treatise; and however great the temptation may be to digress Chapter upon topics which are suggested by the proceedings of Parliament, such digressions are rarely admitted. Within these bounds an outline of each of the constituent parts of Parliament, with incidental reference to their ancient history and constitution, will properly introduce the consideration of the various attributes and proceedings of the Legislature. The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain ent parts and Ireland is composed of the King or Queen, and they three estates of the realm, viz. the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, and the Commons. These several powers collectively make laws that are binding upon the subjects of the British empire; and, as distinct members of the supreme legislature, enjoy privileges and exercise functions. peculiar to each. Constitu of Parlia ment. I. The King 545. I. The Crown of these realms is hereditary, being subject, The Cro and public or Queen. however, to special limitations by Parliament; and the money, see king or queen1 has ever enjoyed various prerogatives, by prescription, custom, and law, which assign to the sovereign the chief place in Parliament, and the sole executive power. But as the collective Parliament is the supreme legislature, the right of succession and the prerogatives of the Crown itself are subject to limitations and change by the consent and authority of the sovereign, and the three estates of the realm in Parliament assembled. To the changes that have been effected, at different times, in the legal succession to the Crown, it is needless to refer, as the Revolution of 1688 is a sufficient example. The power of Parliament over the Crown is distinctly affirmed by the statute law, and recognized as an important principle of the constitution. Coronation oath. All the kings and queens since the Revolution have taken an oath at their coronation, by which they have "promised and sworn to govern the people of this kingdom, and the dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the 1 For statutory confirmation of the ancient right of females to inherit the Crown, see 1 Mar. St. 2, c. 1; and 1 Mar. St. 3, c. 1; 1 Eliz. c. 3. For the form in which the ac- Chapter I. same." 1 The Act 12 & 13 Will. III. c. 2, affirms "that Limitations the laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof; tive. of prerogaand all the kings and queens who shall ascend the throne of this realm ought to administer the government of the same according to the said laws; and all their officers and ministers ought to serve them respectively according to the same." And the statute 6 Anne, c. 7, declares it high treason for any one to maintain and affirm, by writing, printing, or preaching, "that the kings or queens of this realm, by and with the authority of Parliament, are not able to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown, and the descent, limitation, inheritance, and government thereof." Nor was this a modern principle of constitutional law, established, for the first time, by the Revolution of 1688. If not admitted in its whole force so far back as the great charter of King John, it has been affirmed by Parliament in very ancient times. In the 40th Edward III. the pope demanded homage of that monarch for the kingdom of England and land of Ireland, and the arrears of 1,000 marks a year that had been granted by King John to Innocent III. and his successors. The king laid these demands before his Parliament, and it is recorded that "The prelates, dukes, counts, barons, and commons, thereupon, after full deliberation, answered and said, with one accord, that neither the said King John, nor any other, could put himself, or his kingdom or people, in such subjection without their assent; and as it appears, by several evidences, that if this was done at all, it was done without their assent, and against his own oath on his coronation," they resolved to resist the demands of the pope with all their power.2 From the words of this record it would appear, that whether the charter of King John submitted the royal prerogatives to Parliament or not, it was the opinion of the Parliament of Edward III. that even King John had been bound by the same laws which subsisted in their own time.3 1 1 Will. & Mary, c. 6. Form and Order of H.M. Coronation. 22 Rot. Parl. 290. 3 See also coronation oath of Edw. II. in 1307, Fœdera, vol. ii. p. 36; Book of Oaths, 1689, p. 195. Profession of the Protestant faith. "1 The same principle had been laid down by the most chi ter venerable authorities of the English law, before the limits of the constitution had become defined. Bracton, a judge in the reign of Henry III., declared that "the king must not be subject to any man, but to God and the law, because the law makes him king." At a later period, the learned Fortescue, the Lord Chancellor of Henry VI., thus explained the royal prerogative to the king's son, whose banishment he shared: "A king of England cannot, at his pleasure ... make make any alteration or change in the laws of the realm without the consent of the subject, nor burthen them, against their wills, with strange impositions." Later still, during the reign of Elizabeth, who did not suffer the royal prerogative to be impaired in her time, Sir Thomas Smyth affirmed that "the most high and absolute power of the realm of England consisteth in the Parliament;"3 and then proceeded to assign to the Crown exactly the same place in Parliament as that acknowledged by statute, since the Revolution. Not to multiply authorities, enough has been said to prove that the Revolution defined, rather than limited, the constitutional prerogatives of the king, and that the Bill of Rights was but a declaration of the ancient law of England.5 4 An important principle of constitutional law was introduced at the Revolution, by which the sovereign is bound to an adherence to the Protestant faith, and to the maintenance of the Protestant religion, as established by law. He is required to swear, at his coronation, to maintain "the true profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant reformed 1 Bracton, lib. 1, c. 8. 2 De Laudibus Leg. Ang. c. 9. "That the pretended power of prerogative, without grant of Parlia- See Allen, Rise and Growth of 3 Chapter I. religion established by law." By the Bill of Rights,' and the Act of Settlement, any person professing the popish religion, or who shall marry a papist, is incapable of inheriting or possessing the Crown, and the people are absolved from their allegiance. This exclusion is further confirmed by the second article of the Act of Union with Scotland; " and, in addition to the coronation oath, every king or queen is required to make the declaration against the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church prescribed by the 30 Chas. II. st. 2, either on the throne in the House of Lords, in the presence of both houses, at the first meeting of the first Parliament after the accession, or at the coronation, whichever shall first happen. By similar sanctions the sovereign is also bound to maintain the Protestant religion and Presbyterian church government in Scotland.5 tive in with Par - The prerogatives of the Crown, in connexion with the Preroga- Will. & Mary, sess. 1, c. 6; 12 & 13 Will. III. c. 2, s. 2. 14th Feb. 1901, 133 L. J. 9. Act 1 Eliz. c. 1, s. 19; Gibson, Church," see Coke, 4th Inst. 344; The order of precedence of the II. The 1. Lords spiritual. long since been held to confer a right to sit in Parliament. Chapter I. of Lords p. 573. spiritual lords at a peers, see II. The Lords Spiritual and Temporal sit together, and The House jointly constitute the House of Lords, which is the second and public branch of the legislature in rank and dignity. 1. The lords one, see spiritual are the archbishops and bishops of the Church of Position of England having seats in Parliament by ancient, usage and by statute. Before the Conquest, the lords spiritual held the trial of prominent place in the great Saxon councils, which they p. 669. retained in the councils of the Norman kings: but the right, or tenure, by which they have held a place in Parliament, since the Conquest, has not been agreed upon by constitutional writers. In the Saxon times, there is no doubt that they sat, as bishops, by virtue of their ecclesiastical office but, according to Selden and to Blackstone, William the Conqueror, in the fourth year of his reign, first brought the bishops and abbots under the tenure by barony.1 Lord Hale was of opinion that the bishops sit by usage; and Hallam maintains that the bishops of William the Conqueror were entitled to sit in his councils by the general custom of Europe, which invited the superior ecclesiastics to such offices, and by the common law of England, which the Conquest did not overturn. Their presence in Parliament, except during the Commonwealth,3 has been uninterrupted, and their right to sit there unquestioned, whatever nominal 1 Tit. of Hon. part 2, s. 20; 1 Comm. p. 156. 22 Middle Ages, 138; see also They were excluded by Act 16 their seats, after the Restoration, in |