tary writs the council. ments. ster in the determine, subject to the limitations imposed by custom, Parliamenboth the time and place at which parliament should assem- issued by ble. Not long after the permanent incorporation of the the king representative members the custom became established that advice of parliaments should be held annually, or oftener if necessary. Annual Such was the rule laid down in an ordinance adopted in the parliafifth of Edward II., and in statutes passed in the fourth and thirty-sixth of Edward III.2 After the particular time within the year had been agreed upon, a choice had next to be made of the place at which the estates should be called together. During the pre-Norman period the witan, after due proclama- Meetingplace of tion, was usually assembled at some one of the royal resi- national dences, generally after harvest, or on one of the great festi- councils. vals of the church, Easter, Whitsuntide, or Christmas.3 When Westminster became, in the reign of Eadward the WestminConfessor, the recognized residence of the king, it became at days of the the same time the recognized home of the national council. Confessor; After the Conquest, however, when the witan was transformed into a feudal court or council which followed the person of the king, councils were held at Westminster only when the king saw fit to make it his resting-place. There the Conqueror often held his summer courts; there William in the days Rufus built the great hall which afterwards became the home man kings. of the courts of justice; there Henry I. held his councils; there Stephen founded in honor of his patron saint the chapel which finally became the meeting-place of the house of commons; and there the common pleas were held after it was fixed by the terms of the Great Charter that they should be held in some certain place. In the reign of Henry III. Henry III., who rebuilt the abbey and enlarged the palace, abbey and Westminster finally came to be considered as the customary enlarges the and lawful meeting-place of parliament. Not, however, until the following reign of Edward I., when the central administrative machinery became permanently fixed in and around the palace, did Westminster become, in the full sense of the of the Nor rebuilds the palace. ster be ernment in Edward I. Westmin- term, the seat of government. From that time onward the comes the dwelling-place of the king-out of whose household organiseat of gov zation the national administrative system has been largely the reign of developed was gradually devoted to the uses of government: "the chamber became a council room, the banquet hall a court of justice, the chapel a hall of deliberation."1 After the final division of parliament into two houses, each found a meeting-place within the precincts of the palace of Westminster, "where the witan of all England still meet for judgment and for legislation." 2 The meet liament. nate. At the time fixed in the writs, the lords spiritual and teming of par- poral, together with the representatives from the shires and towns, were expected to appear before the king at Westminster, or at any other place that he had seen fit to desigWhen a sufficient number had arrived the parliament was opened, and the names of the elected members were called over in order to identify them with those returned by the sheriffs. At a little later day it also became the practice to call over the names of the lords in order to ascertain who Opening had come and who had not. The first business in order was speech. the opening speech, delivered by the chancellor, the primate, or some other great officer of state, in which was explained the purpose for which the estates had been called together.* After the close of the speech, and after the appointment of triers of petitions, the parliament dissolved itself into its constituent elements in order that each group might deliberate apart upon the common work given them in charge. Whether there ever was a time, after the appearance of the representative members, when the three estates deliberated together in a single assembly, is a question whose discussion has drawn out diametrically opposite views from the highest authorities.5 When all the probabilities are weighed in the dim light of the existing evidence, it seems to be more than likely that the different estates, each taxing itself upon its own basis, Triers of petitions appointed. 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. iii. p. 384, and pp. 382, 383. 2 Freeman, Norm. Cong., vol. ii. p. 336. 8 See Rot. Parl., i. 350; Ibid., ii. p. 147; Ibid., iii. pp. 55, 71, 78, 184; Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. iii. p. 427 and note 2. 4 As to the early practice, see Elsynge, Ancient Method of Holding Parliament, pp. 131 sq.; as to the modern practice, see May, Parl. Prac tice, pp. 47, 219. 5 Prynne (1st Register, p. 233) holds that they never deliberated together; Coke (4 Inst., p. 4) holds that they did. ble that the erated apart beginning, assembled pose. ual baron and spirit age perpet uate their in the house deliberated apart from the very beginning, save when momen- It is probatarily assembled in the presence of the king, or for the pur- three espose of special conference with each other. The period of tates delibuncertainty, which begins with the permanent incorporation from the of the representative members in the famous parliament of save when 1295, ends with the definite and final division of parliament for some into two houses in the reign of Edward III.1 In tracing out special purthe causes which led to this division, it is easy to understand why the lay and spiritual baronage, long accustomed to The lay united conciliar action in the great council, should have perpetuated their separate organization in the house of lords. The difficult matter is to determine why the knights of the separate organization shire, selected from the lesser landholders, who in continental in the house lands would have belonged to the estate of the nobles, should of lords, have withdrawn from the baronage in order to unite upon equal while the terms with the representatives of the towns in the formation representaof the house of commons. So rapidly did this happy coalition bers unite advance that by the fifteenth of Edward II. (1322) the con- of comstitutional status of the lower house seems to have been definitely recognized in an act which provided that "matters to be established for the estate of our lord the king and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, should be treated, accorded, and established, in parliaments, by the king, and by the assent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the realm, according as had been before accustomed." 2 Not, however, until the sixth of Edward III. Parliament (1332) do the parliament records distinctly mention the fact and finally that the prelates, the lords temporal, and the knights of the divided into shire deliberated apart, the prelates by themselves, the in the reign earls, barons, and other grantz by themselves, and the knights III. from the counties by themselves. In the next year we learn that the lords and the proctors sat apart by themselves, and the knights, citizens, and burgesses by themselves. Finally the parliament rolls of the thirteenth and fifteenth of Edward III. make it clear that the process of division had by that time reached completion, that the lords and commons had 1 Cf. Hallam, M. A., vol. iii. pp. 38, 8 Rot. Parl., ii. p. 66. September, 39; Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. iii. pp. 1332 430, 431. 2 Statutes 15 Edw. II. i. p. 189. See, also, Lords' Report, vol. i. p. 229. Rot. Parl., ii. p. 69. mons. definitely two houses of Edward In 1352 commons the chapter house. T. Hunger then definitely arranged themselves in two separate and distinct bodies. In 1352 the commons were ordered to withordered to draw to the chapter house of Westminster Abbey, which seems to have been then regarded as their chamber.1 In 1376 the lower house formally completed its organization as a deliberative body by the election of Peter de la Mare as In 1377 Sir foreman.2 In 1377 Sir Thomas Hungerford was chosen, — ford chosen the first to whom the title and position of speaker were defispeaker. nitely assigned; from that date the list of speakers is complete. Although the speaker was chosen by the votes of all the representative members, never did the honor pass to other than a knight of the shire until the election of Robert Brooke, The chan- a member from London, in 1554. In the house of lords the cellor presides in the duty of presiding generally devolves upon the chancellor,5 whose position differs in several important particulars from that of the speaker of the commons. house of lords. The clergy as an estate ment. 8. The statement which has now been made of the final of parlia arrangement of the representatives from the shires and towns in one house, and of the lay and spiritual baronage in another, naturally suggests an inquiry as to the fate of the parliamentary representatives of the clergy who, under the scheme of Edward I., were to be incorporated as a substantive element in the assembly of estates. The idea of summoning the representatives of the clergy of both provinces as a constituent element in a national council was first fully developed in the writs by which Edward called together his famous parliament of 1295. The præmunientes clause, contained in the writs addressed to the bishops, premonished them to cause the deans and priors of cathedrals and the archdeacons to appear in person, and each cathedral chapter to appear by one and the clergy of each diocese by two proctors, armed with suf The pra munientes clause. 1 "When the commons deliberated apart, they sat in the chapter house of the Abbot of Westminster, and they continued their sittings in that place after their final separation." May, Parl. Practice, p. 25, citing Elsynge, p. 104. Not until the reign of Edward VI. did St. Stephen's Chapel become the meeting-place of the commons.”—Bay ley and Britton, p. 363. 2 Chronicon Angliæ, p. 72. 8 Rot. Parl., ii. p. 374. See May, Parl. Practice, p. 23 and note 4. 4 His successor in 1555 was a burgess from West Looe. Browne Willis, Rot. Parl., p. 113. Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. iii. p. 453. 5 As to the status and duties of the chancellor as speaker of the house of lords, see May, Parl. Practice, pp. 49, 243, 246. The lord chancellor is not necessarily a peer. In 1830 Lord Chancellor Brougham sat on the wool. sack as speaker before his elevation to the peerage, -one of ma“ of a like kind. Ibid., p. 2... opposed ficient power to represent the clergy and chapters.1 "In the præmunientes clause, inserted in the writs of the 23d of Edward the First, a representation of the clergy in convention was provided, bearing a strong resemblance to the representation of the laity in the legislative assembly in parliament, provided by the writs issued for that purpose at the same time."2 If the English clergy had seen fit to accept instead of oppose this arrangement, there was no reason why, in England as elsewhere, the clergy, like the nobles, should not have formed themselves into a distinct parliamentary estate. But The clergy from the very beginning the plan was opposed by the clergy Edward's themselves, who preferred to vote their aids in their own pro- plan from the beginvincial councils or convocations. Under the persistent force ning. of clerical opposition, the plan of Edward broke down and became a mere shadow. The præmunientes clause itself is still inserted in the writs, but it has been a dead letter since the fourteenth century. The clergy of the two provinces, Clergy refusing to be jointly assembled as an estate of parliament, selves in continued to tax themselves in their provincial convocations convocation until after the restoration of Charles II. The subsidies of the restorathe clergy were voted in the convocations in the form of "be- Charles II. nevolences," separate and apart from the aids granted by the laity, down to the year 1664, when, by a mere verbal agreement Sheldonian between Archbishop Sheldon and Lord Chancellor Claren- compact of don, an arrangement was made under which the clergy waived wherein the their right to tax themselves, and agreed to be assessed by the nounced laity in parliament. The results of this silent revolution, separate which has been called "the greatest alteration in the consti- taxation. tution ever made without an express law," 5 were distinctly recognized in an act of parliament passed in the following year (16 and 17 Car. II. c. 1), which recited the fact that the 1 The language of the summons is: "Præmunientes priorem et capitulum ecclesiæ vestræ, archidiaconos, totum que clerum vestræ diocesis, facientes quod iidem prior et archidiaconi in propriis personis suis, et dictum capitulum per unum, idemque clerus per duos procuratores idoneos, plenam et sufficientem potestatem." - For the writ, see Lords' Report, App. i. p. 67. 2 Lords' Report, vol. i. p. 214. 8 See Select Charters, p. 38. Rights of the Lower House of Convoca- note I. 5 Speaker Onslow, in a note appended to Burnet's History of his Own Times (Oxford ed. vol. iv. p. 308), says: Gibson, Bishop of London, said to me that it was the greatest alteration in the constitution ever made without an express law."-See Sir Travers Twiss' article on Convocation in Enc. Cf. Parliamentary Original and Brit. 9th ed. vol. vi. p. 327. taxed them until after tion of 1664, clergy re the right of |