A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days. Joseph Grego
when selfishness usurped the place of patriotism, members sacrificed the modest retainers designed to keep them honest, that they might be the less fettered to bargain in their own interests.
“The senate, which should head-strong Princes stay,
Let’s loose the reins, and gives the Realm away;
With lavish hands they constant tributes give,
And annual stipends for their guilt receive.”
(Andrew Marvell: An Historical Poem.)
The proverbial incorruptibility of Andrew Marvell is a case in point. This example of a true patriot is erroneously said to have been the last member who received wages from his constituents. He died in 1678, M.P. for Hull.5 Others, his contemporaries, maintained the right, and suffered their arrears to accumulate, as a cheap resource at the next election. Marvell more than once, in his correspondence, speaks of members threatening to sue their boroughs for pay.6 Lord Braybrooke, in his notes to Pepys’s “Diary,” refers to a case, noticed by Lord Campbell in his “Life of Lord Nottingham,” where the M.P. for Harwich, in 1681, petitioned the Lord Chancellor, as that borough had failed “to pay him his wages.” A writ was issued “De expensis Burgensium levandis.” Lord Campbell adds, “For this point of the People’s Charter [payment of wages] no new law is required.”7
Pepys’s later allusions concern the constantly threatened dissolutions; in November, 1668, he records, “The great discourse now is that the Parliament shall be dissolved and another called, which shall give the King the Dean and Chapter’s lands, and that will put him out of debt,” concluding with a hint that the subtle and “brisk” Duke of Buckingham, at that time the actual ruler of the kingdom, “does knowingly meet daily with Wildman and other Commonwealth-men,” the while deceiving Charles into the belief that his intrigues were of a more tender nature.
At Whitehall, the same month, Pepys acquires some fresh and rather significant information upon the subject of the Commons; it is imparted to him that—
“it was not yet resolved whether the Parliament should ever meet more or no, the three great rulers of things now standing thus:—The Duke of Buckingham8 is absolutely against their meeting, as moved thereto by his people that he advises with, the people of the late times, who do never expect to have anything done by this Parliament for their religion, and who do propose that, by the sale of the Church lands, they shall be able to put the King out of debt: my Lord Keeper is utterly against putting away this and choosing another Parliament, lest they prove worse than this, and will make all the King’s friends, and the King himself, in a desperate condition: my Lord Arlington [being under suspicion, owing to his mismanagement of money in Ireland] knows not which is best for him, being to seek whether this or the next will use him worse. It was told me that he believes that it is intended to call this Parliament, and try them for a sum of money; and, if they do not like it, then to send them going, and call another, who will, at the ruin of the Church perhaps, please the King with what he will have for a time.”
These passages need no comment, the accepted ideas upon representative government under the House of Stuart were such as to fill constitutional minds with amazement. This view is endorsed by a popular ballad of the day:—
“Would you our sov’reign disabuse,
And make his parliament of use,
Not to be chang’d like dirty shoes?
This is the time.”
The inconsistency of the king’s behaviour, and the triviality of his mind—when applied to matters of business, and especially that of parliament—is happily held up to ridicule by one of his contemporary wits, who has thus parodied the expected speech from the throne:—
“HIS MAJESTY’S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
”My Lords and Gentlemen,
“I told you at our last meeting the Winter was the fittest time for business; and truly I thought so, till my Lord Treasurer assured me the Spring was the best season for salads and subsidies: I hope, therefore, that April will not prove so unnatural a month as not to afford some kind showers on my parched Exchequer, which gapes for want of them. Some of you perhaps will think it dangerous to make me too rich; but I do not fear it, for I promise you faithfully whatever you give me I will always want; and altho’ in other things my word may be thought a slender authority, yet in that you may rely upon me, I will never break it.
“My Lords and Gentlemen, I can bear my straits with patience; but my Lord Treasurer does protest to me, that the Revenue, as it now stands, will not serve him and me too; one of us must pinch for it if you do not help me. I must speak freely to you, I am under circumstances, for, besides my Harlots on service, my reformado Concubines lie heavy upon me. I have a passable good estate, I confess; but, Gads-fish, I have a great charge upon’t. Here’s my Lord Treasurer can tell, that all the money design’d for the next summer’s guards must of necessity be apply’d to the next year’s cradles and swaddling clothes. What shall we do for ships then? I hint this only to you, it being your business, not mine. I know by experience I can live without ships; I liv’d ten years abroad without, and never had my health better in my life; but how you will be without I leave to yourselves to judge, and therefore hint this only by the by; I don’t insist upon it. There’s another thing I must press more earnestly, and that is this. It seems a good part of my revenue will expire in two or three years, except you will be pleased to continue it. I have to say for’t, Pray why did you give me so much as you have done, unless you resolve to give on as fast as I call for it? The nation hates you already for giving so much, and I will hate you too if you do not give me more; so that if you stick not to me, you must not have a friend in England. On the other hand, if you will give me the revenue I desire, I shall be able to do those things for your Religion and Liberty that I have had long in my thoughts, but cannot effect them without a little more money to carry me through. Therefore look to’t, and take Notice that if you do not make me rich enough to undo you, it shall lie at your doors, for my part I wash my hands on’t. But that I may gain your good opinion the best way is to acquaint you what I have done to deserve it out of my royal care for your religion and your property. For the first, my proclamation is a true picture of my mind: he that cannot, as in a glass, see my zeal for the Church of England, does not deserve any farther satisfaction, for I declare him wilful, abominable, and not good. Some may perhaps be startled, and cry—how comes this sudden change? To which I answer I am a changeling, and that’s sufficient, I think. But to convince men farther that I mean what I say, there are these arguments. First, I tell you so, and you know I never break my word. Secondly, my Lord Treasurer says so, and he never told a lie in his life. Thirdly, my Lord Lauderdale will undertake it for me, and I should be loth by any act of mine he should forfeit the credit he has with you.
“I must now acquaint you, that by my Lord Treasurer’s Advice, I have made a considerable retrenchment upon my expenses in Candles and Charcoal, and do not intend to stop there, but will, with your help, look into the late embezzlements of my dripping-pans and kitchen stuff; of which, by the way, upon my conscience, neither my Lord Treasurer nor my Lord Lauderdale are guilty. I tell you my opinion, but if you should find them dabbling in that business, I tell you plainly I leave ’em to you; for I would have the world know I am not a man to be cheated.
“My Lords and Gentlemen, I desire you to believe me as you have found me; and I do solemnly promise you, that whatsoever you give me shall be specially manag’d with the same conduct, trust, sincerity, and prudence, that I have ever practised since my happy Restoration.”
The commencement of party warfare as now recognized in parliamentary life may be dated from the Stuarts, and to account for the designations of Whig and Tory it is necessary to glance back at the parliamentary troubles of Charles II., 1679–1680, when that monarch, acting under the encouragement of Louis XIV., was inclined to make a misguided attempt to govern without a legislative chamber. In 1679 the monarch refused a Speaker