View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 13

[206] The variations of each statute, as now printed, from the parliamentary roll, whether in form or substance, are noticed in Cotton's Abridgment. It may be worth while to consult the preface to Ruffhead's edition of the Statutes, where this subject is treated at some length.

Perhaps the triple division of our legislature may be dated from this innovation. For as it is impossible to deny that, while the king promulgated a statute founded upon a mere pet.i.tion, he was himself the real legislator, so I think it is equally fair to a.s.sert, notwithstanding the formal preamble of our statutes, that laws brought into either house of parliament in a perfect shape, and receiving first the a.s.sent of lords and commons, and finally that of the king, who has no power to modify them, must be deemed to proceed, and derive their efficacy, from the joint concurrence of all the three. It is said, indeed, at a much earlier time, that le ley de la terre est fait en parlement par le roi, et les seigneurs espirituels et temporels, et tout la communaute du royaume. Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 293. But this, I must allow, was in the violent session of 11 Ric. II., the const.i.tutional authority of which is not to be highly prized.

[207] 8 H. V. vol. iv. p. 127.

[208] The house of commons thanked the king for pardoning Northumberland, whom, as it proved, he had just cause to suspect. 5 H.

IV. p. 525.

[209] 5 H. IV. p. 505.

[210] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 529, 568, 573.

[211] p. 547.

[212] 13 H. IV. p 624.

[213] Rot. Parl. 8 H. IV. p. 585.

[214] 13 H. IV. p. 648, 658.

[215] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 549, 568, 574, 611.

[216] This pa.s.sage was written before I was aware that the same opinion had been elaborately maintained by Mr. Luders, in one of his valuable essays upon points of const.i.tutional history.

[217] Rot. Parl. 8 H. V. vol. iv. p. 125.

[218] p. 128.

[219] p. 130.

[220] 7 R. II. vol. iii. p. 170.

[221] p. 215.

[222] 7 R. II. p. 315.

[223] 4 H. V. vol. iv. p. 98.

[224] p. 135.

[225] Rot. Parl. 4 H. V. vol. iv. p. 211, 242, 277.

[226] p. 371.

[227] 23 H. VI. vol. v. p. 102. There is rather a curious instance in 3 H. VI. of the jealousy with which the commons regarded any proceedings in parliament where they were not concerned. A controversy arose between the earls marshal and of Warwick respecting their precedence; founded upon the royal blood of the first, and long possession of the second. In this the commons could not affect to interfere judicially; but they found a singular way of meddling, by pet.i.tioning the king to confer the dukedom of Norfolk on the earl marshal. vol. iv. p. 273.

[228] Rot. Parl. 1 H. VI. p. 189; 3 K. VI. p. 292; 8 H. VI. p. 343.

[229] vol. v. 18 H. VI. p. 17.

[230] 28 H. VI. p. 185.

[231] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 430, 449.

[232] Rot. Parl. 28 H. VI. vol. v. p. 176.

[233] If this were to rest upon antiquity of precedent, one might be produced that would challenge all compet.i.tion. In the laws of Ethelbert, the first Christian king of Kent, at the end of the sixth century, we find this provision: "If the king call his people to him (i.e. in the witenagemot), and any one does an injury to one of them, let him pay a fine." Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Saxon. p. 2.

[234] Hatsell, vol. i. p. 12.

[235] Rot. Parl. 5 H. IV. p. 541.

[236] The clergy had got a little precedence in this. An act pa.s.sed 8 H.

VI. c. 1, granting privilege from arrest for themselves and servants on their way to convocation.

[237] Rot. Parl. vol. iv. p. 357.

[238] vol. v. p. 374.

[239] Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 239; Hatsell's Precedents, p. 29.

[240] Upon this subject the reader should have recourse to Hatsell's Precedents, vol. i. chap. 1.

[241] Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 337; W. Worcester, p. 415. Mr. Hatsell seems to have overlooked this case, for he mentions that of Strickland, in 1571, as the earliest instance of the crown's interference with freedom of speech in parliament. vol. i. p. 85.

[242] This parliament sat at Gloucester.

[243] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 611.

[244] A notion is entertained by many people, and not without the authority of some very respectable names, that the king is one of the three estates of the realm, the lords spiritual and temporal forming together the second, as the commons in parliament do the third. This is contradicted by the general tenor of our ancient records and law-books; and indeed the a.n.a.logy of other governments ought to have the greatest weight, even if more reason for doubt appeared upon the face of our own authorities. But the instances where the three estates are declared or implied to be the n.o.bility, clergy, and commons, or at least their representatives in parliament, are too numerous for insertion. This land standeth, says the Chancellor Stillington, in 7th Edward IV., by three states, and above that one princ.i.p.al, that is to wit, lords spiritual, lords temporal, and commons, and over that, state royal, as our sovereign lord the king. Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 622. Thus, too, it is declared that the treaty of Staples in 1492 was to be confirmed per tres status regni Angliae rite et debite convocatos, videlicet per prelatos et clerum, n.o.biles et communitates ejusdem regni. Rymer, t. xii. p. 508.

I will not, however, suppress one pa.s.sage, and the only instance that has occurred in my reading, where the king does appear to have been reckoned among the three estates. The commons say, in the 2nd of Henry IV., that the states of the realm may be compared to a trinity, that is, the king, the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons. Rot. Parl.

vol. iii. p. 459. In this expression, however, the sense shows that by estates of the realm they meant members, or necessary parts, of the parliament.

Whitelocke, on the Parliamentary Writ, vol. ii. p. 43, argues at length, that the three estates are king, lords, and commons, which seems to have been a current doctrine among the popular lawyers of the seventeenth century. His reasoning is chiefly grounded on the baronial tenure of bishops, the validity of acts pa.s.sed against their consent, and other arguments of the same kind; which might go to prove that there are only at present two estates, but can never turn the king into one.

The source of this error is an inattention to the primary sense of the word estate (status), which means an order or condition into which men are cla.s.sed by the inst.i.tutions of society. It is only in a secondary, or rather an elliptical application, that it can be referred to their representatives in parliament or national councils. The lords temporal, indeed, of England are identical with the estate of the n.o.bility; but the house of commons is not, strictly speaking, the estate of commonalty, to which its members belong, and from which they are deputed. So the whole body of the clergy are properly speaking one of the estates, and are described as such in the older authorities, 21 Ric.

II. Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 348, though latterly the lords spiritual in parliament acquired, with less correctness, that appellation. Hody on Convocations, p. 426. The bishops, indeed, may be said, constructively, to represent the whole of the clergy, with whose grievances they are supposed to be best acquainted, and whose rights it is their peculiar duty to defend. And I do not find that the inferior clergy had any other representation in the cortes of Castile and Aragon, where the ecclesiastical order was always counted among the estates of the realm.

[245] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 623.

[246] Rot. Parl. 5 R. II. p. 100.

[247] Stat. 2 H. V. c. 6, 7, 8, 9; 4 H. VI. c. 7.

[248] Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 7. It appears by a case in the Year Book of the 33rd of Henry VI., that, where the lords made only some minor alterations in a bill sent up to them from the commons, even if it related to a grant of money, the custom was not to remand it for their a.s.sent to the amendment. Brooke's Abridgment: Parliament. 4. The pa.s.sage is worth extracting, in order to ill.u.s.trate the course of proceeding in parliament at that time. Case fuit que Sir J. P. fuit attaint de certeyn trespas par acte de parliament dont les commons furent a.s.sentus, que sil ne vient eins per tiel jour que il forfeytera tiel summe, et les seigneurs done plus longe jour, et le bil nient rebaile al commons arrere; et per Kirby, clerk des roles del parliament, l'use del parliament est, que si bil vient primes a les commons, et ils pa.s.sent ceo, il est use d'endorser ceo en tiel forme, Soit bayle as seigniors; et si les seigniors _ne le roy_ ne alteront le bil, donques est use a liverer ceo al clerke del parliamente destre enrol saunz endorser ceo.... Et si les seigniors volent alter un bil in ceo que poet estoyer ore le bil, ils poyent saunz remandre ceo al commons, come si les commons graunte poundage, pur quatuor ans, et les grantent nisi par deux ans, ceo ne serra rebayle al commons; mes si les commons grauntent nisi pur deux ans, et les seigneurs pur quatre ans, la ceo serra reliver al commons, et en cest case les seigniors doyent faire un sedule de lour intent, ou d'endorser le bil en ceste forme, Les seigneurs ceo a.s.sentent pur durer par quatuor ans; et quant les commons ount le bil arrere, et ne volent a.s.senter a ceo, ceo ne poet estre un actre; mes si les commons volent a.s.senter, donques ils indorse leur respons sur le mergent ne ba.s.se deins le bil en tiel forme, Les commons sont a.s.sentans al sedul des seigniors, a mesme cesty bil annexe, et donques sera bayle ad clerke del parliament, ut supra. Et si un bil soit primes liver al seigniors, et le bil pa.s.se eux, ils ne usont de fayre ascun endors.e.m.e.nt, mess de mitter le bil as commons; et donques, si le bil pa.s.se les commons, il est use destre issint endorce, Les commons sont a.s.sentants; et ceo prove que il ad pa.s.se les seigniors devant, et lour a.s.sent est a cest pa.s.ser del seigniors; et ideo cest acte supra nest bon, pur ceo que ne fuit rebaile as commons.

A singular a.s.sertion is made in the Year Book 21 E. IV. p. 48 (Maynard's edit.), that a subsidy granted by the commons without a.s.sent of the peers is good enough. This cannot surely have been law at that time.