A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 12

A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 12

“A parliament of knaves and sots,

Members by name you must not mention,

He keeps in pay, and buys their votes;

Here with a place, there with a pension.

When to give money he can’t cologue ’um,

He doth with scorn prorogue, prorogue ’um.

 

But they long since, by too much giving,

Undid, betray’d, and sold the nation;

Making their memberships a living

Better than e’er was sequestration.

God give thee, Charles, a resolution

To damn the knaves by Dissolution.”

 

Later, Pepys is in conference with the king and the Duke of York

(April, 1668) upon no less a subject than “about the Quakers not

swearing, and how they do swear in the business of a late election of a

Knight of the Shire of Hertfordshire in behalf of one they have a mind

to have,” which diverts the monarch mightily.

 

We have seen how the juris-consultists who lived contemporaneously

with the system of “paid members” considered the impartiality of

representatives was protected from outside influences by the receipt

of a small independence; later on we find that, owing to a dispute

between the two Chambers, the impression was arrived at by the Peers

that no salaried judges can be deemed impartial, and that hereditary

legislators are the only reliable tribunals whence unimpeachable

justice could be secured.

 

On a question of privilege between the Lords and Commons (May, 1668),

when the latter took upon themselves to remedy an error of the Upper

Chamber, Lord Anglesey informed the Commons that the Lords were

“_Judices nati et Conciliarii nati_, but all other Judges among us

are under salary, and the Commons themselves served for wages; and

therefore the Lords, in reason, were the freer Judges.”

 

The circumstance of receiving a salary does not appear to have

compromised the independence of members, but to the contrary, as

they were thus enabled to keep their honesty the purer, by resisting

the venal attacks of the Court. The integrity of members seems

to have suffered when their fees were no longer recognized. The

“Pensioner Parliament” came into existence precisely at the epoch when

representatives remitted “their wages;” a significant circumstance,

but indicative of the times; when selfishness usurped the place of

patriotism, members sacrificed the modest retainers designed to keep

them honest, that they might be the less fettered to bargain in their

own interests.

 

“The senate, which should head-strong Princes stay,

Let’s loose the reins, and gives the Realm away;

With lavish hands they constant tributes give,

And annual stipends for their guilt receive.”

 

(ANDREW MARVELL: _An Historical Poem_.)

 

The proverbial incorruptibility of Andrew Marvell is a case in point.

This example of a true patriot is erroneously said to have been the

last member who received wages from his constituents. He died in 1678,

M.P. for Hull.[5] Others, his contemporaries, maintained the right,

and suffered their arrears to accumulate, as a cheap resource at the

next election. Marvell more than once, in his correspondence, speaks of

members threatening to sue their boroughs for pay.[6] Lord Braybrooke,

in his notes to Pepys’s “Diary,” refers to a case, noticed by Lord

Campbell in his “Life of Lord Nottingham,” where the M.P. for Harwich,

in 1681, petitioned the Lord Chancellor, as that borough had failed

“to pay him his wages.” A writ was issued “De expensis Burgensium

levandis.” Lord Campbell adds, “For this point of the People’s Charter

[payment of wages] no new law is required.”[7]

 

Pepys’s later allusions concern the constantly threatened dissolutions;

in November, 1668, he records, “The great discourse now is that the

Parliament shall be dissolved and another called, which shall give the

King the Dean and Chapter’s lands, and that will put him out of debt,”

concluding with a hint that the subtle and “brisk” Duke of Buckingham,

at that time the actual ruler of the kingdom, “does knowingly meet

daily with Wildman and other Commonwealth-men,” the while deceiving

Charles into the belief that his intrigues were of a more tender nature.

 

At Whitehall, the same month, Pepys acquires some fresh and rather

significant information upon the subject of the Commons; it is imparted

to him that--

 

“it was not yet resolved whether the Parliament should ever

meet more or no, the three great rulers of things now standing

thus:--The Duke of Buckingham[8] is absolutely against their

meeting, as moved thereto by his people that he advises with,

the people of the late times, who do never expect to have

anything done by this Parliament for their religion, and who

do propose that, by the sale of the Church lands, they shall

be able to put the King out of debt: my Lord Keeper is utterly

against putting away this and choosing another Parliament,

lest they prove worse than this, and will make all the King’s

friends, and the King himself, in a desperate condition:

my Lord Arlington [being under suspicion, owing to his

mismanagement of money in Ireland] knows not which is best for

him, being to seek whether this or the next will use him worse.

It was told me that he believes that it is intended to call

this Parliament, and try them for a sum of money; and, if they

do not like it, then to send them going, and call another, who

will, at the ruin of the Church perhaps, please the King with

what he will have for a time.”

 

These passages need no comment, the accepted ideas upon representative

government under the House of Stuart were such as to fill

constitutional minds with amazement. This view is endorsed by a popular

ballad of the day:--

 

“Would you our sov’reign disabuse,

And make his parliament of use,

Not to be chang’d like dirty shoes?

This is the time.”

 

The inconsistency of the king’s behaviour, and the triviality of his

mind--when applied to matters of business, and especially that of

parliament--is happily held up to ridicule by one of his contemporary

wits, who has thus parodied the expected speech from the throne:--

 

 

“HIS MAJESTY’S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.

 

”MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

 

“I told you at our last meeting the Winter was the fittest time

for business; and truly I thought so, till my Lord Treasurer

assured me the Spring was the best season for salads and

subsidies: I hope, therefore, that April will not prove so

unnatural a month as not to afford some kind showers on my

parched Exchequer, which gapes for want of them. Some of you

perhaps will think it dangerous to make me too rich; but I do

not fear it, for I promise you faithfully whatever you give me

I will always want; and altho’ in other things my word may be

thought a slender authority, yet in that you may rely upon me,

I will never break it.

 

“My Lords and Gentlemen, I can bear my straits with patience;

but my Lord Treasurer does protest to me, that the Revenue,

as it now stands, will not serve him and me too; one of us

must pinch for it if you do not help me. I must speak freely

to you, I am under circumstances, for, besides my Harlots on

service, my reformado Concubines lie heavy upon me. I have a

passable good estate, I confess; but, Gads-fish, I have a great

charge upon’t. Here’s my Lord Treasurer can tell, that all the

money design’d for the next summer’s guards must of necessity

be apply’d to the next year’s cradles and swaddling clothes.

What shall we do for ships then? I hint this only to you, it

being your business, not mine. I know by experience I can live

without ships; I liv’d ten years abroad without, and never had

my health better in my life; but how you will be without I

leave to yourselves to judge, and therefore hint this only by

the by; I don’t insist upon it. There’s another thing I must

press more earnestly, and that is this. It seems a good part of

my revenue will expire in two or three years, except you will

be pleased to continue it. I have to say for’t, Pray why did

you give me so much as you have done, unless you resolve to

give on as fast as I call for it? The nation hates you already

for giving so much, and I will hate you too if you do not give

me more; so that if you stick not to me, you must not have

a friend in England. On the other hand, if you will give me

the revenue I desire, I shall be able to do those things for

your Religion and Liberty that I have had long in my thoughts,

but cannot effect them without a little more money to carry

me through. Therefore look to’t, and take Notice that if you

do not make me rich enough to undo you, it shall lie at your

doors, for my part I wash my hands on’t. But that I may gain

your good opinion the best way is to acquaint you what I have

done to deserve it out of my royal care for your religion and

your property. For the first, my proclamation is a true picture

of my mind: he that cannot, as in a glass, see my zeal for the

Church of England, does not deserve any farther satisfaction,

for I declare him wilful, abominable, and not good. Some may

perhaps be startled, and cry--how comes this sudden change?

To which I answer I am a changeling, and that’s sufficient,

I think. But to convince men farther that I mean what I say,

there are these arguments. _First_, I tell you so, and you

know I never break my word. _Secondly_, my Lord Treasurer says

so, and he never told a lie in his life. _Thirdly_, my Lord

Lauderdale will undertake it for me, and I should be loth by

any act of mine he should forfeit the credit he has with you.

 

* * * * *

 

“I must now acquaint you, that by my Lord Treasurer’s Advice,

I have made a considerable retrenchment upon my expenses in

Candles and Charcoal, and do not intend to stop there, but

will, with your help, look into the late embezzlements of my

dripping-pans and kitchen stuff; of which, by the way, upon my

conscience, neither my Lord Treasurer nor my Lord Lauderdale

are guilty. I tell you my opinion, but if you should find them

dabbling in that business, I tell you plainly I leave ’em to

you; for I would have the world know I am not a man to be

cheated.

 

“My Lords and Gentlemen, I desire you to believe me as you

have found me; and I do solemnly promise you, that whatsoever

you give me shall be specially manag’d with the same conduct,

trust, sincerity, and prudence, that I have ever practised

since my happy Restoration.”

 

The commencement of party warfare as now recognized in parliamentary

life may be dated from the Stuarts, and to account for the designations

of Whig and Tory it is necessary to glance back at the parliamentary

troubles of Charles II., 1679-1680, when that monarch, acting under the

encouragement of Louis XIV., was inclined to make a misguided attempt

to govern without a legislative chamber. In 1679 the monarch refused

a Speaker to his Commons, finding that functionary obnoxious; and

between this date and 1681 parliament was prorogued seven times: in

fact--as a summary of Charles II.’s parliaments discloses--the discords

of the previous reign were revived; the “town and country party”

petitioned zealously for the reassembling of parliament, while the

Court party counter-petitioned “to declare their _abhorrence_ of the

late tumultuary petitioning.” Those who were urging on the struggle for

popular representation and freedom were designated _Petitioners_, the

king’s “friends” were voted “betrayers of the liberties of the people,

and abettors of arbitrary power,” and expressively stigmatized as

_Abhorrers_;[9] from these two parties, which were ready to exterminate

one another, arose the nicknames of Whigs and Tories, as is explained

in Tindal’s “Rapin.”[10]

 

The “Abhorrers,” who were the mainstay of Charles’s utterly

unconstitutional procedure, although as courtiers they hoped for their

reward from the king, did not get much tolerance from the Commons:

when the parliament at last reassembled, several members were expelled

from the House on this pretence alone, and they consigned to the Tower

that Sir Francis Withers who had been knighted for procuring and

presenting the loyal address from the city of Westminster; the majority

at the same time recording, as a gage of battle to their opponents,

the resolution (October, 1680), “That it is the undoubted right of

the subject to petition for the calling of a parliament, and that to

traduce such petitions as tumultuous and seditious is to contribute to

the design of altering the constitution.” The Tories at that time and

long after maintained the doctrines of “divine hereditary indefeasible

right, lineal succession, passive obedience, prerogative, etc.”