CHAPTER XX.
Parliamentaky antiquities.
407. Parliamentary usages, definite or obscure.—408. Plan of the
chapter.—409. Choice of the day for parliament.—410. Annual
parliaments.—411. Length of notice before holding parliament.—
412. Choice of the place of session.—413. The Palace OfWestminster,
—414. Parliaments out of London.—415. Share of the council in
calling a parliament.—416. Issue and form of writs.-—417. Writs of
summons to the lords.—418. Writs of the justices.—419. Writs to
the Sheriffs for elections.—420. County elections.—421. Return on
indenture.—422. Borough elections.—423. Contested and disputed
elections.—424. Manucaption and expenses.—425. Meeting of parlia-
ment and opening of the session.—426. Separation of the houses.—
427. House of Lords.—428. Ranks of the peerage.—429. Number of
lords temporal.—430. Number of lords spiritual.—431. Justices in
the House of Lords.—432. Clerical proctors.—433. Numbers and
distribution of seats in the House of Commons.—434. Clerks.—435.
The Speaker of the Commons.—436. Business laid before the houses
by the king.—437. Supply and account.—438. Porm of the grant.—
439. Proceeding in legislation.—440. The Common petitions.—441.
Porm of statutes.—442. Details of procedure.—443. Sir Thomas
Smith’s description of a session.—444. Judicial power of the Lords.—
445. Prorogation.—446. Dissolution.—447. Writ of expenses.—448.
Distinctions of right and privilege.—449. Proxies of the Lords.—∙
450. Right of protest.—451. Freedom of debate.—452. Freedom from
arrest.—453. Privileges of peerage.
Antiquity
of parlia-
mentary
customs.
407. The rules and forms of parliamentary procedure had,
before the close of the middle ages, begun to acquire that per-
manence and fixedness of character which in the eyes of later
generations has risen into the sanctity of law. Of these rules
and forms some are very ancient, and have preserved to the
present day the exact shape in which they appear in our
The, Medieval ParUanient.
3«9
earliest parliamentary records ; others are less easily discovered Difference
• ɪi ι∙ιτ ∙ι in 1 η . in their
in the medieval chronicles and rolls, and owe their reputation history,
for antiquity to the fact that, when they make their appearance
in later records, they have already assumed the prescriptive
dignity of immemorial custom. To the former class for instance Records
belong the formulae of the legislative machinery, the writs for
assembling parliament, the methods of assent and dissent, the
enacting words of statutes, the brief sentence of royal acceptance
or rejection; to the latter class belong the methods of pro- Usages
ceeding which are less capable of being reduced to written
record ; the machinery of initiation and discussion, of com-
mittees and reports ; the process by which a Bill passes through
successive stages before it becomes an Act, the more minute
rules of debate, and the more definite elaboration of points of
privilege. Both classes of forms are subject to a certain sort
of expansion; but the former seems to have reached its full
growth before any great development of the latter can be dis-
tinctly traced. And this difference is not to be explained on Beason for
t, t , , thia obscu,"∙
the theory that, as time went on, freedom of debate and activity rɪtʃ.
of discussion compelled the use of new rules and the formation
of a customary code, while the more mechanical part of the old
system was found to answer all purposes as well as ever. There
can be little question that debates were as fierce and as tedious
in the minority of Henry VI as in the troublous days of
Charles I. No doubt the public interest in politics, fostered by
improved education and stimulated by religious partisanship,
gave to the latter a wider influence and made a more distinct
impression on national memory. As early as tlɪe seventeenth
century the speeches of parliamentary orators were addressed
to the nation at large ; although the publication of the debates
was still in the distant future. But the fact that the rule and
method of debate does, when it first appears, wear the habit of
custom, the constant appeal to precedent and prescription, the
whole history and theory of privilege, seem to show that the
silence of earlier record is not to be interpreted as negation.
A very faint idea of parliamentary activity would be formed
from the isolated study of the journals of either house. The