Speaker had been elected. The effect of the act was so to strengthen ministers by increasing the stability of the chamber to which they were primarily responsible, that Speaker Onslow declared declaration that its passage marks "the era of the emancipation of the as to effect British house of commons from its former dependence on the of Septennial Act; crown and the house of lords." 1 And yet so strong and persistent were its adversaries that from 1734 down to 1849 unavailing a series of determined efforts was made to repeal it by such statesmen as Lord Chatham, Mr. Grey, Mr. Brougham, Sir Samuel Romilly, and Mr. Tennyson. But such efforts were all unavailing; and since the last unsuccessful attempt made by Mr. Tennyson D'Eyncourt in 1849, the question of its repeal has passed from the domain of practical politics to that of abstract speculation.2 efforts to repeal it. The Whig ministry and convocation; how the clergy became taxation; During the year that followed the successful attempt of the Whig ministry to secure by means of the Septennial Act their hold upon the house of commons, they gave convocation to understand that they would not tolerate for a moment any attempt upon the part of the clergy to promote discussion even indirectly hostile to the house of Hanover. As heretofore explained, the clergy in 1664 gave up their immemorial right of the general taxing themselves in their own convocation; and thus in besystem of coming subject to the general law of the land in that particular they gained in return the right to vote for members of the house of commons. Thus deprived of its most vital function, convocation lingered on until an attempt was made about the Atterbury's time of the Revolution to revive it, specially by Atterbury, afterwards bishop of Rochester, who published a book upon its "Rights and Privileges." When in 1717 the withering ecclesiastical parliament again came into view through the denunciation directed by its lower house against the bishop of Banfor a hun- gor for having preached a sermon in favor of religious liberty, the ministry suddenly prorogued it; and from that time onward, for a period of a hundred and thirty-five years, though regularly summoned, convocation was as regularly prorogued assembling. immediately after its assembling. Not until 1850 was it per attempt to revive convocation; dred and thirty-five years prorogued immediately after 1 Coxe's Life of Walpole, vol. i. p. 75. 2 May, Const. Hist., vol. i. pp. 441, 442. 8 Vol. i. pp. 481, 482. 4 Macaulay's estimate of Atterbury has been reprinted in the collected Biographies published by Messrs. Long mans. 5 Tindal's Continuation, p. 539 mitted to renew the discussion of church business, from which time its vigor has been feebly increasing. In 1865 it was permitted by royal license, after an interval of two hundred and sixty-two years, to make new canons; 1 and in 1872 it received authority from the same source to frame resolutions concerning public worship which were afterwards incorporated in an act of parliament.2 peers; that end in Not content with silencing convocation and tightening Attempt of the Whigs their hold upon the house of commons, the Whigs resolved in to limit the 1720 to intrench themselves more securely in the house of creation of lords. The creation of twelve Tory peers in 1712, to insure the assent of the upper house to the Peace of Utrecht, had recently demonstrated the power of the crown to swamp a majority of that body. As the Whigs were in control of the hereditary chamber, they resolved to put an end to the new creations that were then exciting its jealousy, and at the same time to perpetuate their political hold upon it by introducing a bill whose ostensible purpose was to secure the liberty a bill with of the upper house by limiting the power of the crown to add view passed to its membership. By this measure the crown was to be the lords; restrained from creating more than six peerages beyond the then existing number of one hundred and seventy-eight, — the power being reserved of course to fill vacancies whenever a peerage became extinct. Twenty-five hereditary Scotch peers were to be substituted for the sixteen elected peers then sitting for that kingdom. This bill, after having passed the lords, rejected was sent down to the commons, where-after the unconstitu- commons tional attempt embodied in it to destroy the new ministerial by a decided majority. system by depriving the crown of the ultimate power to force the upper house to bow to the will of the lower had been fully exposed by Sir Richard Steele and Sir Robert Walpole - it was rejected by a decided majority. 3. Three years prior to that event both Townshend and 1 New ones were made in the place of the 36th, 37th, 38th, and 40th, every formality as to license and publication prescribed by the "Act of Submission (25 Hen. VIII. c. 19) being strictly observed. Blount, Reform. of the Church of Eng., vol. ii. p. 372. 2 Act of Uniformity Amendment Act, 35 & 36 Vict. c. 35. 8 Green, Hist. of the Eng. People, vol. iv. p. 100. 269 against 176. See Parl. Hist., vol. vii. pp. 606-627; Coxe's Life of Walpole, vol. i. pp. 117-125; vol. ii. p. 551; Mahon, Hist. Eng., vol. i. pp. 530546. in the Walpole to power; with Town- minister in Walpole, who had refused to go to extremes in carrying out a Hanoverian policy, had been forced to resign office; and in the reconstructed cabinet the chief direction of affairs had passed to Sunderland and Stanhope, who introduced the PeerReturn of age Bill as a ministerial measure. Walpole's defeat of that scheme, suggested, as was believed, by Sunderland, forced his rivals to permit his return along with Townshend to subordinate places in the government, a condition of things that continued until 1721, when the breaking of the South Sea Bubble, which Walpole had steadily opposed, gave him the assumes the leadership as first lord of the treasury, with Townshend at his leadership side as secretary of state.1 The world was soon made to know, however, that henceforth "the firm should be Walpole and Townshend, and not Townshend and Walpole ;" and during the twenty years that followed, the new leader so dominated the action of the cabinet and so impressed his personal will first prime upon his party as to become the first prime minister, in the the modern modern sense of that term, as distinguished from those royal favorites under the prerogative system of government whose rise and fall depended upon the personal will of the king alone. Walpole's robust common sense, seizing at once upon the fact that peace abroad and prosperity at home were the two conditions necessary for fixing the new dynasty firmly upon the throne, and for maturing the new system of cabinet government then under his control, resolutely refused to meddle with any matter that threatened to disturb either. his one rule As Carlyle 2 has told us, "He had one rule, that stood in place of many: To keep out of every business which it was possible for human wisdom to stave aside. 'What good will you get out of going into that? Parliamentary criticism, argument, and botheration! Leave well alone.'" When for once he attempted to depart from that rule by proposing, in 1733, his Excise an Excise Bill, designed to prevent the enormous frauds to which that branch of the revenue was then subject, he was confirmed in his philosophy by popular demonstrations and riots so violent as to force him to drop it. "I will not be sense of that term; of action as stated by Carlyle; Bill; 1 Torrens, History of Cabinets, vol. i. pp. 298, 299. 2 Life of Frederick of Prussia, vol. iii. pp. 373, 374; Todd, Parl. Government, vol. i. p. 267. 8 Parl. Hist., vol. viii. p. 1306; vol. ix. p. 7; Coxe's Life of Walpole, vol. i. p. 372. for his minister officer un the law; him; the minister," he said, "to enforce taxes at the expense of blood." Despite that reverse, however, his supremacy in parliament was maintained down to 1742. The struggle for his struggle overthrow began in February of the year preceding, with a overthrow; motion made in the lords for an address praying the king "to dismiss Sir Robert Walpole from his presence and councils forever." Although defeated by a large majority, the motive for the assault was revealed by a protest entered on the journals by thirty-one peers, who declared that as "a sole, or even a first a first minister, is an officer unknown to the law of Britain, declared inconsistent with the constitution of this country, and destruc- to be an tive of liberty in any government whatsoever; and that "it known to plainly appearing to us that Sir Robert Walpole has for many years acted as such, by taking on himself the chief, if not sole because direction of affairs, in the different branches of the administra- had acted Walpole tion, we could not but esteem it to be our indispensable duty, as such, the peers asked to offer our most humble advice to his Majesty for the removal the crown "2 to discharge of a minister so dangerous to the king and the kingdom.' At the same time a like motion was introduced in the com- like motion mons, which assailed him because he had "grasped in his own the lower hands every branch of government; had attained the sole di- house; rection of affairs; monopolized all the favors of the crown; compassed the disposal of all places, pensions, titles, and rewards." While the house rejected the motion by a large majority, a dissolution followed, and in the new body then chosen the fact was soon revealed that Walpole's rule was over by an adverse vote on a mere election petition. Thus that member of the cabinet who was the first to appear in finally the rôle of a modern prime minister was the first as such to resign by resign office, not because he had lost the personal confidence an adverse of his sovereign, but because he could no longer control a body; majority of the house of commons. But in order not to exaggerate the advance actually made by the cabinet system in Walpole's time, three important considerations must be kept steadily in view: first, that the control he managed to establish as the leader of the cabinet perished with him, and that 1 Green, Hist. of the Eng. People, vol. iv. p. 144. 2 Parl. Hist., vol. ii. pp. 1083, 1126, 1215. 8 Mahon, Hist. Eng., vol. iii. pp. 101155. He resigned all his offices and retired to the house of lords as the earl of Oxford. defeated in forced to vote of that when it rule for a prime minister to dominate the cabinet, of inde pendent ments dis not until the time of the younger Pitt did it become a settled became the rule of government for the cabinet to contain a prime minister with paramount authority over his colleagues; second, that down to that time the old system of government by departold system' ments of state, each independent of the other,1 and subject only to the general supervision of the crown, refused to yield depart- to the new system resting upon a union of sentiment and appeared; responsibility directed and borne by an acknowledged and responsible chief; third, that when Walpole as prime minister gave up his office in obedience to the will of the representative chamber, the rest of the cabinet did not retire with him, not Lord North until the fall of Lord North in 1782 was there a simultaneous change of the whole cabinet resulting from a conviction upon the part of that minister that his failure to resign would be followed by a vote of a want of confidence in the lower house.2 Since that time it has been the custom for ministries thus discredited to resign as a whole. not until the fall of did it become the rule to change the whole ministry simulta neously. A minister must resign when in conflict During the period that intervened between the retirement of Walpole to the house of lords as earl of Oxford and the end of the reign of George II., the most important incident with a majority that occurs illustrative of the growth of cabinet government is colleagues; that which resulted in 1744 in the resignation of Lord Gran of his bottom" ville, because of a political difference between that minister and the Pelhams, who were supported by a majority of their colleagues. When the controversy reached an acute stage the king was forced to interfere, and by the advice of Oxford he took part with the majority and indicated to Granville his wish the "broad- that he should resign office. The "broad-bottom" administration, so called because it represented a coalition of all elements, then constituted under the lead of Pelham, continued down to his death in 1754, when he was succeeded by his brother, the duke of Newcastle, who was momentarily driven from office in 1756 by the disastrous beginning of the Seven Years' War. In the hope of turning the tide, the elder Pitt was then called to office as secretary of state, and in the administration; 1 Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vol. iii. p. 14; Quar. Rev., vol. 138, p. 418. 2 The first instance on record of the resignation of a prime minister in deference to an adverse vote of the house of commons, is that of Sir Rob ert Walpole."-Todd, Parl. Government, vol. i. p. 260, citing Cox, Inst. Eng. Government, pp. 249, 251; Knight, Hist. Eng., vol. vi. p. 435. 35. 8 Bedford Corresp., vol. i. pp. 25 |