394
Constitutional History.
[chap.
Neglect of what burdensome. Before the close of the fourteenth century
the rule.
the law was frequently transgressed, and two or three years
passed without a session. There was no parliament held in
1364, 1367, 137°, orbetween 1373 and 1376 : UnderRichardII
the years 1387, 1389, 1392 and 1396, are marked by a sus-
pension of the national action ; under Henry IV there was no
parliament between 1407 and 1410 ; under Henry V there was
Longses- at least one session each year. Under the Lancastrian kings
bions and , 1 . ..
proɪoga- the sessions had become so much longer than in earlier times
that an intermission of a year was often more or less welcome ;
but the longer intervals begin contemporaneously with the family
troubles ; no parliament was held in 1440 or 1441, in 1443 or
1444 ; the parliament called in February 1445 sat by adjourn-
ment until April 1446; there was no session in 1448, 1452,
1457 or 1458. Edward IV held only six parliaments, or
appealed to the country only six times, during a reign of two
and twenty years.
Forty days’ 411. The great chaιter had prescribed for the holding of
meeting of the commune consilium a summons, to be issued at least forty
parliament, jayg peforθ ∣qιe jay 0f meefing. This rule was regarded as
binding in the reign of Elizabeth1, and was observed until the
union with Scotland ; but not without occasional exceptions.
Fewexcep- The famous parliament of Simon de Montfort was called at
rule. twenty-seven days’ notice 2 ; the almost equally famous parlia-
ment of 1294 at thirty-five8, which is the modern rule; in
most other cases under Edward I and Edward II the notices
are much longer. The summons for the parliament of 1327, in
which Edward II was deposed, was issued thirty-five days
before the meeting4; in 1330 Edward III apologised for
abridging the notice to thirty-one days ; business was pressing
and he had taken the advice of the lords 5 ; in 1352 the council,
to which only one knight of each shire, was summoned, was
1 Sir T. Smith, Commonwealth ; see below, § 443.
2 Dec. 24 for Jan. 20 ; Select Charters, p. 415 ; Lords’ Deport, iv. 34.
3 Oct. 8 for Nov. 12 ; Loιds, Deport, ɪv. 60.
l Above, vol. ii. p. 378.
5 Lords’ Deport, ɪ. 492 ; the king apologised for the short notice in the
writ, stating that he acted with the assent of the prelates and magnates,
and that the act should not be a precedent to the damage of any.
XX.] Place of 'Parliaments. 395
called only twenty-eight days beforehand1. Richard II in-
variably gave long notices ; the parliament in which he was
deposed was summoned exactly forty days before his resigna-
tion, and the first parliament of his successor, for which only
seven days’ warning was given, consisted of the same members
that were summoned for the week before. These seem to be
the only important variations from the rule of Magna Carta;
the notices vary generally rather in excess than defect, but in
many cases the rule is exactly observed 2.
412. A more ancient and uniform prescription than that Place θf
, , ill parliaments,
which affected the time for holding parliament regulated the
choice of the place of session. Westminster was from the days
of Edward the Confessor the recognised home of the great
council of the nation as well as of the king. How this came
about, history does not record ; it is possible that the mere
accident of the existence of the royal palace on the bank of the
Thames led to the foundation of the abbey, or that the propin-
quity of the abbey led to the choice of the place for a palace ;
equal obscurity covers the origin of both. It is possible that Timpaiace
under the new name of Westminster were hidden some of the minister,
traditions of the old English places of councils, of Chelsea or
even of the lost Clovesho. But when the palace and the abbey
had grown up together, when Canute had lived in the palace
and his son Harold had been buried in the abbey, and when the
life and death of the Confessor had invested the two with
almost equal sanctity, the abbey church became the scene of
the royal coronation, and the palace the centre of all the work
of government. The crown, the grave, the palace, the festival, Memories of
,. 1 „ . . 1 ...... . . Edwardthe
the laws 01 king Edward, all illustrate the perpetuity of a Confessor,
national sentiment typifying the continuity of the national life.
There the Conqueror kept his summer courts, and William Under the
Rufus contemplated the building of a house of which the great kings?
1 Lords’ Report, iv. 593.
2 After the union with Scotland the notice was given fifty days before-
hand ; by the 15 Vict. c. 23, this period has been reduced to thirty-five
days after the proclamation appointing a time for the first meetin°∙ of
parliament ; May, Treatise on the Law, Proceedings and Usage of
Parliament, p. 44i