The House of Lords has always considered itself empowered to inflict fines as well as imprisonment for a fixed period. When the Commons confine an offender they may put no term to his sentence, and he is released automatically on a prorogation. For the last two hundred years they have ceased to exercise the right of fining delinquents, but in early days, as we have seen, they often inflicted financial penalties, and stimulated the attendance of their own members by an inroad upon their pockets.
At the very commencement of parliamentary history the shires or boroughs whose representatives did not appear in their places in Parliament were fined £100. In 1580, any knight who stayed away for a whole session was fined £20, while citizens and burgesses were fined £10. Besides this, members lost their pay during absence, and, by an Act of Henry VIII., boroughs and shires were exonerated from the payment of wages to members who left Parliament before the end of the session without the Speaker's permission.
In similar fashion peers and bishops were punished for non-attendance, the size of their fines varying in proportion to the rank of the offender. An ordinance framed in Henry VI.'s time, about 1452, imposed fines of from £40 to £100 upon absentee peers, the sum thus raised to be appropriated to the defence of Calais.273 In 1625 a fine of 5s. per day was imposed upon peers who disregarded their summons to Parliament, and we read of the Cinque Ports being mulcted in the sum of a hundred marks because their baron absented himself.274 When the Bill for degrading Queen Caroline was before the Lords a fine of £100 was imposed during the first three days, and £50 for any subsequent day, on which any peer did not attend, unless he could prove illness or unavoidable absence. By a former Standing Order, every lord who entered the House after prayers was fined, if a baron or a bishop, 1s.; if of higher rank, 2s. What a contrast to these degenerate days in which the Lord Chancellor, the bishop, and one peer, hunted up for the purpose, form a reluctant congregation!
In the days of Charles I. penalties were extremely necessary if the business of Parliament was to be carried on at all. Members took their duties lightly, and at times not more than a dozen would appear in their places at Westminster. Prynne describes them as wasting their time in taverns, playhouses, dicing-houses, cockpits, and bowling alleys, "rambling abroad to such places at unreasonable Hours of the Night in antique Parliamentary Robes, Vestments fitter for a Mask or Stage than the gravity of a Parliament House." They would only come to peep into the House once or twice a week, he says, to show themselves in such disguises, and ask, "What news?"275
In the Parliament which passed the Grand Remonstrance there were sometimes as many as two hundred absentees. To remedy this evil it was proposed by Strode that any member who stayed away without leave should be fined £50, or expelled. This proposal, says D'Ewes, "was much debated, but laid aside."276 Even those members who attended did so in a casual and perfunctory fashion, which proved a source of great inconvenience to colleagues who took their responsibilities more seriously. In order, therefore, to enforce punctuality, minor fines were inflicted, and in 1628 an order was made that any member who came in late for prayers must contribute 1s. to the poor box. The House met at seven or eight o'clock in the morning in those days; members therefore had some excuse for arriving late, and the system had to be temporarily abandoned in 1641, owing to the interruption of business resulting from the cries of "Pay! Pay!" with which unpunctual persons were greeted. "Scenes" would often take place when members arrived just as the clock was striking, and either refused to pay their shillings, or flung them angrily upon the floor for the Sergeant to pick up. Later on, when the House rose at midday, instead of in the afternoon, the regulation was revived. Speaker Lenthall himself was late on one occasion, much to the delight of the House, and, his attention being drawn to the fact, threw his shilling down on to the table with every sign of annoyance.
As late as the middle of the eighteenth century members did not allow their parliamentary duties to interfere with their social pleasures. Burke once complained because the Commons rose early in order to attend a fête-champêtre given by Lady Stanley.277 And in 1751 Horace Walpole told a friend that on the day appointed for the debate on the Naturalization Bill the House "adjourned to attend Drury Lane."278
From time to time attempts were made to secure the attendance of members by means of a "call of the House," of which due notice was given, members who failed to answer their names being punished. A "call" which was taken in October, 1647, resulted in the discovery that one hundred and fifty members were absent, and after a prolonged debate it was decided that they should be ordered to pay a fine of £20 each. This system has fallen into disuse, the last "call" taking place in 1836.279 Five years before this date, however, on March 17, 1831, three members, including Lord F. L. Gower, who were not in their places when their names were called, were given into the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, and compelled to pay fines ranging from £8 to £10.280
A member who offends against any of the rules or orders of the House of Commons may be dealt with in several ways, either by being silenced, suspended, expelled, or committed to prison. If any member indulges in irrelevance or tedious repetition the Speaker can call upon him to discontinue his speech. Should the offence against order be more serious the Speaker may either order the offender to withdraw from the House or may "name" him, whereupon, on the motion of the Leader of the House, he is suspended from its service. The practice of "naming" originated in 1841, when Speaker Lenthall, after trying in vain to silence certain noisy members who were chatting together under the gallery, called upon Sir W. Carnabie by name. In former days little unpleasantness seems to have attached to the process of "naming," and when Speaker Onslow was asked what the result would be of "naming" a refractory member he could but answer, "Heaven only knows!"281
To-day a Speaker may order any member whose conduct is unruly to withdraw from the House for the remainder of the sitting. By a Standing Order any member wilfully abusing the regulations of the House can be "named" by the Chairman or Speaker, and suspended until the end of the session, unless the House decides to re-admit him sooner. When a member is "named," the Sergeant-at-Arms escorts him from the precincts of the chamber, and he is seen off the premises by the police. Should he decline to obey the Sergeant's invitation to accompany him beyond the bar, a couple of elderly attendants step forward and prepare to expedite his progress towards the door. If force has to be used in order to make a member withdraw, his suspension lasts unquestionably until the end of the session.
The punishment of suspension had not been used for two hundred years when it was revived in 1877. Immediately following the extraordinary scenes of obstruction which gave rise to Speaker Brand's resolute action, a wholesale suspension of Irish members took place. On February 3, 1881, Parnell and more than a score of his colleagues were named and suspended for refusing either to take part in a division or to withdraw from the House. When the "closure" was applied for the first time in February, 1885, a scene of uproar ensued, as a result of which Mr. O'Brien was suspended, and in March, 1901, as already mentioned, twelve Irish members who declined to leave their places for a division were forcibly removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms and police, and subsequently suspended.
Committal to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms is nowadays an uncommon parliamentary punishment, Bradlaugh being one of the last members to be confined in the Clock Tower.282 Both Houses, however, have the legal right of imprisoning (at Holloway or elsewhere) any British subjects who offend against their privileges.
Expulsion from the House of Commons is, perhaps, the direst penalty that can be inflicted upon a member. In 1714, Lord Cochrane and Steele the essayist were both expelled – the one for spreading false reports on the Stock Exchange, the other for publishing "The Crisis," a pamphlet antagonistic in tone to the Government. Some fifty years later Wilkes, who had been prosecuted for his articles in the "North Briton," was also expelled from the House. The voters of Middlesex at once re-elected him, but Parliament declared his opponent, the defeated candidate, to be duly elected. In 1782, however, the resolution against Wilkes was erased from the journals of the House. At the time of the South Sea Bubble a number of members were turned out for fraud. Since then, however, the list of expulsions has dwindled, until to-day such a thing would be considered a rare and unique occurrence. Though expulsion does not preclude re-election, a grave moral stigma attaches to the penalty, and a modern member who incurred it would find but little consolation in the reflection that he shared this invidious distinction with men of no less eminence than Steele and Walpole.
CHAPTER XI
PARLIAMENTARY DRESS AND DEPORTMENT
Parliament to-day differs in very many respects from the Parliaments of the past; nowhere does that difference express itself more forcibly than in the remarkable improvement in parliamentary manners of which the last century has been the witness.
Sir John Eliot's well-known words are far more applicable to the modern House of Commons than they can ever have been three hundred years ago. "Noe wher more gravitie can be found than is represented in that senate," he said, speaking of the Chamber of which he was so distinguished a member. "Noe court has more civilitie in itself, nor a face of more dignitie towards strangers. Noe wher more equall justice can be found: nor yet, perhaps, more wisdom."283 It was no doubt a pardonable sense of pride that caused Sir John to take so optimistic a view of the assembly of his day, for there is ample evidence to show that the House of Commons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not always the grave or civil chamber which he describes. Its passions were not invariably under control; they flared up into a blaze on more than one occasion. The appearance of Cardinal Wolsey to demand a subsidy for his royal master was the signal for an outburst of feeling which almost ended in bloodshed; the Long Parliament was in a perpetual state of storm and disorder.
During the Stuart period, and even more so towards the close of the Commonwealth, the conduct of the Commons was anything but decorous. The Speaker of those days frequently found it impossible to maintain order; the Chair was held in little respect. The behaviour of the House was but little better than that of the Irish Parliament in the time of Elizabeth, which spent most of its time in futile argument and disagreement: "The more words, the more choler; and the more speeches, the greater broils."284 It was at the commencement of the seventeenth century that the first violent manifestations of party feeling took place which were afterwards destined to cause so many "scenes" in the Commons. Owing to the constant discord prevalent there, that House was, by one member, likened to a cockpit; another wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton that "many sat there who were more fit to be among roaring boys"; and a third declared his desire to escape, not only to the Upper House, but to the upper world altogether.
During the lengthy debates on the publication of the Grand Remonstrance in 1641, feeling ran so high that members would have sheathed their swords in one another's vitals but for the timely intervention of Hampden. Even those who did not actively assault each other seem to have expressed so much malice in their looks as to cause serious alarm to their opponents. In 1642, for instance, Sir H. Mildmay complained to the House that the member for Coventry "looked very fiercely upon him when he spoke, and that it was done in an unparliamentary way."285
In the reign of Charles II. riotous debates were of frequent if not daily occurrence. When Titus Oates appeared at the bar of the Commons to accuse Queen Katherine of high treason, partisan excitement reached a dangerous pitch. In 1675, a free fight between Lord Cavendish and Sir John Hanmer was only prevented by the tact of Speaker Seymour, who resumed the Chair on his own responsibility – the House was in Committee at the time – and managed to quell the disturbance before blows had been exchanged.
Scenes of a less serious nature took place on many occasions. Andrew Marvell, the much respected member for Hull, was entering the House of Commons one morning when he accidentally stumbled against the outstretched leg of Sir Philip Harcourt. In recovering himself, Marvell playfully dealt Sir Philip a resounding box on the ear. The Speaker at once drew the attention of the House to this affront, and members became greatly excited. When Marvell was at length allowed an opportunity of speaking, he explained that "what passed was through great acquaintance and familiarity" between Sir Philip and himself, and that his blow was merely a token of deep affection. After a heated debate the matter was allowed to drop, though other members of the House must subsequently have fought shy of making friends with a man who expressed his liking in so boisterous and painful a fashion.286
The fact that many members of both Houses frequently attended the debates in an advanced stage of intoxication was, perhaps, the cause of most of the parliamentary unpleasantness of past days. At Westminster, indeed, the sobriety of legislators was scarcely more noticeable than at Edinburgh, where the Scottish Parliament that met on the Restoration of Charles II. was forced to adjourn, owing to the fact that the Commissioner Middleton and most of the members were too drunk to deliberate.
Instances of parliamentary intemperance and its natural results were common enough in those days. In 1621, a quarrel arose in the House of Lords between the Earl of Berkshire and Lord Scrope. The former quickly lost his temper and laid violent hands on his colleague. For this he was called to the bar, censured by the Lord Chancellor, and committed to the Tower. Again, at a conference between the two English Houses, in 1666, the Lords behaved to one another with extreme discourtesy. The Duke of Buckingham opened the proceedings by leaning across Lord Dorchester in a rude and offensive manner. The latter gently but firmly removed the intruding elbow, and on being asked if he were uncomfortable, replied that he certainly was, and that nowhere but in the House of Lords would the Duke dare to behave in so boorish a fashion. Buckingham irrelevantly retorted that he was the better man of the two, whereupon Dorchester told his noble colleague that he was a liar. The Duke then struck off the other's hat, seized hold of his periwig, and began to pull him about the Chamber. At this moment, luckily, the Lord Chamberlain and several peers interposed, and the two quarrelsome noblemen were sent to the Tower to regain control of their tempers.
The Commons meanwhile were behaving in no less reprehensible a manner. "Sir Allen Brodricke and Sir Allen Apsly did come drunk the other day into the House," says Pepys, "and did both speak for half an hour together, and could not be either laughed, or pulled, or bid to sit down."287 Such a state of things was so usual in either House at the time as to provoke neither comment nor criticism. The tone of society may be gauged from the fact that at the end of the seventeenth century it was not thought peculiar for a party of Cabinet Ministers, including the Earl of Rochester, then Lord High Treasurer of England, stripped to their shirts and riotously intoxicated, to climb the nearest signpost in order to drink the King's health from a suitable point of vantage.288
The usual condition of the Commons during the hearing of election petitions a hundred years later has been forcibly described by Thomas Townshend. "A House of twenty or thirty members," he says, "half asleep during the examination of witnesses at the bar, the other half absent at Arthur's or Almack's, … returning to vote so intoxicated that they could scarcely speak or stand." It must, however, be admitted that members' frequent potations did not always affect their utterance. Indeed, they sometimes appear to have had an entirely opposite result. In 1676, Lord Carnarvon, under the influence of wine, made a remarkably humorous and able speech in the House of Lords, causing the Duke of Buckingham to exclaim, "The man is inspired, and claret has done the business!" Charles Townshend, too, whom Burke called the delight and ornament of the House, and who was offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer by Pitt, seems to have been far more eloquent in his cups than at any other time. He is chiefly famous for making what is known as the "Champagne Speech" of May 12th, 1767 – a speech which, as Walpole declared to a friend, nobody but Townshend could have made, and nobody but he would have made if he could. It was at once a proof that his abilities were superior to those of all men, and his judgment below that of any man. It showed him capable of being, and unfit to be, Prime Minister. "He beat Chatham in language, Burke in metaphors, Grenville in presumption, Rigby in impudence, himself in folly, and everybody in good humour."289 Half a bottle of champagne, as Walpole said, poured on genuine genius, had kindled this wonderful blaze.
Pitt, as is well known, possessed a marvellously strong head. He and Dundas one evening finished seven bottles without the slightest difficulty, and he would often fortify himself with whole tumblers of his favourite wine before going down to Westminster.290
It was during the famous debate of February 21, 1783, when Fox was defending the Peace of Paris, that Pitt retired behind the Speaker's Chair to be actively unwell, at the same time keeping his hand up to his ear that he might miss none of his rival's points. His conduct on this occasion affected one of the sensitive clerks at the Table with a violent attack of neuralgia – a providential division of labour, as Pitt pointed out, whereby he himself had enjoyed the wine while the clerk had the headache! It has often been considered surprising that Pitt should have been able to exercise such influence on the House after drinking three bottles of strong port, but, as a distinguished statesman has observed, it must be remembered that he was addressing an assembly few of whose members had drunk less than two.
At the commencement of the nineteenth century, when Abbot was in the Chair, the member for Southampton, Fuller by name, entered the House in a hazy but happy frame of mind, which induced him to mistake the Speaker in his wig for an owl in an ivy bush. He was promptly removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and kept in custody until his eyesight had resumed its normal condition.291 Another member, Sir George Rose, arrived at Westminster in a condition which inspired him to call upon the Speaker for a comic song, and led to his being taken in charge by the Sergeant-at-Arms.
Lord Chancellor Brougham used to refresh himself copiously while upon the Woolsack, and, during his four-hour speech on the Reform Bill, drank no less than five tumblers of mulled port and brandy.292 There was, therefore, perhaps some reason for his extreme indignation when the Duke of Buckingham referred to the possibility of disturbing him in the midst of his "potations pottle deep" – a quotation which Brougham did not recognize, and which evoked from him a violent outburst.293
Peers and members of Parliament to-day have no such weaknesses, or, at any rate, refrain from exhibiting them in Parliament. There have been, of course, exceptional instances, even in modern times, of persons speaking under the influence of drink, but these are so rare as scarcely to deserve mention. An Irishman in a conspicuously genial frame of mind referred to a Conservative member in the lobby as a "d – fool." The latter overheard this remark and contemptuously retorted that his honourable friend was drunk. "I may be drunk," admitted the Irishman, "but to-morrow I shall be sober. Whereas you'll be a d – fool to-morrow, and the next day, and all the rest of your life!" During one of those interminable sittings of 1877, when obstruction was at its height, another Irishman, "weary with watching, and warm with whisky," applied the same opprobrious term to a fellow member. On being ordered to withdraw the expression he explained that it "was only a quotation." "Whether the remark of the hon. gentleman can be explained by a quotation or a potation," said the Chairman, "it is equally inadmissible, and I must beg him in future to mind his p's and q's."294
Irish members have probably been the cause of more parliamentary disturbance than all the rest of their colleagues put together. Daniel O'Connell, whom Disraeli once called "the vagabond delegate of a foreign priesthood,"295 was a perpetual source of trouble to the House. In 1840, he was the centre of one of the most noisy scenes that has ever outraged its dignity. Macaulay declared that he had never before or since seen such unseemly behaviour, or heard such scurrilous language used in Parliament. Members on both sides of the House stood up and shouted at the tops of their voices, shaking their fists in one another's faces.296 Lord Norreys and Lord Maidstone particularly distinguished themselves by the pandemonium they created, while others of their colleagues gave farmyard imitations, and for a long time the whole House continued in a state of ferment. O'Connell's reference to the sounds emitted by honourable gentlemen as "beastly bellowings" only made matters worse. As a French visitor who was present during this scene has described: "Pendant plusieures heures plus de cinq cents membres crient de toutes leurs forces 'à l'ordre! à la porte O'Connell!' le tout accompagné des imitations zoologiques les plus étranges et les plus affreuses. C'étaient les cris de deux armées de sauvages en presence."297
"Imitations zoologiques" have always been a popular but by no means the only method employed by members desirous of drowning the words of a tiresome speaker. John Rolle, the hero of the "Rolliad," promoted a "smoking and spitting party "to interrupt and annoy Burke.298 In 1784, the latter told a number of youthful opponents who interrupted him with their howls that he could teach a pack of hounds to yelp with more melody and equal comprehension. Ten years before the O'Connell scene Brougham excited the House to uproar of a similarly puerile character. He remained calm and unmoved, however, and, when the bestial cries of his audience subsided for a moment, pleasantly observed that by a wonderful disposition of nature every animal had its peculiar mode of expressing itself, and that he was too much of a philosopher to quarrel with any of those modes – a remark which does not appear to have subdued the clamour to any appreciable extent.299 A similar uproar which the Speaker was powerless to quell arose in 1872, when Sir Charles Dilke brought forward a motion to inquire into the manner in which the income and allowances of the Crown were spent.
Members who are anxious to bring a debate to a close still have recourse to sound, crying, "'Vide! 'Vide!" in an earsplitting fashion, which occasionally evokes a rebuke from the Speaker. But there is seldom, nowadays, such a scene of violence as occurred in both Houses upon the dissolution of Parliament in April, 1831. The Commons indulged in a painful scene "of bellowing, and roaring, and gnashing of teeth, which it was almost frightful to look at," says Cockburn.300 In the Upper House peers behaved no less childishly. Lord Mansfield doubled up his fist, elbowed Lord Shaftesbury into the Chair, and hooted Lord Brougham as he left the House.301 Lord Lyndhurst, meanwhile, was threatening the Duke of Richmond with physical violence, and the uproar was only quelled by the arrival of the King.302 One must not, of course, forget the notorious modern instance of ill manners, already described,303 when, in 1893, members exchanged blows upon the floor of the Commons. This, however, is a painful exception, little likely to recur.
Politicians have learnt to control their feelings, and the present publicity of parliamentary proceedings acts as a salutary deterrent to outbursts of the elemental passions. Neither House to-day would dream of expressing its emotion in the open fashion common to Parliaments of long ago. The sight of a Lower Chamber dissolved in tears is no longer possible. Yet, in 1626, when, by the King's command, no discussion was permitted on the question of Buckingham's impeachment, a lachrymose Speaker led the whole House of Commons in a chorus of weeping. Two years later Sir Edward Coke welcomed the introduction of the Petition of Right in a voice choked with sobs. Wingfield wept for joy when monopolies were abolished in Queen Elizabeth's reign,304 and we have already noted the tears shed by Colonel Wanklyn when he was expelled, and by Speaker Finch when he was forcibly detained in the Chair. Fox shed frequent tears in the House of Commons; Pitt wept bitterly when his friend, Lord Melville, was impeached. Lord Chancellors, too, were not ashamed to express their feelings in loud sobs, Eldon's eyes becoming sympathetically moist, while even the "rugged Thurlow" sprinkled the Woolsack with his tears.
Members no longer weep, except perchance in the privacy of their own homes; nor do they follow their predecessors' fashion of converting the House of Commons into a smoking-room or a lounge, in which to sleep off the effects of their potations. The free and easy habits of seventeenth-century politicians made it necessary for a regulation to be framed that "No tobacco should be taken by any member in the gallery, nor at the table sitting in Committees."305 And it was no uncommon sight, a hundred years ago, to see members stretched at full length on the benches of the Chamber, with their feet resting on the backs of the seats in front of them, punctuating the proceedings with their stertorous snores.306
Lord North was notorious for his gift of somnolence in the House of Commons. "Behold," said Edmund Burke, with that indifferent taste for which he was noted, as he pointed to the recumbent figure of the Prime Minister, "the Government, if not defunct, at least nods; brother Lazarus is not dead, but sleepeth." North was dozing on another occasion when a member attacked him fiercely, saying that he ought certainly to be impeached for his misdeeds. "At least," exclaimed the Minister, waking for a moment, "allow me the criminal's usual privilege – a night of rest before the execution!"307 He felt no shame at giving way to slumber in debate, and when an opponent remarked that "Even in the midst of these perils, the noble lord is asleep!" "I wish to God I was!" he replied with heartfelt fervour.308 He would always take the opportunity afforded by a lengthy speech to snatch forty winks. Once, when the long-winded Colonel Barré was addressing the House on the naval history of England, tracing it back to the earliest ages, North asked a friend to wake him up as soon as the speaker approached modern times. When at length he was aroused, "Where are we?" asked the Premier, anxiously. "At the battle of La Hogue, my lord." "Oh, my dear friend," said North, "you've woken me a century too soon!"309
A marked improvement in the conduct of modern debate is to be noticed in the comparatively inoffensive character of the epithets used by members with reference to their opponents. The decencies of debate are, as a rule, religiously observed. Recriminations are rare. Measures are attacked, not men. The secession of a statesman is considered a political but not a personal offence, and what Palmerston once called the "puerile vanity of consistency" is no longer worshipped fanatically. Gladstone rightly called the House of Commons a "school of temper," as well as a school of honour and of justice. Offensive allusions have always been deprecated there, but it is only within the last few score years that members have controlled their tongues to any appreciable extent in this direction. Hasty remarks are nowadays withdrawn at the first suggestion of the Speaker, though on occasion an apology may be as offensive as the original insult. Lord Robert Cecil (afterwards Lord Salisbury) said of a speech of Gladstone's in 1861, that it was "worthy of a pettifogging attorney." Soon afterwards he rose in the House, and said that he wished to apologise for a remark he had lately made. "I observed that the speech of the right hon. gentleman was worthy of a pettifogging attorney," he said, "and I now hasten to offer my apologies – to the attornies!"
It is usual nowadays to wrap up offensive criticisms in a more or less palatable covering, to attack by inference rather than by direct assault. "I am no party man," said Colonel Sibthorpe, member for Lincoln, after the dissolution of Sir Robert Peel's Government. "I have never acted from party feelings; but I must say I do not like the countenances of honourable gentlemen opposite, for I believe them to be the index of their minds. I can only say, in conclusion, that I earnestly hope that God will grant the country a speedy deliverance from such a band."310 This is a good example of an unpleasant thing framed in a manner which does not lay it open to the stigma of disorderly language, and is just as effective as that oft-quoted attack made by a member of the Irish House of Commons on George Ponsonby (afterwards Irish Chancellor), whose sister was sitting in the gallery at the time. "These Ponsonbys are the curse of my country," said the member; "they are prostitutes, personally and politically – from the toothless old hag who is now grinning in the gallery to the white-livered scoundrel who is now shivering on the floor!"311