159 knights of shires 341 citizens and burgesses Total, 500 Scotland.
30 knights of shires 23 citizens and burgesses Total, 53 Ireland.
64 knights of shires 41 citizens and burgesses Total, 105 Total of the United Kingdom, 658. But this includes the borough of Sudbury disfranchised for gross corruption by 7 & 8 Viet c. 53; and the two members which this borough formerly returned have not yet been transferred to any other place. A full view of the present system of representation is given in the article COMMONS, HOUSE OF.
The lords and commons originally were one assembly, but the date of their separation is not known. The following notice of this subject is taken from Mr. T. Erskine May's Law, Privileges, Pro ceedings, and Usage of Parliament,' p. 19. "When the lesser barons began to secede from personal attendance, as a body, and to send representatives, they continued to sit with the greater barons as before ; but when they were joined by the citizens and burgesses, who, by reason of their order, had no claim to sit with the ba rons, it is natural that the two classes of representatives should have consulted to gether, although they continued to sit in the same chamber as the lords. The an cient treatise, De Modo tenendi Perlis mentum,' if of unquestioned authority, would be conclusive of the fact that the three estates ordinarily sat together ; but when any difficult or doubtful case of peace or war arose, each estate sat sepa rately, by direction of the king. But this work can claim no higher antiquity than the reign of Richard IL, and its authority is only useful so far as it may be evidence of tradition, believed and relied on at that period. Misled by its supposed authen ticity, Sir Edward Coke and Elsynge entertained no doubt of the facts as there stated ; and the former alleged that he had seen a record of the 30 Henry I., (1130) of the degrees and seats of the lords and commons as one body, and that the separation took place at the desire of the commons. . . . The enquiry how ever is of little moment, for whether the commons sat with the lords in a distinct part of the same chamber, or in separate houses as at present, it can scarcely be contended that, at any time after the ad mission of the citizens and burgesses, the commons intermixed with the lords, in their votes as one assembly. Their chief
business was the voting of subsidies, and the bishops granted one subsidy, the lords temporal another, and the commons again a separate subsidy for themselves. The commons could not have had a voice in the grants of the other estates ; and al though the authority of their name was constantly used in the sanction of Acts of Parliament, they ordinarily appeared as petitioners. In that character it is not conceivable that they could have voted with the lords, and it is well known that down to the reign of Henry VI., no laws were actually written and enacted until after the parliament." . . . " When ever this separation may have been ef fected, it produced but little practical change in the uninterrupted custom of parliament. The causes of summons are still declared by the crown to the lords and commons assembled in one house; the two houses deliberate in separate chambers, but under one roof; they com municate with each other by messages and conference; they agree in resolutions and in making laws, and their joint de termination is submitted for the sanction of the crown. They are separated, in deed, but in legislation they are practi cally one assembly, as much as if they sat in one chamber, and in the presence of each other, communicated their separate votes." Power and Jurisdiction of Parliament.
1. Legislative Authority collectively.— The authority of extends over the United Kingdom and all its colonies and foreign possessions. There are no other limits to its power of making laws for the whole empire than thc6e which are common to it and to all other sovereign authority, the willingness of the people to obey, or their power to resist them. It has power to alter the constitu tion of the country, for that is the consti tution which the last act of parliament has made ; and it may even take away life by acts of attainder.