Coiidltutlonal History.
472
[chap.
Petition of
the speaker
for the free
customs of
the house.
as the utterances of the house, that no offence might be taken
at his words, that if he omitted to say what he ought to say, or
said what he ought not to say, he might have equitable allow-
ance, and other like favours. We have seen in the history of
Henry IV that the freedom of language which some of the
speakers used on this occasion roused the jealousy of the king;
and the whole proceeding, solemn as it was, somewhat later took
a settled form : the speaker simply petitioned that he might
bring forward and declare all and singular the matters to be
brought forward and declared by him in parliament in the
name of the commons, under the following protest : that if he
should have declared any matters enjoined upon him by his
companions in any way otherwise than they have agreed, be it
in adding or omitting, he might correct and amend the matters
so declared by his aforesaid companions ; and he prayed that
this protest might be entered on the roll of the parliament’.
The king, by the mouth of the chancellor, returned the equally
formal reply : that the speaker should enjoy and have the
benefit of such protest as the other speakers had been wont
1 The following is the form given in the Rolls of 1435 and 1436; Rot.
Rarl. iv. 482, 496: ‘ Supplicavit quatenus omnia et singula per ipsum ex
parte dictorum communium in Parliamento praedicto proferenda sub pro-
testatione posset proferre; ut si quid de sibi injunctis omittendo vel eis
addendo, aut aliter quam sibi per eosdem communes injunctum fuerit con-
tigerit déclarai e, tunc ad praefatos communes resortiri, et se per eorum
avisamentum et assensum corrigere posset et emendare, et omnimoda alia
Iibertate gaudere qua aliquis hujusmodi Praelocutor ante haec tempora
melius et Iiberius gavisus est.’ In 1406 the speaker asked for leave to
send for any bills that required amendment, from the lords ; Rot. Parl.
iii. 568. The usage given by Sir Erskine May, as followed now and since
the sixth year of Henry VIII, is for the speaker, ‘ In the name and on
behalf of the Commons, to lay claim by humble petition to their ancient
and undoubted rights and privileges ; particularly that their persons
[estates, dropped in 1853] and servants might be free from arrests and all
molestations ; that they might enjoy liberty of speech in all their debates,
may have access to her majesty’s royal person whenever occasion shall
require, and that all their proceedings may receive from her majesty the
most favourable construction;’ Treatise on Parliament, p. 65. These
claims are not however all so old as the sixth of Henry VIII : the claim
for access to the king appears first in the records of 1336 and 1541 ; Lords’
Journals, i. 86, 167; and that for freedom from arrest is described by
Elsynge as ‘never made but of late days;’ Ancient Method of holding
Parliaments, p. 173 : it is first recorded in 34 Hen. VIII; Hatsell, Pre-
cedents, ii. 77.
XX.] Opening Speeches. 473
to use and enjoy in the time of the king and his noble pro-
genitors in such parliaments.
The acceptance of the speaker completed the constitution of The chancel-
in ρ . Piiii ɪ01 presided
the house of commons; in the house oɪ lords the Chancellorinthehouse
generally fulfilled the duties of a prolocutor in the absence
of the king1, and in his presence he acted as his mouthpiece :
but his position was in some important respects different from
that of the speaker of the commons, who, in addition to the
general superintendence of business and his authority as ' pro-
curator ’ and prolocutor of the house, had also to maintain
order. This function, which was typified by the mace, was
unquestionably attached to the speaker’s office from the first,
but it receives little or no illustration from medieval records2.
436. The two houses being thus constituted, their first duty Discussion
on proceeding to business was to consider the matters laid mentioned
before them in the opening speech, generally in the order in ⅛g speech,
which the chancellor had arranged them. Those matters took
sometimes the form of questions ; they were frequently repeated
by the chancellor or some officer of state, or by the speaker
himself, to the commons ; the answers might either be com-
municated to the king by the speaker, as soon as the commons
had considered them ; or they might be made the subject of
a conference with the lords ; or they might be reported to the
lords, and be sent up with the answers of the lords ; or they
might be kept in suspense till the conclusions of the lords were
known, and then be drawn up in concert with or in opposition
to them. On this point, which was one of some importance,
both opinions and practice differed; the occasions on which
those differences illustrate constitutional history have been
noticed as we have proceeded. The causes of the calling of Special ex.
parliament were in 1381 repeated to the commons by the lord thoɪeom-*0
treasurer in the king’s presence, and then at their request m°ns
1 In 1332 we find Henry de Beaumont acting as foreman or speaker of
the lords, possibly of the whole parliament ; ‘les queux comités barouns et
autres grantz puis revinderent et responderent touz au roi par la bouche
Monsieur Henri de Beaumont;’ Rot. Barl. ii. 64.
2 See HatseIfs Precedents, ii. 230-238. The precedents there alleged
begin in 1604 ; see also speaker Popham’s speeches in 1580 ; ib. p. 232.