THE PROTESTS OF THE LORDS.* [SECOND NOTICE.]
THE practice of protesting, as might be expected, is recurred to intermittently, either when some policy is under consideration of more than ordinary gravity and importance, or when, for any reason, such as the near prospect of office, the minority offers a dogged resistance to the majority. But while numerously signed protests appear only at intervals, there have usually been one or two peers in the House who make use of protests. Such were the Earl of Anglesey, at the end of the seventeenth century ; the Earls of Abingdon, Stanhope, and Oxford, in the last century; and Lords Holland, King, Brougham, and Redesdale, in the present century. Of the numerously signed protests, we find one of the Long Parlia- ment in January, 1642, on the Militia Bill, to which thirty Lords have set their names. This number is not exceeded until December, 1696, nearly fifty-five years afterwards, when, on the third read- ing of Fenwick's attainder, a protest is entered with forty-one signatures. A protest in 1710, occasioned by Sacheverell's im- peachment, is signed by as many as fifty-one Peers, a number not exceeded till 1788, when Pitt's Regency Resolutions called forth a protest with fifty-seven signatures. Still more numerous were the signatures appended to a protest, April, 1832,
against the first Reform Bill. They were seventy-seven. While in June, 1846, as many as eighty-eight Peers signed the protest against the repeal of the Corn Laws. Only forty-three protested against the repeal of the Navigation Laws, and but sixty-one attached their names to the late Lord Derby's reasons against the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. Judging by the number of the signatures—a fair test, we pre- sume—the measures we have now enumerated are those which during the past two centuries and a half have most deeply stirred the English people, or at any rate, those classes amongst them whose opinions are reflected in the House of Lords. With the exception of the first they have by no means been the most important in their consequences. Of the momentous character of the occasion which called forth the first protest there can be no dispute. Charles I. bad on January 20, 1642, sent a message to both Houses desiring them to deal with all grievances in a general manner, and to " digest and com- pose them into one body," promising to do his best to satisfy their demands. The Lords voted a message of thanks, desiring the concurrence of the Commons. The Commons offered to agree, provided a clause were inserted asking the King to put into the hands of Commissioners in whom Parliament could confide, "the Tower and other principal forts of this kingdom, and the whole Militia thereof." The Lords refused to insert this demand, whereupon the protest was adopted. The first name appended is that of Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and the second that of the Earl of Pembroke. Other names are William Russell, Earl of Bedford, Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, John Holies, Earl of Clare, Theophilus Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, William Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, two Howards, and one Grey. It will be remembered that it was the demands here embodied which afterwards led to the rupture between King and Parliament. The support of the Commons by this protest, so numerously and influentially signed, was, therefore, an act of the very greatest gravity. Fenwick's attainder was, no doubt, a matter of high constitutional import, yet, in the half-century that intervened between the two protests, there occurred several events which might reasonably be expected to arouse as much feeling. As for Sacheverell's trial, the excitement it caused was in large measure factitious. In contrast with those measures which stirred public feeling so profoundly, it is significant of the mistakes so often committed by contemporaries in relation to the relative importance of passing events, that the policy which led up to the independ- ence of the American Colonies drew forth not a single protest. The American war itself was fruitful in protests, but the taxation policy of Townshend and Grenville passed without heed. Trifling squabbles between the two Houses, trials now forgotten, even Bills permitting the construction of theatres, all evoked protests. But a policy which, in its results, has so profoundly modified the course of history, not only by disintegrating the British Empire, but still more by presenting the spectacle of a democratic repub- lic ruling a territory as large as Europe, and providing for the maintenance of law and order, was not so much as dimly appre- ciated by even a single peer.
The Protests of the Long Parliament, with a single exception, are entered by the Parliamentarian party. After the Restoration they proceed generally also from the-same party. But after the • A Complete Collection of the Protests of the Lords. By J. E. Thorold Rogers. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press.
Revolution it is the Jacobite party which is found protesting. As a matter of course, protests would usually be made by the minority of the day. Members of the Royal family rarely signed protests till the reign of George III. James II., while Duke of York, indeed, signed a protest in 1663 against a clause, subsequently dropped, which would have diminished the stringency of the Act of Uniformity. Prince George of Denmark also signed one protest in 1693. But none of the Princes of the House of Hanover adopted the practice previous to George first illness. Afterwards, however, the names of the Royal Dukes are frequently found appended to these documents, the Du1p of Sussex in particular joining in protests very often. The Revolution finally established the supremacy of Parliament in English politics, and immediately efforts were begun for puri- fying the House of Commons. A century and a half elapsed before success was attained, and in the meantime the misrepresentation of the people increased. But it is still interesting to trace through these volumes the progress of opinion in the matter. The first protest we find bearing upon the subject is dated January 3, 1693, only five years after the accession of William of Orange. A Bill had been passed by the Commons, but rejected by the Lords, the purport of which was to exclude placemen, by render- ing all Members of the House of Comnons incapable of offices of trust and profit, by expelling all those who received any such place, and incapacitating them from sitting again in the current Parlia- ment. There was a very general impression that the foreign King practised bribery very extensively to maintain his authority with the House, and that the Speaker was his intermediary in the practice. The Bill in question was the remedy proposed. Had it been successful, it would have rendered Cabinet government im- possible, for no Minister could have held a seat in the Lower House. Consequently, the English Constitution would have taken somewhat the character of the Constitution of the United States. There would have been this immense difference, indeed,—the chief of the Executive Power in England would have been a life- long and a hereditary magistrate, and would therefore have re- tained far more direct power and indirect influence than the tem- porary elective President of the United States. But in both cases the Ministers would have been responsible to the Chief Magistrate only. It is probable, therefore, that the effect would have been to perpetuate that antagonism between the Executive and the Legislature which had afflicted England throughout the Stuart period, or to aggravate a hundredfold the bribery which it was desired to check. However, Cabinet government was then un- known, and the strength of the feeling in favour of the measure is evident by the protest which was drawn up on its rejection in the Upper House, the protest being signed by twenty Peers. It is signed by Prince George of Denmark, the Earl of Marlborough, Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Gray, Earl of Stamford, Montagu, Earl of Montagu, and Montagu, Earl of Sandwich. Even more interesting is another protest of 1693. It is the celebrated protest of Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards Marquis of Normanby and Duke of Buckingham, in reference to the freedom of the Press. A temporary law, which was on the point of expiring, had created a Licenser's office for the Press, and a continuance of this law was proposed. Readers of Macaulay will remember that the censorship was continued for two years. In the meantime, two amendments had been proposed, one prohibiting searches in the houses of Peers " without oath being first made ;" the other, exempting from the operation of the Act books bearing the names of the printer and the author. The amendments were rejected, and Earl Mulgrave's protest is entered against this rejection. It is signed by eleven Peers, amongst whom we again find the Earl of Marlborough, the Earl of Stam- ford, also Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, Saville, Marquis of Halifax, Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield.
The Protests of the last century which have constitutional or his- torical importance are few. We have already noted the fact that the policy of taxing the American Colonies by Act of Parliament provoked no protest, nor did the Assiento Convention with Spain. Strong as is now the national abhorrence of the slave- trade, in the middle of the last century it was thought a traffic so lucrative and legitimate as to deserve the care of Government. There are, however, two classes of protests deserving of notice. The first are those to which the Act of Union with Scotland gave rise. There was an extraordinary jealousy of Scotland felt, and complaints were general that the Scotch Peerage was too much favoured. There was likewise a strong dislike of the bestowal of English peerages on Scotch peers ; and these sentiments we find in the protests of the Lords. The second class to which we re- ferred consisted of those provoked by George Ill.'s efforts to
Iestablish personal government. One of these in particular, to which the names of the Marquis of Rockingham, the Dukes of Devonshire, Manchester, Richmond, and Portland, and the Earls Fitzwilliam, Effingham, and Stamford, with some others, are appended, is especially outspoken and uncourtly. It is dated 1777, and here is a sample of the language used to the King ;— " Parliament has already, in consideration (we suppose) of some expenses at the beginning of your Majesty's reign, discharged the debts and incumbrances on the Civil List to a very great amount. Again to exceed the revenue granted by Parliament, without its authority, and to abuse its indulgence in paying one debt by contracting, in so short a time, another and a greater, is, on the first view, a criminal act." The conduct of the American war led to many protests, as did the struggle against Revolutionary France, and so likewise did the reactionary policy at home duo to the fear of French principles. The sanguinary and needlessly cruel suppression of the Irish insurrection of 1798 likewise pro- voked protests. In one of them, the Earl of Oxford protests against the practice of flogging, picketing, and half-hanging to extort confession ; and Lord Holland, Earl Fitzwilliam, the Duke of Bedford, and four other Peers incorporate official evidence of the atrocities practised by the Loyalists, too often with the sanction and under the orders of Government, in an addition to the same protest. During the present century, the protests are very numerous, as might be expected from the importance of the legislation. During the first five-and-twenty years, they gene- rally proceed from the Liberal Peers, though not always. The Act of Union with Ireland, the coercive policy pursued in that country, the reactionary measures of Lord Sidmouth, the at- tempts to suppress the Catholic Association, the trial of Queen Caroline, and the detention of Napoleon were some of the events which called them forth. Then the triumph of Liberal prin- ciples brings about a change, and every great popular measure, from the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts down to the present, calls forth its protest from the opponents of change.
Previous page
