spirited proceedings on great occasions. The cabi net, and its and the to commons outward the consti tution; cabinet continued the new sovereign; upon great occasions when their best orators are stirred by the spirit of high debate can fail to admit, despite any prejudices that may possess him, that he is in the presence of a real senate, "whose years are awful and whose words are wise." 5. From the beginning of its history to the present time the relations to inner circle of the privy council, conventionally known as the the crown "cabinet," has been the agent of the supreme executive power, legislature; discharging its functions through the exercise of those attributes known to the law as the royal prerogatives.1 When that supreme authority was in fact vested in the sovereign himself, the ministers composing the cabinet were his personal appointees, responsible to him alone for the discharge of their transfer of duties, and dismissable at his pleasure. When the Revolution sovereignty of 1688 transferred the supreme executive power from the worked no person of the sovereign to the majority in the house of comchange in mons, there was no change made whatever in the outward forms of the existing system. The new sovereign thus created simply continued the cabinet as its agent, with the understandas agent of ing that it should exercise the royal prerogatives as before in the name of the old sovereign, but only in such manner as it should direct. Out of that anomalous condition of things in which the ostensible sovereignty is vested in the crown and the real sovereignty in the majority of a popular assembly, the question has arisen whether or no there still resides in the real author- ostensible sovereign any personal authority whatever. A striking illustration of the extreme views entertained upon that subject by the house of commons can be found in the incident Bedcham- known as the "Bedchamber question," raised by Sir Robert Peel when he was called upon to form a government upon the resignation of the Melbourne ministry in 1839. As nearly all the ladies of the household were related to the outgoing ministers, or to their dependents, Sir Robert, unwilling to be embarrassed by difficulties incident to the nearness of his political adversaries to the person of the sovereign, informed the queen that the ministerial changes would necessarily embrace some of the higher offices of her court held by ladies, including the ladies of the bedchamber. After consultation with Lord John does any ity still reside in the old? ber ques tion of 1839; Peel's demand of the queen; 1 For an enumeration of the royal prerogatives and a legal definition of them, see Kerr's Blackstone, vol. i. pp. 213-254. Russell and Lord Melbourne, the queen embodied her refusal her refusal to comply to comply with such a demand in a letter to Sir Robert Peel, and its in which she informed him that she could not "" consent to result; adopt a course which she conceived to be contrary to usage, and which was repugnant to her feelings."1 Sir Robert thereupon refused to accept office on any other terms, and thus the Melbourne ministry was for more than two years continued in power. When, however, a subsequent resignation in 1841 Peel's forced the sovereign to again call upon Sir Robert to form victory in a government, the principle for which he contended was admitted, and an arrangement was then made "which has now understandlong prevailed. The Mistress of the Robes, who is not peri- has since ing that odically resident at the Court, but only an attendant on great governed. occasions, changes with the Ministry; the Ladies in Waiting, who enjoy much more of personal contact by virtue of their office with the Sovereign, are appointed, and continue in their appointments, without regard to the political connections of their husbands." 2 sovereign minister foreign A much more important incident of the same general char- what is acter arose in 1850 out of an attempt made by Lord Palmer- due to the ston, as minister for foreign affairs, to resist not only the and prime personal right of the sovereign, but of the prime minister and from the the rest of his colleagues, to supervise and control the details minister of of the department over which he presided. In order to reduce affairs; the controversy to a definite issue, the queen directed Lord John Russell to deliver to Lord Palmerston the following memorandum: "The queen requires, first, that Lord Palmer- memoranston will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in delivered order that the queen may know as distinctly to what she gives to Lord her royal sanction. Secondly, having once giving her sanction in 1850; to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that minister. 1 Hans. Deb., 3d ser. vol. xlvii. p. 985. "The queen, in her letter, mentions, and refuses, the proposal of Sir Robert Peel 'to remove the ladies of her Bedchamber.' Sir Robert Peel, in his answer, speaks only of his desire to remove a portion of them. . . . She declined to remove them as a body; he resigns his charge, because he is dum Palmerston comply; submission; 1 She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the foreign ministers before important decisions are taken, based upon that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time; and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off. The queen thinks it best that Lord John Russell should show this letter to Lord Palmerston." Although the latter, upon receiving this warnhis offer to ing, promised "that he would punctually obey the directions contained in it," he sent shortly after to the representative of Austria a note containing a paragraph which both the queen and the prime minister considered as "derogatory to the honor of England, as well as discourteous to Austria." When the his second premier insisted that the note should be recalled and another substituted without the offensive paragraph, Lord Palmerston, after threatening to resign, submitted. But after the French his conflict coup d'état of the 2d of December, 1851, he again fell from grace by stating upon his own responsibility to the French ambassador "his entire approbation of the act of the Presistatement dent, and his conviction that he could not have acted otherwise than he had done," despite the fact that the cabinet as a whole had agreed upon a policy of non-intervention. Palmerston was thereupon removed from office, not only befood cause he had exceeded his authority as secretary of state, but also because he had taken upon himself alone the right Thus the doctrine was to speak for the whole government. clearly settled that the prime minister, with the consent of the crown, the crown, controls all state affairs as the recognized medium of communication between the sovereign and the heads of the several departments; and that the prime minister and the cabinet can exercise through the crown the right to dismiss any minister who does not accept the will of the government as a whole. To prevent such conflicts in the conduct of forpractice as eign affairs, the practice now is for the drafts of despatches despatches. to be agreed upon between the prime minister and the for with the cabinet in 1851 by reason of to French ambassa dor; removed from office ing his authority; premier, with consent of controls all state affairs; right of dismissal; present 1 Hans. Deb., 3d ser. vol. cxix. p. 90; Martin, Pr. Consort, vol. ii. pp. 302-310. 2 The position of the prime minister has been thus defined: "As the cabinet stands between the sovereign and Lord the parliament, and is bound to be loyal to both, so he stands between his colleagues and the sovereign, and is bound to be loyal to both."- Gladstone, Gleanings of Past Years, vol. i. p. 243. eign secretary before they are submitted for the sovereign's approval; and if the former sees fit to rewrite the whole despatch, the latter has no right to be offended.2 nance of household; tary control revenue tion; appropriation settled; While thus considering the vestiges of political authority Maintestill inherent in the person of the sovereign, it will be con- royal venient to briefly epitomize the financial arrangements made dignity and by parliament since the Revolution for the maintenance of the royal dignity and household. An account has heretofore been parliamengiven of the nearly absolute control established by the legisla- over the ture at the accession of William and Mary over the revenue, since the involving both the appropriation of supplies and the direction Revoluof their expenditure, a system out of which arose what is known as the "civil list," a term originally used to designate "civil list" the sources of revenue appropriated to produce a fund to be defined; devoted to the king's personal expenses, the support of the royal household, and to the payment of certain civil officers and pensions embraced in a list that was laid before the house. The principle was thus settled that out of the annual revenue principle of voted for the support of the crown in time of peace a certain portion should be appropriated to those objects, and that portion embraced the hereditary revenues and a certain part of the excise heretofore specially defined. During the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. their expenditures far exceeded George I. the sums thus appropriated, and parliament was called upon to expendi pay the loans made to cover such deficits. When the heredi- exceeded tary revenues were passed on to George II., it was expressly tions; agreed that if they should fall below £800,000 a year parlia- arrangement should pay the deficit, and that if they exceeded that ment upon sum the king should have the surplus.5 As that arrange- George II.; ment proved unsatisfactory, parliament upon the accession for a fixed of George III. induced him to accept a fixed amount "for sum the support of his household and the honour and dignity of claim to the crown," in consideration of which he relinquished his revenue; 1 Gladstone, Ch. Quar. Rev., vol. iii. and I was always ready to accept his p. 481. draft."- Hans. Deb., 3d ser. vol. ccvi. p. 1833. Cf. Todd's Parl. Government, vol. ii. pp. 18, 19. 6 2 Lord Russell testified that when Lord Palmerston was premier and he minister of foreign affairs (1859 to 1865), "according to the uniform practice of the foreign office, the despatches ii. which I wrote were submitted to him as prime minister; frequently he would write the whole despatch over again, 28. 3 See above, pp. 419, 420. 4 1 Geo. I. c. I; Burke's Works, vol. 5 1 Geo. II. c. I. Commons' Journals, vol. xxviii. p. during the reigns of Anne and tures appropria contingent accession of George III., rendered all hereditary William IV. surren life interest in the hereditary revenues, and all claim to the surplus. A further arrangement was necessary, however, to make the control of parliament complete, for the reason that the king still enjoyed considerable sums independent of its grants in the form of droits of the crown and admiralty and other casual sources of revenue in England, in addition to certain hereditary revenues in Scotland and a separate civil list for Ireland.2 Not until the accession of William IV. did the dered all in crown surrender all of these independent sources of revenue dependent in consideration of a civil list of £510,000, which represented revenue for a reduction by reason of the fact that it was then relieved of £10,000; nearly all of the charges that properly belonged to the ordinary expenses of civil government. Upon that basis of absolute parliamentary control was settled the civil list of Queen control over Victoria, the first sovereign of her house to be deprived of the revenue of the kingdom of Hanover, detached at her accession from the crown of England. sources of a civil list of parliament's absolute civil list of present sovereign. Royal revenue originally ent of grants; of what it originally consisted; In the account heretofore given of the royal revenue as it existed in the days of the Old-English commonwealth, the fact independ- was emphasized that it was not contingent upon legislative legislative grants. In addition to the private estates (propria hereditas) which he possessed as an individual and which he could dispose of by will, the king enjoyed the use of the royal demesne, which belonged to him as king, and which he could neither distinction burden nor alienate without the consent of the witan, and also certain dues in the nature of rent which finally became comestate and pulsory charges, certainly upon all holders of folkland. The distinction thus clearly drawn between the king's private estates and the folkland, the land of the people, gradually dis how the between king's private folkland disap peared; 1 I Geo. III. c. I. He surrendered "the hereditary revenues, which were carried to the Fund termed 'the Aggregate Fund,' receiving a grant of 800,000 7. per annum secured on the Fund.". Dowell, Hist. of Taxation, vol. ii. p. 507. When that amount was found to be inadequate, it was increased to £900,000. 17 Geo. III. c. 21. 2 For the history of these sources, see May, Const. Hist., vol. i. pp. 235 majesties' privy purse, salaries of the household, expenses of the household, special and secret service, and pensions. "The term civil list was retained as a convenient short term to designate this expenditure, though the civil list, properly so termed, no longer was included therein.". Dowell, Hist. of Taxation, vol. ii. p. 511. 4 Its amount was then fixed at £385,000, with the item of £75,000 for pensions omitted. Pensions granted under the Civil List Act, 1 Vict. c. 2, had increased the original amount to £409,000 in 1884-85. |