Kings
in the Middle Ages would often consult their tenants-in-chief before
making important decisions. These men were usually called to appear
before the king during religious festivals (Christmas, Easter, Whitsun).
Some of the men who attended these meetings were given specific jobs
to perform for the king, for example, to act as treasurer. Some kings
tended to ignore the advice of the barons. When this led to bad decisions
the barons became angry. This is one of the reasons why the barons
rebelled against King John and made him sign the Magna Carta.
Henry II was another king who tended to ignore the advice of his barons.
Under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, the barons rebelled. After
the Battle of Lewes in 1264, Simon de Montfort took control of the
council which had now become known as Parliament (parler was
Norman French for talk). The following year Simon de Montfort expanded
Parliament by inviting representatives from the shires and towns to
attend the meetings.
In 1275 Edward I called a meeting of Parliament. As well as his tenants-in-chief,
Edward, like Simon de Montfort before him, invited representatives
from every shire and town in England. As well as his tenants-in-chief,
Edward invited representatives from every shire and town in England.
These men were elected as representatives by the people living in
the locality. When the representatives arrived they met in five different
groups: (1) the prelates (bishops and abbots); (2) the magnates (earls
and barons); (3) the inferior clergy; (4) the knights from the shires;
(5) the citizens from the towns.
At these meetings Edward explained about his need for money. Eventually
the representatives agreed that people should pay the king a tax that
amounted to a fifteenth of all their movable property. It was also
agreed that a custom duty of 6s. 8d. should be paid on every sack
of wool exported. As soon as agreement was reached about taxes, groups
3, 4 and 5 (the commons) were sent home. The representatives then
had the job of persuading the people in their area to pay these taxes.
The king then discussed issues such as new laws with his bishops,
abbots, earls and barons (the lords).
After this date, whenever the king needed money, he called another
Parliament. Henry VIII enhanced the importance of Parliament by his
use of it during the English Reformation. In 1547 the king gave permission
for members of the commons to meet at St. Stephen's Chapel, in the
Palace of Westminster. In the 15th century the House of Lords was
the Upper House and the House of Commons
the Lower House. Membership of the House of Lords was made up of the
Lords Spiritual (two Archbishops, 24 Diocesan Bishops) and the Lords
Temporal which were divided into three groups: hereditary peers, peers
granted peerages by the sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister,
and the Law Lords, who are recruited from the ranks of Britain's High
Court Judges.
In 1834 the chapel and most of the Old Palace of Westminster was destroyed
by fire. The new Palace of Westminster was designed by Sir
Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Pugin.
The House of Lords is slightly smaller than the House
of Commons and only seats 250 members. However, Barry and Pugin
made the interior more impressive than the commons with the seats
upholstered in red leather. The chamber is dominated by an ornate
royal throne where the sovereign sits during the opening of Parliament.
The Labour
Party, when elected to power in 1997, promised to introduce legislation
that would make the House of Lords an elected second chamber. However,
Tony Blair, the prime minister changed his mind and instead called
for a fully appointed House of Lords. On 4th February, 2003, the House
of Lords voted for this measure (335 votes to 110) but it was defeated
in the House of Commons (323 votes to 245)
. Twenty-five members of the government, including four Cabinet ministers,
voted against the proposal for a fully appointed House of Lords.
Labour Party poster (1910)
(1)
Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole
Island of Great Britain (1724)
The
House of Lords is a venerable old place, indeed; but how mean, how
incoherent, and how strained are the several avenues to it, and rooms
about it? The matted gallery, the lobby, the back ways the king goes
to it, how short are they all of the dignity of the place, and the
glory of a King of Great Britain with the Lords and Commons, that
so often meet there?
(2) William Pyne, The
Microcosm of London (1808)
The
tapestry of the old House of Lords is used to decorate the present,
and is set off with large frames of brown stained wood. The old canopy
of state is placed at the upper end of the room, with the addition
of the arms of the United Kingdom, painted upon silk.
Rudolf
Ackermann, House of Lords (1808)
(3)
Tom Paine, Rights of Man (1791)
What is government more than the management of
the affairs of a Nation? It is not, and from its nature cannot be,
the property of any particular man or family, but the whole community.
The romantic and barbarous distinction of men into Kings and subjects,
though it may suit the condition of courtiers, cannot that of citizens.
We have heard The Rights of Man called a levelling system;
but the only system to which the word levelling is truly applicable
is the hereditary monarchical system. It is a system of mental levelling.
It indiscriminately admits every species of character to the same
authority. Vice and virtue, ignorance and wisdom, in short, every
quality, good or bad, is put on the same level. Kings succeed each
other, not as rationals, but as animals. In reverses the wholesome
order of nature. It occasionally puts children over men, and the conceits
of nonage over wisdom and experience. In short we cannot conceive
a more ridiculous figure of government, than hereditary succession.
It is inhuman to talk of a million sterling a year, paid out of the
public taxes of any country, for the support of any individual, while
thousands who are forced to contribute thereto, are pining with want,
and struggling with misery. What is called the splendour of a throne
is no other than the corruption of the state. It is made up of a band
of parasites, living in luxurious indolence, out of the public taxes.
(4)
Robin Cook, speech, House of Commons (4th
February, 2003)
I
am very much committed that the House should seize what is a unique
and historic opportunity to make clear its preference. If we are serious
about reform, then we should have a largely or wholly elected second
chamber. In the modern world, legitimacy is conferred by democracy.
If we want the public to trust politicians, then we must trust the
people who elect politicians.
(5)
Douglas Hogg, speech, House of Commons
(4th February, 2003)
Those
who argue the case for an appointed second chamber normally concede
that it will lack the legitimacy of an elected one. I find it extraordinary
that at the start of the 21st century we should be contemplating the
creation of a political structure which, by its very act of creation,
will lack the political legitimacy required to give it either authority
or indeed survival.
(6)
Peter Wishart, speech, House of Commons
(4th February, 2003)
Surely
there is something wrong when the Prime Minister won't even support
his own manifesto.
(7)
Polly Toynbee, The
Guardian (5th February, 2003)
There is much to be said for the Blair plan for
an entirely appointed House of Lords. Unfortunately all of it is bad.
Oligarchy has its charms - but since the days of Cromwell those charms
have eluded all but the oligarchs, where in the Lords gerontocracy
masquerades as experience, bishops with empty pews represent an empty
shell of faith and yesteryear's politicians are pensioned into a golden
dotage. No surprise then that the old turkeys on the red benches did
not vote for winter festival but for their own perpetuity without
the inconvenience of a trip to the hustings where most could be guaranteed
a roasting.
Hybridity, they clucked,
would be a very bad thing and they are right about that: there would
be a strange divide between the legitimate and the illegitimate peers
in any future House, part-elected and part-appointed. One hundred
per cent democracy was the only possible outcome. How extraordinary
it seems in the 21st century that, as we are about to go to war, yet
again we are trumpeting for the democratic rights of far-away people,
and still find it necessary to quote Winston Churchill: "Democracy
is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that
have been tried from time to time". How can Labour have let itself
be out-reformed by Iain Duncan Smith - even if he commanded as little
obedience as Blair.
This progressive reform
has waited a century: now the House of Lords will remain the laughing
stock of the western world. Now the chance of reform has collapsed,
all due to a moment of madness in which a prime minister already accused
of anti-democratic instincts has done himself needless harm. Was it
the insouciance of a mind floating somewhere between Washington and
Baghdad?
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