Parkman

validism and lameness, which often interrupted his work for months at a time, and with a weakness of the eyes which compelled him to make use of readers and amanuenses.

The Conspiracy of Pontiac, begun in 1846, appeared in 1851. In 1856 he published Vassal Morton, a novel, and visited Montreal, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. The winter of 1858-9 he spent in Paris. His health was now at its worst, and he was for some time threatened with complete mental breakdown. Literary work was out of the question, and he devoted himself with characteristic enthusiasm to horticulture, becoming widely known as a grower of roses. In 1866 he wrote The Book of Roses, still valuable. In 1871 he became for one year professor of horticulture at the Bussey Institute, and from 1875 to 1878 was president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. His historical studies had been resumed in the meantime, and were continued with unflagging zeal notwithstanding his physical infirmities. The Pioneers of France in the New World, the first volume of the series bearing the general title of France and England in North America,

Francis Parkman.

appeared in 1865, followed in 1867 by The Jesuits in North America. In 1868 he was chosen one of the overseers of Harvard College, and he served in this capacity for three years. La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West appeared in 1869; in 1874 came The Old Régime. In the preparation of these works he continued to visit Europe, Canada, and the West. In 1874 he again became an overseer of Harvard, and in 1875 was chosen a fellow of the corporation, which office he retained until 1888. Count

218

Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. appeared in 1877. In 1878 he was offered, but declined, the presidency of the Archæological Institute of America. He was one of the founders (1880) of the St. Botolph Club of Boston, and its president for six years; and in 1881 was elected a vice-president of the Civil Service Reform Association. Montcalm and Wolfe was published in 1884, and A Half-Century of Conflict, his last work, in 1892. He also wrote for the Nation, the North American Review, the Atlantic Monthly, and other periodicals.

Parkman's scholarship rested upon a thorough first-hand acquaintance with the sources, printed and manuscript, and a detailed personal knowledge of the topography of the regions whose history he described; and it is these qualities, joined to imagination, sympathy, a true sense of proportion, and a fascinating style, that won for him in his lifetime cordial recognition as the foremost American historian. He was a member of numerous learned societies at home and abroad, and enjoyed a wide acquaintance among scholars, scientists, and literary men. He received the degree of LL.D. from McGill University in 1879, from Williams in 1885, and from Harvard in 1889. He died Nov. 8, 1893. He married in 1850 Catherine Scollay, daughter of Dr. Jacob Bigelow of Boston; she died in 1858. His historical works have been published in numerous editions, but his miscellaneous writings have not been collected. His manuscripts, including many volumes of transcripts from European archives, were given by him to the Mass. Historical Society.

Park Range, a range of mountains in Colorado, forming the western limit of the series of parks known as North, Middle, and South Parks. It is intersected by Grand River. The summits reach altitudes of more than 14,000 ft., the highest being Mt. Lincoln, on the border of South Park (14,297 ft.). Other well-known peaks are Quandary (14,266 ft.), Buckskin (14,296 ft.), Buffalo (13,541 ft.), Arkansas (13,807 ft.), Powell (13,398 ft.).

Parks. See PUBLIC PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS.

Parlement, in the early middle ages in France, generally meant any deliberative assembly. By far the most important was the Parlement of Paris. Its precise origin has been the subject of much debate, but by the 13th century it was the chief judicial portion of the king's council. Originally including many laymen, it became later an assemblage of trained lawyers. As a purely judicial body it was the

Parliament

supreme court of appeal for France. Moreover, it constantly withdrew jurisdiction from feudal courts, by maintaining that the offences in question were cases reserved for royal courts, and in this way its action was one of the chief supports of monarchical. power in France. The parlement also secured that no edict of the king should be binding until it had been registered by itself. But registration could be enforced by the king in person, sitting in what was called a 'bed of justice.' The members of the parlement regarded this right of registration as constituting them the representatives of the nation. The parlement was swept away by the Constituent Assembly. Besides the Parlement of Paris there were parlements at Toulouse, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Dijon, Rouen, Aix, Rennes, Pau, Metz, Tournai, Besançon, and Nancy. See Mérilhou's Les Parlements de France (1863).

Parley, PETER. See GOODRICH, SAMUEL.

Parliament is the supreme legislature of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, consisting of the Sovereign and the Three Estates of the Realm-the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, and the Commons. Freeman finds the germ of Parliament in the council gatherings of the Teutonic tribes described by Tacitus, and he even suggests that its analogue was to be met with in almost all the sub-races of the Aryan group. But we shall be on surer historical ground if we make the self-governing institutions of the Anglo-Saxons our startingpoint, especially the shire-moot, which exercised jurisdiction over the whole shire or county, and was presided over by an ealdorman. The shire marked the old tribal division, and the shiremoot was originally the general folk-moot of the tribe, which decided questions of peace and war submitted to it by its leaders and chief men. But the social forces which made for nationality, soon broke down the petty tribal barriers, and welded large aggregations of shires into the primitive kingdoms of the Heptarchy. In each of these the war leader, or king, surrounded himself with an assembly of wise men, drawn from the various shires-not, indeed, according to any regular or fixed system of representation, but in such a way, at all events, as to give substantial effect to the opinions of all classes. This assembly was known as the Witenagemốt; and when the separate kingdoms of the Heptarchy were finally merged into one, under the comprehensive rule of Egbert, the several Witenagemôts became

Parliament

one single great council, representative of the whole realm over which he held sway. The presence of a powerful ecclesiastical element in this council balanced the influence of the great thanes, and contributed in no small measure to the preservation of popular liberties. The king had the chief voice in this primitive legislative and judicial assembly, but his prerogatives were limited, all laws being promulgated on the advice and with the consent of the Witan. Though the monarchy was in a sense hereditary, the Witan claimed the right to elect any member of the late king's family whom it chose to succeed him, and it even went so far as to depose a sovereign and elect another in his place if his conduct were displeasing to his subjects. But the Witenagemôt was swept completely away by the Norman conquest. The new king (William) surrounded himself with a council arbitrarily selected by himself from his chief supporters and the great officers of his household, and inaugurated what was in effect an absolute monarchy, though the laws were indeed proclaimed as having the consent of the council.

Under the feebler rule of William's immediate successors, the barons regained much of the power of which that able and forceful sovereign had deprived them. The point of importance, however, is that, as the two parties in the course of years showed themselves evenly matched, they were compelled in turn to seek the assistance of the people, whose favor, at one time despised, gradually became a weighty factor in the struggle. Moreover, the powerful influence of the church, enlisted now on the side of the king, now on the side of the barons, was on the whole exercised with beneficent effect on behalf of the popular

cause.

In a country like England, where a reverence for ancient forms and a tenacious attachment to precedent seem from the very first to have formed an integral part of the national character, it was of vital consequence that the local assemblies and courts had not shared the fate of the Witenagemôt. Not only were they preserved intact through the storms of the Conquest, but they even became woven into the texture of the feudal system; and in and through them were kept alive a spirit of independence, and the instinct or reverence for representative institutions.

Of scarcely less importance were the growing wealth and population of the towns. The actual course which the development of the political life of England took under the Norman and

220

Angevin kings was mainly governed by two factors (1) the long and obstinate struggle between the sovereign and the barons, and (2) the wars which the early kings were constantly waging against their continental enemies. The expense which these wars entailed proved too heavy for the ordinary resources of the royal treasury. The consequence was that the kings were compelled to make frequent appeals to the country for money, and these appeals touched all classes alike. Barons, traders, and common people were equally concerned to protest against undue exactions by the crown; ̧ and though, of course, they did not at once become conscious of their community of interests, yet the logic of events steadily, if by slow degrees, drove them into union. Grants of money were naturally made a matter for bargaining between a needy sovereign and a sturdy, independent people; and each successive bargain marked a step towards the attainment of free and representative institutions. Thus, in 1100, less than fifty years after the Norman conquest, Henry 1. granted a charter restoring to the people the laws of Edward the Confessor, and Henry II. began his reign in 1154 with a similar concession. These charters did not, it is true, confer any immediate practical benefit upon the country; they were declaratory rather than legislative in character. Nevertheless they were of consequence as recording, in terms of formal solemnity, the recognition by the monarch that he had obligations to observe as well as prerogatives to enforce, and they became valuable precedents in the future.

But of even greater effect upon the development of a free constitution was the action taken by Henry II. in the matter of feudal services. With a statesmanship not less perspicacious than that of William the Conqueror, he set himself resolutely to curb the power of the great barons. His vigorous policy of reform in the administration of justice, in pursuance of which he abolished many of the local and special jurisdictions of the nobles, and established a tem of itinerant judges, whereby the whole country was taught respect for the vindication of the law and the legal settlement of private disputes, not only did much to further his purpose, but greatly benefited the whole people by giving them fresh security for life and property. The most important of his innovations was his substitution of scutage, or money payment, for the old feudal services in war. While this

SVS

Parliament

proceeding did much to secure the crown from the dangers of rebellion on the part of powerful discontented vassals, who no longer had the same inducement to maintain large bodies of armed retainers in their service, it also contributed greatly to the rise of popular institutions, by placing all classes on the same footing of citizenship subject to taxation. From this moment, though probably neither party had the wisdom to see it, the interests of the barons and of the ordinary freemen of England became practically identical.

As generally happens, the first important and manifest step towards freedom was taken under a sovereign whose ambition to play the part of a tyrant was altogether out of proportion to his abilities. Endowed, as Stubbs well expresses it, with a certain feminine quality of irresolute pertinacity, which it would be mockery to call elasticity,' King John succeeded in alienating in turn the barons, the church, and the people. The result was that they combined, and in 1215 extorted from him the Magna Charta, that momentous document which is the foundation of the liberties of all the AngloSaxon communities throughout the world. The gathering at Runnymede was, in no sense of the word, a Parliament. But the statesman who led the movement (Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury) succeeded in securing the rights of all the ordinary freemen of the land as well as those of the knights and nobles. The main articles of the charter provided that no scutage or aid, except the three recognized and regular feudal aids, should be imposed without the consent of the great council of barons, and that no freeman should be punished except by the judgment of his peers. The Great Charter was, in the words of Stubbs, the first complete national act, for it differs from the charters issued by Henry 1., Stephen, and Henry II., not only in its greater fullness and perspicuity, but by providing a distinct machinery for carrying out its provisions. Twenty-five barons were nominated to compel the king to carry it out. The long minority of Henry III. strengthened the authority of the great council of barons, and Henry's frequent wars and the extravagance of his court kept him in perpetual want of money. Each grant of this kind was made the subject of a formal recognition by the king of the rights already conceded to the nobles and the people, and early in his reign he was compelled solemnly to confirm the Great Charter of John.

Parliament

In spite of the growing discontent, the misgovernment of the country continued without intermission, and finally the barons broke into open rebellion.

Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, the leader of the barons, having defeated the king at the battle of Lewes in 1264, called together the first Parliament of England at Westminster on January 28, 1265. In bringing together this assembly, Simon de Montfort went altogether beyond the narrow and privileged limits of the great council, and though retaining the old form or royal summons to the nobles, called also for two knights from every shire, and more important still -for two burgesses from each city, cinque port, and large town. Knights of the shire had indeed been called to one of the councils in 1254, but it had not become a regular custom; and the burgesses, or common people, had received no direct representation at all before this Parliament of 1265. Thus this first real Parliament, in form at all events, contained all the essential elements of the Parliament of to-day.

From the first year of his active rule Edward I. made it a constant practice to call together some form of representative assembly; but it was in 1295 that he called together at Westminster, in pursuance of a thorough and well-considered scheme, the three estates of the realm, representative of every important class and interest in the country. Henceforth the commons became a recognized integral part of the legislative body. Two years after it had been called together, Edward, hard pressed for money for his war in Flanders, attempted to revert to the illegal exactions of his forefathers. But the Parliament which he had himself called into existence rebelled, and forced him to sign the important document called Confirmatio Chartarum, which solemnly, and for all time, laid it down that no tax or duty could be levied without the consent of Parliament. But even under Edward 1. the clergy had looked askance upon the new body, and declined in most cases to attend in response to the king's summons. They insisted upon sitting apart and legislating for themselves in their own ecclesiastical assembly of Convocation. The result was that as a separate estate they lost all direct control over the course of legislation and taxation. The bishops and the great mitred abbots indeed continued to sit in the upper chamber in virtue of their temporalities, but the latter lost their seats at the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII.; and at the present day a small

VOL. IX-Jan. '10.

221

and, as far as voting power is concerned, an insignificant body of bishops, still sitting in the House of Lords, is all that remains to represent the former first estate of the realm. It was in the early years of Edward III.'s reign that Parliament definitely divided into two chambers-the House of Lords, the natural successor of the ancient great council of barons; and the House of Commons, consisting of the knights of the shire and the representatives of the burgesses. The knights of the shire, by instincts and connection, might have been expected to throw in their lot with the great barons; but they did not. During this reign the consent of the Commons, as well as of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, came to be regularly inscribed in the enacting part of every statute.

In the course of the subsequent development of Parliament, the authority of the Commons, slight as it was in the early years, has gradually but steadily increased. During the minority of Richard II. they appointed the king's councillors; they secured by statute the annual assembling of Parliament; and they gained the right, not only of voting supplies, but, equally important, of appropriating' them-that is to say, of declaring exactly to what purposes they should be applied. The potent weapon of impeachment was also forged at this time. But the most manifest illustration of the growth of the power of Parliament was exhibited in its treatment of Edward II. and Richard II. Edward was deposed in 1327, and his great-grandson was driven from the throne in 1399. In each case the Lords and Commons fixed the succession, and from this time practically the title to the crown became not merely hereditary but a parliamentary

one.

a

The civil wars of the Roses, and the unique position of absolutism held by the Tudor sovereigns, led for a time to an almost complete obliteration of Parliament as a factor in the government of the country; yet even so powerful an autocrat as Henry VIII. thought fit to strengthen his possession of the crown by securing the formal recognition by the representatives of the people of his right thereto. By the time of Elizabeth, however, a great change had taken place, not so much in the machinery or organization of Parliament as in the intellectual and material conditions of the country. In consequence of this new Elizabethan spirit, both the burgesses and the country gentlemen, who formed the strength of the House

Parliament

of Commons, increased in dignity and influence. At the same time the crown fell into the hands of a race of monarchs who, while abating not a jot of the Tudor claims to absolutism, were singularly unfitted to make those claims effective. The civil war ended for the time being in the complete triumph of the Parliament. The restoration of Charles II., while reinstating Parliament in its former position, seemed also to give to the crown all its old supremacy; but, as a matter of fact, that supremacy had been entirely modified by the events of the civil war. A return by James II. to earlier and cruder methods of securing supremacy led to a national upheaval; and the revolution of 1688, with its two great measures, the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, inaugurated the modern era of a constitutional monarchy.

It is a well-known maxim that the sovereign at the present day reigns, but does not rule that is to say, the king could not and would not oppose his will to the definite and strongly-declared wishes of his people expressed through Parliament. But there can be no doubt that within the limits imposed upon him by constitutional practice-which in England has always been stronger than positive constitutional law-the sovereign can exercise, and does exercise, a very decided and important influence upon the policy of the country. His personal powers of persuasion and the continuity of position must ever give him authority, especially on questions of foreign policy.

HOUSE OF LORDS.-The House of Lords, the second branch of the legislature, consists of lords spiritual and lords temporal. The latter comprise hereditary peers and life peers or law lords (lords of appeal in ordinary). Twentysix seats are assigned to the former. The archbishops of Canterbury and York and the bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester always sit. The remaining seats are occupied by those bishops longest consecrated. No additional seats have been provided since the days of the Tudors. Thus it may happen that the incumbent of an important see has no voice in the House of Lords for many years after his consecration. The bishop of Sodor and Man, however, always has a seat, but no vote, since he is a member of the Manx House of Keys.

The sovereign has a constitutional right to be present in the House of Lords at any time during its deliberations, though he may not be concerned in any of its proceedings, except when he comes in state for the exercise of his prerogative. The right has

Parliament

been in abeyance for more than a century, but both in the 17th and in the 18th century it was frequently exercised, especially by Charles II., James II., and William III. Sir Erskine May states that the last occasions on which the sovereign exercised the privilege were on Jan. 9 and 12, 1710, when Queen Anne was present during the debates on the war with Spain. The sovereign, on the other hand, never enters the House of Commons. The highhanded proceeding of Charles I. on Jan. 4, 1642, when he went in person to the House of Commons to demand the surrender of Pym, Hampden, Holles, Hazelrig, and Strode, is the only authenticated case of the presence of the monarch in the Lower House.

The Prince of Wales and other princes of the blood royal have seats in the House of Lords; but they possess no rights or privileges in the house itself which are not enjoyed by other peers. They may, and do, take part in divisions, but, though they may, they never now intervene in debate. The House of Lords is also the theatre of all that is ceremonious in the life and work of Parliament. If the king opens or prorogues a new Parliament or a new session in person, it is there that the pomp and pageantry attendant upon such an occasion are witnessed. If the Parliament or the session is opened or prorogued by royal commission, it is in the House of Lords that the ceremony takes place. The royal assent to measures passed through both Houses of Parliament is declared in the House of Lords.

The lord chancellor is, by virtue of his office, Speaker of the House of Lords, but his functions as such bear very little resemblance to those of the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Speaker must be, at the time of his elevation to the chair, a member of the House of Commons. He is not a member of the government of the day, and though nominally he may be a Liberal or a Conservative, once installed in the chair he holds himself strictly aloof from all party ties or associations. He neither speaks in debate nor votes in divisions. The Speaker of the House of Lords, on the other hand, is not necessarily a member of the house. Sir Erskine May says it has frequently happened that the Lord Keeper has officiated for years as Speaker without having been raised to the peerage. The lord chancellor, in modern times at all events, is always a member of the government, and invariably one of the cabinet, and may both speak in defence of and vote for a measure introduced by his VOL. IX.-Jan. '10.

222

colleagues. In the House of Commons the Speaker is the sole judge of all questions of order, and from his ruling there is no appeal. In the Lords, on the other hand, the Speaker, if a peer, may address the house on points of order, but his opinion is liable to be questioned like that of any other peer. A member of the Commons cannot address the house unless he is called upon by the Speaker. If two or more peers rise together to address the house, the lord chancellor as Speaker has no power of granting precedence. The voice of the house determines the question, and, if the necessity arises, a division is taken as to which peer shall be first heard. A member of the House of Commons, again, when delivering a speech, must address Mr. Speaker, and must not mention by name other members to whom he may have occasion to refer. He must allude to them only as 'the honorable member for' such and such a constituency. In the House of Lords, however, it is not the lord chancellor, but the whole house that is addressed as 'My lords,' while a peer may refer to one who has preceded him in debate by the title he bears in the peerage. The Speaker of the House of Commons, if a division results in a tie, has a casting vote. It was the casting vote of Mr. Speaker Abbot in the session of 1805 that sealed the political fate of Lord Melville, treasurer to the navy, in Pitt's 'hundred days.' The lord chancellor has no such delicate duty thrown upon him. In the event of an equality of numbers the motion is negatived. Again, by means of the closure, a debate in the Commons, or a factious opposition, can be at once terminated. On the other hand, the only power the Lords possess which is in any way analagous to the closure is that of moving that 'the noble lord be no further heard.' This is admittedly a disagreeable and invidious procedure, and it is very rarely resorted to.

For many a century, before the consideration of the speech from the throne is entered upon a bill is read in each house, but in each case the bill itself is a sham, and it is never carried beyond this preliminary stage. Its reading is put foremost in order to assert the inherent right of the House of Commons to redress the grievances of the people, and of the House of Lords to initiate legislation, before taking into consideration the wishes of the sovereign.

The numerical strength of the House of Lords has fluctuated at different periods in its history.

Parliament

When it assembled after the battle of Bosworth there were found to be only 29 lay peers in existence. At the death of Elizabeth the number of temporal peers had only increased to 59. The Stuarts, however, raised it to 150. When George i. came to the throne, the total number of peers, including the 26 spiritual and the 16 representative lords for Scotland, was 207; and at the accession of William IV., a little more than a century later, the number, including the addition of 32 temporal and spiritual peers for Ireland, due to the Act of Union (1800), had risen to 309. To-day, after the lapse of another eighty years, and when the Scotch and Irish bishops no longer find a place in the House of Lords, there is a membership of over 600, including 16 representative peers from Scotland, who are elected every new Parliament, and 28 representative peers for Ireland, who are elected for life. Nearly onethird have been moved up from the House of Commons.

Prior to 1909, the last occasion on which a motion passed in the House of Lords led to the resignation of the government was in 1832, when Lord Grey's government resigned after an adverse vote on the Reform Bill. The decrease in the power of the Lords dates from the passing of that bill. Before that act it was, in the words of Mr. Walter Bagehot, 'if not a directing chamber, at least

a

chamber of directors.' The Lords had for long years formed by far the majority of each cabinet, while in more recent_times the principal secretaries of state are usually found in the Commons.

In 1909 the House of Lords rejected the Budget sent up by the House of Commons, and a dissolution promptly followed. Apparently the established principle that the Commons are supreme in finance was challenged. The result of the ensuing election was not entirely decisive, and the conflict thus precipitated is not yet ended. On March 22, 1910, the House of Lords, by a vote of 175 to 17, passed a resolution that the possession of a peerage in itself should no longer afford the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords.

The House of Commons has been reformed three times since 1830. Several proposals have been made with the object of giving the House of Lords greater popularity, authority, and weight than it at present possesses. These have mostly taken the form of suggestions that the entrance to the house of able laymen should be made easier by the extension of life memberships, and that the principle of selection which has existed ever since the union in the Scotch and Irish peerages