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Firth: The House of Lords 411
It is an excellent example of the help which an expert can
authority.
give by going over familiar ground from a fresh starting-point. In one
sense there is nothing very new in Mr. Firth's book, if we except the
characteristic and masterly use which he makes of forgotten pamphletliterature
; yet in another sense all is new : the whole period from the
death of Elizabeth to the Restoration is invested with new interest and
fuller meaning ; and to say nothing of its value to advanced scholars, a
student with an elementary knowledge of the main facts can find no more
illuminating introduction to the constitutional history of the Civil War.
Professor Firth shows how, in the early years of the seventeenth century,
the House of Lords still based its political power upon its unique position
in the social fabric. Its functions were regarded, theoretically, not so much
as a necessary element in a complicated system of government, as the
natural exercise of power by the class especially fitted and trained to use
it. In 1607 Northampton alleged the composition of the Lower House as
a reason for not agreeing to a petition of the Commons. Their members
had but ' a private and local wisdom,' * and so not fit to examine or determine
secrets of state '
; while, on the other hand, the Commons, a little earlier,
represented to the Lords that a certain question was l a matter of state, so
fitter to have beginning from the Upper House that is better acquainted with
matters of state '
(pp. 34-5). It is
significant that, when Ireton elaborated
his plan for securing the legislative supremacy of the Commons, he thought
of safeguarding the position of the Lords as a separate order, by allowing
them to be exempted from the operation of a law passed by the Commons,
to which they had not consented (p. 185). Although before the Civil War
the view that Lords and Commons were c members of one body,' engaged
in the harmonious work of statecraft, was appreciated, it was rather to their
unique excellence that their apologists looked as the ground
of their belief
that the Lords should act judicially, as c an excellent screen or bank
between the prince and people, to assist each against any encroachments of
the other, and by just judgments to present that law which ought to be the
rule of every one of the three.' l
This attitude, of course, survived the Civil War, but it gave way before
the social theorists who looked to the political service implied by the
possession of land as to the division of powers as the main axiom of
political science. The sectaries of the New Model broke down the
*
tradition. What were the Lords of England but William the Con-
'
queror's Colonels ? In the
eyes
of Bolingbroke, ninety years later, there
was as much danger from 'little engrossers of delegated power' as from
the Whig noblemen. The second Estate was still properly
the mediator,
but the
safety of the Commonwealth at a time of crisis depended on the
coalition of the ' senatorial! '
and '
equestrian parties. And, quite apart
from theory, the spirit of contract succeeded that of natural right,
until
Pitt began the practice of appealing to the people.
With great justice, then, Professor Firth lays stress upon the degradation
of the peerage, chiefly through the sale of honours, as an important factor
1 Declaration of Colepeper and Falkland in answer to the Nineteen Propositions,
quoted p. 73.
'