volution, of the Bill of Rights, and the Act of Settlement, not the personal rule of the Stuarts. The government was in their own hands, and was carried on on purely Whig principles; the obedience they advocated was constitutional, legal, orderly. Moreover, the Church had now taken a different position. Divested of High Toryism and purged of Jacobitism, it became converted to Whig principles and Low Church views. The Dissenters moreover, though still proscribed by law, were practically freed. The Whigs therefore, in supporting the monarchy and Church under the early Hanoverians, were really staunchly maintaining their old principles. A purely Whig Cabinet was formed under Lord Townshend-an amiable, but imperious and overbearing character, and, supported by a large majority in Parliament, the Whig party undertook the government of the country. It was during this Ministry that the sittings of Parliament were prolonged to seven years by the Septennial Act, 1716 (1 Geo. I. c. 38), which may be regarded as setting the seal to the work of the Revolution by emancipating the Commons from their dependence on the Crown and Lords. "In the then corrupt state of the representative system, a General Election merely meant a fresh exercise of the influence of the Crown and Lords to secure members favourable to their views. These members, elected in this way, naturally became to a great extent mere mouthpieces of their patrons, and were held well in hand by the prospect of another election in three years, when their re-election could only be secured as the reward for unquestioning obedience. The country members contrived to preserve a certain amount of independence, but the representatives of the small corrupt boroughs, which existed in such numbers, were merely the nominees of the great landowners or the Crown. The result had been to give an undue importance to the Lords. Their seats were quite safe, and so they were guided in their political conduct solely by their own personal views. While, as a rule, each peer had a number of vassals in the Commons whom he could rely on to act as the exponents of his opinions, it naturally became of the highest importance to ministers to stand well with the Lords, and so for the first twenty years after the Revolution the government was carried on mainly from that body. The Prime Minister

L

accession to office.

usually was a peer himself, or became one shortly after his Nothing, in fact, is more surprising to our modern ideas in the annals of that time than the readiness with which Harley, St. John, Stanhope, and other great ministers, were moved up to the Lords without any adequate motive, and without considering the gap which their departure would make in the Lower House. The Septennial Act went a long way to remove these anomalies. The Commons, having now a longer lease of life, began to act independently of their patrons, and assuming a more senatorial character, were guided by their own opinions in legislation and action, instead of acting merely as the instruments of the Lords. The result was that the Commons gradually wrested the government of the country from the hands of the latter, and though this fact was not definitely realized till the next century, yet from this time the Prime Minister is usually content with a seat in the Commons. Walpole, Pelham, and the younger Pitt, governed from the Lower House. So did the elder Pitt during his first great Ministry; nor was it till his powers were failing, and he was really unable any longer to cope with the turbulence of a popular assembly, that he retired to the Upper House, and thus prepared the way for the speedy downfall of his Government.

"The immediate result, however, of the Septennial Act was undoubtedly to render possible the gigantic systems of bribery by which Walpole, Newcastle, and, later, George III., held in hand their docile majorities in the Commons. The removal of the slight check exercised on members by their patrons and constituencies, at a time when public opinion had little or no influence on the proceedings of Parliament, naturally rendered their support more valuable to ministers, and themselves more open to corruption. It became customary, therefore, for ministers to strengthen the attachment of doubtful allies and reward the devotion of sturdy partisans by considerations, sometimes in hard cash, sometimes in the equally acceptable form of office or pension.

"The results of the Septennial Act were, in the long run, decidedly beneficial to the Constitution. The publicity of debates and the growth of parliamentary reporting since then has enabled

the constituencies to keep a watchful eye on their representatives, while the balance of public opinion is pretty faithfully indicated by the Press. Corruption has therefore died a natural death, and a minister has to rely mainly on the value of his measures to obtain the support of Parliament. . . Shortly after the passing of the Septennial Act, a bill was carried which disqualified for sitting in the House of Commons any person holding a pension from the Crown during pleasure or for a number of years. This indicates that the dependent state of the Commons and its causes were beginning to be realized."

The year 1716 practically ends the period of transition which followed the Revolution. The modern system of parliamentary government is now complete in form and principle. From this time the country is really ruled by the leader of the majority in the House of Commons, and a Cabinet whose members are appointed mainly by him, though neither royal influence nor corruption are as yet excluded from the machinery of government. The details of ministerial practice, of the relations between the Prime Minister, the king, the Cabinet, and the Parliament, as they exist at the present, are the result of over a century of imperceptible and gradual development, altogether unassisted by any fresh efforts of legislation.

An attempt was made in 1719 to restore to the House of Lords the power which had slipped away from its control since the Revolution. This was the Peerage Bill of 1719, introduced on the specious ground of obviating "any dangerous attempts on the part of the Prince of Wales, when he ascended the throne, to swamp the Whig majority in the Lords in his exasperation against his father's ministers: for the memory of the creation of twelve peers to force the Peace of Utrecht through a hostile House was yet fresh in the memory of man. The king was easily induced to consent, and little opposition was expected from the Lords. The bill provided that the English peers should not be increased beyond six, except in the case of princes of the blood; that for every extinction there might be a fresh peerage created; that the sixteen elective peers of Scotland should be transformed into twenty-five hereditary peers, whose numbers should be filled up, as occasion required, from the remainder. The bill was a purely

party measure, and would have had very dangerous consequences to the Constitution. It would have shut the House of Lords against any reinforcements from the ranks below them, and thereby made them an exclusive body. Moreover, as they were entirely irresponsible, and had no fear of a General Election dangling before their eyes, they would have been extremely difficult to influence, even when they were opposed to the general voice of the people. The present century has given repeated instances in which the Lords have found themselves in direct opposition to public opinion, and have only yielded after considerable pressure has been applied. It is easy to imagine that they would not have yielded at all, had it been impossible to apply such pressure, and that in consequence many necessary and salutary measures must have been thrown out. It might well seem fraught with impending evil that such a body, irresponsible, permanent, drawn from a particular class only, and that class one which has by no means shown itself the most eager for political progress, should be entrusted with a general veto on legislation. Fortunately, however, public indignation was aroused against it. Steele employed all his wonderful talent in exposing the secret evils of the measure. Walpole, still in opposition, both spoke and wrote against it, and on this occasion his hostility to Stanhope was undoubtedly of great service to the country. The landowners were indignant that the House of Lords should be thus effectually closed against them, and that there should be no future possibility of obtaining that honour, 'save through the winding-sheet of a decrepit lord, or the grave of an extinct noble family.' Therefore, though the measure passed easily in the Lords, it was thrown out in the Commons, after an animated debate, and the Constitution was saved."

CHAPTER XI.

THE SCOTCH PARLIAMENT AND THE UNION.

HE earliest meetings of the Scotch Parliament may be dated

teenth century, though a feudal council undoubtedly existed for some time before, and traces of the appearance of representatives of the boroughs are, in the opinion of some authors, distinctly discernible before that era. "It resembled an English one," says Mr. Hallam," in the mode of convocation, in the ranks that composed it, in the enacting powers of the king, and the necessary consent of the three estates; but differed in several important respects." The right of suffrage in the counties belonged to the small tenants-in-capite solely, who originally came in person to the council, along with the greater barons; but, in accordance with a law of James I. in 1427, ceased to attend in person, and elected "two or more wise men, chosen at the head court," to represent them instead. The law of James, however, only established this representative system as an alternative to personal service; it was still open to any, who possessed the right, to attend in person. Nor was it till 1587 that the representation of the counties was declared by law. There was no distinction, however, between the estates of the realm, nor was there any division into two Houses, though apparently the latter innovation had been contemplated also by James I.: and so the different estates always sat and voted promiscuously together.

The grand difference, however, between the representative systems of England and Scotland consisted in the existence of a committee, known as the Lords of the Articles, who appear to have been introduced by David II. in the year 1367, though the modern form of their powers must be dated more accurately from the year 1369, when their original constitution and rights were