1 AUD 1021 STECHERT DEC 29'24 3 vols. Petter 4.00 32842 PREFACE. THE Journals of the Lords begin with the reign of Henry VIII (1509). The list of the Lords heads the entry for the day, and from 1514 the attendances are registered. The prominence given to the names of Lords is due to the fact that attendance on the business of the House was compulsory, fines being leviable on absentees without leave, and proxies being required from those who could not attend. The registration of these proxies was one of the earliest pieces of business in each Parliament, and it was the custom for absent Lords to name several proxies, evidently in order to save the risks of non-attendance. The standing order which afterwards regulated the nomination of proxies was entered on the Journals on the 25th of February, 1626. The Journals between 1515 and 1533 are lost. In the early Journals the entries of business transacted are very few, and very short. Sometimes the record merely notes that the sitting was held and adjourned. The heads of Bills are given briefly, and for a long time there is no indication of the practice, which is customary from the end of the sixteenth century, of referring Bills to a Committee. At first there are no statements as to difference of opinion in the House, the entry nemine discrepante occurring in the extant Journals for the first time on the 28th of May, 1540. The first occasion on which dissentients to a measure are named is on the 14th of March, 1542, when the Duke of Suffolk and |