ConstiMwnal History.
[chap.
thousand marks. He asks the commons to pray the king and
lords to procure him compensation. The commons sent up the
bill to the lords, and the king ordered that the lords of the
council should provide a remedy. Here we have only the com-
plainant’s account of the matter; it is no doubt substantially
true, but the exact grounds on which the arrest was made are
not stated. Matter of privilege as it was, the prayer is for
personal and private indemnity : the commons seem to have no
remedy but petition, and no atonement is offered to their
injured dignity. So the case stands in the last years of the
Lancastrian rule.
Immunity
of members
from per-
sonal moles-
tation and
arrest.
452. These instances all really fall on common ground
between two great points of privilege—freedom of speech and
freedom from arrest. The latter is the guarantee of the former,
but it has inevitably a much wider operation, is practically
more defensible, and accordingly is technically more definite.
What must be said about it here must be confined to the cases
of the members of the house of commons : the peers had a
similar immunity on other grounds. From the very earliest
times the persons of those who were on their way to the king’s
court and council had a sort of sanctity such as is recognised
in an ambassador. By the law of Ethelbert, t if the king caH
his “leod” to him, and any one there do them evil,’ the
offender must make double satisfaction to the injured person
and pay a fine to the king ɪ. Canute wills, in a law which
must have had a still wider application, ‘that every man be
entitled to grith to the gemot and from the gemot except he
be a notorious thief2.’ The laws ascribed to Edward the
Confessor recognise a particular immunity for persons going to
and from the synods3. After the institution of writs there was
no occasion for such enactments to be repeated. All members
going to or returning from parliament were under the prescrip-
tive protection of the king who summoned them. So long as
the parliaments were annual and short the protection secured
1 Ethelbert, § ɪ ; Select Charters, p. 6l.
2 Canute, § 83 ; cf. Edw. Conf., § 2 ; Select Charters, p. 71 ∙
3 LI. Edw. Conf. ait. 2, cl. 8 : this privilege is recognised whether the
person in question has been summoned or goes on his own business.
XX.]
Freedom from Arrest.
513
by this rule was, however important, of no very wide or
protracted extent. The early cases of the breach are therefore
less important than the later : when a parliament subsisted for
great part of a year, or was prorogued at short intervals and
for formal sessions, the immunity became personally more
valuable. The principle as just stated involves two issues: the Members
protection of the member from illegal molestation and the pro- from per-
fection of the member from illegal arrest. As to the first tatioι‰lθles'
of these, the special privilege could be asserted only by making
the injury done to the individual an injury done to the house of
which he was a member, and so visiting the offender with
additional punishment. On this point it is not necessary to
enlarge ; it has been since the reign of Henry IV a matter of
law ; and that law singularly in concordance with the law of
Ethelbert. The Statute of 5 Henry IV, c. 6, lays down the chedder⅛
rule in the special case of Richard Chedder, a member’s servant,
who was beaten and wounded by one John Savage: Savage is
to surrender in the King’s Bench, and in default to pay double
damages besides fine and ransom to the king 1. By a general Legislation
enactment, ɪɪ Henry VI, c. ɪɪ, the same penalty, which is°nt opoln
identical with that of Ethelbert, is inflicted in case of any affɪ ay
or assault on any member of either house coming to parliament
or council by the king’s command2. Several such cases of
violence are reported3. The modern importance of this point
lies, as a point of privilege, rather in the threat of violence
than in the actual infliction.
The other point, the protection of the members of parliament Protection
and their servants from arrest and distress, from being im- arr<St.egal
pleaded in civil suits, from being summoned by subpoena or to
serve on juries, and their privilege in regard to commitments
by legal tribunals, rests in each particular here enumerated on
the supreme necessity of attending to the business of parliament,
the king’s highest court. The several particulars concern
matters of legal detail with which we are not called on to
1 Stat. 5 Hen. IV, c. 6 ; Statutes, ii. 144 ; Rot. Parl. iii. 542.
2 Stat. Ii Hen. Vf, c. ɪɪ ; Statutes, ii. 2S6 ; Rot. Part. iv. 453.
3 See, for instance, Swynerton’s case, Rot. Parl. iii. 317; cf. Hatsell,
Precedents, ɪ. 16, 26, 73, &c.
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