pleasures, thereupon made, builded, and devised, as is afore said, and also the soil of the said ancient palace, shall be from henceforth the King's whole Palace at Westminster, and so to be taken, deemed, reputed, called, and named the King's Palace at Westminster for ever; and that the same palace shall from henceforth extend and be, as well within the soil and places afore limited and appointed for the same, as also in all the street or way leading from Charing Cross unto the Sanctuary Gate at Westminster aforesaid, and in all the houses, buildings, lands, and tenements on both the sides of the same street or way from the said Cross unto Westminster Hall, situate, lying, or being between the water of the Thames of the east part and the said Park wall of the west part, and so forth through all the soil, precinct, and limits of the said Old Palace."* In Scotland, so long as that country possessed a separate legislature, the Lords and Commons assembled in parliament sat together, forming only one House; and it has been sometimes assumed that this was also originally the case in England. But we know that in France, in Sweden, and in other countries in which parliaments anciently existed, the different orders of which they were composed deliberated separately from each other; and in England, too, this was most probably the mode from the

first. In early times parliaments used to be held in many other places as well as in London or Westminster; but from the latter part of the fourteenth century Westminster has been the place at which they have commonly assembled: it is reckoned that since the commencement of the reign of Richard II. the whole number held elsewhere has been only fourteen. The Chapter House in the Abbey appears to have been originally the usual place of meeting for the Commons; but after the suppression of the monastic establishments, the old Chapel of St. Stephen's was appropriated to their use, being fitted for the purpose by having its painted walls boarded over in the manner that has been already described, and its dimensions also in another direction considerably con

* Stat. 28 Henry VIII. c. 12.

tracted by the insertion of a new floor above, and a new roof under the old one. This arrangement is said to have been made in the reign of Edward VI.; it probably took place before 1551, in which year, as Strype informs us in his ‹ Ecclesiastical Memorials,' Sir John Gates, a minion of the Duke of Northumberland, obtained, among much more of the same kind of spoil, "a patent whereby the King granted him the site of the College or free Chapel of St. Stephen's in Westminster, with all the chapels and precincts of the said site, except the upper buildings, now called the Parliament House, over the vault of the College Chapel beneath." From this time St. Stephen's Chapel continued to be the place in which the Commons held their meetings down to the destruction of the building in 1834, except only on one or two occasions, when both Houses were assembled at Whitehall, twice in the reign of Charles I., when the parliament was withdrawn to Oxford, and during the making of some alterations in the room in the year 1800, for the accommodation of the hundred members added to their number by the Union with Ireland, when they removed for a short time to the apartment called the Painted Chamber, the same in which the Lords have sat since the fire. It used to be the place in which the conferences between the two Houses were held, and stands parallel to St. Stephen's Chapel, extending towards the river from the southern extremity, as St. Stephen's Chapel did from the northern extremity of the former House of Lords, which is now appropriated to the meetings of the Commons. This last-mentioned apartment, however, had only served for the accommodation of the Lords since the year 1800; till then their Lordships met in a room adjoining to the Painted Chamber on the south, over the cellar in which Guy Fawkes and his associates stowed their gunpowder; and what was lately the House of Lords, and is now the House of Commons, was then an unoccupied apartment, known by the name of the Court of Requests. Pennant describes it as in his day, "a vast room modernized; at present a mere walking place." "The outside of the south end," he adds, "shows the great antiquity of the building, having in it two great round arches, with zigzag mouldings, our most ancient species of architecture. This court has its name because the masters of it here received the petitions of the subjects to the King, in which they requested justice, and advised the suppliants how they were to proceed." It is supposed, indeed, to be the most ancient part of the Palace of Westminster now remaining, and to have served as the banqueting-room of the Old Palace before the erection of the present Great Hall by Rufus.

These various changes require to be kept in view in assigning a local habitation to any of the great incidents in the history of parliament.

The retention by the Commons of the little unpretending room in which they continued to be cooped up from the middle of the sixteenth till nearly the middle of the nineteenth century, presents an interesting contrast to the wonderful expansion their power and authority received in that space of time. For a long course of years after they were first summoned by the Crown to exercise the privilege, or rather, as it was then esteemed, to share the burthen, of legislation, his Majesty's "poor Commons," as they used to style themselves, were looked upon and treated, by both the Crown and the Lords, rather as servants or instruments trn as associates or equals. Indeed the representatives of the towns were not for a lo time held, either by others or themselves, to have any right to assist in e

;

making of laws, or to interfere generally with public affairs. Their sole function was to give their consent to the levying of taxes upon their constituents. As Hume has said, “they composed not, properly speaking, any essential part of the parliament; they met apart both from the barons and knights, who disdained to mix with such mean personages: after they had given their consent to the taxes required of them, their business being now finished, they separated, even though the parliament still continued to sit and to canvass the national business." And even after the Lower House had acquired more strength and importance by the union of the borough and county members, it was long before they were either allowed, or even evinced any inclination, to assume a general power of legislation. Down even to the beginning of the fifteenth century they were regarded as having only the right of petitioning the King and the Lords. Henry IV. on one occasion distinctly told them that such was all the function that belonged to them. In the parliament which met in January, 1349, the twenty-first year of Edward III., the Commons, after a debate of four days, came to the conclusion that they were not able to give the King any advice about the question of going to war with France, as to which their opinion had been asked ; and they therefore desired that his Majesty would, in regard to that point, be advised by his nobles and council, and whatever should by them be determined, they (the Commons) would consent unto, confirm, and establish. So perplexed were the popular representatives by the novelty of being called upon to consider so high a matter. They further represented that they had been detained for a long time in parliament, to their great cost and damage, and begged that they might have a speedy answer to their petitions, in order that they might soon get back to their own homes. The usual practice for some time after this was for the Commons, when their advice was demanded upon any state question, to entreat that some lords and prelates might be sent to assist their consultations, as being incapable by themselves of judging aright as to such matters. It is unnecessary to add that in those days no measure could originate with the Commons, at least in any other way than by being made matter of petition from them to the King and the Lords, to whom alone it was held that all judgment appertained. But even at a much later date, long after the Commons had begun to be themselves petitioned to, which appears to have been not till about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and when they had come to be theoretically regarded as a branch of the legislature generally co-ordinate with the other House, they still continued to be treated by the Crown with the height of arrogance, and as far as possible to be kept muzzled and in the leash. The course of events in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which so greatly broke the ancient power of the nobility, had favoured the rise of the Commons to a general legislative equality with the Lords; but the same causes which had depressed the aristocracy had strengthened the royal authority, and the battle with prerogative had to be fought after that with the rest of feudalism had been in great part over and won. Much was done when the House of Commons first conceived the notion, and manifested the desire, of being something more in the state than a mere sponge in the hands of the Crown-the contrivance it made use of for facilitating the process of extracting a revenue from the pockets of the people; and this commencing movement may be said to have been made in the

favourable and encouraging circumstances produced by the elevation of the House of Lancaster to the throne, and their precarious tenure of it on a disputed title. The instinct of ascent was thus awakened, and the habit acquired; and after this every propitious crisis or influence was as sure to be taken advantage of, and to aid the progress of the new power, as a ship at sea with its sails spread is sure to be carried forward on its course whenever the right wind springs up. But as we have said, there was a succession of obstacles to be surmounted before the popular power could establish its ascendancy in the constitution. The common theory of the constitutional position and rights of the House of Commons was nearly the same as it is at this day when the House first took possession of St. Stephen's Chapel about the middle of the sixteenth century; but its actual position for fifty years after this date was as different from what it is now as that of a menial servant is from that of his master.

Elizabeth in particular, from the beginning to the end of her reign, kept her faithful Commons in as thorough order and subjection as ever pedagogue did a crew of well-whipped schoolboys. When immediately after her accession they ventured to address her in very humble terms on the subject of contracting a marriage, that the throne might not be left without an heir, although, being at the moment in good humour, she took what she called their petition in good part, because, as she said, it was simple, and contained no limitation of place or person, she at the same time told the Speaker, by whom it was delivered, that if it had been otherwise she must needs have misliked it very much, "and thought it in you,” she added, “a very great presumption, being unfitting and altogether unmeet for you to require them that may command you, or those to appoint whose parts are to desire, or such to bind and limit whose duties are to obey." And she ended by telling them that while she thanked them it was more for their zeal and good meaning than for their petition-as she again took care to designate what they themselves had termed a "humble but pressing and earnest address." Eight years after, when this same question of her Majesty's marriage was once more moved, Elizabeth twice sent down to the House her express prohibition against proceeding any further in that affair; although, with the policy which she rarely forgot even in her most violent fits of temper, or at least always remembered as soon as the fit was over, she sent down a message after the lapse of a fortnight to the effect “that, for the good will she bore to them, she did revoke her two former commandments; but desired the House to proceed no further in the matter at that time:" which act of grace, according to the Journal, "was taken by the House most joyfully, with most hearty prayer and thanks for the same." One member, nevertheless, Paul Wentworth, Esq., had before this had the boldness to start the question, whether the Queen's commands and inhibition were not against the liberties and privileges of the House; and this motion gave rise to a debate which lasted from nine in the morning, of a November day, till two in the afternoon. What determination the House came to is not stated.*

Another subject in regard to which Elizabeth would at no time permit the interference of parliament was that of the established religion. She

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* See, besides the Journals of the House, Sir Symonds Dewes, Camden, and certain dispatches of the French ambassador, La Mothe Fenelon, published by Mr. D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature,' pp. 236–239 (edition of 1839).

kept her post at the head of the Church with the tenacity of a mastiff. In 1571 a Mr. Strickland, having ventured to bring in a Bill for the Reformation of the Book of Common Prayer, was immediately called before the council, and commanded to forbear going to the House till her Majesty's pleasure should be further signified to him; and, although, upon the matter being taken up somewhat warmly by the House, their member was restored to them after about a week, no acknowledgment was ever made by the Crown of the illegality of so gross an outrage. In the course of the debate to which the affair gave rise, Mr. Treasurer stated that Strickland was not detained "for any word or speech by him in that place offered, but for the exhibiting a bill into the House against the prerogative of the Queen, which was not to be tolerated." The royal prerogative, which was thus not to be touched, meant in those days anything the Crown might call by that name, any right or authority it chose to lay claim to. On another occasion, in this same session, a Mr. Bell, having taken the liberty to deliver his opinion against monopolies, or licences granted by her Majesty to various individuals of the exclusive trade in certain commodities, was held, the Journal states, to have spoken against the prerogative, and in consequence of what had fallen from him the Speaker informed the House that he had received a command from her Majesty to caution the members to spend less time in motions, and to avoid long speeches.

In a subsequent parliament, in 1575, after two bills respecting rites and ceremonies in the church had been read for the third time, the Speaker announced to the House the Queen's, pleasure that from henceforth no bills concerning religion should be brought forward or received by the House unless the same should have been first considered and approved by the clergy. At her Majesty's desire, also, the two bills were immediately sent up for her inspection, the House accompanying them with a humble request most humbly to beseech her Highness not to conceive an ill opinion of the House, if so it were that her Majesty should not like well of the said bills, or of the parties that preferred them. The next day the Treasurer of the Household reported "that her Majesty seemed utterly to mislike the first bill, and him that brought the same into the House;" and he further intimated her "express will and pleasure" that the measure should not take effect: upon which it appears to have been at once laid aside. A few days after this, her Majesty sent down a message to the House commanding them to refrain from all further speeches or arguments touching the business of the Queen of Scots and the Duke of Norfolk, upon which there had for some time been considerable debate. On the first day of the next session this interference was made the subject of a long harangue by Peter Wentworth, Esq., member for Tregony-the brother of Paul-some of whose expressions or doctrines so frightened the House, that, according to the Journal, they, "out of a reverent regard of her Majesty's honour, stopped his further proceeding before he had fully finished." And, it is added, "Mr. Wentworth being sequestered the House for his said speech, it was agreed and ordered by the House upon the question (after sundry motions and disputations had therein) that he should be presently committed to the serjeant's ward as prisoner, and, so remaining, should be examined upon his said speech, for the extenuating of his fault therein, by a committee consisting of all the Privy Council being of this