[be one of the rights of the people, that, for redress of all grievances, and for thea mending, strengthening and preserving the laws, parliaments ought to be held frequently ;] besides which, it is by a subsequent statute, 6 W. & M. c. 2, further provided, that a new parliament shall be called within three years after the determination of a former one (u). But the importance of these provisions is in modern times lessened by the course of the public business, the exigencies of which now lead invariably to the assemblage of parliament once in every year. II. [The constituent parts of a parliament are the next objects of our inquiry. And these are, the sovereign sitting there in his royal political capacity; and the three estates of the realm,-the lords spiritual, the lords temporal (who sit, together with the sovereign, in one house),and the commons, who sit by themselves in another. And the sovereign and these three estates, together, form the great corporation or body politic of the kingdom (v), of which the sovereign is said to be caput, principium, et finis. For upon their coming together, he meets them, either in person or by representation; without which there can be no beginning of a parliament (x); and he also has alone the power of dissolving them. It is highly necessary for preserving the balance of the constitution, that the executive power should be a branch, though not the whole, of the legislative. The total union of them, we have seen, would be productive of tyranny; the total disjunction of them for the present, would in the end produce the same effects, by causing that union against which it seems to provide. The legislative would soon become tyrannical, by making continual encroachments, and gradually assuming to itself the rights of the executive power. Thus the long parliament of Charles the first, while it acted in a constitutional manner with the royal (u) 6 & 7 W. & M. c. 2, s. 2. Hale, of Parl. 1. [concurrence, redressed many heavy grievances, and established many salutary laws. But when the two houses assumed the power of legislation, in exclusion of the royal authority, they soon after assumed likewise the reins of administration; and, in consequence of these united powers, overturned both church and state, and established a worse oppression than any they pretended to remedy. To hinder therefore any such encroachments, the sovereign is himself a part of the parliament: and, as this is the reason of his being so, very properly, therefore, the share of legislation, which the constitution has placed in the crown, consists in the power of rejecting rather than resolving; this being sufficient to answer the end proposed. For we may apply to the royal negative, in this instance, what Cicero observes of the negative of the Roman tribunes, that the crown has not any power of doing wrong, but merely of preventing wrong from being done (y). The crown cannot begin of itself any alterations in the present established law; but it may approve or disapprove of the alterations suggested and consented to by the two houses. The legislative therefore cannot abridge the executive power of any rights which it now has by law, without its own consent; since the law must perpetually stand as it now does, unless all the powers will agree to alter it: and herein indeed consists the true excellence of the English government, that all the parts of it form a mutual check upon each other. In the legislature, the people are a check upon the nobility, and the nobility a check upon the people, by the mutual privilege of rejecting what the other has resolved; while the sovereign is a check upon both, which preserves the executive power from encroachments: and this very executive power is again checked and kept within due bounds by the two houses, through the privilege they have of inquiring into, impeaching, and punishing the conduct (not, indeed, of the sovereign (2), which would destroy his con (y) "Sulla-tribunis plebis suâ lege injuriæ faciendæ potestatem ademit, auxilia ferendi reliquit."-De Leg. 3, 9. (z) Stat. 12 Car. 2, c. 30. [stitutional independence, but, which is more beneficial to the public,) of his evil and pernicious counsellors. Thus every branch of our civil polity supports and is supported, regulates and is regulated, by the rest; for the two houses naturally drawing in two directions of opposite interest, and the prerogative in another still different from them both, they mutually keep each other from exceeding their proper limits; while the whole is prevented from separation and artificially connected together by the mixed nature of the crown, which is a part of the legislative, and the sole executive magistrate. Like three distinct powers in mechanics, they jointly impel the machine of government in a direction different from what either, acting by itself, would have done; but at the same time in a direction partaking of each, and formed out of all; a direction which constitutes the true line of the liberty and happiness of the community. Let us now consider these constituent parts of the sovereign power, or parliament, each in a separate view. The king's (or queen's) majesty will be the subject of the next, and many subsequent chapters, to which we must at present refer. The next in order are the "spiritual lords."] These consist, since the union with Ireland, of three archbishops and twenty-seven bishops; of whom one archbishop and three bishops are lords spiritual of Ireland, entitled by rotation to sit and vote on the part of Ireland (a): the remaining two archbishops and twenty-four bishops being lords spiritual of England (b). The lords spiritual [hold, or are supposed to hold, certain antient baronies under the crown; for William the Conqueror thought proper to change (a) 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 67; 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 37, s. 51; vide sup. vol. 1. p. 96. At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry the eighth, the spiritual lords also comprised twentyseven mitred abbots and two priors. Co. Litt. 97; Seld. Tit. Hon. 2, 5, 27. (b) The whole number of English bishops (exclusive of the archbishops) is (as we have seen, sup. vol. 1. p. 116) twenty-six. But only twenty-four have seats in the house of lords; vide post, bk. IV. pt. 11. c. I. [the spiritual tenure of frank-almoign, or free alms, under which the bishops held their lands during the Saxon government, into the feudal or Norman tenure by barony; which subjected their estates to all civil charges and assessments from which they were before exempt (c): and in right of succession to those baronies, which were unalienable from their respective dignities, the bishops were allowed seats in the house of lords (d). But though these lords spiritual are, in the eye of the law, a distinct estate from the lords temporal, and are so distinguished in most of our acts of parliament, yet in practice they are usually blended together under the one name of "the lords:" they intermix in their votes; and the majority of such intermixture binds both estates. And from this want of a separate assembly and separate negative of the prelates, some writers have argued (e) very cogently, that the lords temporal and spiritual are now, in reality, only one estate (f); which is unquestionably true in every effectual sense, though the antient distinction between them still nominally continues. For if a bill should pass their house, there is no doubt of its validity, though every lord spiritual should vote against it; of which Selden (g), and Sir Edward Coke (h) give many instances: as, on the other hand, (c) Gilb. Hist. Exch. 55; Spelm. W. I. 291. (d) On this subject, see Co. Litt. by Harg. 134 b, n. (1); Hallam's Hist. Mid. Ages, vol. iii. pp. 6—8, 7th edition. Notwithstanding the baronies here mentioned, the prelates do not strictly rank, according to the prevalent opinion, as peers of the realm. They have a right, however, in common with the temporal lords, to the appellation of "lords of parliament." (See Staunford, P. C. 158; 1 Bl. Com. p. 157.) (e) Whitelock on Parliam. c. 72; Warburt. Alliance, b. ii. c. 3. (f) Dyer, 60. (g) Baronage, p. 1, c. 6. The Act of Uniformity, 1 Eliz. c. 2, was passed with the dissent of all the bishops, (Gibs. Codex, 286,) and therefore the style of lords spiritual is omitted throughout the whole. (h) 2 Inst. 585-587. See Keilw. 184, where it is holden by the judges, 7 Hen. 8, that the king may hold a parliament without any spiritual lords. This was also exemplified in fact, in the two first parliaments of Charles the second, wherein no bishops were summoned, until after the repeal of the statute 16 Car. 1, c. 27, by statute 13 Car. 2, stat. 1, c. 2. [it would presumably be good, if the lords temporal present were inferior to the bishops in number, and every one of those temporal lords gave his vote to reject the bill; though Sir Edward Coke seems to doubt (i), whether this would not be an ordinance, rather than an act, of parliament.] The "lords temporal" consist exclusively of peers—or, as they may be otherwise described, persons of the rank of nobility, by whatever title of nobility distinguished, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, or barons; of which dignities we shall speak more hereafter; these for the most part sit in their own right, but a certain number of them sit in a representative capacity. The latter are those who, under the Acts of Union with Scotland and Ireland (k), are elected to represent the body of the Scottish and Irish nobility respectively (7)—the Scottish representatives being sixteen in number, and the Irish twenty-eight (m), and the former being elected for one parliament only, but the latter (i) 4 Inst. 25. (k) Vide sup. vol. 1. pp. 88, 98. (1) The dignity of peerage is to be considered not merely as a title to a seat in parliament, but as a rank in the community; a view of it, which we shall have occasion to take at large in a subsequent chapter (chap. IX.). When so considered, the existing dignities admit of the following distribution:- They are, first, such as in their creation were peerages of England; secondly, such as were peerages of the united kingdom of Great Britain; thirdly, such as were peerages of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; fourthly, such as were peerages of Scotland; fifthly, such as were peerages of Ireland :-the dates of the first class being antecedent to the union with Scotland in 1707; of the second class being subsequent to that event and antecedent to the VOL. II. union with Ireland in 1801; of the third class being subsequent to the union last mentioned; of the fourth class being antecedent to the union with Scotland; of the fifth class being either antecedent to the union with Ireland, or subsequent; several Irish peerages having been created since that event, under a power for creating such peerages contained in the articles of the Irish union. The three first classes of peerages all confer seats in the House of Lords; the fourth and fifth a right to elect representatives who are to have seats therein. (m) As to the manner of proceeding in the election of the sixteen Scottish peers, see 6 Ann. c. 23; 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 63; 10 & 11 Vict. c. 52; 14 & 15 Vict. c. 87; 15 & 16 Vict. c. 35. And as to that in the election of the Irish peers, 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 67; 20 & 21 Vict. c. 33, et vide vol. 1. pp. 89, 98. Ꮓ |