Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/324

 302 PAELIAMENT fTlHE British Pcarliament is the supreme legislature of J_ the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, consisting of the King, or Queen, and the three estates of the realm, viz., the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, and the Commons. HISTORY. An inquiry into the early growth and later development of this powerful institution presents at once an interesting historical study and profound&quot; political instruction. Its great antiquity, its continuous but ever -changing life, and the social and political causes which have shaped its pre sent constitution and authority are themes which can never fail to attract the historian and the statesman ; while speculations regarding its future course concern the destinies of the British empire. The Anglo-Saxon Polity. The origin of parliament is to be traced to Anglo-Saxon times. The Angles, Saxons, and other Teutonic races who conquered Britain brought to their new homes their own laws and customs, their settled framework of society, their kinship, their village communities, and a certain rude representation in local affairs. And we find in the Anglo-Saxon polity, as deve loped during their rule in England, all the constituent parts of parliament. In their own lands they had chiefs and leaders, but no kings. But conquest and territorial settlement were followed by the assumption of royal dignities ; and the victorious chiefs were accepted by their followers as kings. They were quick to assume the tradi- 1 tional attributes of royalty. A direct descent from their god Woden; and hereditary right, at once clothed them with a halo of glory and with supreme power ; and, when the pagan deity was deposed, the king received consecration from a Christian archbishop, and was invested with sacred attributes as &quot; the Lord s anointed. &quot; But the Saxon monarch was a patriarchal king of limited authority, who acted in concert with his people ; and, though his succes sion was hereditary, in his own family, his direct descendant was liable to be passed over in favour of a worthier heir. Such a ruler was a fitting precursor of a line of constitu tional kings, who in later times were to govern with the advice and consent of a free parliament. Meanwhile, any council approaching the constitution of a House of Lords was of slow growth. Anglo-Saxon society, indeed, was not without an aristocracy. The highest in rank were sethelings generally, if not exclu sively, sons and brothers of the king. The ealdorman, originally a high officer, having the executive government of a shire, and a seat in the king s witan, became heredi tary in certain families, and eventually attained the dignity of an earl. But centuries were to pass before the English nobility was to assume its modern character and denomi nations. At the -head of each village was an eorl, the chief of the freemen, or ceorls their leader in war and patron in peace. The king s gesiths and thegns formed another privileged class. Admitted to offices in the king s household and councils, and enriched by grants of land, they gradually formed a feudal nobility. The revival of the Christian church, under the Anglo- Saxon rule, created another order of rulers and councillors, destined to take a leading part in the government of the state. The archbishops and bishops, having spiritual authority in their own dioceses, and exercising much local influence in temporal affairs, were also members of the national council, or witenagemot, and by their greater learning and capacity were not long in acquiring a leading part in the councils of the realm. Ecclesiastical councils were also held, comprising bishops, abbots, and clergy, in which we observe the origin of convocation. The abbots, thus associated with the bishops, also found a place with them in the witenagem6t. By these several orders, sum moned to advise the king in affairs of state, was formed a council of magnates to be developed, in course of time, into an Upper Chamber, or House of Lords. The rise of the commons, as a political power in the national councils, was of yet slower development ; but in the Anglo-Saxon moots may be discerned the first germs of popular government in England. In the town-moot the assembled freemen and cultivators of the &quot; folk-lands &quot; regulated the civil affairs of their own township, tithing, village, or parish. In the burgh-moot the inhabitants administered their municipal business, under the presidency of a reeve. The hundred-moot assumed a more representa tive character, comprising the reeve and a selected number of freemen from the several townships and burghs within the hundred. The shire-moot, or shire-gem6t, was an assembly yet more important. An ealdorman was its pre sident, and exercised a jurisdiction over a shire, or district comprising several hundreds. Attended by a reeve and four freemen from every hundred, it assumed a distinctly representative character. Its members, if not elected by the popular voice, were, in some fashion, deputed to act on behalf of those whose interests they had come to guard. The shire-moot was also the general folk-moot of the tribe, assembled in arms, to whom their leaders referred the decision of questions of peace and war. Superior to these local institutions was the witena- gem6t, or assembly of wise men, with whom the king took counsel in legislation and the government of the state. This national council was the true beginning of the parliament of England. Such a council was originally held in each of the kingdoms commonly known as the Heptarchy ; and after their union in a single realm, under King Edgar, the witenagemot became the deliberative and legislative assembly, or parliament, of the extended estate. The witenagemot made laws, imposed taxes, concluded treaties, advised the king as to the disposal of public lands and the appointment and removal of officers of state, and even assumed to elect and depose the king himself. The king had now attained to greater power, and more royal dignities and prerogatives. He was unquestionably the chief power in the witenagemot ; but the laws were already promulgated, as in later times, as having been agreed to with the advice and consent of the witan. The witan also exercised jurisdiction as a supreme court. These ancient customs present further examples of the continuity of English constitutional forms. The constitution of the witenagemot, however, was necessarily less popular than that of the local moots in the hundred or the shire. The king himself was generally present ; and at his summons came prelates, abbots, ealdormen, the king s gesiths and thegns, officers of state and of the royal household, and leading tenants in chief of lands held from the crown. Crowds sometimes attended the meetings of the witan, and shouted their acclamations of approval or dissent ; and, so far, the popular voice was associated with its deliberations ; but it was at a distance from all but the inhabitants of the place in which it was assembled, and until a system of representation had slowly grown up there could be no further admission of the