demonstrated that it was impossible to keep lawyers out of the House, even if it were wholly desirable, and the House had turned its attention to devising methods for making the lawyers discharge their parliamentary duties. As early as 1373, the House adopted an ordinance which declared that lawyers were not " to follow causes in any courts, nor in the Lords' House, while they con tinued members of the House, and while parliament was sitting." They were to at tend during the session "wholly and solely" to the service of the House. Prynne, who was of the House of Com mons in the time of Charles II, and who has left us the fullest and best picture ex tant of the dilettanti parliamentarians of the Restoration period, a picture which is cor roborated and supplemented by Pepys, wished that the ordinance of Edward Ill's time might be revived. Prynne claims much for the ordinance, in particular that it made the lawyers attend the service of the House; that it kept them from drawing or promoting their clients' or projectors' pri vate petitions to Parliament; and finally that it had the effect of shortening the sessions of Parliament. It had this effect, to quote Prynne's own words, because " when no lawyers who were members might so much as move or plead in courts, it engaged them to attend the House, and all committees were diligent, early and fate, to make the session and all bills and debates as short as possible." How long the ordinance of 1373 was en forced it is not possible to find out. The Journals of the House of Commons now in existence begin only in the time of Edward VI. There are traces of the ordinance as recently as 1820. These apply to that part of it which enacted that lawyers who were of the House of Commons were not to plead before the House of Lords. From 1558 to 1 7 10, there are numerous entries in the Common's Journals recording the granting of permits to lawyers to appear before the
House of Lords. There are also some in stances in which members were censured for going before the lords without first ob taining the permission of the House of Commons. From 17 10 to 1820, there are no entries of these permissions, and the lawyers seem to have appeared before the House of Lords without let or hindrance from the House of Commons. The custom of seeking permission was revived; and re vived I think for the last time, in 1820, when Brougham obtained permission for himself and Denman as counsel for Queen Caroline to appear at the bar of the House of Lords to oppose the bill then pending against the queen. Although the ordinance of the fourteenth century prohibiting members from attending business in the courts does not seem to have been long continued in its entirety, the House of Commons, up to the eve of the Reform of 1832, always kept a fairly tight hold over the lawyer members. Almost from the time the Journals begin, there are frequent entries of leave of absence to law yers that they might go on circuit. Usually leave was granted to individual lawyers after application made by them or in their behalf. Sometimes on the eve of departure from London of the judges who were going on circuit, there was a general leave of absence to the lawyers to accompany them. Occasionally when individual leave of ab sence was granted, a statement was entered on the Journals that the lawyer in whose favor the motion was granted had served on this or that committee, as though a term of service on a hard-worked committee, such for instance as one that was dealing with a controverted election, entitled a member to some extra consideration from the House. These entries of leave of absence occur from the time of James I until the second decade of the nineteenth century, in fact until the eve of the momentous change of 1832. Members who went without leave
