to the Irish judges under George IV. The same rule was applied in 1840 to the judge of the Court of Admiralty; and the holders of all newly-created judicial posts have been disqualified by the Acts under which they were constituted. The Master of the Rolls-hitherto the sole judge who had retained the capacity of sitting in the Commons -has been also at length disqualified by the clause of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1873, which declares that no judge of the High Court of Justice or of the Court of Appeal shall be capable of being elected to or of sitting in that House.1 1 36 & 37 Vict. c. 66, s. 9. [The general position of affairs in regard to Constitutional questions since the Revolution is thus tersely summed up by M. Glasson, Hist. du Dr. et des Inst. Pol. de l'Angl. v. 404-5. La révolution de 1688 inaugure définitivement le régime parlementaire en Angleterre. La royauté est plus que jamais limitée dans sa prérogative. L'habile prince d'Orange . . . s'attacha à user l'un contre l'autre les deux grands partis qui se disputaient le pouvoir dans le Parlement. .. La reine Anne, douée, comme son père, d'un esprit étroit et borné, . . ne parvint à exercer aucune influence sur le Parlement. George Ier était, en tous points, un prince allemand du dix-huitième siècle, . . infatué de son importance princière, incapable de prononcer un mot d'Anglais, ignorant l'esprit du peuple sur lequel il devait régner. Il eut cependant l'habileté de comprendre combien sa situation était délicate. . . George II. se trouva au commencement de son règne dans une situation pire encore que celle de son père.... C'est seulement sous George III. . . que la royauté se relève sérieusement.'-ED.] 694 I. Kingship since the Revolution. CHAPTER XVII. PROGRESS OF THE CONSTITUTION SINCE THE revolu TION (CONTINUED). IN the preceding chapter we have discussed the Act of Settlement and the various topics arising out of its provisions, including that most important topic of all-the growth and present working of the Cabinet system. Much more remains to be said on the progress of the Constitution since the Revolution; and with a view as well to clearness of exposition as to conciseness of statement the chief remaining Constitutional facts may be conveniently grouped under the five heads of (1) the Kingship, (2) the House of Lords, (3) the House of Commons, (4) Religious Liberty, and (5) the Liberty of the Press. I. Kingship since the Revolution. The legal prerogatives of the Crown were untouched by the Revolution settlement. It was only the recent innovations which were swept away, leaving to the Kingship the legal character which it had possessed prior to the Legal prero- usurpations of the Tudors and Stuarts. By the written gatives of the Crown Constitution the King still retains the supreme executive untouched at and a co-ordinate legislative power. He calls Parliament together, prorogues or dissolves it at pleasure, and may refuse the Royal assent to any bills. He is the 'Fountain of Justice,' and as such dispenses royal justice through judges appointed to preside, in his name, over the various Courts of Judicature. As supreme magistrate and conservator of the Revolu tion, CH.XVII.] Progress of Constitution since Revolution. the peace he nominally prosecutes criminals, and may pardon them after conviction. As supreme military commander, he has the sole power of raising, regulating, and disbanding armies and fleets. As the 'Fountain of Honour,' he alone can create peers (a power of the highest Constitutional importance) and confer titles, dignities and offices of all kinds. He is the legal head and supreme governor of the National Church, and in that capacity convenes, prorogues, regulates, and dissolves all ecclesiastical Synods or Convocations. As the representative of the majesty of the State in its relations with foreign powers, he has the sole power of sending and receiving ambassadors, of contracting treaties and alliances, and of making war and peace. 695 But in practice these vast prerogatives have now long but now been exercised not at the will of the Sovereign, but of the vested in its practically responsible ministers of the Crown, who represent the will responsible of the majority in the House of Commons. 'In outer ministers. 1 On the early history of Convocation and its relations to the king and Convocation. Parliament something has been said supra, pp. 249, 250. From the passing of the Act 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19 (supra, p. 429), Convocation has ceased to possess any independent legislative power, Church and State being alike subjected to the supreme power of Parliament. Under Elizabeth it was occasionally consulted on questions affecting the national religion, and it confirmed, in 1562-3, the XXXIX. Articles. By the king's licence Convocation established certain canons in 1604 (which, however, not having been confirmed by Parliament, are not binding on the laity); and attempted to make further regulations in 1640 (supra, pp. 495, 582); but from the year 1664, when the practice of ecclesiastical taxation was discontinued, even discussions in Convocation practically ceased. About the time of the Revolution attempts were made to resuscitate the action of Convocation, more especially by Atterbury (afterwards Bishop of Rochester), who published a book entitled "The Rights and Privileges of an English Convocation.' In 1717, the religious ferment excited by Suspended, the Bangorian controversy (arising out of the denunciation by the Lower House 1717. of Convocation of a sermon in favour of religious liberty preached by Hoadley, Bishop of Bangor,) induced the ministers of George I. to suddenly prorogue the would-be ecclesiastical Parliament. From this time Convocation, though regularly summoned, was for more than a century as regularly prorogued immediately after it had assembled. In 1850 it was again allowed to resume the Resumed, discussion of Church matters; and in 1861 was empowered by Koyal licence 1850. to alter the 29th Canon of 1603, which prohibited parents from acting as sponsors to their children; but it was specially provided in the licence that no alterations should be of any validity until confirmed by letters patent under the great seal. In 1872, letters of business were issued by the Crown empowering Convocation to frame resolutions on the subject of public worship, and these were afterwards incorporated in an Act of Parliament (Act of Uniformity Amendment Act, 35 & 36 Vict. c. 35). See Hallam, Const. Hist. iii. 242-247 Stephen, Commentaries [5th ed.], ii. 544–546. See Stephen, Comm. 5th ed. ii. 473-547; and for [Treaty-making Power, cf. Law Magazine and Review, May, 1879, art. by Sir Travers Twiss, Q.C.-ED. Personal influence of the Sovereign. Causes which seeming,' it has been well observed, 'the Revolution of 1688 had only transferred the sovereignty over England from James to William and Mary. In actual fact, it was transferring the sovereignty from the King to the House of Commons. From the moment when its sole right to tax the nation was established by the Bill of Rights, and when its own resolve settled the practice of granting none but annual supplies to the Crown, the House of Commons became the supreme power in the State. It was impossible permanently to suspend its sittings, or, in the long run, to oppose its will, when either course must end in leaving the Government penniless, in breaking up the army and navy, and in rendering the public service impossible.'' The mode in which the executive power of the Crown has gradually been transferred to what has been aptly termed a board of control chosen by the legislature to rule the nation,' 2 has been already sketched in treating of the growth of the Cabinet. But though greatly weakened at the Revolution, the personal influence of the Sovereign over the administration of affairs long continued to be openly exercised, and is still potent, to an extent which can be known only to the parties themselves, in the confidential intercourse of ministers with the head of the State. Several general causes tended to bring about a decline 1 J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, p. 680. 3 There is not a doubt that the aggregate of direct influence normally exercised by the Sovereign upon the counsels and proceedings of her Ministers is considerable in amount, tends to permanence and solidity of action, and confers much benefit on the country, without in the smallest degree relieving the advisers of the Crown from their undivided responsibility.' . 'It is a moral, not a coercive influence. It operates through the will and reason of the Ministry, not over or against them. It would be an evil and a perilous day for the Monarchy were any prospective possessor of the Crown to assume or claim for himself final, or preponderating, or even independent power, in any one department of the State.' Gladstone, Gleanings of Past Years, i. 42, 233. [In a communication to the author on the subject of a suggested obscurity in the last paragraph, Mr. Gladstone explained the sequence of epithets as follows: What I mean by "independent " is separate; whereas the "final and the "preponderating" are assumed to be exercised, so to speak, within the partnership. Such a separate action of the Sovereign could under the rules of our Constitution only be in minor and secondary forms; for this reason I treat it as the least of the three. Separate might be a better word than independent.'] induce its in the personal influence of the Sovereign subsequent to tended to the Revolution. Foremost among these may be placed decline. the disputed succession to the Crown. The Hanoverian succession was in very serious danger at the death of Queen Anne; and the continuing power of Jacobite intrigues was evidenced by the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745. The Divine Right of kings, though permanently negatived at the Revolution, still continued for a time to be inculcated by the Tory party, and by the great majority of the clergy, who taught the duty of passive obedience and the sinfulness of rebellion. But with the accession of the House of Hanover, the doctrine of Divine Right became attributable, in the minds of those who believed in it, not to the King de facto but to the heir of the Stuarts. Moreover, George I., from the necessity of the case, placed himself in the hands of the Whig party, who had secured his accession to the throne; and the Tories, influenced alike by party opposition and by personal objection to the new dynasty, found themselves in the somewhat unnatural position of opponents to the Royal prerogative. And while on the one hand the personal influence of the Sovereign was opposed by the Tories, both on account of his lack of hereditary right, and of his alliance with their political foes, that influence itself was rapidly diminished by the increased development of the system of party government working by means of the Cabinet system.1 One very important factor in the declension of the Sovereign's personal influence was his abstention, since the death of Queen Anne, from presiding at Cabinet Councils. In early times the King had been accustomed to preside in person at the Council board, and necessarily exercised an immense influence upon its determinations. Abandoned about the close of the 14th century, this practice was revived by the Tudor and Stuart monarchs, and was maintained, after the Revolution, by William III. and by Anne. William III., a man of consummate political ability, 1 See Lecky, Hist. of Eng. i. 217-227. |