Judicial Powers Of The Lords.
The principle had, therefore, become a fact, and was generally admitted as a fact.
It was also during the course of this period that elections to Parliament, and the rights of Parliament in the matter of elections, began to be regulated. I have already observed in treating of the formation of the Parliament, that the electoral system had been definitively established by statutes of Henry IV. in 1405, and of Henry VI. in 1429 and 1432. Many facts prove that at this date the importance of the House of Commons had become so great; that the elections were a subject of frequent frauds. A number of statutes of detail, during the reign of Henry VI., were passed to prevent such frauds, and to regulate the procedure by which they should be investigated and punished. Then also, for the first time, we find conditions imposed on the choice of the electors. The ancient spirit of electoral institutions required that the persons elected should be inhabitants of the county or town which they were chosen to represent. This was converted into an express law by a statute of Henry V. in 1413, which was renewed by a statute of Henry VI., in 1444; but the law has fallen into desuetude by the force of circumstances, without ever having been formally repealed.
The judgment of elections continued to belong, during this period, to the lords and the king's council, who were frequently urged to exercise this prerogative by petitions from the Commons.
It was also at this epoch that the judicial power, which originally resided in the entire Parliament, was declared to belong exclusively to the House of Lords. This declaration was made in 1399, at the suggestion of the Commons themselves, and by the mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said: "That the Commons were only petitioners, and that all judgment belonged to the king and lords; unless it was in statutes, grants of subsidies, and such like." Since this period the Commons, when they desired to interfere in judgments otherwise than by impeachment, were obliged to employ the means of bills of attainder. They adopted this plan in the case of the Duke of Suffolk in 1450, and very frequently afterwards.
Resistance To The Commons.
These are the most notable marks of progress made, during this period, by the constitution and forms of Parliament. If we now consider Parliament, no longer in itself and its own internal proceedings, but in its relations to the government properly so called, we shall find that its rights and influence in matters of taxation, legislation, and public administration were the same as it had won under Edward III. and Richard II., and that it merely exercised them with greater assurance and less opposition. Henry IV. tried more than once to resist the power of the House of Commons; but it had set him upon the throne, and felt itself in a position to confine him within the limit of his authority. In 1404, it demanded of him the dismissal of four officers of his household; and he replied with singular humility "that he knew no cause why they should be removed, but as the Lords and Commons judged it for the interest of the kingdom and his own advantage, he would remove them, and would do as much in future to any minister who should incur the hatred of his people." In 1406, the Commons submitted for the approbation of the king thirty articles which, they said, they had drawn up to ensure the better administration of public affairs, and which they demanded that the king's officers should swear to observe. These articles, though of a temporary nature, were intended to repress many existing abuses, and to restrict the royal prerogative in certain respects. The king thought that he could not refuse his assent. Towards the end of his reign, Henry IV. appeared more bold, and less disposed to yield unresistingly to the control of the Parliament; but his death prevented all serious conflict. The glory of Henry V. and the passion for wars with France filled up his somewhat brief reign; the Parliament sustained him in all his measures, and even went so far as to grant him, in 1415, a subsidy for life, with power to use it arbitrarily and at his pleasure. During the minority of Henry VI., or rather during all that part of his reign which was not stained with civil war, and was in fact a long minority, the power of Parliament reached its climax, and absorbed the entire government. All matters were decided between the Lords and Commons; but it was too soon for the nation, thus left to its own guidance, to provide itself with a regular government. Violent factions arose among the aristocracy, which the House of Commons was not in a condition to repress. That great development of public institutions and liberties which had commenced under king John, and continued with such regularity since the reign of Edward III., was suddenly interrupted, and England plunged into the violent anarchy of the wars of the Red and White Roses, to emerge only into the despotism of the House of Tudor.