the conviction that the relations of the two Chambers would be less satisfactory, when one of the Houses ceased to be dependent on the other.

I am persuaded that the success of the Revolution of 1688 depended in the main on the fact that a majority of the Upper Chamber was friendly to its principles. The Jacobites were always a small faction in the Lords, but they were often a strong and compact faction in the Commons. The Lords, in point of fact, as the hereditary advisers of the Crown, as the creations of its pleasure and favour, and as the principal members of the Court, had offended the exiled King more than any other class of men could have done. The revolution of 1648, on the other hand, was a revolution initiated by a section of the Lower Chamber and completed by the army. Its authority was therefore always in dispute, the vast majority of the Lords had always resented and repudiated it, and reaction against it was inevitable and speedy. In every political system, the permanence of power resides with those who add a natural or permanent concentration to their power, and a collective interest has supplied this concentration in an exceptional manner to the Lords. Of course it also supplied the same body, under the circumstances alluded to above, with the means of effectually supporting, and therefore of practically guiding the policy of an administration. Adherence to the principles of 1688 was, therefore, the guarantee of aristocratical as opposed to monarchical government, as George III clearly understood.

In the period then to which I have particularly referred, the protests have a peculiar value. It was seldom the case that any important political movement failed of an enthusiastic advocate in the Upper House, and of a protest against its repudiation or delay. It is clear also, that the strongest interest was constantly felt in these avowals, that they are real and concentrated manifestoes of current opinion, unpopular with the majority at the time, but profoundly cherished and emphatically uttered by an earnest minority. And similarly the policy of the majority, either in government or legislation, was constantly subjected to serious but unavailing criticism. The student of these documents will dis

cover the origin of many principles and practices which have become constitutional or habitual, and will be able to detect occasions on which a departure from ancient traditions has been severely commented on, as the concession of an unwarrantable privilege, or the abandonment of a necessary check. It is true that just as, in the material economy of society, the consequences of neglecting or violating a fundamental law of political economy are partly obviated by the compensating powers which society has its command, and by which it contrives a partial escape from a mischievous policy; so an elastic constitution is able to mitigate the effects of an unwise or negligent course of action in public affairs. But no indirect process will ever wholly neutralise the influence of a political error. In many cases these protests suggest the origin of the error, and though the consequences which the protestants predict have not always ensued, the prediction has failed in most cases only from the fact that the constitution has discovered the means of indirectly meeting the evil.

I will attempt to illustrate my statements by an instance. It will be, I presume, admitted by all students of English history, that no feature in the English Reformation was more characteristic than the right assumed by lay authority of defining, either with or without the assistance of the clergy, what should be the doctrine or discipline of the national Church. Nothing would have been repudiated more decisively by a statesman of the Tudor, the Stuart, or the earlier Hanoverian times, than the theory, now passionately asserted by some ecclesiastics, that no alteration or modification of the religious tenets accepted by a national Church is possible, except in an ecclesiastical assembly. From the days of Henry VIII down to the last revision of the Anglican ritual, laymen conceived themselves to be authoritative on matters of faith and discipline. Nothing offended the early Parliaments of the Stuart kings more than the claim to legislative independence in matters ecclesiastical usurped by Bancroft and Laud, and nothing was resented more contemptuously as soon as effectual resentment was possible. After the Restoration, the Prayer Book was revised by the Lower House, i.e. the Long Parliament of Charles II, as a matter of course, and

could have been altered at the pleasure of the Legislature after it left the hands of the divines 1. There is, I believe, no constitutional position more certain than the historical claim of the laity in Parliament to define the doctrines of the Anglican Church.

These principles are laid down with singular distinctness in a remarkable protest of the 5th of April, 1689 (No. lxvi), entered after the rejection, by an equality of votes, of a motion that the Commission to discuss points of difference between Churchmen and Dissenters, with a view to carrying out the Comprehension Bill 2,

1 The following facts, extracted from the Journals, will serve to establish the statement made above. The Act of Uniformity, drawn up by all the lawyers or 'gentlemen of the long robe' in the House, was introduced in the Commons and read for the first time on the 29th of June, 1661. The House referred the Act, with the Prayer Book of 1604, to a very numerous Committee (165 members) on the 3rd of July, which, within five days of its appointment, reported the Bill and the Prayer Book, with several amendments, to the House. The Commons annex the Prayer Book of 1604 to the Act, but on the recommendation of the Committee, 'take out,' or 'obliterate two prayers before the Reading Psalms.' They then pass the Bill (9th of July), and speedily after this, Parliament is 'adjourned' for nearly four months (30th of July-20th of November). Meanwhile and subsequently, i.e. between the 8th of May and 20th of December, the King invited the two Convocations to revise the Liturgy, the revision of the Book commencing on the 21st of November. The Convocations made considerable changes in the Offices. These were approved by the King, 'with the advice of his Council,' and were sent to the Lords with a royal Message. The revision was thereupon adopted by the Lords, and sent on to the Commons, after some trifling alterations had been made. On the 15th of April, 1662, a Committee of the Commons compares the two books' and the question whether debate should be admitted to the amendments made by Convocation in the Book of Common Prayer' was negatived by 96 to 90 on the 16th of April. But while the Commons, in deference to the King's message or proviso, suspended, on this occasion, their right to revise the liturgy, (though as the division shews, with considerable reluctance,) they immediately and unanimously voted, 'that the amendments made by the Convocation, and sent down by the Lords to this House might, by the order of this House, have been debated.' I add this note, not to raise or debate the comparatively trivial question whether the Legislature did alter the liturgy in 1662, after it left the Convocations,' but in order to shew that both Houses were clear that they had a constitutional right to do so. It is remarkable that Pierce was the chairman and reporter of the Committee of the 3rd of July, 1661, and a teller for the majority of the 15th of April, 1662. There are, of course, numerous contemporary pamphlets Dr. Cardwell's account of the matter contains several errors of a very misleading kind. He could not have consulted the Journals, or even Kennett. 2 The Comprehension Bill may be found in Dr. Stoughton's 'Church of the Revolution,' p. 461.

bearing on the subject.

VOL. I.

should consist of an equal number of laymen and clergymen. I have no doubt that the principal reason why this Bill dropped in the Commons was the conviction-fortified by the experience of the Hampton Court and Savoy Conferences-that no comprehension was likely, if the clergy only were to be consulted as to the standards of conformity; but there is also no doubt that the persons who introduced the Bill, and those who insisted on this mixed Commission, intended to introduce radical changes in the doctrine and ceremonies of the national Church.

The opportunity was lost, and the subsequent attitude of the non-jurors rendered the revival of the project inconvenient. But the failure of the attempt and the repudiation of the principle, though under such exceptional circumstances, undoubtedly assisted the High Church reaction, and the extravagant pretensions of Convocation in the reigns of Anne and George I. The Comprehension Bill, and the mixed Commission were not revived, when the Whigs were again in the ascendant, but Convocation was silenced. Had Nottingham's Bill with its attendant Commission been carried-and Nottingham was the stanchest of High Church Tories-there is no reason to doubt that the national Church would have been, for a long time at least, an inclusive body, and that the laity would have asserted, beyond risk of future cavil, the constitutional authority of Parliament in defining or modifying the doctrines, ritual, and discipline of the national Church.

The protests have a further value as literary compositions. As soon as they were written with a view to publication, or at least inspection (and I am persuaded that the occasional attempts to punish the publishers of these protests was an unconstitutional stretch of Parliamentary privilege at all times), great care is taken, as a rule, in the language selected to convey the sentiments of the writers. Unfortunately it is generally impossible to discover the actual authors of the documents. It is said, with what truth I am unable to decide, that many of those remarkable protests which are subscribed by Lord Holland were the composition of Mr. Allen, the author of the great work on the royal prerogative, and the critic of the Lords' report on the dignity of a

Peer. It is almost certain that all the protests which bear Atterbury's signature were written by that prelate, and it is probable that some of those which issued from the Tory party during the reign of Anne could be traced to the same author. At any rate, there can be no doubt that the protesting Lords, as a rule, employed the best literary skill at their command, in order to make their objections as striking and pungent as possible, and at the same time to convey in as grave and dignified a manner as they could, the importance of the topic on which they dissented from the majority.

As I have already stated, the whole of the protests entered on the Journals of the Lords have been included in these volumes. Of course, whether one considers the object against which the protest is entered, or the reasons alleged in defence of the dissent, or the names by which that dissent is fortified, these documents are of very unequal value, though I venture on thinking that, as they are all genuine and significant expressions of contemporary feeling, hardly one of them is without its historical interest or place.

I did not therefore feel myself justified in making a selection or omitting parts of these documents, on the ground that I should in this manner designate those which I might consider of higher historical or political importance than others. In point of fact, the collector of materials for history can never safely neglect any actual record which throws a positive light on past transactions. For obvious reasons, the record of facts, up to a comparatively recent time, is exceedingly imperfect, and that of opinions is far more defective. The diaries of Pepys and Luttrell are invaluable materials for the history of England, from the Restoration to the accession of the Hanoverian family. But the former was an ill-natured gossip, and the other was a mere collector of newspaper cuttings and town talk. In the same way, the reasons which led Lord Radnor to object to the licensing of country theatres, those which induced Lord Auckland to dissent from an incident in the old process of divorce, and those which moved Lord Lauderdale to record his opinions on very many matters of trade and currency, may seem to have only a very transitory value. But they do possess this