PARLIAMENT (said to be derived from parter la ment, to speak the mind, or parum lamentum).
In Engliah Law. The legislative branch of the government of Great Britain, consisting , of the house of lords and the house of commons.
2. The parliament is nsnally coneidcred to con , sist of the king, lords, and commone. See 1 Shars , wood, Blackat. Comm. 147*, 157*, Chitty's note; 2 Stephen Comm. 537. In 1 Wooddeson, Lect. 30, the lords temporal, the lords spiritual, &Di the cam ' mons are called the three estates of the realm : yet the king is called a part of the parliament, in right of , his prerogative of veto and the necessity of his ap proval to the passage of a bill. That the connec tion between the king and the lords temporal, the ; lords spiritual, and tho commons, who when as sembled isa parliament form the three estates of the realm, is the same as that which eubsists between the king and thpse estates—the people at large— out of parliament, the king not being in either case a naember branch, or co-estate, but standing solely in the reletion of sovereign or head, see Colton, Rewards, 710; Rot. Parl. vol. iii. 623 a ; 2 Manta. Jc
G. 457, 3. Reeords of writs snmmoning knights, bur gasses, and citizens to parliament are first found to wards the end of the reign of Henry III., such writs having issued in the thirty-eighth and forty-ninth years of his reign. 4 Sharswood, Blackat. Comm. 425 ; Prynne, 4th Inst. 2. In the reign of Edward III. it assumed its present form. Id. Since the reign of Edward III. the history of England shows au almost conatant increase in the power of parlia ment. Anne was the last sovereign who exercised the royal prerogative of veto ; and, as this prerogative no longer practically exists, the authority of parlia ment is abgaltately unrestrained. The parliament can only meet when convened by the aovereign, except on the demise of the sovereign with no par liament in being, in which case the last parliament is to assemble. 6 Anne, o. 7. The sovereign hats also power to prorogue and dissolve the parliament May, Imperial Parliament. The origin of the Eng lish parliament seems traceable tf the witena gemote of the Saxon kings. Enoye. Brit. See HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT.