xiv The following, among other works, are quoted in this book, and many more have been consulted in its preparation: Addresses from the Court of Common Council to the King, &c. (1760-1778). Alison's (Sir A.) Life of Castlereagh. Ashley's (Hon. E.) Life of Palmerston. Bacon's (Nathaniel) Historical Discourse on the Government of England. Barrington's (Sir Jonah) Historic Bourke's Parliamentary Precedents. Brougham's (Lord) Autobiography, Historical Sketches of Statesmen, &c. Broughton's (Lord) Recollections. Buckingham's (Duke of) Memoirs of the Court and Regency of George IV. Bulwer's Works (Sir E.)-See Lytton. Butler's (Charles) Reminiscences. Burke's Speeches and Miscellaneous Works. Burke's (P.) Life of Burke. Burnet's History of his Own Time. Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors and the Chief Justices. Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell. Castlereagh, Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount, edited by his Brother. Charlemont's (Lord) Correspondence. Christie's (W. D.) Memoirs, &c., of Shaftesbury. Clarendon's Life, History of the Rebellion, &c. Cobbett's Parliamentary History. Annual and Weekly Regis ters. Cobden's Speeches, edited by Bright and Rogers. Cockburn's (Lord) Life of Jeffrey. Colchester, Diary of Lord (Mr. Speaker Abbot). Cooke's History of Party. Cornwallis, Correspondence of Charles, 1st Marquis. Coxe's (Archdeacon) Life of Walpole. Croly's Life of George IV., &c. Curran's Sketches of the Irish Bar. Dalling's (Lord) Historical Characters, and Life of Palmerston. Daunt's Life of Daniel O'Connell. D'Ewes (Sir Simonds) Journal, &c. D'Israeli's (B.) Life of Bentinck. D'Israeli's (I.) Curiosities of Litera tare, Memorials of Charles I., &c. Doran's Walpole's Journals, &c. Duncombe's Life of T. S. Duncombe. Dundonald's (Earl of) Autobiography. Eldon's Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon. Elections, Determinations of the House of Commons concerning (1753). Elsynge's Ancient Method and Manner of Holding Parliaments, &c. Evelyn's Diary. Ewald's Biography of Walpole. Grafton's Abridgment of the Chronicles of England. Grant's Random Recollections of the Grey, Life and Opinions of Lord. Guizot's Memoirs of Peel, Embassy to the Court of St. James's, &c. Gurdon's History of Parliament. Hakewel's "Modus Tenendi Parliamentum." Hallam's Constitutional History. Harford's Recollections of Wilberforce. Hardy's Memoirs of Lord Charlemont. Harleian MSS. Harris's Life of Hardwicke. Horner's Memoirs and Correspondence. Hume's History of England. King's (Dr.) Anecdotes of His Own Time. Knight and Macfarlane's History of England. Le Marchant's (Sir D.) Memoir of Lingard's History of England. Malmesbury Correspondence, the. Molesworth's History of the Reform Moore's Lives of Sheridan and Byron. Northcote's (Sir John) Note Book. North's (Roger) Life of Guilford. O'Connell's (John) Reminiscences. Parliamentary O'Flanagan's Lives of the Irish Chancellors. Oldfield's History of the House of Commons. Orford's (Lord) Memoirs. Palgrave's (R.) Lectures on the House of Commons. Paris, Matthew. Plunket's Speeches, edited by Hoey. Pryme's (Professor) Autobiographic Reresby's (Sir J.) Memoirs. Reviews (Quarterly, Edinburgh, &c.). Rogers' (Samuel) Recollections. Rose, Diary of the Right Hon. George. Rushworth's Historical Collections. Sidney's (Algernon) View of Govern. ment in Europe. Smith's (Rev. Sydney) Letters, &c. Southey's Life of Cromwell. Subject's Priviledge, discussed betwixt Courtiers and Patriots (1657). Speeches and Passages of this Great and Happy Parliament (1641). The Diurnall Occurrences of ditto. Stanhope's History of England, Life of Pitt, &c. Stapleton's Canning and His Times. Stubbs's Constitutional History of England. Times Memoirs, &c. Torrens' (M'Cullagh) Lives of Graham and Melbourne. Townsend's Memoirs of the House of Commons, 1688-1832. Waldegrave's (Lord) Memoirs. Walpole's (Horace) Letters, Journals, &c. Walpole's (Spencer) History of England. Parliamentary Debates, Collections of, Walpoliana. 1668 to 1741, &c. Parry's Parliaments of England. Phillips's Curran and His Contemporaries. Plunket, Life of Lord. Warburton's Memoirs of Horace Walpole. Warwick, Memoirs of Sir Philip. Whitelocke's Memorials, &c. ANECDOTAL HISTRARY. BRITISH OF THE PARLIAMENT. PART I. RISE AND PROGRESS OF PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS. Antiquity of Parliaments.-Parliaments or General Councils (writes Blackstone) are coeval with the kingdom itself. How those Parliaments were constituted and composed is another question, which has been matter of great dispute among our learned antiquaries, and, particularly, whether the Commons were summoned at all; or, if summoned, at what period they began to form a distinct assembly. In the main, the constitution of Parliament, as it now stands, was marked out so long ago as the seventeenth year of King John, A.D. 1215, in the great charter granted by that prince; wherein he promises to summon all archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, personally; and all other tenants-in-chief under the Crown, by the sheriff and bailiffs, to meet at a certain place, with forty days' notice, to assess aids and scutages when necessary. And this constitution has subsisted in fact at least from 49 Henry III., there being still extant writs of that date to summon knights, citizens, and burgesses to Parliament. The "Omnipotence of Parliament."-The power and jurisdiction of Parliament (says Sir Edward Coke) is so transcendent and absolute that it cannot be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds. Parliament can regulate or new model the succession to the Crown; as was done in the reigns of Henry VIII. and William III. It can alter the established religion of the land; as was done in a variety of instances in the reigns of King Henry VIII. and his three children. It can change and create afresh even the constitution of the kingdom and of Parliaments themselves; as was done by the Act of Union, and the several statutes for triennial and septennial elections. It can, in short, do everything that is not naturally impossible; and therefore some have not scrupled to call its power, by a figure rather too bold, the omnipotence of Parliament. True it is, that what the Parliament doth, no authority upon earth can undo. So that it is a matter most essential to the liberties of this kingdom that such members be delegated to this important trust as are most eminent for their probity, their fortitude, and their knowledge.-Blackstone's Commentaries. "England can never be Ruined but by a Parliament."It was a known apothegm of the great Lord Treasurer Burleigh that "England could never be ruined but by a Parliament;" and, as Sir Matthew Hale observes, this being the highest and greatest court, over which none other can have jurisdiction in the kingdom, if by any means a misgovernment should any way fall upon it, the subjects of this kingdom are left without all manner of remedy. To the same purpose Montesquieu-though, I trust, too hastily-presages that as Rome, Sparta, and Carthage have lost their liberty and perished, so the constitution of England will, in time, lose its liberty-will perish it will perish whenever the legislative power shall become more corrupt than the executive.-Ibid. Constitution of the Early Councils.-Hume thus classifies the various orders which composed the great councils of the nation under the Norman kings. "The supreme legislative power of England was lodged in the king and great council, or what was afterwards called the Parliament. It is not doubted but the archbishops, bishops, and most considerable abbots were constituent members of the council. They sat by a double title; by prescription, as having always possessed that privilege, through the whole Saxon period, from the first establishment of Christianity; and by their right of baronage, as holding of the king in capite by military service. The barons were another constituent part of the great council of the nation. These held immediately of the crown by a military tenure; they were the most honourable members of the state, and had a right to be consulted in all public deliberations; they were the immediate vassals of the crown, and owed as a service their attendance in the court of their supreme lord. But there was another class of the immediate military tenants of the crown, no less, or probably more, numerous than the barons-the tenants in capite by knight's service; and these, however inferior in power or property, held by a tenure which was equally honourable with that of the others. Where a man held of the king only one or two knight's fees, he was still an immediate vassal of the crown, and as such had a title to have a seat in the general councils. The only question seems to be with regard to the commons, or the representatives of counties or boroughs, whether they were also, in more early times, constituent parts of Parliament. It is now agreed that the commons were no part of the great council till some ages after the Conquest, and that the military tenants alone of the crown composed that supreme and legislative assembly." The First Council after the Conquest.-The principle of election appears to have operated in this council, which was called together |