The election of a Speaker is the most important part of the day's business, for without it the House of Commons cannot be constituted, nor can members be permitted to take the oath.
Theoretically a Speaker leaves the Chair with the Parliament that elected him. Practically, nowadays, he is retained in office. He is reappointed with the usual ceremonies at the beginning of every Parliament, and it is rare for an incoming Ministry to supplant the occupant of the Chair, even though he may have been the nominee of political opponents. Manners Sutton was six times Speaker, Arthur Onslow five times, while Shaw Lefevre, Denison, and Peel each occupied the Chair in four successive Parliaments. Since their day an unwise and abortive attempt was made to replace Speaker Gully by a Conservative nominee in 1895, but it is unlikely that such an incident will recur.
The motion for a Speaker's election is made by a member on the Government side of the House, and usually seconded by a member of the Opposition, both being called upon to speak by the Clerk who silently points his finger at each in turn. If it is intended to contest the election, the two candidates put forward are proposed and seconded separately by members of their own party. The question that the Government candidate "do take the Chair of this House as Speaker" is first put by the Clerk, and divided upon in the ordinary way. If a majority of the House is in favour of the election of this candidate, no further division is necessary. If not, the same proceeding is carried out with regard to the second candidate. In such cases it has been the custom for each nominee to vote for his opponent. The division is naturally one of intense interest. Perhaps the most exciting elections of a Speaker that have ever occurred were those that took place in 1835 and 1895. On the first occasion Abercrombie was elected to replace Manners Sutton, by the narrow margin of ten,[216] and in 1895 Speaker Gully's majority only exceeded this by a single vote.
"When it appeareth who is chosen," says Elsynge, "after a good pause he standeth up, and showeth what abilities are required in the Speaker, and that there are divers amongst them well furnished with such qualities, etc., disableth himself and prayeth a new choice to be made. After which two go unto him in the place where he sits and take him by the arms, and lead him to the chair."[217] In old days it was customary for the Speaker-Elect to "disable" himself at great length and in the humblest possible terms. Christopher Wray, in 1570, spoke for two hours in this self-deprecatory style. Sergeant Yelverton, twenty-six years later, explained his unfitness for the post in a lengthy harangue in which he remarked that if "Demosthenes, being so learned and eloquent as he was, one whom none surpassed, trembled to speak before Phocion at Athens, how much more shall I, being unlearned and unskilful, supply this place of dignity, charge, and trouble to speak before so many Phocions as here be?"[218] Other Speakers put forward "a sudden disease," "extreme youth," or some similar disability as their excuse for escaping from the service of the Chair. Even as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century Sir Spencer Compton thought it necessary to declare to the Commons that he had "neither the memory to retain, the judgment to collect, nor the skill to guide their debates."[219]
This excessive humility on the part of a Speaker-Elect has now disappeared, together with the ridiculous old custom whereby it was considered correct for him to evince actual physical reluctance to take the Chair. It was once deemed proper for the newly elected Speaker to refuse to occupy the exalted throne that awaited him until his two supporters had seized him by the arms and dragged him like some unwilling victim to the scaffold. To-day, he "goes quietly," as the police say; the proposer and seconder lead him gently by the hand, and he gives his attendants no trouble at all.
After the Speaker has taken the Chair, the mace is laid upon the table before him, the leaders of either Party offer their congratulations, and the business of the day is over.
When Parliament meets once more, on the following afternoon, the Chancellor and his four fellow Lords Commissioners, attired as before, in their robes, resume their seats upon the bench in the House of Lords, and Black Rod is again commanded to summon the Commons. This time his task is not so simple. When the messenger from the Lords arrives at the door of the House of Commons, he finds it barred against him, nor is it opened until he has knocked thrice upon it and craved permission to enter. This custom of refusing instant admittance to the Lords' official dates from those early times when messages from the Crown were regarded by the jealous Commons with feelings bordering on abhorrence.
The Speaker-Elect, clad in his official dress, but without his robe, and wearing upon his head a small bob-wig in place of that luxuriant full-bottomed affair which he is so soon to don, has already taken his seat in the Chair, making three profound obeisances to that article of furniture as he advances towards it.
When Black Rod has delivered his message, the Speaker-Elect, surrounded by his official retinue, proceeds at once to the House of Lords. Here he is politely received by the Lords Commissioners, who raise their hats three times in acknowledgment of his three obeisances. After acquainting the Lords Commissioners of his recent election, he humbly submits himself to the royal approbation. The Lord Chancellor thereupon expresses His Majesty's approval of the Commons' choice, and the election of the Speaker is confirmed. In former days the sovereign was in the habit of undertaking this duty in person. On January 27, 1562, Queen Elizabeth came to Westminster in her state barge, "apparelled in her mantles open furred with ermine and in her Kyrtle of crimson velvet closed before, and close sleeves, but the hands turned up with ermine. A hood hanging loose round about her neck of ermine. Over all a rich collar set with stones and other jewels, and on her head a rich call."[220] Thus attired, she proceeded to give the royal assent to the election of the Speaker. This nowadays is a mere formality—it has indeed only once been refused, in 1678, when Charles II. declined to sanction the election of Sir Edward Seymour—and is given by the Lords Commissioners on the sovereign's behalf.
In the days when the sovereign was in the habit of being present in the House of Lords to ratify the choice of Speaker, the latter would often excuse himself to his monarch in terms even more abject than he had used in the Lower House. Before the election of Sir Richard Waldegrave, in 1381, Speakers did not excuse themselves at all, and until Henry VIII.'s time they do not seem to have done so as a matter of etiquette, but merely from personal motives, wishing to ingratiate themselves with the sovereign in whose pay they were and to whom they looked for advancement. But towards the middle of the sixteenth century they began regularly to address the king in a fulsome fashion.[221] In 1537, for instance, we find Speaker Rich grovelling in abject prostration at the royal feet, and comparing the King to Solomon, Samson, Absalom, and most of the other heroes of Old Testament history. Even among the Speakers of that day, however, there were men who refused to demean themselves to this form of flattery, and Queen Elizabeth was once forced to listen patiently while Richard Onslow, who declared himself to be "a plain speaker, fit for the plain matter, and to use plain words," delivered to Her Majesty an "excellent oration," which lasted for two solid hours.[222]