AND this by the antient ftatutes of the realm' he is bound to do every year, or oftener, if need be. Not that he is, or ever was, obliged by thefe ftatutes to call a new parliament every year; but only to permit a parliament to fit annually for the redress of grievances, and dispatch of business, if need be. These last words are fo loofe and vague, that such of our monarchs as were inclined to govern without parliaments, neglected the convoking them, fometimes for a very confiderable period, under pretence that there was no need of them. But, to remedy this, by the statute 16 Car. II. c. 1. it is enacted, that the fitting and holding of parliaments shall not be intermitted above three years at the most. And by the ftatute W. & M. ft. 2. c. 2. it is declared to be one of the rights of the people, that for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, ftrengthening, and preferving the laws, parliaments ought to be held frequently. And this indefinite frequency is again reduced to a certainty by statute 6 W. & M. c. 2. which enacts, as the ftatute of Charles the fecond had done before, that a new parliament shall be called within three years after the determination of the former. II. THE Conftituent parts of a parliament are the next objects of our inquiry. And these are, the king's majesty, fitting there in his royal political capacity, and the three eftates of the realm; the lords fpiritual, the lords temporal, (who fit, together with the king, in one house) and the commons, who fit by themselves in another. And the king and these three eftates, together, form the great corporation or body politic of the kingdom", of which the king is faid to be caput, principium, et finis. For upon their coming together the king meets them, either in person or by representation; without which there can be no beginning of a parliament: and he also has alone the power of diffolving them. 1 4 Edw. III. c. 14. 36 Edw. III. affemblies. Mod. Un. Hift. xxxiii. IT is highly neceffary for preferving the ballance of the conftitution, that the executive power fhould be a branch, though not the whole, of the legiflative. The total union of them, we have feen, would be productive of tyranny; the total disjunction of them, for the prefent, would in the end produce the fame effects, by causing that union against which it feems to provide. The legislature would soon become tyrannical, by making continual encroachments, and gradually affuming to itself the rights of the executive power. Thus the long parliament of Charles the firft, while it acted in a constitutional manner, with the royal concurrence, redressed many heavy grievances and established many falutary laws. But when the two houses affumed the power of legiflation, in exclufion of the royal authority, they foon after affumed likewife the reins of administration; and, in confequence of these united powers, overturned both church and ftate, and eftablished a worse oppression than any they pretended to remedy. To hinder therefore any such encroachments, the king is himself a part of the parliament: and, as this is the reafon of his being fo, very properly therefore the fhare of legislation, which the conftitution has placed in the crown, confifts in the power of rejecting rather than refolving; this being fufficient to answer the end propofed. For we may apply to the royal negative, in this inftance, what Cicero obferves of the negative of the Roman tribunes, that the crown has not any power of doing wrong, but merely of preventing wrong from being done P. The crown cannot begin of itself any alterations in the prefent established law; but it may approve or disapprove of the alterations fuggefted and confented to by the two houses. The legislative therefore cannot abridge the executive power of any rights which it now has by law, without it's own confent; fince the law muft perpetually ftand as it now does, unless all the powers will agree to alter it. And herein indeed confifts the true excellence of the English government, that all the parts of it form a mutual P Sulla-tribunis plebis fua lege injuriae faciendae poteßatem ademit, auxilii ferendi reliquit. De LL. 3. 9. check check upon each other. each other. In the legislature, the people are a check upon the nobility, and the nobility a check upon the people; by the mutual privilege of rejecting what the other has refolved: while the king is a check upon both, which preferves the executive power from encroachments. And this very executive power is again checked and kept within due bounds by the two houses, through the privilege they have of inquiring into, impeaching, and punishing the conduct (not indeed of the king, which would destroy his conftitutional independence; but, which is more beneficial to the public) of his evil and pernicious counsellors. Thus every branch of our civil polity supports and is supported, regulates and is regulated, by the reft: for the two houfes naturally drawing in two directions of oppofite intereft, and the prerogative in another still different from them both, they mutually keep each other from exceeding their proper limits; while the whole is prevented from feparation, and artificially connected together by the mixed nature of the crown, which is a part of the legislative, and the fole executive magistrate. Like three diftinct powers in mechanics, they jointly impel the machine of government in a direction different from what either, acting by itself, would have done; but at the fame time in a direction partaking of each, and formed out of all; a direction which conftitutes the true line of the liberty and happiness of the community. LET us now confider these constituent parts of the fovereign power, or parliament, each in a separate view. The king's majefty will be the subject of the next, and many fubfequent chapters, to which we must at prefent refer. THE next in order are the spiritual lords. These consist of two arch-bishops, and twenty-four bishops; and at the diffolution of monafteries by Henry VIII, confisted likewise of twenty-fix mitred abbots, and two priors: a very confiderable body, and in those times equal in number to the temporal nobility'. All these hold, or are supposed to hold, cer q Stat. 12 Car. II. c. 30. Seld. tit. hon. 2. 5. 27. s Co. Litt. 97. tain tain antient baronies under the king: for William the conqueror thought proper to change the fpiritual tenure of frankalmoign or free alms, under which the bifhops held their lands during the Saxon government, into the feodal or Norman tenure by barony; which fubjected their eftates to all civil charges and affefliments, from which they were before exempt: and, in right of fucceffion to thofe baronies, which were unalienable from their respective dignities, the bishops and abbots were allowed their feats in the house of lords'. But though thefe lords fpiritual are in the eye of the law a distinct eftate from the lords temporal, and are so distinguished in moft of our acts of parliament, yet in practice they are usually blended together under the one name of the lords; they intermix in their votes; and the majority of fuch intermixture joins both eftates. And from this want of a feparate affembly and feparate negative of the prelates, fome writers have argued " very cogently, that the lords spiritual and temporal are now in reality only one eftate : which is unquestionably true in every effectual fenfe, though the antient diftinction between them still nominally continues. For if a bill should pass their houfe, there is no doubt of it's validity, though every lord fpiritual fhould vote against it; of which Selden, and fir Edward Coke, give many inftances: as, on the other hand, I prefume it would be equally good, if the lords temporal prefent were inferior to the bishops in number, and every one of those temporal lords gave his vote to reject the bill; though fir Edward Coke feems to doubt whether this would not be an ordinance, rather than an act, of parliament. • Gilb. Hift. Exch. 55. Spelm.W.I. 291. Glanv. 7. 1. Co. Litt. 97. Seld. tit. hon. 2. 5. 19. y 2 Inft. 585, 6, 7. See Keilw. 184; where it is holden by the judges, 7 Hen. VIII. that the king may hold a parliament without any fpiritual u Whitelocke on Parliam. c. 72. lords. This was alfo exemplified in Warburt. Alliance. b. 2. c. 3. Dyer. 60. x Baronage. p. 1. c. 6. The act of uniformity, 1 Eliz. c. 2. was paffed with the diffent of all the bishops; (Gibf. codex.286.) and therefore the ftile of lords Spiritual is omitted throughout the whole. fact in the two firft parliaments of Z 4 THE THE lords temporal confift of all the peers of the realm (the bishops not being in ftrictnefs held to be fuch, but merely lords of parliament a) by whatever title of nobility diftinguished; dukes, marquiffes, earls, vifcounts, or barons; of which dignities we shall speak more hereafter. Some of these fit by defcent, as do ail antient peers; fome by creation, as do all new-made ones; others, fince the union with Scotland, by election, which is the cafe of the fixteen peers, who represent the body of the Scots nobility. Their number is indefinite, and may be encreased at will by the power of the crown and once, in the reign of queen Anne, there was an inftance of creating no lefs than twelve together; in contemplation of which in the reign of king George the firft, a bill paffed the house of lords, and was countenanced by the then ministry, for limiting the number of the peerage. This was thought by fome to promise a great acquisition to the constitution, by restraining the prerogative from gaining the afcendant in that auguft affembly, by pouring in at pleasure an unlimited number of new created lords. But the bill was ill-relifhed and mifcarried in the house of commons, whofe leading members were then defirous to keep the avenues to the other house as open and easy as poffible. THE diftinction of rank and honours is neceffary in every well-governed state: in order to reward fuch as are eminent for their services to the public, in a manner the most desirable to individuals, and yet without burden to the community; exciting thereby an ambitious yet laudable ardor, and generous emulation, in others. And emulation, or virtuous ambition, is a fpring of action which, however dangerous or invidious in a mere republic or under a defpotic fway, will certainly be attended with good effects under a free monarchy; where, without destroying it's existence, it's exceffes may be continually restrained by that fuperior power, from which all honour is derived. Such a fpirit, when nationally diffused, gives life and vigour to the community; it fets all the wheels of government in motion, |