The Growth of the English Constitution

Another still later change marks a step toward the recognition of the Cabinet. It has long been held that a Secretary of State must always accompany the Sovereign everywhere. It is now beginning to be held that any member of the Cabinet will do as well as a Secretary of State. But if any member of the Cabinet, why not any Privy Councillor?

142

In February 1854 Mr. Cayley moved for a “Select Committee to consider the duties of the Member leading the Government business in this House, and the expediency of attaching office and salary thereto.” The motion was withdrawn, after being opposed by Sir Charles Wood (now Viscount Halifax), Mr. Walpole, and Lord John Russell (now Earl Russell). Sir Charles Wood described the post of Leader of the House as “an office that does not exist, and the duties of which cannot be defined.” Mr. Walpole spoke of it as a “position totally unknown to the constitution of the country.” Yet I presume that everybody practically knew that Lord John Russell was Leader of the House, though nobody could give a legal definition of his position. A discussion then followed between Mr. Walpole and Lord John Russell on the nature of ministerial responsibility. Mr. Walpole said that “members were apt to talk gravely of ministerial responsibility; but responsibility there is none, except by virtue of the office that a Minister holds, or possibly by the fact of his being a Privy Councillor. A Minister is responsible for the acts done by him; a Privy Councillor for advice given by him in that capacity. Until the reign of Charles the Second, Privy Councillors always signed the advice they gave; and to this day the Cabinet is not a body recognised by law. As a Privy Councillor, a person is under little or no responsibility for the acts advised by him, on account of the difficulty of proof.” Lord John Russell “asked the House to pause before it gave assent to the constitutional doctrines laid down by Mr. Walpole. He unduly restricted the responsibility of Ministers.” … “I hold,” continued Lord John, “that it is not really for the business the Minister transacts in performing the particular duties of his office, but it is for any advice which he has given, and which he may be proved, before a Committee of this House, or at the bar of the House of Lords, to have given, that he is responsible, and for which he suffers the penalties that may ensue from impeachment.”

It is plain that both Mr. Walpole and Lord Russell were here speaking of real legal responsibility, such responsibility as might be enforced by impeachment or other legal process, not of the vaguer kind of responsibility which is commonly meant when we speak of Ministers being “responsible to the House of Commons.” This last is enforced, not by legal process, but by such motions as that of Sir Robert Peel in 1841, or that of the Marquess of Hartington in June 1859.

I have made my extracts from the Spectator newspaper of February 11, 1854.

143

We read (Anglia Sacra, i. 335) of Æthelric, Bishop of the South-Saxons at the time of the Conquest, as “vir antiquissimus et legum terræ sapientissimus.” So Adelelm, the first Norman Abbot of Abingdon, found much benefit from the legal knowledge of certain of his English monks (Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ii. 2), “quibus tanta secularium facundia et præteritorum memoria eventorum inerat, ut cæteri circumquaque facile eorum sententiam ratam fuisse, quam edicerent, approbarent.” The writer adds, “Sed et alii plures de Anglis causidici per id tempus in abbatia ista habebantur quorum collationi nemo sapiens refragabatur.” But knowledge of the law was not an exclusively clerical accomplishment; for among the grounds for the election of King Harold himself, we find (de Inventione Sanctæ Crucis Walthamensis, p. 25, Stubbs) that one was “quia non erat eo prudentior in terra, armis strenuus magis, legum terræ sagacior.” See Norman Conquest, ii. 538, iv. 366, 478.

144

On the growth of the lawyers’ theory of the royal prerogative, and its utter lack of historical standing-ground, I must refer once for all to Allen’s Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England.

145

See Norman Conquest, ii. 330.

146

The history of this memorable revolution will be found in Lingard, iii. 392-405, and the legal points are brought out by Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 214. He remarks that “In this revolution of 1399 there was as remarkable an attention shown to the formalities of the constitution, allowance made for the men and the times, as in that of 1688;” and, speaking of the device by which the same Parliament was brought together again, he adds, “In this contrivance, more than in all the rest, we may trace the hand of lawyers.” The official version entered on the rolls of Parliament by command of Henry will be found in Walsingham, ii. 234-238. Some care seems to be used to avoid using the name of Parliament in the account of the actual proceedings. It is said just before, “Rex perductus est Londonias, conservandus in Turri usque ad Parliamentum proximo celebrandum.” And the writs are said to have been sent “ad personas regni qui de jure debeant interesse Parliamento.” But when they have come together (“quibus convenientibus”) care seems to be taken to give the Assembly no particular name, till, in the Act of Richard’s deposition, the actors are described as “pares et proceres regni Angliæ spirituales et temporales, et ejus regni communitates, omnes status ejusdem regni repræsentantes;” and in the Act of Henry’s election they are described as “domini tam spirituales quam temporales, et omnes regni status.” In the Act of deposition Richard’s resignation of the Crown is recorded, as well as his particular crimes and his general unfitness to wear it, all which are classed together as reasons for his deposition. The actual formula of deposition runs thus: – “propter præmissa, et eorum prætextu, ab omni dignitate et honore regiis, si quid dignitatis et honoris hujusmodi in eo remanserit, merito deponendum pronunciamus, decernimus, et declaramus; et etiam simili cautela deponimus.” They then declare the throne to be vacant (“ut constabat de præmissis, et eorum occasione, regnum Angliæ, cum pertinentiis suis, vacare”). Henry then makes his challenge, setting forth that strange mixture of titles which is commented on in most narratives of the event, and the Estates, without saying which of Henry’s arguments they accept, grant the kingdom to him (“concesserunt unanimiter ut Dux præfatus super eos regnaret”). A more distinct case of deposition and election can hardly be found; only in the words which I have put in italics there seems a sort of anxiety to complete, by the act of deposition, any possible defect in Richard’s doubtless unwilling abdication.

The French narrative by a partisan of Richard (Lystoire de la Traison et Mort du Roy Richart Dengleterre, p. 68) gives, in some respects, a different account. The Assembly is called a Parliament, and the Duke of Lancaster is made to seat himself on the throne at once. Then Sir Thomas Percy “cria ‘Veez Henry de Lencastre Roy Dengleterre.’ Adonc crierent tous les seigneurs prelaz et le commun de Londres, Ouy Ouy nous voulons que Henry duc de Lencastre soit nostre Roy et nul autre.” For “le commun de Londres” there are other readings, “le commun,” “le commun Dangleterre et de Londres,” and “tout le commun et conseil de Londres.”

147

It should be remembered that Charles the First was not deposed, but was executed being King. He was called King both in the indictment at his trial and in the warrant of his beheading.

148

Monk raised this point in 1660. See Lingard, viii. 607.

149

Lingard (viii. 612) remarks that at this particular moment “there was no court to influence, no interference of the military to control the elections.” The Convention may therefore be supposed to have been more freely elected than most Parliaments.

150

The Long Parliament had dissolved itself, and had decreed the election of its successor. By the Act 13 Charles II. (Revised Statutes, i. 733) the Long Parliament is “declared and adjudged to be fully dissolved and determined;” but it is not said when it was dissolved and determined. See also Lingard, ix. 5; Hallam’s Constitutional History, ii. 21, where the whole matter is discussed, and it is remarked that “the next Parliament never gave their predecessors any other name in the Journals than ‘the late assembly.’”

151

See Norman Conquest, i. 365, 366.

152

See the discussion on the famous vote of the Convention Parliament in Hallam, Constitutional History, ii. 260-263. Macaulay, ii. 623. Hallam remarks that “the word ‘forfeiture’ might better have answered this purpose than ‘abdication’ or ‘desertion,’” and he adds, “they proceeded not by the stated rules of the English government, but by the general rights of mankind. They looked not so much to Magna Charta as the original compact of society, and rejected Coke and Hale for Hooker and Harrington.” My position is that there is no need to go to what Hallam calls “higher constitutional laws” for the justification of the doings of the Convention, but that they were fully justified by the precedents of English History from the eighth century to the fourteenth.

The Scottish Estates, it should be remembered, did not shrink from using the word “forfeited.” Macaulay, iii. 285.

153

See the Act 1 William and Mary “for removing and preventing all Questions and Disputes concerning the Assembling and Sitting of this Present Parliament” (Revised Statutes, ii. 1). It decrees “That the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons convened at Westminster the two and twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred eighty-eight, and there sitting on the thirteenth day of February following, are the two Houses of Parliament, and so shall be and are hereby declared enacted and adjudged to be to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever, notwithstanding any fault of writ or writs of summons, or any defect of form or default whatsoever, as if they had been summoned according to the usual form.” The whole history of the question is given in Macaulay, iii. 27-31. The whole matter is summed up in the words (iii. 27), “It was answered that the royal writ was mere matter of form, and that to expose the substance of our laws and liberties to serious hazard for the sake of a form would be the most senseless superstition. Wherever the Sovereign, the Peers spiritual and temporal, and the Representatives freely chosen by the constituent bodies of the realm were met together, there was the essence of a Parliament.” In earlier times it might perhaps have been held that there might be the essence of a Parliament even without the Sovereign.

154

Macaulay, iv. 535. “A paper had been circulated, in which the logic of a small sharp pettifogger was employed to prove that writs, issued in the joint names of William and Mary, ceased to be of force as soon as William reigned alone. But this paltry cavil had completely failed. It had not even been mentioned in the Lower House, and had been mentioned in the Upper only to be contemptuously overruled.” From my point of view the cavil is certainly paltry, but it is hard to see that it is more paltry than the others.

155

This is by the Acts 7 and 8 Will. III. c. 15; 6 Anne, c. 7; and 39 Geo. III. c. 127. See Stephen’s Commentaries, ii. 380. Blackstone’s reasoning runs thus: “This dissolution formerly happened immediately upon the death of the reigning sovereign; for he being considered in law as the head of the parliament (caput principium, et finis), that failing, the whole body was held to be extinct. But the calling a new parliament immediately on the inauguration of the successor being found inconvenient, and dangers being apprehended from having no parliament in being, in case of a disputed succession, it was enacted,” etc. By the Reform Act of 1867 the whole tradition of the lawyers was swept away.

156

I have said something on this head in Norman Conquest, i. 94, but the whole thing should be studied in Allen’s great section on the Tenure of Landed Property; Royal Prerogative, 125-155. It is to Allen that the honour belongs of showing what bookland and folkland really were.

157

I have given a few examples in Norman Conquest, i. 589. Endless examples will be found in Kemble’s Codex Diplomaticus.

158

See the complaints on this head as late as the time of William the Third, in Macaulay, iv. 646. On the Acts by which the power of the Crown in this matter is restrained, see Stephen’s Commentaries, ii. 520. See also May’s Constitutional History, i. 229.

159

See May, i. 234 – 248.

160

This is discussed in full by Allen, Royal Prerogative, 143-145. The great example is the will of King Ælfred. See Codex Diplomaticus, ii. 112, v. 127.

161

See May, i. 249; Allen, 154-155, who remarks: “By a singular revolution of policy there was a recurrence in the late reign to the ancient policy of the Anglo-Saxons. The crown lands were virtually restored to the public, while the King obtained the right of acquiring landed property by purchase, and of bequeathing it by will like a private person.”

162

Edward the First was the earliest King whose reign is dated from a time earlier than his coronation. He was out of the kingdom at his father’s death, and his right was acknowledged without opposition. But even in this case there was an interregnum. The regnal years of Edward the First are not reckoned from the day of his father’s death, but from the day of his funeral, when Edward was acknowledged King, and when the prelates and nobles swore allegiance to him. See the account in the Worcester Annals, Annales Monastici, iv. 462, and the documents in Rymer, i. part ii. 497. See also the remarks of Allen, 46, 47. The doctrine that there can be no interregnum seems to have been put into shape to please James the First, and it was of course altogether upset by the great vote of 1688. Now of course there is no interregnum; not indeed from any mysterious prerogative of the Crown, but simply because the Act of Settlement has entailed the Crown in a particular way.

163

On this see Norman Conquest, i. 107, 263, 625. See the same question discussed in quite another part of the world in Herodotus, vii. 3.

164

The helpless way in which Blackstone himself wrote was perhaps pardonable in the dark times in which he lived. But it is really too bad when lawyer after lawyer, in successive editions, gives again to the world the astounding rubbish which in Blackstone’s day passed for early constitutional history. In Kerr’s edition of Blackstone, published in 1857, vol. i. p. 180, I find repeated, without alteration or comment, the monstrous assertion of Blackstone: “I believe there is no instance wherein the Crown of England has ever been asserted to be elective, except by the regicides at the infamous and unparalleled trial of King Charles I.” And in Serjeant Stephen’s Commentaries [1853], which are not a mere edition of Blackstone, but “New Commentaries partly founded on Blackstone,” the same words are found in vol. ii. p. 403, only leaving out the epithet “unparalleled,” which might with truth have been allowed to stay. In another place (iv. 481-2) we read how “after the Saxon government was firmly established in this island” came “the subdivision of the kingdom into a heptarchy, consisting of seven independent kingdoms, peopled and governed by different clans and colonies.” It seems then that in 1857 there were learned gentlemen who believed in a kingdom subdivided into a heptarchy. But when, in the next page, Blackstone tells us how Ælfred set about “to new-model the constitution, to rebuild it on a plan that should endure for ages,” and goes on in the usual style to attribute everything whatever to Ælfred personally, this seems to have been too much, and the editor gives an extract from Kemble by way of correction. One wonders that, if he had read Kemble at all, he had not learned a little more from him. It is amusing again when Blackstone tells us (i. 186, Kerr), “From Egbert to the death of Edmund Ironside, a period of above two hundred years, the Crown descended regularly through a succession of fifteen princes, without any deviation or interruption: save only” – all the cases where it did not descend regularly, according to Blackstone’s notions of regularity: But it is almost more amusing when Serjeant Stephen (ii. 410) throws Blackstone’s exceptions, which are at least historical facts, into a note, and gives us instead as his own exceptions, the statement, very doubtful and, if true, utterly irrelevant, that Æthelstan and Eadmund Ironside were illegitimate (see Norman Conquest, i. 669-673). We of course get the usual talk about the usurpations of Harold, Stephen, John, and Henry the Fourth, and about the rights of Eadgar and Arthur of Britanny. For the former we get a quotation from Matthew Paris, to whom it would have been more to the purpose to go for the great speech of Archbishop Hubert. The comments on the succession of John (i. 189, Kerr) are singularly amusing, but too long to quote.

One point however must be mentioned. To prove the strictly hereditary nature of the succession, Blackstone (i. 189, Kerr) quotes the Statute of 25 Edward III. “that the law of the Crown of England is, and always hath been, that the children of the King of England, whether born in England or elsewhere, ought to bear the inheritance after the death of their ancestors.” We are bound to suppose that these learned lawyers had read through the statute which they quoted; but it is wonderful that they did not see that it had nothing whatever to do with fixing the hereditary succession of the Crown. The original text (Revised Statutes, i. 176) runs thus: —

“La lei de la Corone Dengleterre est, et ad este touz jours tiele, que les enfantz des Rois Dengleterre, queu part qils soient neez en Engleterre ou aillors, sont ables et deivent porter heritage, apres la mort lour auncestors.”

The object of the statute is something quite different from what any one would think from Blackstone’s way of quoting it. The emphatic words are those which are put in italics. The object of the statute is to make the King’s children and others born of English parents beyond sea capable of inheriting in England. As far as the succession to the Crown is concerned, its effect is simply to put a child of the King born out of the realm on a level with his brother born in the realm; that is, in the view of our older Law, to give both alike the preference due to an Ætheling.

165

It is as well to explain this, because most people seem to think that a man becomes a Bishop by virtue of receiving a private letter from the First Lord of the Treasury. We constantly see a man spoken of as Bishop of such a see, and his works advertised as such, before a single ecclesiastical or legal step has been taken to make him so.

166

See Norman Conquest, iii. 44, 623.

167

The succession of a grandson, which first took place in England in the case of Richard the Second, marks a distinct stage in the growth of the doctrine of hereditary right. It involves the doctrine of representation, which is a very subtle and technical one, and is not nearly so obvious or so likely to occur in an early state of society as the doctrine of nearness of kin. No opposition was made to the accession of Richard the Second, but there seems to have been a strong notion in men’s minds that John of Gaunt sought to displace his nephew. In earlier times, as the eldest and most eminent of the surviving sons of Edward the Third, John would probably have been elected without any thought of the claims of young Richard.

168

In Yorkist official language the three Lancastrian Kings were usurpers, and Duke Richard was de jure, though not de facto, King. Henry the Sixth is, in the Act of 1461, “Henry Usurpour, late called Kyng Henry the sixt.” The claim of the House of York was through an intricate female descent from Lionel Duke of Clarence, a son of Edward the Third older than John of Gaunt. A claim so purely technical had never been set forth before; but we may be quite sure that it would not have been thought to have much weight, if Duke Richard had not been, by another branch, descended from Edward the Third in the male line, and if he had not moreover been the ablest and most popular nobleman in the country.

169

A prospective election before the vacancy of course hindered any interregnum. In this case the formula “Le Roi est mort; vive le Roi,” was perfectly true. The new King was already chosen and crowned, and he had nothing to do but to go on reigning singly instead of in partnership with his father, just as William went on reigning alone after the death of Mary. In Germany this took place whenever a King of the Romans was chosen in the lifetime of the reigning Emperor. In France, under the early Kings of the Parisian dynasty, the practice was specially common, and the fact that there seldom or never was an interregnum doubtless helped much to make the French Crown become, as it did, the most strictly hereditary crown in Christendom. In England, the only distinct case of a coronation of a son during the lifetime of his father was that of Henry, the son of Henry the Second, known as the younger King, and sometimes as Henry the Third. In earlier times we get something like it in the settlement of the Crown by Æthelwulf, with the consent of his Witan (see Old-English History, 105, 106), but it does not seem clear whether there was in this case any actual coronation during the father’s lifetime. If there was not, this would be the case most like that of Duke Richard. The compromise placed the Duke in the same position as if he had been Prince of Wales, or rather in a better position, for it might be held to shut out the need of even a formal election on the King’s death.

170

See note 59 on Chapter II.

171

See Norman Conquest, iii. 623.

172

See Hallam’s Constitutional History, i. 8. It is to be noticed that the settlement enacts that “the inheritance of the Crown, &c., should remain in Henry the Seventh and the heirs of his body for ever, and in none other.” This would seem to bar a great number of contingent claims in various descendants of earlier Kings. As it happens, this Act has been literally carried out, for every later Sovereign of England has been a descendant of the body of Henry the Seventh.

173

The will of Henry the Eighth is fully discussed by Hallam, i. 34, 288, 294; Lingard, vi. 213. There are two Acts of Henry’s reign bearing on the matter. In the earlier one, 28 Henry VIII. c. 7, the Crown is entailed on the King’s sons by Jane Seymour or any other wife; then on the King’s legitimate daughters, no names being mentioned; the Act then goes on to say, “your Highnes shall have full and plenar power and auctorite to geve despose appoynte assigne declare and lymytt by your letters patentes under your great seale or ells by your laste Will made in wrytynge and signed with your moste gracious hande, at your onely pleasure from tyme to tyme herafter, the imperiall Crowne of this Realme and all other the premisses thereunto belongyng, to be remayne succede and come after your decease and for lack of lawfull heires of your body to be procreated and begoten as is afore lymytted by this Acte, to such person or persones in possession and remaynder as shall please your Highnes and according to such estate and after such maner forme facion ordre and condicion as shalbe expressed declared named and lymytted in your said letters patentes or by your said laste will.” The later Act, 35 Henry VIII. c. 1, puts Henry’s two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, into the entail, but in a very remarkable way. The Acts declaring their illegitimacy are not repealed, nor is the legitimacy of either of them in any way asserted; in fact it is rather denied when the preamble rehearses that “The king’s Majesty hath only issue of his body lawfully begotten betwixt his Highness and his said late wife Queen Jane the noble and excellent Prince Edward.” The Act then goes on to enact that, although the King had been enabled to “dispose” the Crown “to any person or persons of such estate therein as should please his Highness to limit and appoint,” yet that, in failure of heirs of the body of either the King or his son, “the said imperial Crown and all other the premises shall be to the Lady Mary the King’s Highness daughter, and to the heirs of the body of the same Lady Mary lawfully begotten, with such conditions as by his Highness shall be limited by his letters patents under his great seal, or by his Majesty’s last will in writing signed with his gracious hand.” Failing Mary and her issue, the same conditional entail is extended to Elizabeth and her issue. The power of creating a remainder after the issue of Elizabeth of course remained with Henry, and he exercised it in favour of the issue of his younger sister Mary. Mary and Elizabeth therefore really reigned, not by virtue of any royal descent, but by virtue of a particular entail by which the Crown was settled on the King’s illegitimate daughters, as it might have been settled on a perfect stranger. It was an attempt on the part of Edward the Sixth to do without parliamentary authority what his father had done by parliamentary authority which led to the momentary occupation of the throne by Lady Jane Grey. Mary, on her accession, raked up the whole story of her mother’s marriage and divorce, and the Act of the first year of her reign recognized her as inheriting by legitimate succession. The Act passed on the accession of Elizabeth, 1 Eliz. c. 3, is much vaguer. It enacts “that your majestie our sayd Sovereigne Ladye ys and in verye dede and of most meere right ought to bee by the Lawes of God and the Lawes and Statutes of this Realme our most rightfull and lawfull Sovereigne liege Ladie and Quene; and that your Highness ys rightlye lynyallye and lawfully discended and come of the bloodd royall of this Realme of Englande in and to whose princely person and theires of your bodye lawfully to bee begotten after youe without all doubte ambiguitee scruple or question the imperiall and Royall estate place crowne and dignitie of this Reallme withe all honnours stiles titles dignities Regalities Jurisdiccons and preheminences to the same nowe belonging & apperteyning arre & shalbee most fully rightfully really & entierly invested & incorporated united & annexed as rightfully & lawfully to all intentes construccons & purposes as the same were in the said late Henrye theight or in the late King Edwarde the Syxte your Highnes Brother, or in the late Quen Marye your Highnes syster at anye tyme since thacte of parliament made in the xxxvth yere of the reigne of your said most noble father king Henrye theight.”