¹ Ante, 5th ser., Vol. 14, 1964, pp. 175–96.Google Scholar

² For the author see Dewar, Mary, Sir Thomas Smith (London, 1964).Google Scholar Dr Dewar is engaged upon a new edition of Smith's major works, including the De Republica Anglorum, of which she has found six manuscript texts which are of earlier date than the printed edition of 1583. The best existing edition is that by Alston, L. (Cambridge, 1906), which is cited below.Google Scholar

¹ Op. cit., ed. Alston, , p. 56.Google Scholar

² ibid. Dr Dewar has kindly informed me that for the passage here quoted the newly discovered MSS. supply no significant variant readings.

³ “Go down” presumably either because the lobby was on a slightly lower level than the chamber, or because the lobby was opposite to the Speaker's chair, which was described by John Hooker about 1571 as being “ at the higher end” of the house; Neale, J. E., The Elizabethan House of Commons (London, 1949), p. 364.Google Scholar

¹ In later times the Speaker said, “I think the Ayes (or the Noes) have it”; but a phrase in the Clerk's memorandum of a division on 24 February 1559— “and by the more number of voices, it seemed, that he should not have privilege'—suggests that the Speaker may then have used some such formula as “The Noes (or the Ayes) seem to be the more number”; C[ommons ] [Journals], i, 55.Google Scholar

² Sir Edward Saunders, in the course of his judgment in Buckley versus Thomas in 1555 (ante, 5th ser., Vol. 14, pp. 187–91)Google Scholar, remarked that“in Parliament the majority of voices in the Upper House may be easily known, be cause they are demanded severally and the Clerk of the House reckons them; but in the Lower House of Parliament it is otherwise, for there the assent is tried by the voices sounding all at one time, and therefore if die assent there was issuable, the party should say, generally by the greater number … and so likewise in the case here”. Sir William Staunford, another of the judges in the same case, said:“… the plaintiff could not come at the knowledge of the number of electors, for which reason he shall say generally that he was elected by the greater number and therefore the count [i.e. the plaintiff's declaration of his case] is good enough …”; Commentaries or Reports of Edmund Plowden (ed. 1779), pp. 123, 126.Google Scholar

¹ Neale, , op. cit., pp. 397–98.Google Scholar

² “And then all the members of this House being gone forth saving only Mr Speaker and the Clerk, Mr Comptroller brought in the Bill in his hand accompanied with all the said members of this House, and delivered in the same Bill to Mr Speaker according to the ancient former usage of this House in that behalf observed” (15 December 1597); D'Ewes, S., Journals of all the Parliaments … of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1682), p. 573 b.Google Scholar

³ “… a Motion thereupon made by some, that those which did sit against the Bill might rise and go forth to fetch and bring in the Bill into this House accompanied with the residue of the members of this House according to the ancient orders of the House in such case used” (17 December 1597); ibid., p. 574 b. The phrase “Ceremony of bringing in the Bill” occurs later in the passage just cited. We must remind ourselves that the two division lobbies with which we are familiar, one for the Ayes and one for the Noes, did not come into existence until a new House of Commons was built after the fire of 1834. In 1565 and until the fire, there was only one lobby, and in a division the Ayes (normally) went into it.

¹ Campion, Lord, An Introduction to the Procedure of the House of Commons, 3rd ed., London, 1958, p. 184.Google Scholar

² Ibid.

¹ Stowe, B.M. MS. 354, which Sir John Neale characterizes as an “early-Stuart tract”, makes this statement on fol. 31: “While the House is in dividing, none may be suffered to come into the lobby from without, but the outer door is to be kept shut by the Serjeant; and such as are come into the lobby after the question is put, they are to withdraw into the committee chamber and are not to be accompted”.Google Scholar

¹ Neale, , op. cit., pp. 399, 413.Google Scholar

² Pollard, A. F., Henry VIII (London, 1905), p. 290.Google Scholar

³ Proceedings of British Academy, xi (1926), p. 130, n. 4.Google Scholar

⁴ Constitutional History of England, ii (4th ed., Oxford, 1906), pp. 265–66: “No authentic record has yet been found of the way in which the general assent of the assembly was taken, or the result of a division ascertained [my italics[. We might infer from the procuratorial character of the powers of the representatives, that on some questions, taxation in particular, the two mem bers for each community would have only a joint vote.”Google Scholar

¹ Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1534–1554, pp. 554–55.Google Scholar

² See Neale, J. E., ante, 4th ser., Vol. iii (1920), pp. 136 sqq.Google Scholar; Pollard, A. F., Bull, of Inst. Hist. Res., xvi, 151–67, xvii, 1–5Google Scholar; Seymour's memoranda are printed in C.J., i, pp. 1–85.Google Scholar

¹ C.J., i, 42–46.Google Scholar

² C.J., i, 46 (3 December); “Q.L.3. The Bill for the release of the First-fruits and Tenths and impropriations of benefices. Per divisionem domus. Cum Billa 133, Contra Billam 126. Judicium.” “Q.L.3” signifies that it was the third reading by the Commons of a bill which had originated in the Lords, and which bore the Queen's sign-manual because it concerned her royal rights. “Judicium” is the clerk's technical term indicating that the bill had passed its diird reading: his corresponding term for rejection is “Vacat”.Google Scholar

³ C.J., i, 46 (6 December): ”L.3. The Bill against the Duchess of Suffolk and other, contemptuously gone over Seas. Vacat super Quaestione per divisionem Domus” [no figures given].Google Scholar

⁴ Calender of State Papers, Venetian, 1555–1556, p. 283.Google Scholar

¹ Barbaro's commission as ambassador is dated 25 April 1549 (ibid., pp. 232–33), and he had ceased to be ambassador by 12 February 1551; Acts of Privy Council (N.S.), Vol. 3, p. 210.Google Scholar

¹ John Hooker about 1571 notes that on a division “the Speaker shall choose two or four to number them”. (Sir John Neale very kindly showed me a transcript of Hooker“s unpublished manuscript made for him by the late Professor Harte, W. J.; see Elizabethan House of Commons, p. 334, n. 4.)Google Scholar

² C.J., i, 25.Google Scholar

¹ C.J., i, 21.Google Scholar

² Pollard, , op. cit., p. 290.Google Scholar

¹ Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, 1531–1533, p. 416.Google Scholar

² Neale, , op. cit., pp. 354–55.Google Scholar

³ Above pp. 173–74.Google Scholar

¹ Rot. Parl., iv, 123.Google Scholar

² Eng. Hist. Rev., Vol. 42 (1927), p. 585:Google Scholar “Et dicit quod Rogerus Hunte et Ricardus Russell nominati fuerunt ibidem prolocutores; tamen dicit, quod examinacionibus inde factis, Rogerus prevaluit et habuit plures voces iiij^or etc. et optinuit officium prolocutoris parliamenti”. Roger Hunt was one of the knights for Bedfordshire. If Russell's name was correctly reported as Richard, he was one of the burgesses for Dunwich in 1420; but one of the knights for Herefordshire in 1420 was named John Russell, and he did in fact become Speaker both in 1423 and in 1432. So perhaps the Lynn report said “Richard Russell” in error for “John Russell”.

³ The later practice was, and still is, that if more than one candidate is nominated, the House divides on the candidate whose nomination came first: only if the vote on him is in the negative does the House then proceed to divide on the candidate whose nomination came second; Campion, , op. cit., p. 100.Google Scholar

¹ Neale, , op. cit., pp. 354–56.Google Scholar

¹ Jay, Winifred, “The House of Commons and St Stephen's Chapel”, E.H.R., 36 (1921), pp. 225–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹ See above p. 175.Google Scholar

² See above pp. 175–76.Google Scholar

³ See above pp. 174–75.Google Scholar

¹ The figures for the recorded divisions are in C.J., i, pp. 21–61.Google Scholar

² John Hooker's unpublished tract (see p. 175 n. above) states that “if the voices be doubtful then shall he [the Speaker] cause the House to be divided. And then all diey which are of the negative part must arise and depart out into an outer house: whereupon the Speaker shall choose two or four to number them first which are of the affirmative part as they do sit. That done they which are without to be called in and to be numbered as they come in. And that side which hath most voices taketh effect.” (Hooker has mistakenly reversed the roles of the Ayes and Noes. It is clear from the Journals that normally it was the Ayes who “must arise and depart out” and that it was the Noes who were “numbered first as they do sit”.)

¹ Roskell, J. S., The Commons and their Speakers in English Parliaments, 1376–1523 (Manchester, 1965), Chs. 1 and 4.Google Scholar

² Ante, 5th. ser., Vol. 14, 1964, p. 191.Google Scholar

³ Ibid., pp. 191–93.

¹ Ante, 5th. ser., Vol. 14, 1964, pp. 193–94.Google Scholar

² See the suggestive paragraph in Maitland, F. W., Township and Borough (Cambridge, 1898), pp. 34–35.Google Scholar

¹ Ante, 5th. ser., Vol. 14, pp. 190–191.Google Scholar

² See above p. 168.Google Scholar