THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND Since the accession of George III. BY SIR THOMAS ERSKINE MAY, K.C.B. (LORD FARNBOROUGH) Edited and Continued to 1911 by FRANCIS HOLLAND In Three Volumes. 8vo Vols. I. and II., 1760-1860. 158. net Vol. III., by Francis Holland, 1860-1911. 12s. 6d. net LONG MANS, GREEN AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND Since the ACCESSION of george the THIRD BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR THOMAS ERSKINE MAY, K.C.B., D.C.L. (LORD FARNBOROUGH) EDITED AND CONTINUED TO 1911 BY FRANCIS HOLLAND IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. III. BY FRANCIS HOLLAND 1860-1911 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA All rights reserved PREFACE TO THE THIRD VOLUME. In writing a continuation of Sir Erskine May's history, I have thought it best to adhere to the general arrangement he adopted and, in his own words, "to deviate from a strictly chronological narrative" by devoting separate chapters to separate subjects. Some repetition is inseparable from this method. It has been my endeavour to avoid this as much as possible, not always, it is to be feared, with success. Another consequence has been that I have been obliged to leave out of its original place the supplementary chapter, containing a review of events between 1860 and 1870, which Sir Erskine May added to his later editions. But, in order to preserve as far as possible all the work of that eminent historian, the greater part of the supplementary chapter has been incorporated in the first and fourth chapters of the new volume. My original idea was not only to adopt in the continuation the general form of Sir Erskine May's history, but also to make the successive subjects which he chose for his chapters the subjects respectively of the chapters in the new volume. But this soon appeared to be impracticable. The Crown alone is the subject of more than half of the first of his original three volumes. The reason of this is manifest. During the first half of the period which he treats, the Crown was the very centre of the constitutional struggle. Their position with regard to the Crown was the main dividing line between the two parties, at a time when the Tories, brought once more to Court by George III. after their long exile, sought with much temporary success to increase the royal power and influence, to limit which was the main object of the Whigs. But in the period under review in the third volume of this edition, there has been little or no change in the constitutional position of the Crown. There have been bold strokes of prerogative, such as the abolition of army purchase in 1871 by royal warrant, or the pressure brought to bear upon the peers to pass the Parliament Bill of 1911; but these have been made on the advice of constitutional Ministers who commanded the confidence of the House of Commons, and they were in no way associated with the personal will of the sovereign. The wise use of the influence of the Crown by Queen Victoria is admirably described by Sir Erskine May at the end of his second chapter; and her example has been followed by her successors. The position and influence of the Crown to-day remain very much what they were in 1861, when the death of the Prince Consort deprived the Queen of the councillor by whose advice and her own remarkable good sense she had impressed upon the monarchy what may prove to be its most lasting character. With regard to the House of Lords, for the sake of chronological sequence, and because the early proposals for reform were few and relatively unimportant, an account of those proposals has been combined with that of House of Commons reform in a single chapter, while in the last chapter the recent constitutional crisis has been separately treated. To continue the work of a distinguished historian |