PREFACE. THE Journals of the Lords begin with the reign of Henry VIII (1509). The list of the Lords heads the entry for the day, and from 1514 the attendances are registered. The prominence given to the names of Lords is due to the fact that attendance on the business of the House was compulsory, fines being leviable on absentees without leave, and proxies being required from those who could not attend. The registration of these proxies was one of the earliest pieces of business in each Parliament, and it was the custom for absent Lords to name several proxies, evidently in order to save the risks of non-attendance. The standing order which afterwards regulated the nomination of proxies was entered on the Journals on the 25th of February, 1626. The Journals between 1515 and 1533 are lost. In the early Journals the entries of business transacted are very few, and very short. Sometimes the record merely notes that the sitting was held and adjourned. The heads of Bills are given briefly, and for a long time there is no indication of the practice, which is customary from the end of the sixteenth century, of referring Bills to a Committee. At first there are no statements as to difference of opinion in the House, the entry nemine discrepante occurring in the extant Journals for the first time on the 28th of May, 1540. The first occasion on which dissentients to a measure are named is on the 14th of March, 1542, when the Duke of Suffolk and Lord Dacres dissented from a Bill empowering Butchers, &c., to sell at their Liberty,' by weight or otherwise. A year afterwards (April 19, 1543) four Lords dissent from a Bill disabling feigned recoveries by tenants in tail where the King is in reversion. Three similar entries occur in the residue of Henry VIII's reign, one of these occasions being a Bill against usury. There is nothing in these entries which implies that the statement of dissent was registered by the wish of the opposing Peer. During the six years and a half of Edward's reign these dissents are entered numerously, thirty-seven being recorded, the principal being notes of the opposition to the progress of the Reformation. Generally the Bishops are the remonstrants against these changes. Thus the dissentients from the appointment of the Commission of the 31st of January, 1550, under which thirtytwo persons were nominated to peruse and make ecclesiastical laws, were ten prelates. On the other hand, the dissentients to the Bill of 1552, by which the marriage of priests was permitted, were all laymen: the Earls of Salop, Derby, Rutland, and Bath; Lords Abergavenny, Stourton, Monteagle, Sondes, Windsor, and Wharton. It is significant that the only opponents of Northumberland's ' scheme for depriving the Bishop of Durham and confiscating his see were the Archbishop of Canterbury (Cranmer) and Lord Stourton (31st of March, 1551). In none of these dissents, again, does the entry appear to have been made in accordance with the wish of the dissentients. There are twenty-two records of dissent during the reign of Mary. They are, with one exception, all against secular measures. But Bonner, the Bishop of London (26th of December, 1554), dissents from the Bill which repeals all statutes made against the There is no doubt that the reaction in favour of the old religion and of Mary's title in 1553 was materially assisted by the rapacity of Edward's courtiers, and particularly by that of Dudley. The towns had lost all their guild lands by 1 Edward VI. cap. 14 (on the plea that these funds were devoted to superstitious uses), and with these funds the means of supporting their poor. Hence the temporary poor law of Edward VI (5 and 6 Edward VI. cap. 2). Norfolk and Suffolk, where the reaction began, were by far the richest English counties at that time, being the seat of nearly all the English manufactures. It is significant that they were also most strongly attached to the Reformation. see of Rome since 20 Henry VIII. In this reign occurs the first notice of a division. On the same day (May 5, 1554) one Bill is passed majore procerum numero consentiente, another rejected majore procerum numero dissentiente. During the first two years of Elizabeth's reign the Journals contain several entries of dissent with the names of the dissentients. Generally the dissent is from the ecclesiastical policy of Elizabeth, the Marian Bishops being the remonstrants. These Bishops disappear within the two years following on the Queen's accession. It is singular that in 1562 the Earl of Arundel dissented from a Bill for the punishment of Egyptians; Viscount Montague and Lord Dacres from another against fond and fantastical prophecies. In 1566 (November 6) the Bill declaring that the consecration of the Anglican Archbishops and Bishops is good, lawful, and perfect, is dissented from by the Earls of Northumberland, Westmorland, Worcester, and Sussex, Viscount Montague, Lords Morley, Dudley, Darcie, Monteagle, Cromwell, and Mordaunt. Only two other entries of dissents occur in the residue of Elizabeth's reign, one against a private Act, and the other against a declaratory Act. In 1580 it is stated that the number of votes for and against a Forgery Bill were equal, and it was ordered 'that the Bill be laid up in the Desk till next Parliament.' In 1601, when the same incident occurs, the House rules of such an equality, semper præsumitur pro negativo. There is no entry of any dissentient's name during the reign of James the First. On one occasion (June 25, 1604) a statement is made that Viscount Montague defended Popery, and dissented from the Recusants Bill. But this is a mere preface to the punishment which the House inflicted on this Peer, very inconsistently with their practice before and afterwards, for this House has very rarely punished its members for freedom of speech. There are no entries of dissentients in the first four Parliaments of Charles I. Once indeed Viscount Purbeck 'protested' that he had no intention of protecting his wife-a daughter of Chief Justice Coke-and in the same year (1628) his brother the Duke of Buckingham 'protested' that he did not say at his own table Tush it makes no matter what the Commons or Parliament doth, for without my leave and authority they shall not be able to touch the hair of a dog.' The Duke averred that he never had these words so much as in his thoughts,' and the House simply ordered the statement to be entered on its Journals. Similarly the documents printed in the following pages as Nos. I and II were adopted by the House, the former at once, the latter on the 18th of March, 1641. It appears that the practice of entering the names of dissentients to a Bill or other measure was dropped when the Lords began to refer measures to a Committee of their own number. The House, it is probable, seldom differed from the report of a Committee, for it is found more than once, when the Committee report that they disagree on the merits of a measure, that the subject is remitted anew to the House. It is plain, however, that they were influenced by a more powerful motive, the desire of keeping their proceedings secret. The only condition under which grievances can be remedied, malpractices chastised, and advice tendered in Parliament, is the concession of freedom in speech and debate. Such a freedom was accorded to the two Houses from the earliest times, and is indeed the original privilege of Parliament, of which all other privileges are developments. A tongue-tied Parliament is a contradiction in terms, and there is no need to wonder, as some have wondered, at the very early exhibition of plain-speaking in both Houses, particularly in the Lower. In the Upper House, as we learn from the history of the Plantagenet Kings, the nobles freely used their privilege, and carried into action what they arrived at by debate. The progress of the constitution in Parliament was rapid, and history would probably have been anticipated by two centuries, without a convulsion and a reaction, had not the Crown and the Nobles contrived to depress the Commons during the long war of the French succession. It is unreasonable to imagine that the famous statute of 1430, rendered still more stringent by that of 1432, by which the franchise was first limited to a forty-shilling freehold, and this freehold was to be in the same county, was a |