offices. Provision is now made for carrying such messages by clerks of the House of Lords (a).

(4) Speaker. The Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper is, by prescription, Prolocutor or Speaker of the House of Lords. If he be prevented from attending, a deputy-speaker is appointed by Royal Commission to officiate in his place during the Royal pleasure. The deputy-speakers are usually the chief judges of the courts of Westminster, and generally three are appointed, with authority to act in the absence of the Lord Chancellor; the second deputy-speaker, in the absence of the first; the third, in the absence of the first and second. When the Chancellor and deputy-speakers are all absent, the Lords elect a speaker pro tempore.

The Speaker is not necessarily a peer. In the last century the Lords Keepers Wright and Henley acted for many years as speakers, though not elevated to the peerage. In 1830, Lord Chancellor Brougham sat as speaker for one day before he had been created a peer.

The Speaker has not (as in the House of Commons) a power of deciding points of order, and the Lords address their speeches, not to him, but to the House generally. He communicates Royal addresses, puts questions to the vote, declares adjournments, and performs various functions of a ministerial character (b). If he be a peer, he may speak and vote as any other peer; and he has not a casting-vote in the case of equality of votes on a division. The equality of votes is held equivalent to a majority of non-contents, the maxim of the House of Lords being " Semper præsumitur pro negante."

(a) Parry's 'Parliaments,' xx. ; Macqueen on Appellate Jurisdiction, ch. 3. (b) Macqueen, Appellate Jurisdiction, ch. 2.

93

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

THE House of Commons since 49 Hen. III. has regularly consisted of knights of the shire, or representatives of counties; citizens, or representatives of cities; and burgesses, or representatives of boroughs, and representatives of the Cinque Ports, who all sit and vote together.

For a long time after knights, citizens, and burgesses obtained the privilege of a customary summons to the Parliaments, they were elected only "ad faciendum quod de communi concilio ordinabitur," whereas the peers were summoned "locuturi et super prædictis negotiis tracturi."

Since the enactment of the statute 7 Hen. IV. c. 15, A.D. 1406, regulating the manner of the election of knights of the shire, numerous statutes have been passed regulating the election of members of Parliament. But previously to that enactment the Crown had a very large and absolute power in limiting and prescribing, by the royal writs, the numbers and qualifications of the persons to be elected, and of the constituencies. Not only the numbers elected for particular counties, cities, and boroughs varied, but a power was for a long time assumed of omitting to send writs to places which had previously elected members, and of creating, by patents or writs, or both, new constituencies (a). For a long period after the constitution of the House of Commons the adjudication of controverted elections was

(a) Parry's 'Parliaments,' Introduction.

not in that House, but by the Kings, or their Councils, together with the House of Lords (a). It has been already pointed out that by a statute, 6 Rich. II., A.D. 1382, the returns to Parliament were to be such as had been accustomed in ancient times.

The distribution of the franchise in counties has always been far less variable and irregular than in boroughs. The earliest writs for the election of representatives of both counties and boroughs required two representatives to be elected for each; and down to the time of the passing of the Reform Acts, the regular number of representatives of English counties was (with one exception) two for each county. When Wales was incorporated with England, in the reign of Henry VIII., one representative was given, by statute, to every county of Wales (with one exception)(b). Upon the union of Scotland with England, by 5 Anne, c. 8, and of Ireland with Great Britain, by 40 Geo. III. c. 67, the distribution of the franchise among the counties of Scotland and Ireland respectively was strictly regulated by those statutes. Thus, though the general system of county representation was not perfectly uniform throughout the kingdom, it was defined by law according to a method, and not merely capriciously.

For cities and boroughs, however, the constituencies varied greatly from time to time, and in incorporated boroughs depended chiefly on custom and the terms of their charters. In some cases, the freeholders in burgage tenure returned members; in others, the inhabitants at large; in others, members of the Corporation (c). The

(a) See further as to this jurisdiction the fifth part of this chapter relating to controverted elections.

(b) 27 Hen. VIII. c. 26.

(c) In the case of Ashby v. White, in the House of Lords, A.D. 1701, it was laid down that every city is a borough, and, as such, sends members to Parliament. There are two sorts of boroughs: the more ancient hold their lands in burgage, and by reason thereof had the right of sending burgesses to Parliament; the more modern have by prescription or by charter a right belonging to their corporations of sending burgesses. (2 State Trials, 782.)

variations in the number of cities and boroughs sending representatives were due partly to the caprice of sheriffs. They, by the authority of the King's writs received by them, directed precepts to cities and boroughs, and arbitrarily omitted some and added others. As a remedy for this evil, it was provided by 5 Rich II. stat. 2, c. 4, that if any sheriff left out of the returns of writs of Parliament any cities or boroughs which were bound, and of old time were wont to come to the Parliament, he should be punished.

Another cause of the diversities in question was the inability of poor boroughs to pay the expenses of their representatives. Such boroughs were frequently discharged by the sheriffs from sending members, or, upon petition to the Crown, obtained temporary or perpetual exemption.

Again, in some ancient boroughs and ports, after a discontinuance of one or two hundred years, the power of sending representatives was revived by special charters, by the general clause in the writ to the sheriffs, or, as in the reign of Charles I., by the order of the House of Commons (a).

The number of cities, boroughs, and ports for which writs were issued in the time of Edward I., and thence to Edward IV., appears to have been 170(b). At the accession of Henry VIII., the total number of constituencies, including counties, had become reduced to 147. In that reign the number was considerably increased, principally by the addition of representatives for Wales. In all the following reigns up to the Restoration, large additions of borough franchises were made, of which particulars are given in a note appended. The practice having grown up of members bearing their own expenses, many ancient boroughs, which had formerly been exempted from the returns on account of their poverty, became desirous of

(a) The authorities for the preceding paragraphs of this chapter are the statutes cited; the Lords' Report on the Dignity of a Peer; and the introduction to Parry's 'Parliaments.'

(b) Parry's 'Parliaments,' xxx. 334, 344.

resuming their franchises. In the fourth Parliament of Charles I., the number of places in England and Wales for which returns were made, exclusive of counties, were 210; and in the time of the Stuarts, the total number of members of the House of Commons was about 500(a).

The number of members was not materially altered from that time until the union with Scotland, in the reign of Queen Anne, when 45 representatives of Scotland were added. The next considerable change was at the union with Ireland, at the commencement of the present century, when the House of Commons was increased by 100 Irish representatives (b). The number of members of the House has remained nearly the same ever since; but at the passing of the Reform Acts, which will be considered presently, extensive alterations were made as to the places represented.

The franchise of returning members to Parliament having, as we have seen, depended on a variety of fortuitous circumstances, the will of the Crown, the caprice of the sheriffs, or the unwillingness of some boroughs to send representatives, it was inevitable that the distribution of the fran

(a) D'Ewes, Journals, p. 80; Parry, 540, 597. In the Parliament of 1620 the number of members was 478. (2 Hatsell's 'Precedents,' 178 n.)

(b) Hatsell, in his 'Precedents,' vol. ii. p. 413, gives a summary of the number of constituencies and members in different reigns, as follows:

Edward VI. to Charles I., inclusive, were almost entirely of borough members.