The History of the Origins of Representative Government in Europe

Lecture 19

LECTURE 19 Power andattributes ofthe British Parliament in thefourteenth century. ~ At its origin, andsubsequently to its complete development, the Parliament retainedthe name ofthe Great Councilofthe kingdom. ~ Dijftrence between its attributes and its actualpower at these two epochs. ~ Absorption ofalmost the entire government by the Crown; gradual resumption ofits influence by the Parliament. LEfirst name borne in England by the assembly which was succeeded by the Parliament, was, as you have seen, that ofthe great council, the common council ofthe kingdom,-magnum commune consilium regni. The same name has also been given to the Parliament in England for the last two centuries, when it is desired to indicate completely the nature ofits interference in the government, and the part which it there performs. It is called the great national council: the king governs in Parliament, that is to say, with the advice and consent of the great council ofthe nation. Thus, both at the origin of the British government, and since it has attained its complete development, the same idea has been attached to the assembly , or union ofthe great public assemblies; and they have both been designated by the same word. At both these periods, the Parliament or the corresponding assembly which preceded it, has never actually been, and, indeed, could not be considered as a special power, distinct from the government properly so called-an accessory limited in its action to a certain number ofaffairs or emergencies. The government itself has resided in it. All superior powers have there been concentrated and called into exercise. At the origin ofmodern States, and especially ofEngland, it was very far from being thought that the whole and sole right of the body of capable citizens , ofthe political nation, consisted in consenting to the imposition oftaxes; that they were otherwise subjected to an independent authority, and were not authorized in any way to interfere, either directly or indirectly, in the general affairs ofthe State. Whatever these affairs might be, they were their affairs, and 377 ESSAYS OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND they always occupied themselves with them, when their importance naturally called for their intervention. This is testified by the history of the Saxon Wittenagemot , ofthe Anglo-Norman Magnum Consilium and ofall the national assemblies ofthe German peoples, in the earliest period oftheir existence. These assemblies were truly the great national council, deliberating and deciding on the affairs ofthe nation in concert with the king. When the representative system has achieved all its mighty conquests, and borne its essential fruits, it has invariably resorted to this; and returned in fact to the point from which it set out. In spite ofall distinctious and apparent limitations, the power ofParliament has extended to everything, and has exercised a more or less immediate, but in reality a decisive influence on all the affairs of the State. Parliament has again become the great national council in which all the national interests are debated and regulated, sometimes by means ofanterior deliberation, at other times by those ofresponsibility. When this first and last condition of free governments has been recognized , it will be perceived that a very different intermediate condition is to be met with, in which Parliament, although sometimes styled the great national council, exercises none ofits functions, does not in a permanent manner interfere in political affairs, and is not, in a word, the seat and habitual instrument of government. During the whole ofthis period, the government is separate from the Parliament, and resides altogether in the royal power, around which are grouped the principal members ofthe great aristocracy. The Parliament is necessary in certain cases, but it is not the centre, the focus, of political action. It exercises rights, defends its liberties, and labours for their extension; but influences the government in no decisive way: and principles which belong only to absolute monarchy co-exist with the more or less frequent convocation ofthe representatives ofthe nation. Such was the state of the British Parliament, from its formation in the thirteenth century until nearly the end ofthe seventeenth. Itwas only at the end of the seventeenth century that it resumed all the characteristics of a great national council, and became once more the seat ofthe entire government. The British Parliament was not, then, in the fourteenth century either what the public assemblies ofthe German peoples had originallybeen, nor what it is in the present day. In order properly to comprehend what, at that period, was the nature of its power and the scope of its influence, we...