unanimity in council, vigour in action, and a cordial understanding between the sovereign and Parliament, might reasonably be expected to follow from the harmonious incorporation of the ministers of the crown with the legislative body. And these beneficial results have not been wanting, whenever ministers have been sufficiently strong to frame a decided policy, and sufficiently popular to commend their policy to the favourable consideration of Parliament. Cabinets. But we are not to suppose that such an important change in the political system of England was effected at once. As will be presently shown, it was several years after his accession to the throne before William III. began to form a regular ministry. His first Cabinets were not His first constructed upon any principle of unity. The members composing the same were not even obliged to be agreed upon questions of the utmost gravity, which in itself inevitably led to confusion and internal dissension. The administration was in fact a government by separate and independent departments, acknowledging no bond of union except the authority of the sovereign, their common head and lord. In every successive administration, Whigs and Tories were mingled together, in varying preponderancy. By this method, the king hoped to secure his own ascendancy, and to conciliate the rival factions in the state. It is obvious that a ministry so constituted was not in a position to command the respect of Parliament, or to exercise an adequate control over its deliberations. But as the power of Parliament, and especially of the House of Commons, was steadily on the increase, and as its attitude towards the government was becoming daily more antagonistic, the king determined upon the experiment of substituting for the individual direction of public affairs the administration of a party, and of confiding the chief offices of government to leading Whigs, b * See post, p. 97. iii. pp. 13, 65, 537; vol. iv. pp. 184, Macaulay, Hist. of England, vol. 299, 372. Placemen in the House of who at that time were the strongest party in the House of Commons. But in the endeavour to carry out this happy idea, which may justly be regarded as the mainspring of parliamentary government, a difficulty presented itself which for a while jeopardised, and threatened to frustrate altogether the king's design. A The evils attendant upon the presence of placemen in the House of Commons had become so serious that, as Commons. We have already seen, it had been unanimously resolved, some ten years before the time when the king began to entertain the thought of a parliamentary ministry, that no member of the House, without express leave of the House itself, should accept of any office, or place of profit under the crown, under penalty of expulsion. This resolution, however, had proved entirely abortive, and since its adoption the House had continued to swarm with placemen of all kinds, from high officers of state to mere sinecurists and dependents upon the court. more constitutional attempt to remedy this great abuse than was afforded by the adoption of a mere resolution of the House of Commons, was made in 1692, by the introduction of a Bill touching free and impartial proceedings in Parliament,'-the object of which was to disqualify all office-holders under the crown from a seat in the Lower House. This Bill passed through all its stages in the House of Commons rapidly, and without a single division, but was rejected by the House of Lords. In 1693, another Bill was passed by the Commons, substantially the same as its predecessor. This measure was agreed to by the Lords with the important proviso that all office-holders whose seats should be vacated under this Act might be afterwards chosen again to serve in the same Parliament.' The Commons concurred in this Macaulay, Hist. of Eng. vol. iv. p. 437; Knight, Pop. Hist. of Eng. vol. v. p. 167. d See ante, p. 83. e Macaulay, Hist. of Eng. vol. iv. pp. 121, 337; Parl. Hist. vol. iv. p. 1377, n.; vol. v. p. 468. Parl. Hist. vol. v. p. 745, n. amendment; but the king, who regarded the whole measure as an encroachment upon his prerogative, refused to give it the royal assent. And most reasonably, for Inadequate while this Act would have authorised the presence of the remedy king's ministers in the House of Commons, it would also abuse. ⚫ have readmitted numbers of placemen who had no business there. In this very year, however, a partial remedy was applied to this monstrous evil, by the adoption of a resolution, in connection with the Bill of Supply granting certain duties of excise, 'that no member of the House of Commons shall be concerned, directly or indirectly, in the farming, collecting, or managing of the duties to be collected by this Bill, or any other aid to be granted to their majesties, other than the present Commissioners of the Treasury, and the Officers and Commissioners for managing the Customs and Excise.h This resolution was added to the Bill, and became law. It is memorable as being the first statutable prohibition of any office-holder from sitting and voting as a member of the House of ; Commons. The principle hereby introduced was afterwards applied and extended by similar Acts passed in this reign; the provisions whereof were rigidly enforced by the expulsion from the House of several members who had transgressed the provisions of the same.* But these Acts were too limited in their operation to meet the emergency of the case. Accordingly, we find Place Bills, to the same general purport as the Bill of 1692, above mentioned, again submitted to the House of Commons, in 1694, 1698, 1699, 1704, 1705, 1709, 1710, Macaulay, Hist. of Eng. vol. iv. pp. 337-342, 479. The Commons ventured to approach his majesty with an earnest representation, protesting against this exercise of the royal prerogative, but they took nothing by their motion. h Com. Journ. vol xi. p. 99. And see ibid. vol. xiii. p. 427; vol. xiv. p. 480. 1 5 & 6 Will. & Mary, c. 7, sec. 57. J 11 & 12 Will. III. c. 2, sec. 150; 12 & 13 Will. III. c. 10, sec. 89. Ibid. pp. 481-483; Commons' Journals, vol. xi. pp. 71, 74, 75. * See General Index, Commons' Journals, vol. i. (i.-xvii.) p. 423. for this Prospec exclusion of all 1711 and 1713. These measures, however, were of too sweeping a character to commend them to the favourable judgment of Parliament, and they were invariably rejected, for the most part by the House of Commons itself.1 6 At length the majority of the House of Commons met tive exel with apparent success in carrying out their long cherished placemen. design of freeing their chamber from the presence of all dependants upon the crown. In the year 1700, when the Act Amendatory of the Bill of Rights, and to provide for the succession of the crown in the person of the Princess Sophia of Hanover, and her heirs, being Protestants was under consideration; the Commons insisted upon the insertion of a clause in the Bill, which they imagined would afford additional security for the liberty of the subject, that no person who has an office or place of profit under the king, or receives a pension from the crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons. But this clause was only to take effect upon the accession of the house of Hanover, an event which did not take place until the year 1714. Meanwhile, the king had formed a ministry which was composed of persons who had seats in one or other of the Houses of Parliament; and the nation had begun to appreciate the advantages attending the introduction of Cabinet ministers into the legislature for the purpose of explaining and defending the measures and policy of the executive government. So that before the time came when this ill-considered provision should go into operation, Parliament was prepared to substitute for it a wiser and more temperate measure. m A due sense of the advantages attending the authorised admission of the chief ministers of the crown to seats in the legislative chambers, made it no less imperative upon the House of Commons to discriminate between the in 1 General Index, Com. Journ. vol. i. pp. 675, 801. Act of Settlement, 12 & 13 Will. III. c. 2, sec. 3. by the Statute of Anne. troduction of those executive officers, whose presence in Parliament was essential to the harmonious and effective working of the state machine, and of other office-holders, who could only serve to swell the ranks of ministerial supporters, and stifle the expression of public opinion, of which members should be the true exponents. A few years' experience sufficed to point out the proper medium, and by a revision of the objectionable article in the Act of Settlement-an opportunity for which was happily afforded in the reign of Queen Anne, before the period Wise profixed for its being enforced-Parliament preserved the principle of limitation, and at the same time relaxed the preposterous stringency of its former enactment." The new Act passed in 1707 established, for the first time, two principles of immense importance, which have ever since remained in force, as effectual safeguards against an excessive influence on the part of the crown by the means of place-holders in the House of Commons. These are, firstly, that every member of the House accepting an office of profit from the Crown, other than a higher commission in the army, shall thereby vacate his seat, but shall be capable of re-election-unless (secondly), the office in question be one that has been created since October 25, 1705,° or has been otherwise declared to disqualify for a seat in Parliament. The restrictive clause was repealed in 1705 by 4 Anne, c. 8, sect. 25; the new provisions, which were the result of a compromise between the two Houses, were enacted in 1707, by 6 Anne, c. 7, secs. 25, 26. See Parl. Hist. vol. vi. p. 474. Brief remarks upon the Reform Bill, as it affects one of the royal prerogatives. (London 1831), pp. 14-16. 6 Anne, c. 7, secs. 25, 26. The 25th clause of this Act further provided, in conformity to the principle laid down in the Act of Settlement, that no person having any pension from the crown during pleasure,' should be capable of being elected, or of sitting and voting in the House |