into his
 
 PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING. 377 
 
 V 
 
 pocket, and washed out the notes he had made of 
 O'Connell's speech. "Well," said O'Connell, "that 
 was the most extraordinary shower of rain I ever 
 heard of; for it not only washed out the speech I 
 made from your notebook, but washed in another and 
 an entirely different one. However, I accept your 
 explanation." 
 
 But O'Connell did not rest there. He gave the 
 Parliamentary reporters of the London Tory papers 
 what he called himself " a lick of the rough side of his 
 tongue," pouring on them all the powers of sarcasm 
 and vituperation of which he was an unrivalled 
 master, charging them with " cooking" their reports 
 to his detriment, or else ignoring his arguments, while 
 the arguments of his opponents were given fully. The 
 reporters retaliated. They sent a communication to 
 O'Connell that unless he made an ample apology for 
 his attack they would cease to report him, and the 
 Irish agitator having contemptuously refused to 
 retract, they carried out their threat. O'Connell's 
 name was not even mentioned in the report of the 
 next debate in which he took part. But if he were 
 not to be reported he would take care that no one 
 else was. At the opening of the next sitting he called 
 the Speaker's attention to the presence of strangers, 
 and under a rule of the House, which has since been 
 amended, the galleries were cleared. The reporters 
 then discreetly give way. 
 
 This conflict between O'Connell and the Press 
 Gallery is all the more curious because three-fourths 
 of the reporters at that time were Irishmen. William 
 Cobbett, who also got into difficulties with them, was 
 in the habit of referring to them derisively in his
 
 378 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 writings and speeches as the " rayporthers," in imita- 
 tion of the Irish pronunciation. They seem to have 
 been up to all sorts of pranks. The most famous of 
 the band was Peter Finnerty. He was the only 
 representative of the Press in the Strangers' Gallery 
 one evening in 1830, so that when his colleagues, 
 arriving towards the end of the sitting, asked him if 
 anything of importance had happened, he was able to 
 play a most audacious practical joke upon them. He 
 dictated to them an extraordinary speech on the 
 virtues of the Irish potato which he said had been 
 delivered by William Wilberforce, who was then one 
 of the most sedate and solemn members of the House, 
 and whose name is inseparably associated with a very 
 different subject. On the next morning accordingly 
 half London was amazed to read how the famous 
 champion of the negro slave had said : " Had it been 
 my lot to be born in Ireland, where my food would 
 have principally consisted of the potato, that most 
 nutritious and salubrious root, instead of being the 
 poor, infirm, shrivelled, stunted creature, you, Sir, and 
 honourable gentlemen, now behold^ in me, I would 
 have been a tall, stout, athletic man, and able to carry 
 an enormous weight." The speech was the one topic 
 of conversation throughout the day, and great was the 
 merriment it provoked. Wilberforce was naturally 
 annoyed at being made the laughing-stock of the 
 metropolis. He brought the matter under the notice 
 of the House, and denounced the report as a men- 
 dacious invention. "If I were capable of uttering 
 such nonsense as is here put into my mouth," said he 
 very truly, "instead of being a member of the House, 
 I should be the inmate of some lunatic asylum."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LAST SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 
 
 " MY lord, you can now read the Burial Service 
 over me, with any alteration you think proper." 
 These words were uttered by Lord Chancellor 
 Westbury as he passed out of the House of Lords 
 on July 5th, 1865, after having resigned the Great Seal 
 and made a most dignified farewell to public life. 
 He had been Lord Chancellor for four years in the 
 Palmerston Government. Charges of corrupt prac- 
 tices in the administration of the legal patronage at 
 his disposal were brought against him, the least of 
 the accusations being that he had unworthily used 
 his position to advance his relatives in the world. 
 Committees of both Houses of Parliament appointed 
 to inquire into the allegations found that, while the 
 imputations on his probity failed of proof, careless- 
 ness, or, as a resolution of censure adopted by the 
 House of Commons put it, " a laxity of practice and 
 a want of caution with regard to the public interests," 
 was established against him ; and he was conse- 
 quently obliged to retire. It was of Westbury it was 
 said, in reference to his judgment that the famous 
 Broad Church, or, as some people thought, the free- 
 thinking work, " Essays and Reviews," contained 
 no doctrine antagonistic to the teachings of the
 
 380 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Established Church, that " he dismissed Hell with 
 costs, and took away from the orthodox members of 
 the Church of England their last hope of everlasting 
 damnation." Two days before his fall there was a 
 debate in the House of Lords on the Nonconformist 
 grievance that only the Burial Service of the Church 
 of England was permitted in churchyards, and it was 
 to Lord Ebury, who had raised the question, that the 
 great lawyer made the remark which lit up with a 
 flash of humour the gloom of the termination of his 
 political career. 
 
 Of all the partings by statesmen from the Parlia- 
 mentary arena, the most impressive and dramatic was 
 that of the Earl of Chatham in 1778. Ten years 
 before, Chatham, broken in health, mentally and 
 physically, had resigned public life. While he had 
 held office British arms had been everywhere vic- 
 torious. "We are forced," said Horace Walpole, 
 " to ask every morning what victory there is, for fear 
 of missing one." He had opposed at first the ill- 
 fated policy of the Government of Lord North towards 
 the American Colonies, deprecating 'repression, advo- 
 cating conciliation ; but when the Duke of Richmond, 
 as principal Secretary of State, gave notice that on 
 April 7th, 1778, he would move in the House of Lords 
 an address to the King in favour of making peace 
 with the revolted Colonies, then in alliance with 
 France, Chatham rose from his sick bed to oppose 
 such a policy. The old statesman was carried down 
 to the House of Lords, haggard and emaciated, 
 wrapped in flannels. " Within his large wig," says 
 a contemporary writer, " little more was to be seen 
 than his aquiline nose and his penetrating eye." As
 
 SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 381 
 
 he spoke he leant heavily on his crutch. " I am old 
 and infirm," said he, " I have one foot more than 
 one foot in the grave. I have risen from my bed to 
 stand up in the cause of my country, perhaps never 
 again to speak in this House." So he went on in 
 broken sentences, with slow and feeble utterance. 
 But towards the end the unsubdued spirit within him 
 seemed to have overcome his feebleness of mind and 
 body. His faculties regained some of their old clear- 
 ness and force, his voice some of its old volume and 
 music. " My Lords," he cried in a burst of animated 
 eloquence which astonished and awed the listening 
 House, " his Majesty succeeded to an Empire as 
 great in extent as its reputation was unsullied. Shall 
 we tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious 
 surrender of its rights and fairest possessions ? Shall 
 this great kingdom fall prostrate before the house of 
 Bourbon ? Shall the people that seventeen years ago 
 was the terror of the world now stoop so low as to 
 tell its ancient inveterate enemy ' Take all we have ; 
 only give us peace ' ? It is impossible." The Duke 
 of Richmond replied. Chatham rose again, but before 
 he could utter a word he fell back on the bench, and, 
 apparently in the agonies of death, was carried out of 
 the Chamber. The startled and sorrowing House 
 instantly adjourned. The dying statesman was re- 
 moved to Downing Street, and thence, in a few days, 
 to his home at Hayes, where he expired on May nth 
 following. 
 
 Happily, there was no suggestion of the Burial 
 Service in the last appearance of Chatham's great son, 
 William Pitt, in the House of Commons. Chatham 
 was seventy, and the hand of death was heavy upon
 
 382 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 him on that memorable April 7th, 1778. Pitt was only 
 forty-seven, and in good health, on July I2th, 1805 on 
 which day Parliament was prorogued when he was 
 seen in the House of Commons for the last time. His 
 last speech was delivered on July gth, in resisting a 
 motion by Whitbread for leave to bring in a Bill to 
 enable the Committee of the House appointed to draw 
 up articles of impeachment against Lord Melville to 
 sit during the recess. Melville was First Lord of the 
 Admiralty in Pitt's Administration, and had just 
 been condemned by the House for malpractices while 
 Treasurer to the Navy, an office which he had rilled 
 previously lor many years. Pitt's argument was that 
 the Bill was a breach of the Prerogative of the Crown. 
 "The motion, if agreed to, would amount to an indirect 
 inroad upon the Constitution," said he. " Nothing 
 can be more certain than that his Majesty possesses 
 constitutionally the Prerogative of putting an end to 
 our deliberations either by proroguing or dissolving 
 Parliament, and that Prerogative would be virtually 
 taken away by a measure of the nature of that pro- 
 posed." Pitt's argument told ; the v motion was with- 
 drawn. He, however, agreed to a resolution that the 
 impeachment of Melville was not to be discontinued, 
 notwithstanding any prorogation or dissolution of 
 Parliament. 
 
 The final appearance of Pitt in public life was at 
 the Lord Mayor's banquet on November gth of the 
 same year. The news of Trafalgar had reached 
 London the day before. Pitt's carriage was drawn 
 by an enthusiastic crowd of admirers from Downing 
 Street to the Guildhall, amid the ringing of bells and 
 the acclamations of the people. At the dinner his
 
 SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 383 
 
 health was drunk amid uproarious acclamations as 
 the Saviour of Europe. " Pitt replied," writes Lord 
 Rosebery, in his monograph of the statesman, " in 
 the noblest, the tersest, and the last of all his 
 speeches." It was only a few words. " I return 
 you many thanks for the honour you have done me," 
 he said. " But Europe is not to be saved by any 
 single man. England has saved herself by her 
 exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her 
 example." He died ten weeks later, on January 
 23rd, 1806. 
 
 The same note of patriotism was struck in the last 
 speech which Pitt's eloquent Whig opponent, Richard 
 Brinsley Sheridan, made seven years later in the 
 House of Commons. Such was the regard in which 
 this brilliant and versatile man wit, dramatist, and 
 orator was held that he was the object of the most 
 unique compliment that was ever proposed to any 
 person in the House of Commons. On the evening 
 of February 24th, 1809, the House was engaged in 
 a most important debate on the campaign against 
 Napoleon in Spain. George Canning, the Foreign 
 Secretary, was speaking on behalf of the Government. 
 Suddenly the windows of the Chamber were lit up by 
 a ruddy illumination. " Fire, fire ! " cried some of the 
 members in alarm, interrupting Canning. Sheridan, 
 who sat on the Front Opposition Bench, leant across 
 the Table, and whispered to the Ministers that Drury 
 Lane theatre which he had only just built and 
 opened was ablaze. Lord Temple at once moved 
 the adjournment of the House as a mark of sympathy 
 with one of its most distinguished members in the 
 calamity that had befallen him. The first to oppose
 
 384 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 the motion was Sheridan himself. He was grateful 
 for the kind impulse which prompted the suggestion, 
 but the calamity was not of a nature that ought to 
 interrupt the business of the country. Still the motion 
 was persisted in, and was supported by several mem- 
 bers, till a few sentences of good sense from William 
 Wilberforce decided the House to drop it and go on 
 with the debate. " If our adjournment would have 
 the effect of putting out the blaze, it would be good 
 to do so," he said. " But what an exhibition we 
 would make of ourselves before the world if on an 
 alarm of fire we were to adjourn a debate on such an 
 important matter." 
 
 It was in a debate on the same question that, on 
 July 2ist, 1812, Sheridan delivered the last of his 
 brilliant Parliamentary orations. He strenuously 
 urged that the long and bloody struggle against 
 the domination of Napoleon should be waged to the 
 bitter end. England, with all her faults, he said, 
 was the greatest nation that ever existed ; her con- 
 stitution, wanting though it was in many reforms, 
 was the best security for freedom that human wisdom 
 had ever given to man. Nevertheless, she might 
 perish in the conflict. "Yet," he concluded, " after 
 the general subjugation and ruin of Europe, should 
 there exist an independent historian to record the 
 awful events that produced the universal calamity, 
 that historian, after describing the greatness and 
 glory of Britain, would say : * She fell, and with her 
 fell all the best securities for the charities of human 
 life, for the power, and honour, the fame, the glory, 
 and the liberties of herself and the whole civilised 
 world.' "
 
 SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 385 
 
 Sheridan failed to get returned to Parliament at 
 the General Election of that year. He died in 
 poverty in 1816, but his remains were borne by 
 princes, dukes, and earls to a grave in Westminster 
 Abbey, showing, as Moore put it : 
 
 " How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, 
 
 Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow." 
 
 About five weeks before Sheridan cast the glamour 
 of his eloquence for the last time over the House of 
 Commons, the Lobby outside the Chamber was the 
 scene of a terrible tragedy. Spencer Perceval, the 
 Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 was assassinated there on Monday, May nth, 1812. 
 As he entered the crowded Lobby from Westminster 
 Hall on his way to the House, which was sitting at 
 the time, a man hiding behind a door fired a pistol 
 at him. The Prime Minister, shot in the back, 
 staggered forward towards the door of the House 
 of Commons, and, with a cry of agony, fell upon his 
 face. The members in the Lobby rushed to his 
 assistance, only to find him dead. " Where is the 
 villain who fired ? " said one of the officers of the 
 House. "I am the unfortunate man," replied the 
 assassin, who held the still smoking pistol in his 
 hand. He was brought immediately to the Bar of 
 the House of Commons, and interrogated by the 
 Speaker ; but refused to answer any of the questions, 
 and was committed to prison. It transpired that he 
 was a Liverpool trader in straitened circumstances, 
 named John Bellingham. He had been to St. Peters- 
 burg, where he suffered some injury in trade, and 
 as he conceived his claim against the Russian 
 
 p. c c
 
 3 86 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Government had been neglected by Lord Granville, 
 the British Ambassador, he was loitering about the 
 Houses of Parliament to shoot him, when the Prime 
 Minister crossed his path. The man was clearly a 
 lunatic. He was, however, executed within a week. 
 
 On the Friday before the murder, May 8th, Spencer 
 Perceval made his last speech in the House of Com- 
 mons. The subject of debate was a motion in favour 
 of Parliamentary Reform, and replying to some of its 
 supporters, who taunted him with clinging to office 
 though he had been frequently placed in a minority, 
 Spencer Perceval said : "I deny the position that 
 a Minister ought to resign because he is left in 
 a minority on some occasions, while his measures 
 generally have the support of Parliament." 
 
 The most pathetic leave-taking which the House of 
 Commons ever witnessed was, probably, that of 
 Daniel O'Connell. The great Irish demagogue had 
 been for years a commanding personality, mentally as 
 well as physically, in the House. He had been the 
 chief figure in many a noisy scene. He had often 
 thrilled the House by his superb eloquence and the 
 music of his voice ; made it laugh by his rollicking 
 humour ; and moved it to anger by his stinging 
 sarcasm and coarse vituperation. He appeared in the 
 House on April 3rd, 1846, to speak against a Coercion 
 Bill, which had been introduced to cope with the 
 disturbed condition of Ireland. The change which 
 had come over him was pitiable in the extreme. He 
 was suffering from softening of the brain, the disease 
 from which he ultimately died. The once tall and 
 stalwart form was bent and wasted ; the once loud 
 swelling voice was broken and querulous. He spoke,
 
 SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 387 
 
 however, for nearly two hours, standing in the place 
 of the Leader of the Opposition at the table. Benjamin 
 Disraeli, alluding to the scene in his " Life of Lord 
 George Bentinck," says : " To the House generally 
 it was a performance in dumb show : a feeble old man 
 muttering before a table ; but respect for the great 
 Parliamentary personage kept all as orderly as if the 
 fortunes of a Party hung upon his rhetoric ; and 
 though not an accent reached the gallery, means were 
 taken that next morning the country should not lose 
 the last, and not the least interesting, speech of one 
 who had so long occupied and agitated the minds of 
 nations." The speech is reported in the first person 
 in " Hansard," and occupies over eighteen pages. In 
 it O'Connell urged that the extension of the protection 
 of tenant-right, which prevailed as a custom in Ulster, 
 to the farmers of the whole of Ireland would do more 
 to pacify the country than all the Coercion Acts that 
 could be passed. 
 
 But Disraeli was mistaken in saying that this was 
 O'Connell's last speech in the House of Commons. 
 His final appearance in the Parliamentary arena was 
 on February 8th, 1847. The House was occupied with 
 a Bill introduced by Lord John Russell, the Prime 
 Minister, for the relief of the famine which was then 
 ravaging Ireland. O'Connell was feebler still in 
 health and more dejected in spirits. Members were 
 saddened by his tottering steps and vacant looks. 
 "Hansard" in introducing the brief report of his 
 remarks said : " Mr. O'Connell was understood to say," 
 indicating that he was imperfectly heard by the 
 reporters. His speech was an appeal to Parliament 
 " to interpose generously, munificently he would say, 
 
 c c 2
 
 3 88 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 enormously" for the rescue of his country. "Ire- 
 land," he said in his last words, "is in your hands, 
 is in your power ; if you do not save her she cannot 
 save herself." He then left the House and set out 
 on a pilgrimage to Rome, by slow stages, only to die 
 at Genoa on May I5th following. 
 
 It is a curious coincidence that the last words of the 
 second greatest Irish leader of the nineteenth century, 
 Charles Stewart Parnell, after a stormy career in 
 Parliament, were likewise an appeal for mercy and 
 pity, delivered in the shadow of defeat and disaster. 
 On August 3rd, 1891, the House of Commons saw 
 Parnell for the last time. There was a debate on 
 the Appropriation Bill on behalf of amnesty to the 
 prisoners convicted of dynamite outrages. " These 
 conspiracies, even in America, have been abandoned 
 for many years," said Parnell in the concluding sen- 
 tences of his final speech; "and nobody now wishes 
 to blow up the British Empire with dynamite an 
 idea which has passed out of the view of the most 
 extreme Irishman. These events, terrible as no doubt 
 they were, have passed away ; and could not a powerful 
 Government of a powerful nation consider the case 
 with clemency and mercy ? " A few days after, Par- 
 liament was prorogued. Two months later Parnell 
 was dead, leaving, like O'Connell, his cause in the 
 dust and his land torn and distracted. The fate 
 of these once puissant Irish Parliamentarians recalls 
 the words of the ancient Gaelic bard in reference 
 to the Irish chieftains : " They went forth to the 
 battle, but they always fell." 
 
 One of the most notable of last speeches in the House 
 of Commons, both by reason of its own excellence
 
 SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 389 
 
 and the circumstances attending its delivery, was 
 that of Sir Robert Peel. The occasion was a debate 
 in June, 1850, on the foreign policy of Lord Palmer- 
 ston, who by sending the Fleet to blockade Greece for 
 non-compliance with the demands for compensation 
 for acts of violence towards British subjects had pro- 
 voked the resentment of France and Russia. Palmer- 
 ston made a memorable defence of his policy in the 
 famous " Dom Pacifico " speech which lasted over four 
 hours and a half. " As the Roman in days of old held 
 himself free from indignity when he could say Civis 
 Romanus sum," cried the old statesman in his perora- 
 tion, " so also a British subject, in whatever land he 
 may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and 
 the strong arm of England will protect him against 
 injustice and wrong." The concluding night of the 
 debate was Friday, June 28th, 1850. Peel rose to 
 speak at one o'clock on Saturday morning. He con- 
 demned Palmerston's treatment of foreign relations. 
 " Which is the wisest policy ? " he asked, " to attempt 
 to interfere with the institutions and measures of other 
 countries not bordering on our own, out of an abstract 
 love for constitutional government ; or to hold that 
 doctrine maintained by Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, Lord 
 Grenville, Mr. Canning and Lord Castlereagh, that 
 the true policy of this country is non-intervention in 
 the affairs of others ? " To that question he returned 
 an answer in the last words he ever addressed to the 
 House of Commons: "I believe the latter to be by 
 far the wiser course, the least likely to involve us in 
 trouble and embarrassment, the best calculated to 
 enable us to promote peace, to make commerce 
 prosperous, and to prevent nations with whom we
 
 390 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 have commercial and international relations from 
 entertaining jealousies of us." Late on that Saturday 
 afternoon, Peel left his residence for his usual ride in 
 Hyde Park. Going up Constitution Hill the horse 
 became restive and Peel was thrown violently to the 
 ground. He died on the following Tuesday night, 
 and on Wednesday the House of Commons adjourned 
 as a tribute of respect to his memory. 
 
 It was on June I5th, 1852, that Peel's steadfast 
 friend and colleague, the Duke of Wellington, ad- 
 dressed the House of Lords for the last time. A Bill 
 for the reorganisation of the ancient constitutional 
 force of this country, the Militia, was before the House. 
 Wellington was always exceedingly modest in his 
 reference to that crowning event of his great career, 
 the victory of Waterloo, but in this, his final speech, 
 supporting the Militia Bill he described the fight as 
 " the battle of giants." " Take the battle of Water- 
 loo," said he. " Look at the number of British troops 
 at that battle. I can tell your Lordships that in that 
 battle there were sixteen battalions of Hanoverian 
 Militia just formed under the command of a nobleman, 
 the late Hanoverian Ambassador here, Count Kill- 
 mansegge, who behaved most admirably, and there 
 were many other foreign troops who nobly aided us in 
 that battle avowedly the battle of giants, whose 
 operations helped to bring about the victory which 
 was followed by the peace of Europe that has now 
 lasted for thirty-two or thirty-three years." Just three 
 months later the great soldier died. 
 
 The last words which Richard Cobden uttered in 
 the House of Commons are peculiarly interesting. 
 On July 22nd, 1864, he moved a resolution protesting
 
 SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 391 
 
 against the great extension of Government manu- 
 facturing establishments, for, as Mr. John Morley 
 points out, in his biography of the great Free Trader, 
 he accepted Burke's principle that the Government 
 should not be allowed to make for itself any article 
 which can be obtained from private producers in a 
 competitive market. In concluding a long speech 
 Cobden asserted that as a consequence of the practice 
 which he was condemning the armaments of the 
 nation were in a most reprehensible condition ; and 
 said finally : 
 
 " We are governed in this country I do not use the 
 word invidiously by a class, and it is a very narrow 
 class indeed, which forms the personnel of our Adminis- 
 trations. I do not complain of that, inasmuch as our 
 manufacturing and trading community do not seem 
 disposed to educate their sons to compete for the 
 prizes of official life. But I wish you to bear in mind 
 that by such a neglect and mismanagement as you 
 have fallen into in regard to your artillery and ships 
 you may produce the most serious consequences. I 
 know of nothing so calculated some day to produce a 
 democratic revolution as for the proud and combative 
 people of this country to find themselves, in this vital 
 matter of their defence, sacrificed, through the mis- 
 management and neglect of the class to whom, with 
 so much liberality, they have confided the care and 
 future destinies of the country. You have brought 
 this upon yourselves by undertaking to be producers 
 and manufacturers. I advise you in future to place 
 yourselves entirely in dependence upon the private 
 manufacturing resources of the country. If you
 
 39 2 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 want gunpowder, artillery, small arms, or the hulls of 
 ships of war, let it be known that you depend upon 
 the private enterprise of the country, and you will 
 get them. At all events you will absolve yourselves 
 from the responsibility of undertaking to do things 
 which you are not competent to do, and you will be 
 entitled to say to the British people : ' Our fortunes 
 as a Government and Nation are indissolubly united, 
 and we will rise or fall, flourish or fade together, 
 according to the energy, enterprise, and ability of 
 the great body of the manufacturing and industrious 
 community.' ' 
 
 Cobden died on April 2nd, 1865. On October i8th 
 in the same year Palmerston passed away. He ad- 
 dressed the House of Commons, in which he had sat 
 since 1806, for the last time on May 23rd, 1865. Some 
 characteristic observations, cynical and humorous, 
 with regard to newspapers formed the burden of his 
 remarks. The Times had given an accurate forecast 
 of Gladstone's Budget proposals of that year. The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reply to a question as 
 to how The Times had obtained its information, had 
 exonerated the officials of the Civil Service. Palmer- 
 ston was subsequently asked as Prime Minister whether 
 it was not probable that some Cabinet Minister had 
 disclosed the secret ; and he indignantly disclaimed 
 the idea that any person belonging to any department 
 of the Government was responsible. For his part he 
 thought it was due to an exercise of natural sagacity 
 by The Times. " Newspapers," said he, " live on the 
 future as well as on the past and present, and it is 
 their business to make guesses which sometimes are
 
 SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 393 
 
 right and sometimes are wrong. When they are 
 right they gain credit ; when they are wrong people 
 soon forget their mistakes." Parliament was dis- 
 solved in July of that year, and the country again 
 returned Palmerston to power. It was his seven- 
 teenth Parliament, but he never sat in it. He died on 
 October i&th, 1865, within a few days of completing 
 his eighty-first year. 
 
 The farewell words of the Earl of Derby " the 
 great Lord Derby " as he is called in the House of 
 Lords on June I7th, 1869, were most striking. They 
 formed the peroration to an eloquent speech in defence 
 of the State Church in Ireland, in the debate on the 
 second reading of Gladstone's measure for the dis- 
 establishment and disendowment of that Church, and 
 were as follows : 
 
 " My Lords, I am now an old man, and like many 
 of your Lordships I have already passed the threescore 
 years and ten. My official life is entirely closed, my 
 political life is nearly so, and in the course of nature 
 my natural life cannot now be long. That natural 
 life commenced with a bloody suppression of a formid- 
 able rebellion in Ireland, which immediately preceded 
 the Union between the two countries. And may God 
 grant that its close may not witness a renewal of the 
 one and a dissolution of the other ! I do not pretend, 
 my Lords, to be able to penetrate the veil which hides 
 from mortal vision the events of the future ; but what- 
 ever may be the issue of this great controversy what- 
 ever may be the result of your Lordships' present 
 deliberations I say, for my own part, even if it should 
 be that for the last time I now have the honour of
 
 394 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 addressing you, that it will be to my dying day a 
 satisfaction to me that I have been enabled to lift up 
 my voice against the adoption of a measure of which 
 I believe the political folly is only equalled by its 
 moral injustice." 
 
 Derby's words were prophetic of the approaching 
 close of his career. He died on October 23rd, 1869, 
 within four months of his last speech, after the Irish 
 Church Act had received the Royal Assent, but before 
 the State Church of Ireland had actually ceased to 
 exist. 
 
 The last night in the House of Commons of Disraeli 
 the successor of Derby in the leadership of the 
 Tory Party was August nth, 1876. He was Prime 
 Minister, seventy-one years of age, and the strain of 
 leading the House of Commons, with its late sittings, 
 was telling upon him. But no one who heard his 
 speech that night in the debate on the Bulgarian 
 atrocities suspected that it was his last appearance. 
 The Government were supporting Turkey, he con- 
 tended, purely in the interests of the British Empire. 
 " Those," he said, " who suppose that England would 
 uphold, or at this moment, particularly, is upholding 
 Turkey, from blind superstition, and from a want of 
 sympathy with the highest aspirations of humanity, 
 are deceived. What our duty is at this critical 
 moment is to maintain the Empire of England. Nor 
 will we ever agree to any step, though it may obtain 
 for a moment comparative quiet and a false prosperity, 
 that hazards the existence of that Empire." The 
 next morning, to the astonishment of the country, 
 his elevation to the House of Lords as the Earl of
 
 SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 395 
 
 Beaconsfield was announced. His last speech in the 
 Upper Chamber was delivered on March 4th, 1881 six 
 weeks before he died when he protested with all his 
 old eloquence and earnestness against the evacuation 
 of Candahar by the British troops. Still, even if it 
 should be abandoned our hold on India would, he said, 
 remain. " My Lords, the key of India is not Herat 
 or Candahar," said he in memorable phrases. " The 
 key of India is London. The majesty of Sovereignty, 
 the spirit and vigour of your Parliaments, the inex- 
 haustible resources of a free, an ingenious and a 
 determined people these are the keys of India." 
 
 Most of the famous statesmen who have passed 
 away were not conscious, during the delivery of the 
 speeches which proved to be their last, that their 
 voices would be heard no more in the Parliamentary 
 arena. Gladstone, however, was aware on March ist, 
 1894, that it was his last appearance in the House of 
 Commons. The year before, the Lords had rejected 
 his second Home Rule Bill. Now, on March ist, their 
 amendments to the Parish Councils Bill came before 
 the Commons. Gladstone, as Prime Minister, advised 
 the House to agree to the amendments, and then 
 launched forth into a vigorous and stirring attack 
 upon the hereditary Chamber. He said : 
 
 " The issue which is raised between a deliberative 
 assembly elected by the votes of more than 6,000,000 
 people, and a deliberative assembly occupied by many 
 men of virtue, by many men of talent, of course with 
 considerable diversities and varieties, is a controversy 
 which, when once raised, must go forward to an issue. 
 The issue has been postponed long postponed, I
 
 396 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 rejoice to say ; it has been postponed in many cases 
 to a considerable degree by discretion, circumspection 
 and reserve in the use of enormous privileges which 
 the House of Lords, on various occasions in my 
 recollection, in the time of the Duke of Wellington, 
 Lord Aberdeen, and other periods, have shown ; but 
 I am afraid, sir, that the epoch, the age, of that re- 
 serve and circumspection may have gone by. I will 
 not abandon all hope of it. But I must say of the 
 present, I do not like to say that the situation is intoler- 
 able, because that is a hard and may seem a dictatorial 
 word but I think honourable gentlemen opposite 
 must feel, as I feel, that in some way or other a solu- 
 tion will have to be found for this tremendous con- 
 trariety and incessant conflict upon matters of high 
 principle and profound importance between the repre- 
 sentatives of the people and those who fill a nominated 
 or non-elected Chamber." 
 
 There had been rumours that Gladstone was about 
 to retire from public life. But as the crowded House 
 listened to the still ringing voice, felt the glowing 
 passion of the speech, and witnessed the extra- 
 ordinary vigour and energy with which it was de- 
 livered, it became the general impression that the 
 aged statesman, despite the burden of his eighty- 
 five years, would not quit the political arena yet until 
 he had another encounter with the House of Lords. 
 But the House of Commons was really to see him no 
 more. That was on a Friday. The House imme- 
 diately adjourned after the speech till the Monday 
 following, March 5th, when Parliament was prorogued 
 and the resignation of Gladstone was authoritatively
 
 SPEECHES OF GREAT PARLIAMENTARIANS. 397 
 
 announced. I was in the Reporters' Gallery on that 
 Friday evening, March ist, 1894. After the Speaker 
 had left the chair, and while the ancient cry 01 
 the doorkeeper : " Who goes home ? " was ringing 
 through the Chamber, Gladstone on his way out 
 paused for a moment on the first step of the dais 
 containing the Speaker's chair, and surveyed, in one 
 swift but parting glance with, no doubt, tear- 
 bedimmed eyes and aching heart the scene of sixty 
 years of political storm and stress, of enduring 
 triumphs in oratory and legislation, before turning 
 away from it for ever.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ABERCROMBY. Mr. Speaker, 312, 319, 
 
 326, 332 
 Aberdeen, 'Lord : 
 
 Coalition Government, 1852, 53 
 
 Queen Victoria's letter to, 58 
 
 Russell, Lord John, Letter to, 304 
 Absenteeism from the House, 273 
 Addison, Joseph, Maiden Speech, 224 
 Albemarle, Lord, Claim to travel in 
 
 State Coach with Queen, 39 
 " Alleged " as a ParliamentaryExpres- 
 
 sion, Ruling, 336 
 America. See United States. 
 Annunciators, 113 
 Army : 
 
 Flogging Queen Victoria's Views 
 on, 72 
 
 Purchase Abolition, Exercise of 
 
 Royal Prerogative, 69 
 Arrest : 
 
 "Privilege of Members, 148 
 
 Royal Servants exempted from, 12 
 Ashley, Lord, Maiden Speech, 226 
 
 BAGEHOT, Walter, 2, 18 
 
 "Balance of Power," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 299 
 Balfour, A. T. : 
 
 " Hansard," Remarks on, 361 
 
 Maiden Speech, 248 
 Bankrupts disabled from sitting in 
 
 Parliament, 149 
 Barrow, J. H., 358 
 Bateson, Sir Robert, Unparliamentary 
 
 Expressions used by, 313 
 Bath-rooms in the House of Com- 
 mons, 122 
 
 Beaconsfield. See Disraeli. 
 Beards, Wearing in the Navy Queen 
 
 Victoria's Suggestions, 70 
 " Beastly Bellowings," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 324 
 
 " Bedchamber Question," 1839, 29 
 Bellamy's Tavern, 109 
 
 Descriptions of, 114, 116, 131 
 "Big Ben," Refrain supposed to be 
 
 chimed by, 86 
 
 Bill of Rights, Protestant Succession 
 
 Enactments, 5 
 Bills, Royal Assent to, i 
 " Black Rod," 101, 102 
 Blackstone, Sir William, on the 
 
 Rights and Disabilities of the 
 
 Sovereign, 4, 6 
 Board of Green Cloth, 12 
 Bradlaugh, Charles, 204 
 Brand, Mr. Speaker, 321, 323, 333, 
 
 334 
 Bright, John, 280 
 
 Errors in Reporting Remarks by, 
 
 374 
 
 Brougham, Lord, 119: 
 Celebrated Sayings by, 286 
 Great Seal, dividing with Lord 
 
 Lyndhurst, 171, 176 
 Maiden Speech, 223 
 " Potations pottle deep " Anecdote, 
 
 133 
 
 Unparliamentary Expressions used 
 
 by, 309 
 Buckingham, Duke of, Quarrel with 
 
 Lord Brougham in the House, 134 
 Burke, Edmund, 355 : 
 
 Maiden Speech, 230 
 Business of the House, Procedure 
 
 Rules, 252 
 Byron, Lord, Maiden Speech, 235 
 
 CAIRNS, Lord, and Lord Selborne 
 
 dividing Great Seal, 177 
 " Call of the House," 273 
 " Calumnious " as a Parliamentary 
 
 Expression, Ruling, 327 
 Campbell, Lord, and Lord Chelms- 
 
 ford dividing Great Seal, 177 
 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H., Phrases 
 
 coined by, 292 
 Canning, George : 
 
 Celebrated Sayings by, 294, 297 
 
 Maiden Speech, 237 
 
 Queen Victoria's Letter on Indian 
 Mutiny to, 59 
 
 Unparliamentary Expressions used 
 by. 39
 
 400 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 "Cant of Patriotism," Origin of 
 Phrase, 287 
 
 Cap of Maintenance, 99 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 282, 291 
 
 Catering : 
 
 Bellamy's "Kitchen," 113 
 New Palace, Arrangements, 121 
 
 " Cave of Adullam," Origin of Phrase, 
 280 
 
 Cecil, Lord Robert. See Salisbury. 
 
 " Chaff- wax," 160 
 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, Maiden Speech, 
 247 
 
 Chatham, Earl of, Last Speech made 
 by, 389 
 
 Chelmsford, Lord, and Lord Camp- 
 bell, dividing Great Seal, 177 
 
 Chiltern Hundreds, 276 
 
 Churchill, Lord Randolph, 323 
 
 Clapping a Member's Speech, In- 
 stance of, 355 
 
 Coalition Government, 1852, 53 
 
 Coalition Governments, Disraeli on, 
 283 
 
 Cobbett, William : 
 Maiden Speech, 222 
 Unparliamentary Expressions used 
 by, 314 
 
 " Cobbett's Parliamentary History," 
 
 346 
 
 Cobden, Richard: 
 Atmosphere of the House, Remarks 
 
 on, 124 
 Errors in reporting Speeches by, 
 
 37i 
 
 Last Speech, 391 
 Maiden Speech, 249 
 
 Cochrane, Lord, Privilege Case, 151 
 
 Conservative, Origin of Term, 305 
 
 Consort of the Sovereign, Rights of, 
 II 
 
 Constitutional Presence of the 
 Sovereign in Parliament and Law 
 Courts, 17 
 
 Corn Laws Repeal, 39 
 
 Counting the House, Motion for, 
 261 
 
 Craig, Gibson, Maiden Speech of, 
 228 
 
 Creevy Libel Action Breach of Privi- 
 lege, 152 
 
 Crimean War, " Day of Humilia- 
 tion," 56 
 
 Crown, Imperial, carried at Edward 
 VII's first Parliament, 98 
 
 Crown, Succession andTenure.Condi- 
 tions of, 5 
 
 Cumberland, Duke of, 136 
 
 Current Phrases of Politics, 278 
 
 "DAY of Humiliation" for Success 
 in Crimean War, 56 
 
 Death of the Sovereign not recog- 
 nised, 4 
 
 Death Duties and Probate, Sovereign 
 exempted from, 10 
 
 Debates in Parliament : 
 Hansard. See that Title. 
 Sovereign's Personal Opinion ex- 
 cluded, 22 
 Titles of Courtesy used in, 269 
 
 Denison, Mr. Speaker, 329, 331, 
 
 337 
 Derby, Lord : 
 
 Celebrated Sayings by, 279 
 
 Last Speech, 393 
 
 Queen Victoria's Letters to, 60 
 Dickens, Charles, Bellamy's Tavern 
 
 described by, 116 
 Disabilities of the Sovereign, i 
 " Dished the Whigs," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 281 
 Disraeli, Benjamin : 
 
 Audience, House of Commons as, 
 Remarks, 215 
 
 Celebrated Sayings of, 283 
 
 Cobden Commemoration Debate, 
 Speech at, 350 
 
 Gisborne's Break-down in the 
 House, Description of, 120 
 
 " Hansard," Remarks on, 343, 363 
 
 Last Speech, 394 
 
 Letter to a Lady at Court, 75 
 
 Maiden Speech, 216 
 
 Presentation of Address, Letter on, 
 156 
 
 Queen Victoria's Affection for, 74 
 Distraint of Goods not made upon 
 
 Sovereign, 9 
 Divisions in the House of Commons, 
 
 266 
 Dress formerly worn by Members, 
 
 in 
 
 Drummond, Thomas, 286 
 " Dunciad of Politics," Hansard de- 
 scribed as, 363 
 Dundas, Henry, 23, 117 
 
 "EDUCATE our Masters," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 281 
 Eldon, Lord, and the Great Seal, 
 
 Story of, 171 
 
 Erskine, Thomas, Maiden Speech,236 
 Etiquette of the House, 253 
 " Every Man has his Price," Origin 
 
 of Phrase, 285 
 Exile of Subject, Sovereign unable to 
 
 compel, 14 
 Expulsion of Members, 210
 
 INDEX. 
 
 401 
 
 FINCH, Lord, 226 
 
 Flogging in the Army, Queen 
 Victoria's Views, 72 
 
 Foreign Legislatures, Oaths and 
 Declarations, 211 
 
 Forster, W. E., Queen Victoria's 
 Letter on Death of, 78 
 
 Fox, Charles James : 
 Careless Attire of, 1 1 1 
 Maiden Speech, 231 
 
 Francis, Sir Philip, Failure as Par- 
 liamentary Speaker, 234 
 
 Free Access to Sovereign, Privilege 
 
 of, 155 
 
 French Chamber of Deputies, Cost 
 of Toilet Appliances, 123 
 
 GEORGE III., " Scotch Metaphysics " 
 
 Anecdote, 23 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, Failure as Parlia- 
 mentary Speaker, 233 
 Gisborne's Break-down duringSpeech, 
 
 Disraeli on, 120 
 Gladstone, W. E. : 
 
 Celebrated Sayings of, 24 
 
 Churchill, Lord R., characterised 
 by, 323 
 
 Death of, Queen's Message, 80 
 
 Hat speaking without his Hat on, 
 Anecdote, 260 
 
 Irish Disestablishment Scheme, 64 
 
 Last Speech, 395 
 
 Maiden Speech, 242 
 
 Marriage of Princess Louise, 
 Speeches on, 14 
 
 Relations with Queen Victoria, 73 
 
 Slavery, Speech on, 243 
 
 Unparliamentary Expressions used 
 
 by, 323 
 Gordon, General, Queen Victoria's 
 
 Letter on Death of, 76 
 Graham, Sir James, 280 
 Great Seal, 159 
 
 " Great Snoring" Bill Anecdote, 131 
 "Greatest Happiness of greatest 
 
 Number," Origin of Phrase, 281 
 Grey, Earl, 135 
 
 Guildford, Lord, Maiden Speech, 224 
 Gully, Mr. Speaker, 336 
 
 "HANSARDISING," 356 
 
 Hansard's Debates, 343 
 Balfour, A. J. on, 361 
 Cobbett's Parliamentary History 
 
 preceding, 346 
 Commercial Failure of, 358 
 Disraeli on, 363 
 Gladstone on, 360 
 P. 
 
 Hansard's Debates continued. 
 Hansard Publishing Union, Bank- 
 ruptcy of, 359 
 State Subsidies, 359 
 Stockdale v. Hansard, Privilege 
 
 Case, 153 
 
 Harcourt, Sir William : 
 Errors in reporting Speeches of, 
 
 367 
 
 Maiden Speech, 244 
 Wasting Time, Charges made by, 
 
 333 
 Hats: 
 " Colourable Substitute," Speaker's 
 
 Ruling, 257 
 Humours of the Parliamentary Hat, 
 
 258 
 
 Seat retained by means of, 256 
 Tall Hats worn by Peers in the 
 
 House, 125, 144 
 Healy. T. M., 335,338 
 Heralds at Edward VII. 's First Par- 
 liament, 96 
 
 " Home Rule," Origin of Term, 291 
 House of Commons : 
 Audience, House of Commons as, 
 
 213, 215, 240 
 Bath-rooms in, 122 
 " Best Club in Europe," 123 
 Obstreperous Members, Police 
 
 Assistance, 137 
 Divisions, 266 
 Old Chamber, 109 
 Privilege, 145, 153 
 House of Lords : 
 Description, 94 
 Disraeli on, 299 
 Old Chamber, 129 
 Opening of Edward VII. 's First 
 
 Parliament, 86 
 Standing Order against Asperity of 
 
 Speech, 137 
 Hume, Joseph, 120 
 Humiliation Day for Success in 
 Crimean War, 56 
 
 IMMORTALITY of the Sovereign, 4 
 
 Imperial Crown, 98 
 
 India, Royal Proclamation, 1838, 
 
 Queen Victoria's Amendments, 60 
 Infallibility of the Sovereign, 6 
 Infant, Sovereign not considered a 
 
 legal " Infant," 3 
 Ireland : 
 
 Disestablishment Scheme, 64 
 
 Home Rule, Queen Victoria's 
 Disapproval of, 78 
 
 Peel's Policy, 1841, 33 
 
 D D
 
 402 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 'JACK Cade Legislation," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 299 
 Jewish Members' Objections to Oath 
 
 of Allegiance, 197 
 "Jingoism," Origin of Term, 296 
 "Johnny's upset the Coach," Origin 
 
 of Phrase, 280 
 
 Johnston, J. T., Maiden Speech, 227 
 "Judicious Bottle-holder," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 295 
 Juries, Serving on, English and Welsh 
 
 Members exempt during Session, 
 
 KEARSLEY, Mr., Unparliamentary Ex- 
 
 pressions used by, 320 
 Keeper of the Great Seal, 161 
 King Consort, Queen Victoria's Wish 
 
 to make Prince Albert, n 
 King Edward's First Parliament : 
 
 Opening Ceremony, 84 
 
 Speech and Declaration at, 105 
 King's Prerogatives and Disabilities, i 
 
 LADIES in the House : 
 
 Disguised as Men, no 
 
 Old Chamber, Admittance to, 130 
 Law Courts: 
 
 Sovereign not sued for Personal 
 Misconduct, 6 
 
 Witness, Sovereign unable to ap- 
 
 pear as, 9 
 " Leap in the Dark," Origin of Phrase, 
 
 278 
 Legacies, Sovereign exempted from 
 
 Probate and Death Duties, 10 
 Libels in Parliamentary Speeches not 
 
 actionable, 151 
 Liberal, Origin of Term, 306 
 Library of the Houses of Parliament, 
 
 124 
 Lord Chancellor : 
 
 Great Seal, 159 
 
 Order in House of Lords not main- 
 tained by, 135 
 
 " Purse-bearer " of, 161 
 Lords Commissioners, 146, 159 
 Lowe, Robert, 281 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, and Lord Brougham 
 
 dividing Great Seal, 171, 176 
 
 MACAULAY, Thomas Babington : 
 Disraeli's Maiden Speech, Letter 
 
 on, 218 
 House of Commons as an Audience, 
 
 Views on, 213, 240 
 Maiden Speech, 240 
 Smoking-room in 1831, Description, 
 
 112 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas Babington con- 
 tinued, 
 Unparliamentary Language, Use of, 
 
 described, 324 
 Magee, Dr. : 
 Attitude of lay towards spiritual 
 
 Peers, Remarks on, 143 
 Errors in reporting Speeches by, 
 
 369 
 Quarrel with Dr. Tait in House of 
 
 Lords, 140 
 
 Maiden Speeches, 213 
 Maidstone, Lord, 324 
 "Majesty of the People," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 282 
 Manners Sutton, Charles, 310, 312, 
 
 316. 319, 332 
 Marriage of Member of Royal Family, 
 
 Sovereign's Consent, 12 
 " Masses against Classes," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 289 
 
 Mathew, Father, Anecdote of, 132 
 May, Sir Erskine, 21 
 Maynooth Bill, 1845, 33 : 
 
 Duke of Newcastle on Power of 
 initiatory Legislation by Crown, 
 
 37 
 "Meddle and Muddle," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 279 
 Melbourne, Lord, 28 
 Members : 
 
 Absence from the House, 273 
 
 Counting, Motion for, 261 
 
 Dress formerly worn by, in 
 
 Expulsion of, 210 
 
 Libel in Speeches not actionable, 
 
 151 
 
 Oaths. See that Title. 
 
 Privilege of, 145, 153 
 
 Quorum, Constitution of, 260 
 
 Suspension of, 321, 341 
 
 Unparliamentary Language used 
 
 by, 308 
 " Mend it or End it," Origin of Phrase, 
 
 285 
 " Mendacious " as a Parliamentary 
 
 Expression, Rulings, 327 
 " Mirror of Parliament, 1 ' 358 
 Misquotations, 366 
 Mistakes made in Parliamentary 
 
 Reporting, 364 
 Morley, John, 285 : 
 
 " Hansard," Remarks on, 343 
 " Mostly Fools," Origin of Phrase, 282 
 
 "NAMING" Members, 321, 341 
 Navy, Shaving and Wearing Beards 
 in Queen Victoria's Suggestions, 
 70
 
 INDEX. 
 
 403 
 
 Newcastle, Duke of, on initiatory 
 Legislation by the Crown, 37 
 
 Newspapers : 
 
 Privilege in Reports of Speeches, 154 
 Reading in the House, Breach of 
 Order, 272 
 
 " Nonconformist Conscience," Origin 
 of Term, 292 
 
 Norfolk, Duke of, "Great Snoring" 
 Bill Anecdote, 131 
 
 OATHS : 
 
 Bradlaugh, Charles, Case of, 204 
 Catholic Members, Oaths taken by, 
 
 192 
 Clergy, Oath of Allegiance taken 
 
 by, 180 
 
 Jewish Objections, 197 
 Protestant Declaration, 104 
 Quaker's Affirmations, 196 
 
 O'Brien, Sir Patrick, 339 
 
 O'Brien, Smith, 337 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel: 
 Celebrated Sayings of, 293 
 Disputes with Lord Maidstone, 324 
 Disraeli's Maiden Speech, O'Con- 
 
 nell's Attack upon, 216 
 Last Speeches of, 386 
 Maiden Speech, 223 
 Oath refused by, 195 
 Parody of Dryden, 366 
 Reporters, Conflict with, 377 
 Unparliamentary Language used 
 by, 312, 327 
 
 O'Gorman, Major, 337 
 
 " Old Parliamentary Hand," Origin of 
 Phrase, 290 
 
 "One Man, one Vote," Origin of 
 Phrase, 299 
 
 Opening Ceremonies at King Edward's 
 First Parliament, 84 
 
 Oranges, Members sucking, during 
 Speeches, 119 
 
 Orders worn at Opening of Parlia- 
 ment, 1901, 91 
 
 PALMERSTON, Lord : 
 Complaints by the Queen, 42 
 Dismissal from Office, 48 
 Last Speech, 392 
 Maiden Speech. 238 
 Phrases coined by, 295 
 Queen Victoria's Letters to, 63 
 Unparliamentary Language used 
 
 by, 328 
 
 Papal Aggressions in 1850, 50 
 Pardons from the Crown, 15 
 Parliament, Opening by King Ed- 
 ward, 84 
 
 Parliamentary Debates. See Hansard. 
 " Parliamentary History of England," 
 
 347. 350 
 Parliamentary Papers, Stockdale v. 
 
 Hansard Privilege Case, 153 
 Parnell, Charles Stewart : 
 
 Last Speech, 388 
 
 Maiden Speeches, 250 
 
 Obstruction, Protest against, 333 
 
 Unparliamentary Language used 
 
 by. 322 
 "Peace, Retrenchment and Reform," 
 
 Origin of Phrase, 298 
 "Peace with Honour," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 284 
 Pease, Joseph, 196 
 Peel, Mr. Speaker, 146, 321, 334, 338, 
 
 34 1 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert : 
 Administrations formed by, 33 
 "Bedchamber Question," 1839, 29 
 Celebrated Sayings of, 295 
 Corn Laws Repeal, 39 
 Last Speech, 389 
 Maiden Speech, 230 
 Queen Victoria's Letters to, 31, 35, 
 36. 38, 39. 42, 47 
 
 Peers' and Peeresses' Robes at Open- 
 ing of Edward VII. 's First Parlia- 
 ment, 89 
 
 Perceval, Spencer, Assassination of, 
 
 385 
 Personal Opinion of the Sovereign, 
 
 Restrictions upon, 21, 22 
 " Pin-pricks Policy," Origin of Term, 
 
 301 
 Pitt, William : 
 
 "Bellamy's Pork Pies" Anecdote, 
 108 
 
 Drunkenness in the House, 117 
 
 Last Speeches, 382 . 
 
 Maiden Speech, 229 " 
 
 Neat Attire, in 
 
 Prayers in the House of Commons, 254 
 Prerogatives of the Sovereign, i 
 
 Exercising, Instance of, 69 
 Presence, Constitutional, of Sovereign 
 
 in Parliament and Law Courts, 17 
 Press Gallery. See Reporters. 
 Prince Consort : 
 
 Appearance in Parliament censured, 
 40 
 
 Death of, 63 
 
 Louis Napoleon's Coup d'Etat, 
 Letter on, 49 
 
 Rights and Privileges of, n 
 
 Status and Allowance, 32 
 
 Unpatriotism, Accusations against 
 the Prince, 54
 
 44 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Privilege, 145 
 Newspaper Reports, 154 
 Stockdale v. Hansard Case, 153 
 
 Probate and Death Duties, Sovereign 
 exempt from, 10 
 
 Prohibited Expressions in Debate, 
 
 34 
 
 " Property has its Duties as well as 
 Rights," Origin of Phrase, 286 
 
 Protestant Succession, 5 
 Agitations in 1850, 50 
 Declaration against Transubstantia- 
 tion, 104 
 
 Puffendorf, Samuel, on the Preroga- 
 tives of the Sovereign, 8 
 
 Punishment, Remission by Sovereign, 
 
 15 
 
 "Purse-bearer, 1 161 
 Pursuivants at Opening of Edward 
 
 VII.'s First Parliament, 96 
 
 QUAKERS, Affirmations made by, 196 
 Queen Alexandra, Appearance at 
 
 Opening of Parliament, 101 
 Queen Victoria : 
 
 First Constitutional Sovereign, 26 
 Foreign Affairs, Personal Influence 
 
 in, 41 
 
 Foreign Secretary's Duties, Memo- 
 randum on, 44 
 Forster, W. E., Death of, Letter, 
 
 78 
 Gladstone, W. E., Death of, 
 
 Message, 80 
 Gordon, General, Death of, Letter, 
 
 76 
 
 Indian Mutiny, Letter, 59, 60 
 Irish Disestablishment, Viewson, 64 
 Ministers, Letters to, 31, 32, 35, 36, 
 
 38, 39. 58. 59. 60. 63 
 Political Opinions and Actions, 27, 
 
 62, 64 
 
 Prince Consort. See that Title. 
 Salisbury, Lord, Memorial Eulogy 
 
 of, Extract, 81 
 Tennyson, Lord, Correspondence 
 
 with, 78 
 
 Quorum, Number of Members con- 
 stituting, 260 
 Quotations, Mistakes in Reporting, 
 
 365 
 
 RATES, Sovereign exempt from, 9 
 " Red Tape," Origin of Phrase, 300 
 Redmond, John, " named" by Speaker, 
 
 321 
 Refreshment Rooms : 
 
 " Bellamy's Kitchen," 109, 114, 116, 
 
 Refreshment Rooms continued. 
 New Palace, Catering Arrange- 
 ments, 121 
 1 ' Register.register ! ' ' Origin of Phrase, 
 
 295 
 
 Remission of Punishment by Sove- 
 reign, 15 
 
 Reporting Speeches : 
 Difficulties of, 368 
 Hansard's Debates. See that Title. 
 Humours of, 364 
 O'Connell's conflict with Reporters, 
 
 377 
 
 Political opinions of Reporters, 376 
 
 Press Gallery, Establishment of, 
 
 130 
 Reprieves by Sovereign, 15 
 
 Minister's Approval Comyn Case, 
 
 16 
 
 Resignation of Members, 276 
 " Revolution by due course of Law," 
 
 Origin of Phrase, 287 
 Robes and Orders worn at Opening 
 
 of Edward VII.'s First Parliament, 
 
 90, 100 
 Rochester, Earl of, Maiden Speech, 
 
 214 
 Roman Catholics : 
 
 Agitations in 1850, 50 
 
 Bill to exclude, from Parliament, 
 
 i85 
 
 Declaration against Transubstan- 
 tiation, 104 
 
 Emancipation of, 191 
 
 Maynooth Bill, 1845, 33 
 
 Oaths taken by Catholic Members, 
 192 
 
 Protestant Succession, 5 
 Ronayne, Mr., Unparliamentary 
 
 Language 1 used by, 317 
 "Rose like a Rocket and fell like a 
 
 Stick," Origin of Phrase, 282 
 Rose, Sir George, Inebriate in the 
 
 House, 118 
 Rosebery, Lord : 
 
 Errors in reporting Speeches by, 
 
 364 
 
 Maiden Speech, 246 
 Rothschild, Baron de, 198, 201 
 Royal Assent to Bills, i, 18 
 Royal Household, Servants exempt 
 
 from Arrest, 12 
 Royal Marriages, Consent of 
 
 Sovereign, 12 
 Royal Sign Manual, 18 
 Rules of Procedure, 252 
 Russell, Lord John : 
 
 Celebrated Sayings of, 288 
 
 Defeat on Militia Bill, 1852, 52
 
 INDEX. 
 
 405 
 
 Russell, Lord John continued. 
 Maiden Speech, 239 
 Peerage Cartoon in Punch. 139 
 Queen Victoria's Letters to, 32, 42, 
 
 47 
 Whig, Remarks on Use of Term, 304 
 
 ST. STEPHEN'S Crypt, in 
 St. Stephen's Hall, 109 
 Salisbury, Lord : 
 
 Error in reporting remark by, 364 
 
 Maiden Speech, 244 
 
 Memorial Eulogy of Queen Victoria, 
 81 
 
 Unparliamentary Language, Anec- 
 dote, 322 
 
 Salomons, Sir David, 199, 201 
 Satchels for Great Seal, Lord Chan- 
 cellor's perquisites, 176 
 " Schoolmaster is Abroad," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 286 
 " Sea Serpent from County Clare " 
 
 Anecdote, 339 
 Seal the Great Seal, 159 
 
 Historical Account of, 162 
 Seats obtained by attending Prayers, 
 
 254 
 Selborne, Lord, and Lord Cairns, 
 
 Great Seal divided between, 177 
 Servants, Royal, exempt from Arrest, 
 
 12 
 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley : 
 
 Begum Charge, Speech on, 355 
 
 Last Speech, 384 
 
 Maiden Speech, 232 
 
 Sympathy shown by House at 
 burning of Drury Lane Theatre, 
 
 3.83 
 
 Shaving in the Navy Queen Vic- 
 toria's Suggestions, 70 
 Shaw-Lefevre, Mr. Speaker, 329 
 Sheehy Privilege Case, 150 
 Sheil, R. L. : 
 
 Bellamy's Tavern described by, 114 
 Disraeli's Maiden Speech, Defence 
 
 of, 220 
 
 " Sick Man," Origin of Term, 291 
 Sign Manual, 18 
 Smith. W. H. : 
 Letters to his Wife written in the 
 
 House, 125 
 Office of Profit accepted without 
 
 vacating Seat, 253 
 Smoking-room, 112 
 Sovereign : 
 
 Consort, Rights of, 1 1 
 Constitutional Presence in Parlia- 
 ment and the Law Courts, 17 
 Free Access to, 155 
 
 Sovereign con tin tied . 
 
 Immortality of, 4 
 
 Infallibility ascribed to, 6 
 
 Infant Sovereign not considered 
 legal Infant, 3 
 
 Personal Opinions, Restrictions on, 
 21, 22 
 
 Prerogatives and Disabilities, i 
 
 Rates. Taxes > &c.,Exemptionsfrom,9 
 
 State Matters, Communication be- 
 tween Sovereigns forbidden, 20 
 
 Succession and Tenure of Crown, 
 
 Conditions of, 5 
 Speaker : 
 
 Address on Sovereign's Speech 
 formerly presented by, 155 
 
 Counting Members, 261 
 
 Reprimands for Breaches of Order, 
 252 
 
 Title of Address, 269 
 Speeches : 
 
 Last Speeches of Great Parliamen- 
 tarians, 379 
 
 Maiden Speeches, 213 
 
 Parliamentary Privilege, 151, 152, 
 
 154 
 Sovereign's Speech from theThrone, 
 
 105 
 
 Tone and Style of Debate, Changes 
 
 in, 356 
 Standing Order against Asperity of 
 
 Speech, 137 
 Stanley, Lord, 280 
 Strangers' Withdrawal, 266 
 Steele, Sir Richard, Maiden Speech, 
 
 225 
 Stockdale v. Hansard Privilege Case, 
 
 153 
 
 Suspension of Members, 321, 341 
 Sutton, Charles Manners, 310, 312, 
 
 316. 319. 332 
 Sword of State, 98 
 Symbols of Authority used at Opening 
 
 of Parliament, 98 
 
 TAIT, Dr. : 
 
 Irish Disestablishment, Letters on, 
 
 Quarrel with Dr. Magee in House 
 
 of Lords, 140 
 
 Taxation, Sovereign exempt from, 9 
 Tea on the Terrace, 124 
 Tennyson, Lord, Correspondence with 
 
 Queen Victoria, 78 
 " Three Acres and a Cow," Origin of 
 
 Phrase, 297 
 Thurlow, Lord Chancellor, Great 
 
 Seal stolen from, 169 
 Titles of Courtesy used in Debates, 
 
 269
 
 406 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tobin v. The Queen Case, Sovereign's 
 Prerogatives in, 7 
 
 Toll, Sovereign exempt from, 9 
 
 Tories and Whigs, Origin of Terms, 
 302 
 
 Turkey, " Sick Man " and " Unspeak- 
 able Turk," Origin of Phrases. 291 
 
 " ULSTERIANA," Origin of Term, 292 
 Uniforms worn at Opening of Parlia- 
 ment, 1901, 92, 96 
 United States : 
 Congress, Declaration made by 
 
 Members, 212 
 " Trent " Case, 62 
 Unparliamentary Language, 308 
 " Un-Whig that Gentleman," Origin 
 of Phrase, 287 
 
 VETO Power of the Crown, Lapse of, 
 18 
 
 WASON, Mr., Unparliamentary Lan- 
 guage used by, 316 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, Last Speech 
 made by, 390 
 
 Westbury, Lord, Last Speech made 
 by, 379 
 
 Whigs and Tories, 174, 302 
 
 " Who goes Home? " 277 
 
 Wigs, Bishops discarding, in the 
 House, 144 
 
 Wilberforce, William, Reporter's 
 Practical Joke upon, 378 
 
 Woolsack, 135 
 
 Wright, John, Assistant Compiler ot 
 Parliamentary History, 346, 348 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
 
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 to write in an entertaining way, not only of the ordinary work of Parliament, 
 but of such subjects as the opening and closing ceremonies, the Speaker, the 
 Chairman, the Serjeant-at-Arms, the Lobby, the reporters, and all the other 
 persons and institutions that render the place interesting. He has many good 
 stories to tell, but uses them only in order to illustrate his points, and he does 
 not indulge in a flood of incontinent anecdote. Of course, he has made, as he 
 says, certain inevitable excursions into the domain of history, but he draws 
 more largely upon his own ten years' experience as a reporter and writer in 
 the Reporters' Gallery. With these qualifications and an impartial mind he 
 surveys the whole course of Parliamentary life, from the first wooing of 
 a constituency to the day of dissolution."
 
 * 
 
 Stl 
 1*3