The House of Commons Serjeant 1640–93

The conflict between the crown and parliament in the 17th century inevitably disrupted the orderly succession to the offices of the house of commons, as is illustrated by the case of the serjeant‐at‐arms. Existing lists of the holders of this office tend to oversimplify the situation. This note brings together the available facts with the object of identifying those who actually carried out the duties of the office between 1640 and 1693.     

Adjustment and Integration: The Scottish Representation in the British House of Commons, 1707–14*

The small minority of Scots who entered the house of commons in 1707 were slow to make their mark. Besides lack of numbers, they suffered several significant disadvantages. The Westminster scene was strange, and the style and tone of debate more vigorous and informal. Moreover, the aristocracy had dominated the unicameral Scottish parliament, and commoners found it difficult to emancipate themselves from noble tutelage. Most importantly, Scottish politics did not yet reflect the two‐party system dominant in England. Thus in the first sessions the Scots were unable to make headway in the essential business of parliament, legislation. Scotland suffered in comparison with the English provinces, and even the Irish, who were able to muster a more effective lobby. Soon, however, a new generation of debaters appeared, able to use their wit to discomfit English antagonists, and a new class of ‘men of business’ who grasped the rules of the legislative game. The fortuitous deaths of leading magnates and the polarisation of sectarian antagonisms in Scotland permitted the coalescence of the Scottish representation into two broad factions allied with the English parties. It was with English tory support that bills were passed to benefit the sectional concerns of Scottish episcopalians, accompanied by other measures of a more general nature. The combined attempt by Scottish peers and MPs in 1713 to secure the repeal of the union does not point to a lasting breakdown in Anglo‐Scottish relations, since it was also a manifestation of political opportunism by English whigs and discontented tories, and their Scottish allies. But the dawn of a party system in Scotland was dispelled by the death of Queen Anne and the ensuing jacobite rebellion. The complicity of tories in the Fifteen resulted in the destruction of the party in Scotland, and the construction of a whig hegemony.     

The Great Landowners in the House of Commons, 1833–85

This prosopographical article demonstrates that the traditional British landed interest suffered very little by the terms of the 1832 Reform Act. They maintained their customary dominance of the house of commons, although voting records show that they had lost some of their ability to push legislation through the House that spoke to their more parochial interests. By contrast, the 1867 Reform Act caused serious erosion of their legislative power in the Commons. The 1874 election, especially in Ireland, saw great landowners losing their county seats to tenant farmers. Democracy was coming to Britain; just not as soon as some would have it.     

Parliament and the Committee for Accommodation, 1644–6*

With the emerging conflict between the presbyterian and independent ministers in 1643–4, the independent MPs recognized a need for parliamentary action to secure religious liberty in post‐war establishment of a uniform state church. The lead in this was given by such prominent figures as Oliver St John and Oliver Cromwell, who set up a committee for accommodation in autumn 1644 to establish legal safeguards for godly separatists. This article seeks to demonstrate that the lay members from the Houses participated in the proceedings of the committee with as much fervour and awareness of the issue under consideration as the clerical members, employing procedure as a tool of policy making. Their often extended debates offer the historian a rare opportunity to explore in detail a committee at work during this period. The debates show that the scope of religious liberty as envisioned by the majority of MPs was decidedly limited. Furthermore, the article asserts that the committee became an arena for both genuine efforts at compromise and expressions of factional interest and that its proceedings were inextricably bound up with the wider Westminster politics and the vicissitudes of war. Thus, the committee proceedings shed light on the emergence of divisions in parliament and how these metamorphosed over the course of the revolutionary decade. Ultimately, the failure of the committee's enterprise contributed to polarisation within the godly community and to its disintegration.     

Conservatives,the Constitution and the Quest for a ‘Representative’ House of Lords, 1911–35*

This article presents a new interpretation of Conservative attitudes towards house of lords' reform in the early 20th century. Coinciding, as it did, with the introduction of universal adult suffrage, the campaign to reform and strengthen the second chamber has traditionally been understood as a reaction against democracy. Conversely, this article, emphasizing the politics rather than policies of reform, argues that many Conservatives sought to establish a legitimate role for a second chamber within the new democratic settlement and that the campaign for reform is, consequently, better understood as a constitutional means of ‘making safe’, rather than resisting, mass democracy. The account sheds new light on how the impulse behind reform was frequently rooted in a commitment to democracy, how reform commanded the support of a wide cross section of the Conservative parliamentary party, and why the reform campaign had folded by the early 1930s. In doing so, it reframes an important episode that helped close the long‐19th‐century tradition of constitutional reform in British politics.     

Humour and Insult in the House of Commons: The Case of Palmerston and Disraeli*

Formal prohibitions on ‘personalities’ notwithstanding, a constant of parliamentary life is that members regularly insult one another. Within the conventions of 19th‐century public decorum, humour served as an effective means for some politicians to deliver personal insults to their opponents. This article examines the nature of the personal attacks made by Disraeli and Palmerston on each other between 1837 and 1865, and describes how their styles of humorous insult were different but equally effective. Analysis of their political contest sheds new light on the careers of the two men, while also providing the basis for broader considerations about the changing nature and functions of humour in political discourse from the 18th to the 20th centuries.