The Leading Facts of English History Part 59

586. The Queen's Descent; Stability of the Government.

As William IV left no child to inherit the crown, he was succeeded by his niece, the Princess Victoria, daughter of his brother Edward, Duke of Kent. (See Genealogical Table, p.323.) In her lineage the Queen represented nearly the whole past sovereignty of the land over which she reigned.[1] The blood of both Cerdic, the first Saxon king, and of William the Conqueror,[2] flowed in her veins,--a fact which strikingly ill.u.s.trates the vitality of the hereditary and conservative principles in the history of the English Crown.

[1] The only exceptions are the four Danish sovereigns and Harold II.

[2] See Genealogical Table of the Descent of English Sovereigns in the Appendix.

The fact stands out in stronger relief if we call to mind what England had pa.s.sed through in that intervening period of time.

In 1066 the Normans crossed the Channel, invaded the island, conquered its inhabitants, and seized the throne. In the course of the next five centuries two kings were deposed, one died a captive in the Tower of London,[3] and the Catholic religion, as an established Church, was supplanted in England by the Protestant faith of Luther.

[3] Namely, Edward II (S233), Richard II (S257), and Henry VI (S305).

Somewhat less than a hundred years after that event, Civil War broke out in 1642; the King was dethroned and beheaded, and in 1648 a republic established. The monarchy was restored in 1660, only to be followed by the Revolution of 1688, which changed the order of royal succession, drove one line of sovereigns from the land, and called in another from Germany to take its place. Meanwhile the House of Commons had gained enormously in political power, and Cabinet Government had been fully and finally established (S534). In 1832 the Reform Bill was pa.s.sed, by which the power of the people was largely extended in Parliament; the two great political parties had been reorganized; yet after all these events, at the end of more than ten centuries from the date when Egbert first became Overlord of all the English, in 829 (S49), we find England governed by a descendant of her earliest rulers!

587. The Power of the House of Commons and of the Cabinet fully and finally recognized.

Queen Victoria was but little over eighteen when called to the throne. At her accession a new order of things began. The Georges insisted on dismissing their Cabinet ministers, or chief political advisers, when they pleased, without condescending to give Parliament any reason for the change. We have seen too that William IV tried to do the same thing, but had to acknowledge that he was beaten (S582).

William's unsuccessful attempt was never repeated. The last vestige of "personal government,"[1] that is, of the determination of the Crown to act contrary to the will of the majority of the nation, as expressed by the Cabinet, died with the late King.

[1] See the reign of Victoria in McCarthy's "History of Our Own Times."

With the coronation of Victoria the principle was established, once for all, that henceforth the Sovereign of the British Empire cannot remove the Prime Minister or his Cabinet (S582) without the consent of the House of Commons; nor, on the other hand, would the Sovereign now venture to retain a ministry which the Commons refused to support.[2]

This limitation of the prerogatives of royalty emphasized the fact that the House of Commons had practically become the ruling power in England; and since that House is freely elected by the great body of the people, in order that it may declare and enforce their will, it follows that the government of the realm is essentially democratic.

In fact, so far as reflecting public opinion is concerned, no republic in the world is more democratic.

[2] In order to guard herself against any political influence adverse to that of the Cabinet (S582), and hence of the majority of the House of Commons, the Queen was compelled to consent (1841) that the Mistress of the Robes, or head of her Majesty's household, should change at the demand of the incoming Prime Minister; and it was furthermore agreed that any ladies under her whose presence might be politically inconvenient to the Prime Minister, should retire "of their own accord." In other words, the incoming Prime Minister, with his Cabinet, has the right to remodel the Sovereign's household--or any other body of offices--in whatever degree he may think requisite, and the late Prince Albert could not even appoint his own private secretary, but much to his chagrin had to accept one appointed for him by the Prime Minister. See May's "Const.i.tutional History of England"

and Martin's "Life of the Prince Consort."

Custom, too, has decided that the Sovereign must sanction every bill which Parliament approves and resolves to make law. Queen Anne was the last occupant of the English throne who ventured to veto a bill, by refusing to a.s.sent to it. That was in 1707, or more than two hundred years ago, and there is little probability that any wearer of the crown will ever attempt to do what she did. In fact, an able and authoritative English writer has not hesitated to declare that if the two Houses of Parliament should agree to send the reigning Sovereign his own death warrant, he would be obliged to sign it, or abdicate.[1]

[1] See Bagehot's "The English Const.i.tution."

An English sovereign's real position to-day is that of a person who has much indirect influence and but little direct power,--far less in fact than that of the President of the United States; for the latter can veto a bill, and can remove any or all of his cabinet officers at pleasure.

588. The House of Lords in the Past and To-day.

A change equally great was taking place with respect to the Peers, or Lords.[2] As that body has played a most important part in the government of England and still retains considerable influence, it may be well to consider its history and present condition.

[2] Peers (from the Latin pares, equals): The word first occurs in an act of Parliament, 1321,--"Pares et proceres regni Angliae spirituales et temporales." The name Peers, referring to the House of Lords, is here limited, as it has been ever since, to the higher clergy (now consisting of certain bishops) and to the hereditary n.o.bility.

It will be remembered that the peerage originated with the Norman Conquest. William rewarded the barons, or chief men, who fought under him at Hastings[3] with grants of immense estates, which were given on two conditions: one of military service at the call of the Sovereign (S150); the other their attendance, when required, at the Great or Royal Council (S144), an advisory and legislative body which contained the germ of what later came to be called Parliament.

It will thus be seen that the Conqueror made the possession of landed property directly dependent on the discharge of public duties. So that if, on the one hand, the Conquest carried out the principle

"That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can,"[1]

on the other, it insisted on the higher principle that in return for such *taking* and *keeping* the victors should bind themselves by oath to help defend the kingdom, and to help govern it.

[1] Wordsworth's "Rob Roy's Grave."

In later reigns the King summoned other influential men to attend Parliament. To distinguish them from the original barons by land tenure, they were called "barons by writ" (S263). Subsequently it became customary for the Sovereign to create barons by letters patent, as is the method at present (S263).

Edward I, 1295, is generally considered to have been the "Creator of the House of Lords" in the form in which it has since stood.[2] From his time the right to sit in the House of Lords was limited to those whom the King summoned, namely, the hereditary Peers (save in the case of a very limited number of life Peers), and to the upper clergy.

[2] W. Stubb's "English Const.i.tutional History," II, 184, 203; also Feilden's "Short Const.i.tutional History of England," pp. 121-122.

The original baronage continued predominant until the Wars of the Roses (S316) destroyed so many of the ancient n.o.bility that, as Lord Beaconsfield says, "A Norman baron was almost as rare a being in England then as a wolf is now." With the coming in of the Tudors a new n.o.bility was created (S352). Even this has become in great measure extinct. Perhaps not more than a fourth of those who now sit in the House of Lords can trace their t.i.tles further back than the Georges, who created great numbers of Peers in return for political services either rendered or expected.

Politically speaking, the n.o.bility of England, unlike the old n.o.bility of France, is strictly confined and strictly descends to but one member of the family,--the eldest son receiving the preference. None of the children of the most powerful Duke or Lord has, during his father's life, any civil or legal rights or privileges above that of the poorest and most obscure native-born day laborer in Great Britain.[1]

[1] Even the younger children of the Sovereign are no exception to this rule. The only one born with a t.i.tle is the eldest, who is Duke of Cornwall by birth, and is created Prince of Wales. The others are simply commoners. See E.A. Freeman's "Growth of the English Const.i.tution."

The whole number of Peers is about six hundred.[2] They own a very large part of the land of England[3] and possess all the social and political influence naturally belonging to such a body. Yet notwithstanding the exclusive and aristocratic spirit of this long- established cla.s.s, it has always been ready to receive recruits from the ranks of the people. For just as any boy in America feels himself a possible senator or President, so any one born or naturalized in England, like Pitt, Disraeli, Churchill, Nelson, Wellesley, Brougham, Tennyson, Macaulay, Lord Lyndhurst,[4] and many others, may win his way to a t.i.tle, and also to a seat in the House of Lords, since brains and character go to the front in England just as surely as they do everywhere else.

[2] The full a.s.sembly of the House of Lords would consist of five hundred and sixty-two temporal Peers and twenty-six spiritual Peers (archbishops and bishops).

[3] So strictly is property entailed that there are proprietors of large estates who cannot so much as cut down a tree without permission of the heir. See Badeau's "English Aristocracy."

[4] J.S. Copley (Lord Lyndhurst), son of the famous artist, was born in Boston in 1772. He became Lord Chancellor. All of the eminent men named above rose from the ranks of the people and were made Peers of the realm, either for life or as a hereditary right; and in a number of cases, as the elder Pitt (Earl of Chatham), Wellesley (Duke of Wellington), Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield), Copley (Lord Lyndhurst), they received seats in the House of Lords.

In their legislative action the Lords are, with very rare exceptions, extremely conservative. It is a "galling fact"[5] that they have seldom granted their a.s.sent to any liberal measure except from pressure of the most unmistakable kind. They opposed the Habeas Corpus Act under Charles II, Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation in 1829, the Great Reform Bill of 1832, the Education Bill of 1834, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, the admission of the Jews to Parliament in 1858, and they very reluctantly consented to the necessity of granting later extensions of the elective franchise.

[5] See A.L. Lowell's "The Government of England," I, 414, 422.

But, on the other hand, it was their influence which compelled John to sign Magna Carta in 1215; it was one of their number--Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester--who called the House of Commons into being in 1265; and it was the Lords as leaders who inaugurated the Revolution of 1688, and established const.i.tutional sovereignty under William and Mary in the place of the despotic self-will of James II.

Again, it was Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, and Mr. Disraeli, later known as Lord Beaconsfield, who, as leaders of the Tory, or Conservative, Party, felt obliged to carry the Reform Bill of 1867, by which the right to vote was greatly extended among the people (S600).

Seven hundred years ago the House of Lords was the only legislative and executive body in the country; now, nearly all the most important business of Parliament is done in the House of Commons (consisting of some six hundred and seventy members), and the Lords cannot vote a penny of money for any purpose whatever unless Commons first pa.s.ses a bill to that effect (S281). Thus taxation, which is generally regarded as the most important of all measures, has pa.s.sedf from the Lords to the direct representatives of the people.

At one time certain impatient Radicals in the House of Commons denounced the Peers as "t.i.tled obstructionists." In fact, late in the nineteenth century (1894) a resolution to put an end to their obstructive power was carried in the Commons (when half the members were absent) by a majority of two. But the vote was not taken seriously, and the Lords were not called upon to go out of business.

The upper House has continued, on occasion, to exercise its const.i.tutional righ of vetoing bills sent up to it by the House of Commons, though since 1860 it has rejected but one "Money Bill"

(1909), and that only temporarily (SS629, 631).[1] Since then the Liberal Party has demanded more strenuously than ever that the veto power of the Lords should be either greatly limited or abolished altogether (SS629, 632).

[1] As far back as 1671, the House of Commons resolved "that in all aids given to the King by the Commons, the rate or tax ought not to be altered by the Lords." In 1678 they emphatically repeated this resolution. In 1860 when the Lords rejected a "Money Bill" (for the repeal of paper duties) the Commons vigorously protested, declaring that they regarded the exercise of that power by the upper House with "particular jealousy." From that time the Commons were careful to include all the financial measures of the year in one bill, which the Lords "were forced to accept or reject as a whole." See H.S. Feilden's "Short Const.i.tutional History of England," pp. 114-115, and A.L. Lowell's "The Government of England," I, 400-401.

The House of Lords always includes a number of members eminent for their judicial ability, some of whom have been created Peers for that reason. This section acts as the National Court of Appeal and sits to decide the highest questions of const.i.tutional law. In this respect it corresponds to the Supreme Court of the United States.

589. The Queen's Marriage (1840).

In her twenty-first year, Queen Victoria married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a duchy of Central Germany. The Prince was about her own age, of fine personal appearance, and had just graduated from one of the German universities. He was particularly interested in art and education, and throughout his life used his influence to raise the standard of both.

590. Sir Rowland Hill's Postal Reforms, 1839.

The preceding year Sir Rowland Hill introduced a uniform system of cheap postage. The rate had been as high as a s.h.i.+lling for a single letter.[1] Such a charge was practically prohibitive, and, as a rule, no one wrote in those days if he could possibly avoid it. Sir Rowland reduced it to a penny (paid by stamp) to any part of the United Kingdom.[2] Since then the government has taken over all the telegraph lines, and cheap telegrams and the cheap transportation of parcels by mail (a kind of government express known as "parcels post") have followed. They are all improvements of immense practical benefit.

[1] An ill.u.s.tration of the effects of such high charges for postage is related by Coleridge. He says that he met a poor woman at Keswick just as she was returning a letter from her son to the postman, saying she could not afford to pay for it. Coleridge gave the postman the s.h.i.+lling, and the woman told the poet that the letter was really nothing more than a blank sheet which her son had agreed to send her every three months to let her know he was well; as she always declined to take this dummy letter, it of course cost her nothing. See G.B. Hill's "Life of Sir Rowland Hill," I, 239, note.

[2] The London papers made no end of fun of the first envelopes and the first postage stamps (1840). See the facsimile of the ridiculous "Mulready Envelope" in Hill's "Life of Sir Rowland Hill," I, 393.

591. Rise of the Chartists (1838-1848).