394 Privileges of the peers. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS CH. XIII. privileges and prerogatives of the Crown, and make the Sovereign of Great Britain, on paper at least, equal in power with the most absolute monarch in Europe. The House of Lords ranks next in dignity as well as in authority to the Crown. But the peers of England, in Parliament assembled, are responsible neither to the Crown nor to the people. They sit, for the most part, by hereditary right; they constitute not only an independent branch of the legislature, but the supreme court of justice in the kingdom. A peer of the realm, therefore, is competent, without the least knowledge, or with no more than bare understanding, both to make laws and to interpret existing laws on appeal from all the judges of England. When we come to the House of Commons, they appear to be the weakest and most de The House of pendent in authority, as well as the lowest in order. They must accommodate their measures to the taste and interest of the aristocracy as well as the Crown. They act under the constant apprehension of giving offence to the Sovereign, and consequently of being harassed and impoverished by frequent remissions to their constituents. Obnoxious candidates are met at the hustings by the nominees of the Court, armed with all the advantages which the influence and protection of the Court alone can confer. A large proportion of seats must necessarily be under the immediate control of the territorial aristocracy. The people themselves have numerically but a small share in the choice of their representatives. Under such conditions, it would seem hardly possible that there could be much independence or vigour in the House of Commons. Power of the Such, then, is the theory of the constitution. But what is the practice? Nearly the reverse Commons. of this speculation. The House of Commons, instead of being the weakest estate, is by far 1760-70. IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE. 395 The the most powerful, after making every abatement for the foreign influences by which its purely democratic character is modified and corrupted. The popular branch of the legislature being then supreme, it necessarily follows that the powers and privileges which the constitution 'assigns to the other great estates of the realm can practically exist only so far as they are compatible with the sovereign authority of the third estate. Thus it is that the veto has become a dead letter; and the legislative power of the Crown is reduced to a mere formality. Nor is its executive power much more substantial. King can, indeed, declare war; but he can do no more, while the Commons retain the exclusive control of the means by which war is carried on. He can create peers and turn the scale of the House of Lords, but this dangerous prerogative has been exercised but once since the Revolution; and was almost forgotten, when the people, enraged at the contumacy of the peers in 1832, called for its revival. He may still dissolve the Parliament at his pleasure, but only for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of the nation; any attempt to use this prerogative vexatiously would be attended with serious consequences. The nomination of the great ministers of State rests with the Crown, but is practically subject to the approval of the House of Commons; and the appointment to minor offices rests with those ministers. The King, however, is irresponsible; according to the decent maxim of the constitution, he can do no wrong but he purchases this immunity by the sacrifice almost of the power to offend. : A peer of the realm is, in fact, more removed from responsibility than the Sovereign. He can speak and vote in Parliament without any fear for his peerage; and his conduct as a public man is regulated only by his own sense of what is right, and his regard for public opinion. Yet what a single peer is 396 PRESENT AND FORMER CH. XIII. comparatively free to do, the body of the peerage dare not attempt. If they were really irresponsible and independent, all the other orders must be dependent on them, and the Government would thus become an aristocracy. But the fact again is, in opposition to the theory, that the House of Lords is a far less independent body than that great co-ordinate legislature which owes an immediate responsibility to its constituents. Some portion of the veto which the Crown has lost has devolved upon the second estate; thus the province of the Lords is rather to revise the legislation of the Commons than itself to initiate laws. And, in so doing, they fulfil not the least important and honourable office in the constitution. In their judicial capacity, they command the confidence of the people, because their decisions are pronounced exclusively by the sages of the law, of whom the most eminent are usually raised to the peerage. It must not be supposed, however, that this is a correct sketch of the constitution a century racter of the ago; and if the capacity of George the Third had been equal to his resolution, such might not be the state of the constitution now. We have seen a House of Commons nominated partly by the aristocracy, partly composed of the proprietors of close boroughs, or the representatives of these proprietors; but comprising very few members elected by independent suffrage. We have consequently seen the nation and the Parliament opposed to each other; the people regarding with hatred and contempt a body which usurped their name and betrayed their interests; the House of Commons seeking the favour of the Crown, the minister, or a patron, and reciprocating the scorn of the people. We have seen the Crown, after long subservience, struggling for mastery with the great nobles, and obtaining an advantage. We have seen that proud nobility, in its turn, subservient to the Crown. But it does not fall* Former cha Commons. 1760-70. CHARACTER OF PARLIAMENT. 397 within the compass of this narrative to describe that happy development of the constitution, in which Queen, Lords and Commons can each find an honourable place, and, by their harmonious union, so administer the government of this country, that the wisdom and patriotism of future generations will be tasked only to maintain it unimpaired. power preponderance of The settlement which circumscribed the the Crown, extended that of the Parlia- Parliamentary ment in the same proportion; what was of the landed taken from the one was transferred to the interest. other. The Parliament, again, was for a long period almost entirely in the hands of the great landowners; of whom the Whig families, which supported the Protestant succession, obtained the predominance; and the Government, for more than seventy years, was, in substance, an aristocracy. The Former loyalty tendency of modern times has been to of the people. transfer the balance of power to the third estate. But for a long period after the Revolution, the people had very little influence in the Government, and took only an occasional interest in public affairs. Loyalty much more than liberty was for many centuries the ruling principle of the English people. The man who cried God save the Queen!' immediately after he had undergone the cruel punishment of mutilation for presuming to censure the proposed marriage of Elizabeth with a popish prince, was hardly an uncommon instance of the devotion and obedience of the Commons. Nor could the misrule or personal worthlessness of the Sovereign do more than suspend this feeling. Charles the First endeavoured to subvert the ancient institutions of the country, to govern without law, and to take the money of his subjects without their consent. The people rose against the man, for there was nothing of oriental servility in the generous sentiment which they professed; but they never for a moment transferred their allegiance 398 THE NATION'S ATTACHMENT TO THE CROWN. CH. XIII. either to that Imperial Parliament which had effected their deliverance, or to the great Dictator, who for a time ruled over them with so much wisdom and moderation. No event in the history of the English nation ever gave rise to such widespread and heartfelt joy as the return of their fugitive prince to the throne of his ancestors. Nor could the unparalleled scandal of his government, the shame which it brought upon the English name, nor the personal delinquencies of Charles himself prevail so far as to alienate the affections of the people from their rightful princes. The first of this race of kings had been a driveller; the second a false and lawless tyrant; the third a mean and selfish profligate who had sold his country for the sake of harlots and buffoons. His successor had once been declared by a vote of the House of Commons unfit to reign because of his adhesion to the hated superstition of Rome. But the people, anxious to find some justification of the loyalty to which they clung, discovered in him a virtue hitherto unknown to the house of Stuart. The Duke of York, it seemed, was a man of his word; and the accession of James the Second was greeted with approbation less passionate, indeed, but more deliberate than that which had hailed the restoration of his line. Acceptability of It has been asserted by high authority, that the dynasty of 1688 was acceptable to the great majority of the nation. The majority of the nation probably acquiesced in the new settlement rather than surrender their religion and laws; but we may look in vain among the scanty records of the public opinion of those times for any decided manifestation of public approval of the change; or for the least degree of that enthusiastic assent which attended the Restoration. Certainly not a particle of that loyal attachment which had hitherto constituted the main support of the monarchy was transferred to the able and politic prince who |