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The Commons hear the Speech from the Throne twice—by the Sovereign in the House of Lords and again at its subsequent recital in their own Chamber by the Speaker. Macaulay states in his History that the first Speech of James II to Parliament in 1685—notable for its extraordinary admonition to the Commons, that if they wished to meet frequently they must treat him generously in the matter of supplies—was greeted with loud cheers by the Tory Members assembled at the Bar of the House of Lords. “Such acclamations were then usual,” says the historian. “It has now been during many years the grave and decorous usage of Parliaments to hear in respectful silence all expressions, acceptable or unacceptable, which are uttered from the Throne.” The recital of the King’s Speech by Mr. Speaker to the House of Commons was unmarked by any demonstration of Party feeling for two centuries and a quarter. But at the opening of the last session of the Balfour Parliament, in February 1905, there was a breach of the traditional decorum, which, as a change in parliamentary manners, is noteworthy enough to be placed on record. The promise in the Speech of economy, “so far as the circumstances of the case admitted,” was received with derisive laughter on the Opposition benches, while the mention of the “prospect” of a promised Redistribution Bill, by which Ireland was to lose twenty-two seats, provoked loud and angry cries of defiance from the Irish Members. Since then the reading of the Speech by the Speaker in the Commons, whether at the opening of a new Parliament or a new session, is usually greeted with Ministerial shouts of approbation or Opposition cries of dissent. These Party cheers constitute a complete acknowledgment that the King’s Speech is the speech, not of the King, but of his Ministers.