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492

REGULATION OF ELECTIONS.

which were committed at elections, and seeking to prevent their recurrence. In 1372, an ordinance, passed at the suggestion and by the advice of the Commons, prohibited the election of sheriffs during the continuance of their functions, and also of lawyers, because they made use of their authority to procure their own election, and afterwards cared only for their own private interests.*

IV. Finally, it is under this reign that we first find committees of the two Houses uniting to investigate certain questions in common, and afterwards reporting the result of their investigations to their respective Houses. It is remarkable that this usage, so necessary to facilitate the progress of the representative system and to procure good deliberations, should have arisen precisely at that period when the Parliament became divided into two Houses. It was the natural consequence of their former combination in a single assembly. There was no regular or invariable plan with regard to the mode of the formation of these committees. Sometimes the king himself appointed a certain number of lords, and invited the Commons to choose a certain number of their own members to confer with them;

*The influence of the king upon elections was manifested at this period in a direct manner, or nearly so. Two edicts of Edward III., passed at an interval of more than forty years, prove this. The first, dated on the 3rd of November, 1330, concludes thus: "And because that, before this time, several knights, representatives for counties, were people of ill designs and maintainers of false quarrels, and would not suffer that our good subjects should show the grievances of the common people, nor the matters which ought to be redressed in Parliament, to the great damage of us and our subjects; we, therefore, charge and command that you cause to be elected, with the common consent of your county, two, the most proper and most sufficient knights, or sergeants of the said county, that are the least suspected of ill designs, or common maintainers of parties, to be of our said Parliament, according to the form of our writ which you have with you. And this we expect you shall do, as you will eschew our anger and indignation." (Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 84.) This writ was issued at the time when the young king had just delivered himself from the yoke of Mortimer and his faction. The second writ, dated in 1373, orders the sheriffs "to cause to be chosen two dubbed knights, or the most worthy, honest, and discreet esquires of that county, the most expert in feats of arms, and no others; and of every city two citizens, of every borough two burgesses, discreet and sufficient, and such who had the greatest skill in shipping and merchandizing.”—Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 137.

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494

PARLIAMENT UNDER RICHARD II.

LECTURE XXIV.

State of the Parliament under Richard II.-Struggle between absolute royalty and parliamentary government.-Origin of the civil list.Progress of the responsibility of ministers.-Progress of the returns of the employment of the public revenue.-The Commons encroach upon the government.-Reaction against the sway of the Commons. -Violence and fall of Richard II.-Progress of the essential maxims and practices of representative government.

Ir is a remarkable fact in the history of England that, during the interval which elapsed between the years of 1216 and 1399, an able monarch always succeeded an incapable king, and vice versa. This circumstance proved very favourable to the establishment of free institutions, which never had time either to fall beneath the yoke of an energetic despotism or to dissolve in anarchy.

The reign of Richard II. does not present, like that of Edward III., the spectacle of the struggle of the Commons in defending their rights, and extending them by the very fact that they were defending them against the royal power, which was incessantly striving to evade those rights because they checked its authority, but which was nevertheless sufficiently acute to perceive that it stood in need of the assistance of the people, and could not afford to quarrel with their representatives. During the reign of Richard, the conflict assumes a more general character; it now involves far more than special or occasional acts of resistance. The question at issue now is, whether the king shall govern according to the advice and under the control of his Parliament, or rule alone and in an almost arbitrary manner. positive conflict arose between parliamentary government and purely royal government; a violent conflict, full of reciprocal iniquities, but in which the question between liberty in general and absolute power was laid down more clearly and completely than it had ever been before.

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The vicissitudes of this struggle are broadly outlined in facts. The reign of Richard II. may be divided into two

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parts. From 1877 to 1989, the government was parliamen BATT, THAT IS to say, the Parlament exerased the supreme GOLITO SUÈ TALLY started all poble afairs, notwithstanding The stamps at resistance on the part of the king and his ivourites. From 1889 1399, this state of things mire want a change, and the kimE TROUTESSITAT Perlmed the unger hand. Not that the Pritament abandoned or lost £ Is rights: for that of voting the taxes, in particolar, was halay maltamed, and even respected to a certain extent. But generly speaking, the goRECLMALI VIS arbitrary, the King had the sole Cispost of St. and the Protisment, which hač Jost its prepondenting infience, interfered (y as an

This state of things was coming to the desires and tastings of the country, and it was terminated IT & TAFICA event. Kichard was deposed by a prosched exde who iended in England with stavy men, but found both the Parliament and the entir main disposed to sunDOT him, or a £ evELLIS, DOT TO CZPose him. The deposition of Richard and the elevation of the House of Lancaster were the work of force, but of force supported by that pOWERLA adhesion which the slence and immobility of the publie afford to enterprises which tend to overthrow an oddus or despised goreTMELİ.

Such was the gemers, aspect of this wire. I shall not Inger to detail is creats, but money sweet and bring to heit these facts which relate to the condition of the publie instations of the country, and which prove the truth of that which I have Sust affirmed.

As you have already seen. Zuring the last years of the zuen of Edward 111, the infance of the Commons in the vokernment had rapidly angmented; and its further progress was favoured by the minority of Richard 11. Sary years before, the nonage of the king would have placed the State Lader the control of some faction of harons: but during the Inner balf of the fourteenth century, the Commons take the inmaker in all things, and pleny say how they think the government should be administerd

A first Parliament was convoked in the month of September, 1877. Peter de in Mare, formerly the leader of the eroositon, was barated from prison, and chosen speaker of The House of Commons. Three jords selected by the Com

486

THE FRENCH WARS.

establish.* In 1354, the Lord Chamberlain, by the king's command, informed the Parliament: "That there was great hopes of bringing about a peace between England and France, yet the king would not conclude anything without the consent of his Lords and Commons. Wherefore he demanded of them, in the king's name, whether they would assent and agree to a peace, if it might be had by treaty." To this the Commons replied at first, "that what should be agreeable to the king and his council in making of this treaty, would be so to them;" but on being asked again, "If they consented to a perpetual peace, if it might be had," they all unanimously cried out, Yea! Yea!† Finally, on the 25th of January, 1361, peace having been concluded by the treaty of Bretigny, the Parliament was convoked, the treaty was submitted to its inspection and received its approval, and on the 31st a solemn ceremony took place in the cathedral church at Westminster, when all the members of Parliament, both Lords and Commons, individually swore upon the altar to observe the peace.

In 1368, the negotiations with Scotland were submitted to the consideration of the Parliament; the king of Scotland, David Bruce, offered peace on condition of being relieved from all homage of his crown to the king of England. The Lords and Commons replied, "That they could not assent to any such peace, upon any account, without a disherison of the king, his heirs and crown, which they themselves were sworn to preserve, and therefore must advise him not to hearken to any such propositions;" and they voted large subsidies to continue the war.

In 1369, the king consulted the Parliament as to whether he should recommence the war with France, because the conditions of the last treaty had not been observed; the Parliament advised him to do so, and votes subsidies.

These facts prove the most direct and constant intervention of the Commons in matters of peace and war. Nor did they seek to elude this responsibility, so long as the war was successful and national. When the subsidies became excessive, they manifested greater reserve in giving their opinion beforehand. When fortune turned decidedly against * Parliamentary History, vol. i. p. 115. + Ibid. p. 122. Ibid. vol. i. p. 181.

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