Chapter XVIII · STEWARDSHIP OF THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS

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A Member of the House of Commons cannot freely, on his part, resign his seat. Nor can he be given a notice to quit by his constituents, should he repudiate some pledge or disavow some principle, by reason of which the majority voted for him at his election. The law of the Constitution says in effect, “Once a Member, always a Member, until the Parliament to which he is elected comes to an end, or death removes him from the scene.” There is, however, a way by which the law can be circumvented—by the Member, but not by the constituency—and the story makes an interesting chapter of parliamentary theory and practice.

The Journals of the House of Commons do really contain a resolution that a Member duly chosen by a constituency cannot relinquish his seat. It was passed so far back as 1628, when country gentlemen were rather reluctant to undertake the duties and responsibilities of representatives; and, absurd as it may seem in these days of eager competition for the letters “M.P.”—costly, troublesome, yet most alluring and desirable—the Constitution, which never unlearns anything, but goes on learning a great deal from practical experience, still in theory supposes that Members of Parliament need to be bound down to its service.

If a Member be convicted of treason or felony, he is forthwith expelled from the House. I have seen three expulsions for criminal offences. Should a Member have the misfortune to lose his reason and be committed to a lunatic asylum, his seat is declared vacant. If he is made a peer, he ceases to be a Member of the House of Commons. But if he should grow tired of his parliamentary duties, or become incapable of discharging them because of old age or ill-health, or feel himself unable conscientiously to support the policy of his Party, or desire to retire to private life upon any pretext or consideration whatever, he is powerless to do so by the natural and simple expedient of sending a letter of resignation to the Speaker or to his constituents. On one condition only are the gates of Westminster thrown open, and an unwilling representative allowed to depart in peace during the life of the Parliament. He must obtain “an office of profit under the Crown.” A Member of Parliament who accepts such a post by that very act vacates his seat. Now, “an office of profit under the Crown” is usually a cosy berth, with light duties and a liberal salary. The sole exception, perhaps, is the “Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds”—it has no duties and no salary—and that is the position to which a Member of the House of Commons, wishing to resign, is appointed.

Not until the middle of the eighteenth century was this agency or expedient provided by which a Member could formally quit the House before the existence of the Parliament was terminated. Before that, an M.P., weary of Westminster, had to appeal to the House for his discharge. “That he shall still serve, and that he shall not be removed.” Such was the sharp and peremptory order of the House in the case of John Hassard, one of the Members for Lyme Regis, who in 1605 represented that he was suffering from “sickness by the joint,” and desired that he might be allowed to resign his seat. Four years passed, and, as the Parliament—the first of James I—was still in being, John Hassard was still reluctantly M.P. In 1609 his constituents petitioned the House that he might be released. Was it not hard on the borough, they asked, that it should “be deprived of the services of one of its representatives?” The House yielded so far as to appoint a committee to inquire into the case. They reported that Hassard was bedridden of an incurable disease. On this report the House was induced to yield, and a new writ was issued. Of course, if a representative were unable or indisposed to attend to his duties and the House refused him release, he might absent himself until the Parliament was dissolved. But the House had the power of fining for non-attendance, and, indeed, of compelling the recalcitrant Member to repair to Westminster forthwith, and, as the Journals of the House show, these powers were often exercised.

At last a means of escape to reluctant legislators was afforded by the famous Place Act of 1705—one of the really great events in that long process, the evolution of the British Constitution. The House of Commons, in the first stirrings of a desire for independence, naturally became jealous of the presence of office-holders and pensioners who were disposed to be subservient to the Sovereign. The Act passed in 1700, settling the Crown on the House of Hanover, contained the clause: “That no person who has an office or place of profit under the Crown, or receives a pension from the Crown, shall be capable of serving as a Member of the House of Commons.” The clause was never put into operation. Ministers were covered by the clause, and, of course, it was found impracticable to exclude Ministers from the House. But the Act of Queen Anne safeguarded the independence of the House by establishing the great principle that a Minister should give his constituency the opportunity of passing judgment on his acceptance of office. “Provided always,” says the Act of 1705, “that if any person being chosen a Member of the House of Commons shall at any time after the dissolution or determination of this present Parliament accept of any office of profit from the Crown during such time as he shall continue a Member, his election shall be and is hereby declared to be void, and a new writ shall issue for a new election as if such person so accepting was naturally dead; provided, nevertheless, that such person shall be capable of being again elected as if his place had not become void as aforesaid.” The object of this provision was twofold: first, to make it impossible for the Sovereign to appoint a Member of Parliament to a lucrative post, and retain his services in the House of Commons as a subservient place-man independently of the wishes of his constituents; and secondly, to enable a Member of Parliament to accept an office in the Government and still keep his seat in the House of Commons, if his constituents were agreeable. But the statute had been forty-five years in operation before it was ingeniously turned to a purpose for which originally it was never intended. There was an ancient office-holder called a Crown Steward. He was the custodian of one of the Manors or Hundreds belonging to the Royal demesne. Under Charles II most of the stewardships were abolished. One of the few which survived was that of “the three Hundreds of Chiltern, in the County of Bucks, that is to say, Stoke, Desborough and Bodenham,” which from earliest Norman times had been in the hands of my Lord the King. Sequestrated and sold under the Commonwealth, it reverted to the Crown at the Restoration, and appears to have been leased from 1679 to 1710 by one Thomas Doyley, who was its last bona fide steward.

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The Chiltern Hundreds are a range of chalk downs that gently undulate through Buckinghamshire, from Tring in Hertfordshire to Henley-on Thames in Oxfordshire. Many years ago the Hundreds were partly covered by a thick forest of beech-trees, in which bands of desperate rogues and robbers found a secure hiding-place, and it was the dangerous duty of the steward to protect the surrounding country from the marauding expeditions of these outlaws, as well as to collect the revenues of my Lord the King. The revenues are gone. The freebooters have long disappeared. But the office of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds survives, without the duties and without the emoluments, to serve the singular purpose of enabling Members of Parliament to lay down the burden of their legislative responsibilities without having to wait for a dissolution. The first Member appointed to the office, solely to enable him to resign his seat, was Mr. John Pitt, and the date of the appointment was January 17, 1750.

The stewardship is in the gift of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The warrant of appointment to the office is not given in any of the text-books on the Constitution. But looking through the papers of Lord Broughton, which have been placed in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, I discovered the document issued by Viscount Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointing Broughton to the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds when, in 1833, as Sir John Hobhouse, he resigned his seat for Westminster. It is a quaint and curious document indeed. “To all to whom these Presents shall come, the Right Honourable Viscount Althorp, Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of His Majesty’s Exchequer, sendeth Greeting.” Thus it opens, and then goes on to say: “Know ye that I, the said Viscount Althorp, reposing especial trust and confidence in the care and fidelity of the Right Honourable Sir John Hobhouse, have constituted and appointed, and by these Presents do constitute and appoint, the said Sir John Hobhouse to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern, in the County of Buckinghamshire, that is to say, Stoke, Desborough and Bodenham, with the returns of all Writs, Warrants and Executions of the same (in the room and place of E. B. Portman, Esq., whose constitution to the said offices I do hereby revoke and determine), together with all Wages, Fees, Allowances, and other Privileges and Pre-eminences whatsoever to the said offices of Steward and Bailiff belonging, or in any wise appertaining, with full power and authority to hold and keep Courts, and to do all and every other Act and Acts, Thing and Things, which to the said offices of Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds aforesaid, or either of them, do belong, or in any wise appertain, in as full and ample manner as any former Steward or Bailiff of the said Three Hundreds hath lawfully had, received or enjoyed the same; to have and to hold the said offices of Steward and Bailiff of the said Three Hundreds, together with all Wages, Fees, Allowances, and other Privileges, and Pre-eminences whatsoever, to the said Sir John Hobhouse, during His Majesty’s pleasure.”

The Warrant thus concludes:

And I do hereby authorize and empower the said Sir John Hobhouse to demand and receive for His Majesty’s use all Court Rolls and other writings relating to the said Three Hundreds from any person or persons having the same in their hands or custody. And all and every such person and persons having the same in their hands and custody are hereby required to deliver up the same to the said Sir John Hobhouse. Provided, nevertheless, that the said Sir John Hobhouse shall enter these Presents in the Office of the proper Auditor within forty days next after the date hereof, and shall yearly return the Court Rolls of the said Three Hundreds into the said office of the said Auditor, and account with the said Auditor for all such sum and sums of money as he, the said Sir John Hobhouse, shall receive for and to His Majesty’s use within forty days next after the Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel, which shall happen in every year, or else these Presents and everything herein contained to be void.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the First Day of May in the Third Year of the Reign of His Majesty King William the Fourth, and in the Year of our Lord One thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Three.

Sealed and delivered (being first duly stampt) in the presence of T. Drummond.

Althorp.

At first, the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds was treated as a piece of Government patronage to which the Opposition had no claim. Its gift was made a matter of Party favour. It was readily bestowed on a supporter of the Government when an advantage was to be gained at a bye-election. To harass a political opponent by refusing it was considered quite a legitimate move in Party tactics. In order to deprive the Government of this power to prevent a Member of the Opposition from resigning his seat, on March 15, 1775, in the House of Commons, George Grenville asked for leave to bring in a Bill to enable a Member to vacate his seat by simply sending a letter of resignation to the Speaker. Nathaniel Bayly, who supported the Bill, told a curious story. He sat for Westbury. He had first contested Abingdon, but was defeated. The victor was a supporter of the Government, named Mayor, who was subsequently disqualified on the ground that he was the high sheriff of the county. Bayly applied to Lord North, the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds in respect of his seat for Westbury, in order that he might be set free to again contest Abingdon with Mayor, who had resigned the shrievalty. Lord North refused the stewardship, saying he wished to save a political supporter from being opposed. “The cases,” he wrote, “have certainly been very few in which I have excused myself from granting vacated offices to Members of Parliament; but I have made it my constant rule to resist every application of that kind where any gentleman entitled to my friendship would have been prejudiced by my compliance. Mr. Mayor would, therefore, have just reason to complain of my conduct towards him if I should make his case an exception to my general rule.”

Lord North was very indignant that Bayly should have read in debate this letter, which, he said, was intended to be private. He denounced the hon. gentleman’s conduct as “a breach of common decency and confidence.” Still, he did not think there was anything blameable in the letter. “I am not personally known to Mr. Mayor,” said he with engaging frankness, “but then that gentleman has entitled himself to my friendship by showing himself a strenuous supporter of the honour and dignity of this country in concurring with the Government’s measures in respect to the American Colonies.” “I see,” said Edmund Burke, “the noble Lord holds out the granting or refusal of the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds as one more douceur for those who will support him in that ruinous and mad career of violence which tends to alienate the Colonies of America.” Grenville’s motion was refused by 178 votes to 126. Rigby, a prominent politician, then Paymaster of the Land Forces, contended that if the Bill were passed it would be possible for the Opposition, by withdrawing in large numbers from the House of Commons, to force the Government to dissolve Parliament. However, the ingenuity of the Opposition discovered a means of outwitting the Government. Under the Place Act of 1705, office-holders called agents of regiments were excluded from the House of Commons. In 1779 a vacancy occurred in the representation of Hampshire. Jervoise Clarke Jervoise, a member of the Opposition who sat for the borough of Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, desiring to contest Hampshire in the interests of the Opposition, asked Lord North for the Chiltern Hundreds. The Chancellor of the Exchequer replied in effect that the office was not for the likes of him. Jervoise then got himself appointed agent of the Sussex Militia, and lo! the gates of Westminster were thrown open to him, and he was free to go down and woo the electors of Hampshire. Since then the liberating stewardship is granted as a matter of course to any Member of the House of Commons who desires an honourable discharge from the House, without any regard being paid to Party or political considerations. The stewardship is retained only until a fresh application for the office is made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Each new warrant expressly revokes the grant to the previous occupant of the post, and the new steward in turn continues in office till the time comes for him to make way for another.

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It was stated by Sir Robert Peel, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, on February 1846, that the office cannot be conferred twice on the same day. If there is a second application for the position on the same day recourse is had to two other stewardships of an identically nominal character—those of the Manors of East Hendred in Berkshire and of Northstead and Hempholme in Yorkshire. There was still another office used for the same purpose, the Escheator of Munster, a survival of the Irish Parliament and confined to Irish representatives, but it was abolished in 1838. Since 1850, the statement of Sir Robert Peel in 1846 notwithstanding, there have been four instances of the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds having been granted twice on the same day—the cases are set forth in a list of the Stewards since 1850, issued by Parliament in 1893—but, of course, two men did not hold the position at the same time, as the second appointment, in each instance, cancelled the first.

Not the least remarkable feature of this strange business is that the tie between the constituency and the Member can only be severed by the Member with the help of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Once a constituency elects a representative, it cannot get rid of him until the General Election, if he be unwilling to go. In the warrant of 1833 the Chancellor of the Exchequer declares that he reposes in the steward’s “care and fidelity” “especial trust and confidence.” Now, it has occasionally happened that a Member of Parliament has been compelled by the fear of outraged public opinion hastily to retire into private life because of some act which, while it did not bring him within the meshes of the law, was morally wrong or socially disgraceful. To meet the cases of these black sheep, Gladstone, in 1861, while Chancellor of the Exchequer, made an alteration in the phraseology of the warrant so as to remove any misconception that the granting of the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds conferred either honour or credit. In that year a Member of the House of Commons, and a conspicuous lawyer, Edwin James, suddenly applied for and was granted the Chiltern Hundreds, and a new writ for his constituency was immediately issued. It subsequently transpired that his patent of Q.C. was revoked, and he was disbarred for unprofessional conduct. It was this case of an escape, as it were, by the back door that led Gladstone to omit from the warrant of appointment to the Chilterns and similar stewardships the words expressing “special trust and confidence in the care and fidelity” of the office-holder, but for some reason, presumably because no official record was kept of the change, the omitted words were subsequently replaced. In 1877 Sir Stafford Northcote, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, again omitted them, and since then the warrant has been issued without the halo of honour which the original phraseology imparted.

The warrant was issued, as I have said, in all cases as a matter of course, save where it was known that the applicant was liable to expulsion from the House for a criminal offence, or deprivation of his seat on an election petition for bribery or corruption. In these cases it was refused, so that the House might retain the control over the offender with a view to censuring him or expelling him. Gladstone laid it down that the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on receiving an application for the stewardship, was “to consider whether the gentleman who asks for the office can, by any possibility, be escaping from any duty he owes to Parliament, or any law under which he has come by his election to Parliament; and, unless there is some ground or colour of positive objection of this nature, to grant the office without making further inquiry.” The office was refused in 1842. The applicant was Lord Chelsea, against whose election for Reading a petition had been lodged. During the trial of the petition Lord Chelsea, as a compromise, entered into an agreement—in order, it was said, to avoid a bribery and corruption inquiry—to vacate his seat and to obtain it for the petitioner (his opponent at the election), or forfeit £2,000. But his application to Goulburn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds was rejected. “I consider,” wrote Goulburn, “that by lending my assistance to the fulfilment of any engagements which may have been entered into, as arising out of such compromise, I should, in some sort, make myself a party to transactions which I do not approve, and of which the House of Commons has implied its condemnation.” Lord Chelsea was thus compelled against his will to remain a Member of Parliament.

According to a memorandum submitted to the Select Committee on the House of Commons (Vacating of Seats) Bill in July 1894, by Sir W. Harcourt (then Chancellor of the Exchequer), the general principles applying to applications for the Chilterns were stated as follows: The stewardship should be granted immediately, and as a matter of course, except in very extreme cases, the argument being that to withhold the appointment, on the assumption that at some future date the seat may be vacated by other means is unfair—(1) to the applicant himself, who, even in the most suspicious circumstances, has a claim to be considered innocent until he is actually proved guilty; (2) to the House in general, which desires to purge itself as soon as possible of doubtful characters; (3) to the political Party to which the applicant belongs, whose reputation is injured and whose numerical strength may be diminished by his retaining his seat without appearing in the House; (4) to the constituency he represents, which, for the same reason, may be practically disfranchised; and finally (5) to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who might lay himself open to the charge of opposing a Member’s retirement for partisan motives. The memorandum went on to say, however, that it is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to refuse to grant the appointment, either if the House directly enjoins him to do so, or if the Member’s resignation would anticipate proceedings, whether imminent or actually pending, either in the House for censuring or punishing him, or before the Election Judges for voiding his election.

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Every appointment to the Stewardship is immediately “gazetted.” That is to say, a notice, of which the following is an example, is published in the London Gazette:

Treasury Chambers, February 1907.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has appointed the Right Hon. James Bryce, M.P., to be Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds.

This notice having been brought to the attention of the House of Commons, a new writ of election was issued, and in the Journals of the House the following record appears:

New Writ for Aberdeen South in the room of the Right Hon. James Bryce, who since his election has accepted the office of Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds.

I mention this case because the real cause of the resignation of Mr. Bryce was his appointment as Ambassador to the United States. But it is a curious circumstance, illustrative of the anomalies of the Constitution, that the office of an Ambassador or other Minister to a foreign country, though undoubtedly an office of profit under the Crown, is yet a position the acceptance of which does not vacate a seat in the House of Commons. Mr. Bryce, therefore, was obliged to apply for the purely nominal office of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds in order to be enabled to get away from Westminster.

The principle that the office of Ambassador or Minister to a foreign Court does not disqualify, nor its acceptance vacate the seat of, a Member was formally affirmed by the House of Commons in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was resolved on February 9, 1575, “that any person being a Member, and in service of Ambassade, shall not be amoved during such service.” Some thirty years later, in the time of James I, a committee having been appointed to consider the case of several persons “who had received employments from the King,” it was adjudged, on their report, that Sir Charles Cornwallis, Ambassador in Spain, Sir George Carew, Ambassador in France, and Sir Thomas Edmunds, Ambassador with the Archduke of Austria, “should still stand in their several places” in the Commons House of Parliament; and after George I came to the Throne it was decided (July 7, 1715) that Mr. Carpenter, who had been appointed Envoy to the Court of Vienna, was not thereby included in the disability of the Act of Queen Anne.

When, in the recess of 1850-51, Richard Lalor Sheil was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the fact was at first overlooked that his seat was not thereby vacated, and on the opening day of the session a new writ for Dungarvan was, on the motion of Hayter, the Chief Whip, ordered to be made out. At the next sitting, however, Hayter informed the House that he had acted under a misconception; and he submitted a motion of supersedeas, with a view to putting matters on a proper footing. In the course of a brief discussion which preceded the adoption of this action, Sir John Romilly, the then Attorney-General, recalled that Canning retained his seat for Liverpool while acting as British Ambassador in Portugal, and that, similarly, Lord Burghersh continued to represent Lyme Regis in Parliament while discharging ambassadorial duties abroad. Sheil promptly applied for the Chiltern Hundreds, and the new writ for Dungarvan was ordered on March 11, 1851. This lesson was borne in mind when, in the recess of 1869-70, Austen Henry Layard, at that time Chief Commissioner of Works and Liberal Member for Southwark, went as British Ambassador to Madrid. Layard accepted the Chiltern Hundreds without delay, and the new writ for Southwark was issued at the beginning of the session of 1870.

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The assumption that the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds is an office of profit under the Crown is one of the most amusing of the many amusing pretences which meet one in exploring the byways of the British Constitution. There are no official duties of any sort attached to the office. The steward is said to be an agent for property belonging to the Crown. But the Crown has no proprietorial rights whatever in the Hundreds of Chiltern in the county of Buckingham. As agent for this non-existent estate, the steward is required to receive moneys which are never paid, and to preside in Courts which are never held. The duties of the office are, therefore, extremely light, but it cannot be said the emoluments are so tempting. It is true that the warrant of appointment prescribes that the Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds is to enjoy “all Wages, Fees, Allowances and other Privileges and Pre-eminences whatsoever” appertaining to the position; but notwithstanding the initial capital letters which give to these good things a convincing appearance of reality—as they are set forth in the official document under the hand and seal of that master of the public purse, the Chancellor of the Exchequer—they are all purely imaginary.

The Chiltern Hundreds in Bucks is not only a place of great rural charm, but of haunting literary and political memories. Burnham Beeches survive to tell of its forests once infested with the knaves who made things troublesome for the Crown Steward. In the delightful village of Chalfont St. Giles blind Milton completed “Paradise Lost.” Gray, in the churchyard of Stoke Pogis, speculated that among the rude forefathers of the hamlet at rest in the surrounding graves there were “hands that the rod of Empire might have swayed” had fortune been kind. But not far off is Eton, the undoubted nursery of statesmen of the past. Two of the mightiest Members of Parliament lived among these pleasant hills. At Beaconsfield, Edmund Burke, the political philosopher and sentimentalist, endeavoured “God willing,” as he expressed it, “to become a farmer in good earnest”; and at Hughenden, the practical politician, Benjamin Disraeli, romantic and fantastic to the last, fed his gorgeous peacocks. They sleep, too, in these sylvan retreats. Surely these splendid phantoms may well be described as the immortal Stewards of the Chiltern Hundreds.