ſupreme power is divided into two branches; the one legiſlative, to wit, the parliament, conſiſting of king, lords, and commons; the other executive, conſiſting of the king alone. It will be the buſineſs of this chapter to conſider the Britiſh parliament; in which the legiſlative power, and (of courſe) the ſupreme and abſolute authority of the ſtate, is veſted by our conſtitution.
The original or firſt inſtitution of parliaments is one of thoſe matters that lie ſo far hidden in the dark ages of antiquity, that the tracing of it out is a thing equally difficult and uncertain. The word, parliament, itſelf (or colloquium, as ſome of our hiſtorians tranſlate it) is comparatively of modern date, derived from the French, and ſignifying the place where they met and conferred together. It was firſt applied to general aſſemblies of the ſtates under Louis VII in France, about the middle of the twelfth century[1]. But it is certain that, long before the introduction of the Norman language into England, all matters of importance were debated and ſettled in the great councils of the realm. A practice, which ſeems to have been univerſal among the northern nations, particularly the Germans[2]; and carried by them into all the countries of Europe, which they overran at the diſſolution of the Roman empire. Relics of which conſtitution, under various modifications and changes, are ſtill to be met with in the diets of Poland, Germany, and Sweden, and the aſſembly of the eſtates in France[3]: for what is there now called the parliament is only the ſupreme court of juſtice, compoſed of judges and advocates; which neither is in practice, nor is ſuppoſed to be in theory, a general council of the realm.
With us in England this general council hath been held immemorially, under the ſeveral names of michel-ſynoth, or great council, michel-gemote or great meeting, and more frequently
- ↑ Mod. Un. Hiſt. xxiii. 307. The firſt mention of it in our ſtatute law is in the preamble to the ſtatute of Weſtm. 1. 3 Edw. I. A. D. 1272.
- ↑ De minoribus rebus principes conſultant, de majoribus omnes. Tac. de mor. Germ. c. 11.
- ↑ Theſe were aſſembled for the laſt time, A. D. 1561. See Whitelocke of Parl. c. 72.
