Geoffrey Palmer had to atone for his conduct by a couple of days’ imprisonment in the Tower. But the question he had raised, how far a protest of dissentient members was allowable in the Lower House, was of so great importance, that when once it had been spoken of it must necessarily be settled.
The right of protest existed in the House of Lords, in the Scottish Parliament, in the Legislative Assemblies of the Continent: the very name of the religion acknowledged in England was derived from a protest offered in the German Diet. Why should there be no power of exercising it in the English Lower House? There was no precedent for it, but there was none against it: and how many things were then done for the first time. Two reasons were urged for the right of protest, which rest on the inmost sense of individuality: one is that the individual cannot possibly be compelled to assent to the majority if it adopts illegal or irreligious measures: the other is that otherwise in case of a revolution, the innocent would have to suffer with the guilty. It is obvious that these reasons could not prevail with a majority which was in possession of the right to pass universally binding resolutions. The majority argued that the ancient formulae cut off the possibility of a declaration of dissent. John Pym stated on this side a reason of great significance. The Lords, said he, are in the Upper House in virtue of their individual and personal rights: every man acts for himself, so that he is not unconditionally bound by the majority. But the case is quite different with the Lower House, which represents the nation: there no dissent is allowable. He assumed that the united will of the nation was expressed through the majority of the members of the Lower House elected by it. That a national assembly represents the nation, had very often been said: but that is very far from the view that this representation belongs to the Lower House, an idea on which is based the legality of all revolution. It very naturally originated with the leader accustomed to be followed by a majority which he had himself done most to form: in its assent he read the assent of the nation.
A.D. 1641.
Apart from the essential importance of the principles involved, the fact that the resolution was passed, and that under no circumstances durst members of the Lower House enter a protest, had great importance for the moment. The whole authority which the conclusions of the Lower House possessed with the nation went in favour of the proposals against the bishops and for the termination of the King’s power of nomination, which had passed on the night of November 22 by so narrow majority.
FOOTNOTES:
[274] Giustiniano, 20/30 Aug. ‘Tulto opera al presente la camera bassa, anzi quei soli che si professano pin interessati nelle passate deliberationi, et che vestite con il manto del zelo del ben publico le loro private cupidità, hanno pin degli altri offeso questo principe.’
[275] ‘Never imagining,’ says Roger Twysden of his share in the elections, ‘that Parlyament would have tooke upon them the redressing things amiss, by a way not traced out unto them by their auncestors.’ Kemble’s preface to Twysden’s Certaine considerations upon the government of England xxii.
[276] Giustiniano. ‘Avendo apportato querele alle sue communita, che in parlamento tutto sia retto con il solo arbitrio di alcuni pochi, i quali arditamente prese in mano le redini del governo, abbiano impedito agli altri di dichiarare a beneficio commune i sentimenti suoi,—che la liberta della lingua non habbia havuto quel luoco che è di dovere.’
[277] Hacket’s Life of Williams ii. 165. He was especially blamed for the words, ‘that no power could protect against statutes still in force.’
[278] Ed. Nicholas to the King, 27th September: ‘The late crosse orders and unusuall passages in Parliament a little before the recess are so distasteful to the wiser sort, as it hath taken off the edge of their confidence in parliamentary proceedings.’ (Evelyn’s Diary iv. 75.)