COMMONS, the people who have a right to sit or a right to vote for repre sentatives in the English House of Com mons, and all who in England are under the rank of peers without reference to their voting privileges.
' English House of Commons is that one of the two Houses of the English ment which consists of representatives duly elected according to law in pre scribed numbers by the burgh, county, and university constituencies of the United Kingdom. The name Commons is given to its members to distinguish them from the Peers of the United King dom who sit in the House of Lords.
History.—The earliest traces of the English House of Commons are in A. D. 1265. The year previously (on May 12, 1264), Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leices ter, who was of French origin, but brother-in-law to King Henry III., de feated his sovereign at the Battle of Lewes, and made him prisoner. In 1265 the victor issued writs in the King's name requiring each sheriff of a county to return to a Parliament which he pro posed to hold, two knights for the shire under his jurisdiction, two citizens for each city within its limits, and two bur gesses for each borough. A Parliament of lords and other dignitaries had ex isted previously; county representatives may occasionally have sat almost from the commencement of the 13th century, and an assembly of knights and bur gesses, nicknamed the Mad Parliament, had met in A. D. 1258, but no writs are extant before De Montfort's, summoning the representatives of cities and bor oughs to attend. The Parliament thus called together met in London on Jan. 22, 1265, but on Aug. 4, De Montfort was slain at the battle of Evesham, and the royal government restored. The victory was obtained for the king mainly through the military ability of Prince Edward, afterward King Edward I., who, at least as early as 1294, i. e., the 22d year of his reign, himself called to gether a parliament of the De Mont fort type. The borough representatives were 246, those from the counties or shires 74. Under Edward III. those members had altered to 282 and 74. Each place represented sent two mem bers, without reference to its population. There was universal suffrage; members required no property qualification, and were paid. In the eighth year of Henry VI., the county franchise was narrowed in its operation, no one now being al lowed to vote unless he possessed free hold worth 40 shillings, a sum the pur chasing power of which would have been about the equivalent of £12 ($60) at the beginning of the 18th century, and £20 ($100) at the beginning of the 19th. The Act 23 Henry VI. c. 14, made it an in dispensable qualification for election as a member of Parliament that the per son should be a knight, or eligible to be one, by which was meant that he should have a freehold of £40 (8200) a year. James I., by his royal prerogative, con ferred two members on the University at Oxford and the same number on that of Cambridge. All along till the revolu
tion of 1688, efforts were made insidi ously to reduce, or, if not, then at least to damage, the burgh representation. But in 1694 the 6 and 7 William and Mary, c. 2, enacted that Parliaments in future should be triennial, an alteration which much tended to render the House of Commons independent of the royal authority. A similar act had been passed in 1641, but repealed in 1664. The Act 9 Queen Anne, c. 5, established a landed property qualification for mem bers, whether for counties or boroughs, and by the first George I., passed in 1716, the Septennial Act was established which made the legal duration of a Par liament seven instead of three years. It is still in force. At the beginning of the 18th century, England and Wales had 513 members of Parliament. The union with Scotland in 1707 added 30 county and 15 borough members to the House of Commons, that with Ireland on Jan. 1, 1801, 64 for counties, 35 for cities, and one for Dublin University. This made up the entire representation of the United Kingdom to 658, a num ber which was nominally preserved until 1885, though the suspension of writs in individual constituencies for proven fla grant bribery occasionally slightly re duced the number. The Act of 1885 made radical reforms, placing the basis of representation at about one member for every 9,000+ electors. The number of members for the entire realm of Great Britain and Ireland is now (1920) : England and Wales, 495; Ireland, 103; Scotland, 72. In 1917 women were en rolled in the Parliamentary franchise.
Present state.—A Parliament cannot spring into life by any effort of its own; it requires to be summoned by the sov ereign. During an interregnum a Con vention Parliament, sometimes called simply a Convention, can do so, and has done it twice in English history, once in 1660, the other time in 1688.
The House of Commons is presided over by a Speaker. The first one, called Peter de la Mere, was elected in A. D. 1377. Most of the important legislation which emanates from the Imperial Par liament has its origin in the House of Commons. By the Septennial Act a Par liament which has escaped what may be termed a violent end dies a natural death in seven years. A general election of representatives to serve in the new House of Commons then takes place, and when a new Parliament assembles, the House of Lords, as an essential part of the complex machinery, is also sum moned to meet. Few Parliaments, how ever, die a natural death. When the Ministry is defeated on what they deem a vital point, and they are of opinion that the country agrees with them and not with their adversaries, the sovereign generally receives and acts upon the ad vice to dissolve Parliament, an act which formally submits to the judgment of the constituencies the disputed point which caused the ministerial crisis.