John Somers, 1st Baron Somers
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John Somers, 1st Baron Somers, PC
, FRS (4 March 1651 – 26 April 1716) was an English Whig jurist and statesman. Somers first came to national attention in the trial of the Seven Bishops
where he was on the their defence counsel. He published tracts on political topics such as the succession to the crown, where he elaborated his Whig principles in support of the Exclusionists. He played a leading part in shaping the Revolution settlement. He was Lord High Chancellor of England
under King William III
and was a chief architect of the union between England and Scotland achieved in 1707 and the Protestant succession achieved in 1714. He was a leading Whig during the twenty-five years after 1688.
, near Worcester
, the eldest son of John Somers, an attorney in large practice in that town, who had formerly fought on the side of the Parliament, and of Catherine Ceaverne of Shropshire
. After being at school at Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, and Worcester he was entered as a 'gentleman commoner' at Trinity College, Oxford
, and afterwards studied law under Sir Francis Winnington
, who became solicitor-general, and joined the Middle Temple
.
, William Russell
, and Algernon Sidney but never entered into their plans so far as to commit himself beyond recall. He was the author of a pamphlet supporting the Exclusion Bill
, A Brief History of the Succession, Collected out of the Records and the Most Authentical Historians (1680). Somers showed that Parliament had for centuries regulated the succession of the English crown against the arguments of those who believed that Parliament had no right to alter the succession. Before the Norman Conquest of England
in 1066, the Anglo-Saxon kings had been elected, and even after it Parliament had deposed kings and kings in turn had confirmed their title by Act of Parliament. Somers concluded:
He was reputed to have written the Just and Modest Vindication of the Two Last Parliaments, which was published in April 1681 as the answer to Charles II
's famous declaration of his reasons for dissolving them. The authorship of this has been disputed. According to Bishop Burnet it was "first penned by Sidney; but a new draught was made by Somers, and corrected by Jones
". Lord Hardwicke
saw a copy in Somers's handwriting amongst his manuscripts before they were destroyed by fire in 1752.
In 1681 Lord Shaftesbury was sent to the Tower of London
without bail or recourse to a trial. In November he was charged at the Old Bailey
for high treason, specifically for intending to levy war against the king. However the grand jury of Middlesex
threw out the bill against Lord Shaftesbury, and were vehemently attacked for so doing by government supporters. Somers published anonymously The Security of Englishmen's Lives, or, The Trust, Power, and Duty of the Grand Juries of England in 1681. Somers acknowledged that judges may advise but juries "are bound by their Oaths to present the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth, to the best of their own, not the Judges', Knowledge". The monarch must ensure that justice is carried out:
Somers went on to argue that the monarch should hold the protection of the innocent above the punishment of the guilty:
In 1683 he was counsel for the sheriffs Pilkington and Shute before the court of King’s Bench, and secured a reputation which continually increased until the trial of the Seven Bishops
, in which he was junior counsel. One of the bishop's objected that "too young and obscure a Man" should be retained on the defence counsel but Sir Henry Pollexfen
refused to participate in the trial without him, saying that Somers was "the Man who would take most Pains, and go deepest into all that depended on Precedents and Records". In Macaulay
's words: "Somers rose last. He spoke little more than five minutes: but every word was full of weighty matter; and when he sate down his reputation as an orator and a constitutional lawyer was established". In his speech Somers cited the case of Thomas v. Sorrel (1674) whereby it was ruled that no Act of Parliament could be abrogated except through Parliament. The bishops' petition had been described as a false, malicious and seditious libel. In his peroration Somers answered this charge:
Somers took a leading part, and in the Convention Parliament
was elected a member for his native city. He was immediately appointed one of the managers for the Commons in the conferences between the houses, and in arguing the questions whether James II
had left the throne vacant by abdication and whether the acts of the Convention Parliament were legal—that parliament having been summoned without the usual writs—he displayed great learning and legal subtlety.
In his maiden speech
on 28 January 1689, Somers argued that James II had forfeited his claim to the allegiance of the English by casting himself into the hands of Louis XIV of France
and conspiring to "to subject the Nation to the Pope, as much as to a foreign prince". On 6 February Somers advocated the word "abdicate" rather than "desert" (which the House of Lords favoured) to describe James' flight to France. He concluded by stating that James' actions were a prime example of the act of abdicating:
Challenged by the Lords to produce a precedent whereby England had been without a monarch, Somers referred to a parliamentary roll from 1399 that stated that the throne had been unoccupied between the reigns of Richard II
and Henry IV
. Somers could not point to the interregnum of 1649–1660 because by law the reign of Charles II had started after the execution of Charles I. The Lords replied by pointing to a roll from the first year of the reign of Edward IV
which showed that the roll of 1399 had been annulled. Sir George Treby
supported Somers by producing the roll of the first year of the reign of Henry VII
which repealed Edward IV's roll. Eventually the Lords accepted the abdication clause and that the throne was vacant at the behest of William, and passed a resolution affirming William and Mary's right to the crown.
Although some historians such as Macaulay have claimed Somers was made chairman of the committee which drew up the Declaration of Right, the committee's report was delivered to the Commons by Sir George Treby (the chairman always delivered the report to the House). However Somers did play a leading part in drawing up the Declaration, which would be passed in Parliament and become known as the Bill of Rights 1689
. Although later generations exaggerated Somers role as architect of the Bill of Rights, his biographer asserts that no one else can have a better claim to that title. Somers published anonymously A Vindication of the Proceedings of the Late Parliament of England in 1690. Here, Somers justified the war against France and Bill of Rights:
Somers went on to place the abolishing of the dispensing power of sovereigns first, then the parliamentary control of taxation, the outlawing of standing armies
in time of peace unless Parliament decided otherwise, and the royal succession. Somers argued for the vital importance of the rule of law
:
In May 1689 Somers was made solicitor-general. He now became William III
's most confidential adviser. In the controversy which arose between the Houses on the question of the legality of the decision of the court of King's Bench regarding Titus Oates
, and of the action of the Lords in sustaining this decision, Somers was again the leading manager for the Commons, and has left a clear and interesting account of the debates. He was next employed in January 1690 as chairman of the select committee of the House of Commons on the Corporation Bill, by which those corporations which had surrendered their charters to the Crown during the last two reigns were restored to their rights; but he refused to associate himself with the violent measures of retaliation which the Whigs on that occasion endeavoured to include in the bill. In April a speech by him carried through the lower house, without opposition, the bill which declared all the laws passed by the Convention Parliament to be valid. As solicitor-general he had to conduct the prosecution of Preston and Asbton in 1691, and did so with a moderation and humanity which were in marked contrast to the customs of the former reigns. He was soon after appointed attorney-general, and in that capacity strongly opposed the bill for the regulation of trials in cases of high treason. In December 1692 Somers introduced into the commons a Bill "for the preservation of their Majesties' persons and government". The two main provisions of the Bill were severe penalties for anyone who spoke or printed asserted or implied that William and Mary were monarchs only "in fact" and not "of right", and a new oath for all who held offices of profit under the Crown in which they had to swear to defend the government against the exiled king James and his adherents. However the Bill was defeated by 200 to 175.
On 23 March 1693, the great seal having meanwhile been in commission, Somers was appointed Lord-Keeper, with a pension of £2000 a year from the day on which he should quit his office, and at the same time was made a privy councillor. He had previously been knighted. Somers now became the most prominent member of the Whig Junto
, the small council which comprised the chief members of the Whig party. When William left in May 1695 to take command of the army in the Netherlands, Somers was made one of the seven lords-justices to whom the administration of the kingdom during his absence was entrusted; and he was instrumental in bringing about a reconciliation between William and the Princess Anne
.
, and was created a peer by the title of Baron Somers, of Evesham. When the discussion arose on the question of disbanding the army, he summed up the case against disbanding, in answer to Trenchard in a remarkable pamphlet called The Balancing Letter. In August 1698 he went to Tunbridge Wells
for his health. While there he received the king’s letter announcing the first Partition Treaty, and at once replied with a memorandum representing the necessity in the state of feeling in England of avoiding further war. When the king, on the occasion of the Disbanding Bill, expressed his determination to leave the country, Somers boldly remonstrated, while he dearly expressed in a speech in the Lords the danger of the course that was being taken. Hitherto Somers's character had kept him free from attack at the hands of political opponents; but his connection in 1699 with the notorious Captain William Kidd
, to the cost of whose expedition Somers had given £1,000, afforded an opportunity; the vote of censure, however, proposed upon him in the House of Commons for giving Kidd a commission under the great seal was rejected by 199 to 131. The attack was renewed shortly on the ground of his having accepted grants of Crown property to the amount of £1600 a year, but was again defeated. On the subject of the Irish forfeitures a third attack was made in 1700, a motion being brought forward to request the king to remove Somers from his counsels and presence for ever; but this again was rejected by a large majority. In consequence, however, of the incessant agitation William now requested Somers to resign; this he refused to do, but gave up the seals to William's messenger. In 1701 he was impeached by the Commons on account of the part he had taken in the negotiations relating to the Partition Treaty in 1698, and defended himself most ably before the house, answering the charges seriatim
. The impeachment was voted and sent up to the Lords, but was there dismissed. On the death of the King, Somers retired almost entirely into private life.
of the Royal Society
from 1698 to 1703. He was, however, active in 1702 in opposing the Occasional Conformity Bill, and in 1706 was one of the managers of the union with Scotland
. In the same year he carried a bill regulating and improving the proceedings of the law courts. He was made Lord President of the Council
in 1708 upon the return of the Whigs to power, and retained the office until their downfall in 1710. He spent his later years at Brookmans Park
in Hertfordshire. Somers died on the day the Septennial Bill
—which extended the maximum life of parliaments from three years to seven—passed the Commons. A story, possibly apocryphal, goes that Charles Townshend
visited Somers during his last illness, with Somers saying to Townshend on his death bed:
Somers never married, but left two sisters, of whom the eldest, Mary, married Charles Cocks, whose grandson, Sir Charles Cocks, Bt., became the second Lord Somers in 1784, the title subsequently descending in this line.
for those living in the reigns of King George I and George II. William Pitt the Elder
stated in 1761 that "he learnt his maxims and principles" from "the greatest lawyers, generals and patriots of King William's days: named Lord Somers". For the later eighteenth century Whig politician, Edmund Burke
, Somers was of the "Old Whigs" whom he admired against the New Whigs who supported the French Revolution
. Burke wrote that: "I never desire to be thought a better whig than Lord Somers". The Whig historian Thomas Macaulay, writing in the nineteenth century, held Somers in high esteem:
A fire at the law offices of Charles Yorke in Lincoln's Inn Square on 27 January 1752 destroyed a large amount of Somers' surviving private papers.
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
, FRS (4 March 1651 – 26 April 1716) was an English Whig jurist and statesman. Somers first came to national attention in the trial of the Seven Bishops
Seven Bishops
thumb|200px|A portrait of the Seven Bishops.The Seven Bishops of the Church of England were those imprisoned and tried for seditious libel over their opposition to the second Declaration of Indulgence issued by James II in 1688...
where he was on the their defence counsel. He published tracts on political topics such as the succession to the crown, where he elaborated his Whig principles in support of the Exclusionists. He played a leading part in shaping the Revolution settlement. He was Lord High Chancellor of England
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
under King William III
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
and was a chief architect of the union between England and Scotland achieved in 1707 and the Protestant succession achieved in 1714. He was a leading Whig during the twenty-five years after 1688.
Early life
He was born at ClainesClaines
Claines is a small village just to the north of Worcester, England, on the left bank of the River Severn. Claines is situated in the heart of Worcestershire on the A449 between Worcester and Kidderminster. It has a church which dates from the 10th Century....
, near Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
, the eldest son of John Somers, an attorney in large practice in that town, who had formerly fought on the side of the Parliament, and of Catherine Ceaverne of Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
. After being at school at Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, and Worcester he was entered as a 'gentleman commoner' at Trinity College, Oxford
Trinity College, Oxford
The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...
, and afterwards studied law under Sir Francis Winnington
Francis Winnington (Solicitor-General)
Sir Francis Winnington was a successful lawyer in England, who became Solicitor-General to King Charles II.He entered the Middle Temple in 1656 and was called to the bar in 1660 and rose steadily, serving as counsel in various Parliamentary impeachments...
, who became solicitor-general, and joined the Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...
.
Early political career
He soon became intimate with the leaders of the country party especially with Lord EssexArthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex
Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex PC , whose surname is sometimes spelled Capel, was an English statesman.-Early life:...
, William Russell
William Russell, Lord Russell
William Russell, Lord Russell was an English politician. He was a leading member of the Country Party, forerunners of the Whigs, who opposed the succession of James II during the reign of Charles II, ultimately resulting in his execution for treason.-Early life and marriage:Russell was the third...
, and Algernon Sidney but never entered into their plans so far as to commit himself beyond recall. He was the author of a pamphlet supporting the Exclusion Bill
Exclusion Bill
The Exclusion Crisis ran from 1678 through 1681 in the reign of Charles II of England. The Exclusion Bill sought to exclude the king's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he was Roman Catholic...
, A Brief History of the Succession, Collected out of the Records and the Most Authentical Historians (1680). Somers showed that Parliament had for centuries regulated the succession of the English crown against the arguments of those who believed that Parliament had no right to alter the succession. Before the Norman Conquest of England
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
in 1066, the Anglo-Saxon kings had been elected, and even after it Parliament had deposed kings and kings in turn had confirmed their title by Act of Parliament. Somers concluded:
...it hath been the constant opinion of all Ages that the Parliament of England had an unquestionable power to limit, restrain and qualify the Succession as they pleased, and that in all Ages they have put their power in practice; and that the Historian had reason for saying that seldom or never the third Heir in a right descent enjoyed the Crown of England.
He was reputed to have written the Just and Modest Vindication of the Two Last Parliaments, which was published in April 1681 as the answer to Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
's famous declaration of his reasons for dissolving them. The authorship of this has been disputed. According to Bishop Burnet it was "first penned by Sidney; but a new draught was made by Somers, and corrected by Jones
William Jones (law-officer)
-Life:He was son of Richard Jones, of Stowey, Somerset, M.P. for Somerset in 1654, and entered Gray's Inn on 6 May 1647. He was called to the bar, and acquired a practice in the court of king's bench...
". Lord Hardwicke
Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke
Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke PC was an English lawyer and politician who served as Lord Chancellor. He was a close confidant of the Duke of Newcastle, Prime Minister between 1754 and 1756 and 1757 until 1762....
saw a copy in Somers's handwriting amongst his manuscripts before they were destroyed by fire in 1752.
In 1681 Lord Shaftesbury was sent to the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
without bail or recourse to a trial. In November he was charged at the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
for high treason, specifically for intending to levy war against the king. However the grand jury of Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
threw out the bill against Lord Shaftesbury, and were vehemently attacked for so doing by government supporters. Somers published anonymously The Security of Englishmen's Lives, or, The Trust, Power, and Duty of the Grand Juries of England in 1681. Somers acknowledged that judges may advise but juries "are bound by their Oaths to present the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth, to the best of their own, not the Judges', Knowledge". The monarch must ensure that justice is carried out:
Whosoever hath learnt that the Kings of England were ordained for the good Government of the Kingdom in the Execution of the Laws, must needs know, that the King cannot lawfully seek any other benefit in judicial proceedings, than that common Right and Justice be done to the People according to their Laws and Customs.
Somers went on to argue that the monarch should hold the protection of the innocent above the punishment of the guilty:
If a Criminal should be acquitted wrongfully he may be reserved for future Justice from Man or God, if he doth not repent; but 'tis impossible that satisfaction or reparation should be made for innocent Bloodshed in the forms of Justice.
In 1683 he was counsel for the sheriffs Pilkington and Shute before the court of King’s Bench, and secured a reputation which continually increased until the trial of the Seven Bishops
Seven Bishops
thumb|200px|A portrait of the Seven Bishops.The Seven Bishops of the Church of England were those imprisoned and tried for seditious libel over their opposition to the second Declaration of Indulgence issued by James II in 1688...
, in which he was junior counsel. One of the bishop's objected that "too young and obscure a Man" should be retained on the defence counsel but Sir Henry Pollexfen
Henry Pollexfen
Sir Henry Pollexfen was a British judge and politician. He was the son of Andrew Pollexfen and his wife Joan, and the brother of John Pollexfen, the British political economist. He entered Inner Temple in 1652, was called to the bar in 1658 and by 1662 he was pleading before the high courts at...
refused to participate in the trial without him, saying that Somers was "the Man who would take most Pains, and go deepest into all that depended on Precedents and Records". In Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay PC was a British poet, historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, and on British history...
's words: "Somers rose last. He spoke little more than five minutes: but every word was full of weighty matter; and when he sate down his reputation as an orator and a constitutional lawyer was established". In his speech Somers cited the case of Thomas v. Sorrel (1674) whereby it was ruled that no Act of Parliament could be abrogated except through Parliament. The bishops' petition had been described as a false, malicious and seditious libel. In his peroration Somers answered this charge:
My Lord, as to all the matters of fact alleged in the Petition,—that they are perfectly true we have shown by the Journals of both Houses. In every instance which the petitioners mention, this power of dispensation was considered in Parliament, and, on debate, declared to be contrary to law. They could have no design to diminish the prerogative, because the King hath no such prerogative. Seditious, my Lord, the Petition could not be, for the matter of it must be seen to be strictly true. There could be nothing of malice, for the occasion, instead of being sought, was forced upon them. A libel it could not be, for the intent of the defendants was innocent, and they kept strictly within the bounds set by the law, which gives the subject leave to apply to his Prince by petition when he is aggrieved.
Glorious Revolution
In the secret councils of those who were planning the Glorious RevolutionGlorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
Somers took a leading part, and in the Convention Parliament
Convention Parliament (1689)
The English Convention was an irregular assembly of the Parliament of England which transferred the Crowns of England and Ireland from James II to William III...
was elected a member for his native city. He was immediately appointed one of the managers for the Commons in the conferences between the houses, and in arguing the questions whether James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
had left the throne vacant by abdication and whether the acts of the Convention Parliament were legal—that parliament having been summoned without the usual writs—he displayed great learning and legal subtlety.
In his maiden speech
Maiden speech
A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament.Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country...
on 28 January 1689, Somers argued that James II had forfeited his claim to the allegiance of the English by casting himself into the hands of Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
and conspiring to "to subject the Nation to the Pope, as much as to a foreign prince". On 6 February Somers advocated the word "abdicate" rather than "desert" (which the House of Lords favoured) to describe James' flight to France. He concluded by stating that James' actions were a prime example of the act of abdicating:
That King James II, by going about to subvert the constitution, and by breaking the original contract between king and people, and by violating the fundamental laws, and withdrawing himself out of the kingdom, hath thereby renounced to be a king according to the constitution, by avowing to govern by a despotic power, unknown to the constitution, and inconsistent with it; he hath renounced to be a king according to the law, such a king as he swore to be at his coronation, such a king to whom the allegiance of an English subject is due.
Challenged by the Lords to produce a precedent whereby England had been without a monarch, Somers referred to a parliamentary roll from 1399 that stated that the throne had been unoccupied between the reigns of Richard II
Richard II of England
Richard II was King of England, a member of the House of Plantagenet and the last of its main-line kings. He ruled from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard was a son of Edward, the Black Prince, and was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III...
and Henry IV
Henry IV of England
Henry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland . He was the ninth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry Bolingbroke...
. Somers could not point to the interregnum of 1649–1660 because by law the reign of Charles II had started after the execution of Charles I. The Lords replied by pointing to a roll from the first year of the reign of Edward IV
Edward IV of England
Edward IV was King of England from 4 March 1461 until 3 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death. He was the first Yorkist King of England...
which showed that the roll of 1399 had been annulled. Sir George Treby
George Treby (judge)
Sir George Treby JP was a British justice and politician.-Early life and education:He was the oldest son of Peter Treby, a barrister at the Court of Common Pleas and his wife Joan. He was educated at Plympton School, and was accepted into Exeter College, Oxford in June 1660...
supported Somers by producing the roll of the first year of the reign of Henry VII
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....
which repealed Edward IV's roll. Eventually the Lords accepted the abdication clause and that the throne was vacant at the behest of William, and passed a resolution affirming William and Mary's right to the crown.
Although some historians such as Macaulay have claimed Somers was made chairman of the committee which drew up the Declaration of Right, the committee's report was delivered to the Commons by Sir George Treby (the chairman always delivered the report to the House). However Somers did play a leading part in drawing up the Declaration, which would be passed in Parliament and become known as the Bill of Rights 1689
Bill of Rights 1689
The Bill of Rights or the Bill of Rights 1688 is an Act of the Parliament of England.The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16 December 1689. It was a re-statement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 ,...
. Although later generations exaggerated Somers role as architect of the Bill of Rights, his biographer asserts that no one else can have a better claim to that title. Somers published anonymously A Vindication of the Proceedings of the Late Parliament of England in 1690. Here, Somers justified the war against France and Bill of Rights:
The proceedings of the late parliament were so fair, so prudent, so necessary, and so advantageous to the nation, to the protestant interest in general, and in particular to the church of England, that all true Englishmen must needs acknowledge they owe to the then representatives of the nation, their privileges, their liberties, their lives, their religion, their present and future security from popery, slavery, and arbitrary power, had they done nothing else but enacted the rights and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown.
Somers went on to place the abolishing of the dispensing power of sovereigns first, then the parliamentary control of taxation, the outlawing of standing armies
Standing army
A standing army is a professional permanent army. It is composed of full-time career soldiers and is not disbanded during times of peace. It differs from army reserves, who are activated only during wars or natural disasters...
in time of peace unless Parliament decided otherwise, and the royal succession. Somers argued for the vital importance of the rule of law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
:
Our happiness then consists in this, that our princes are tied up to the law as well as we, and upon an especial account obliged to keep it up in full force, because if they destroyed the law, they destroyed at the same time themselves, by overthrowing the very foundation of their kingly grandeur and regal power. So that our government not being arbitrary, but legal, not absolute but political, our princes can never become arbitrary, absolute, or tyrants, without forfeiting at the same time their royal character, by the breach of the essential conditions of their regal power, which are to act according to the ancient customs and standing laws of the nation.
Ministerial career
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
's most confidential adviser. In the controversy which arose between the Houses on the question of the legality of the decision of the court of King's Bench regarding Titus Oates
Titus Oates
Titus Oates was an English perjurer who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II.-Early life:...
, and of the action of the Lords in sustaining this decision, Somers was again the leading manager for the Commons, and has left a clear and interesting account of the debates. He was next employed in January 1690 as chairman of the select committee of the House of Commons on the Corporation Bill, by which those corporations which had surrendered their charters to the Crown during the last two reigns were restored to their rights; but he refused to associate himself with the violent measures of retaliation which the Whigs on that occasion endeavoured to include in the bill. In April a speech by him carried through the lower house, without opposition, the bill which declared all the laws passed by the Convention Parliament to be valid. As solicitor-general he had to conduct the prosecution of Preston and Asbton in 1691, and did so with a moderation and humanity which were in marked contrast to the customs of the former reigns. He was soon after appointed attorney-general, and in that capacity strongly opposed the bill for the regulation of trials in cases of high treason. In December 1692 Somers introduced into the commons a Bill "for the preservation of their Majesties' persons and government". The two main provisions of the Bill were severe penalties for anyone who spoke or printed asserted or implied that William and Mary were monarchs only "in fact" and not "of right", and a new oath for all who held offices of profit under the Crown in which they had to swear to defend the government against the exiled king James and his adherents. However the Bill was defeated by 200 to 175.
On 23 March 1693, the great seal having meanwhile been in commission, Somers was appointed Lord-Keeper, with a pension of £2000 a year from the day on which he should quit his office, and at the same time was made a privy councillor. He had previously been knighted. Somers now became the most prominent member of the Whig Junto
Whig Junto
The Whig Junto is the name given to a group of leading Whigs who were seen to direct the management of the Whig party and often the government, during the reigns of William III and Anne. The Whig Junto proper consisted of John Somers, later Baron Somers; Charles Montagu, later Earl of Halifax;...
, the small council which comprised the chief members of the Whig party. When William left in May 1695 to take command of the army in the Netherlands, Somers was made one of the seven lords-justices to whom the administration of the kingdom during his absence was entrusted; and he was instrumental in bringing about a reconciliation between William and the Princess Anne
Anne of Great Britain
Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...
.
Lord Chancellor and impeachment
In April 1697 Somers was made Lord ChancellorLord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
, and was created a peer by the title of Baron Somers, of Evesham. When the discussion arose on the question of disbanding the army, he summed up the case against disbanding, in answer to Trenchard in a remarkable pamphlet called The Balancing Letter. In August 1698 he went to Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in west Kent, England, about south-east of central London by road, by rail. The town is close to the border of the county of East Sussex...
for his health. While there he received the king’s letter announcing the first Partition Treaty, and at once replied with a memorandum representing the necessity in the state of feeling in England of avoiding further war. When the king, on the occasion of the Disbanding Bill, expressed his determination to leave the country, Somers boldly remonstrated, while he dearly expressed in a speech in the Lords the danger of the course that was being taken. Hitherto Somers's character had kept him free from attack at the hands of political opponents; but his connection in 1699 with the notorious Captain William Kidd
William Kidd
William "Captain" Kidd was a Scottish sailor remembered for his trial and execution for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean. Some modern historians deem his piratical reputation unjust, as there is evidence that Kidd acted only as a privateer...
, to the cost of whose expedition Somers had given £1,000, afforded an opportunity; the vote of censure, however, proposed upon him in the House of Commons for giving Kidd a commission under the great seal was rejected by 199 to 131. The attack was renewed shortly on the ground of his having accepted grants of Crown property to the amount of £1600 a year, but was again defeated. On the subject of the Irish forfeitures a third attack was made in 1700, a motion being brought forward to request the king to remove Somers from his counsels and presence for ever; but this again was rejected by a large majority. In consequence, however, of the incessant agitation William now requested Somers to resign; this he refused to do, but gave up the seals to William's messenger. In 1701 he was impeached by the Commons on account of the part he had taken in the negotiations relating to the Partition Treaty in 1698, and defended himself most ably before the house, answering the charges seriatim
Seriatim
Seriatim is a legal term typically used to indicate that a court is addressing multiple issues in a certain order, such as the order that the issues were originally presented to the court....
. The impeachment was voted and sent up to the Lords, but was there dismissed. On the death of the King, Somers retired almost entirely into private life.
Later life
He was PresidentPresident of the Royal Society
The president of the Royal Society is the elected director of the Royal Society of London. After informal meetings at Gresham College, the Royal Society was founded officially on 15 July 1662 for the encouragement of ‘philosophical studies’, by a royal charter which nominated William Brouncker as...
of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
from 1698 to 1703. He was, however, active in 1702 in opposing the Occasional Conformity Bill, and in 1706 was one of the managers of the union with Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. In the same year he carried a bill regulating and improving the proceedings of the law courts. He was made Lord President of the Council
Lord President of the Council
The Lord President of the Council is the fourth of the Great Officers of State of the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord High Treasurer and above the Lord Privy Seal. The Lord President usually attends each meeting of the Privy Council, presenting business for the monarch's approval...
in 1708 upon the return of the Whigs to power, and retained the office until their downfall in 1710. He spent his later years at Brookmans Park
Brookmans Park
Brookmans Park is a village, located in the civil parish of North Mymms, in Hertfordshire, southeast England. It is well known for its varied and interesting local history, including an ancient historic estate that used to exist within its boundaries, its BBC transmitter station, and excellent...
in Hertfordshire. Somers died on the day the Septennial Bill
Septennial Act 1715
The Septennial Act 1715 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. It was passed in May 1716. It increased the maximum length of a parliament from three years to seven...
—which extended the maximum life of parliaments from three years to seven—passed the Commons. A story, possibly apocryphal, goes that Charles Townshend
Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend
Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend Bt, KG, PC was a British Whig statesman. He served for a decade as Secretary of State, directing British foreign policy...
visited Somers during his last illness, with Somers saying to Townshend on his death bed:
I have just heard of the work in which you are engaged, and [I] congratulate you upon it. I never approved the Triennial Bill, and always considered it, in effect, the reverse of what it was intended. You have my hearty approbation of this business, and I think it will be the greatest support possible to the liberty of the country.
Somers never married, but left two sisters, of whom the eldest, Mary, married Charles Cocks, whose grandson, Sir Charles Cocks, Bt., became the second Lord Somers in 1784, the title subsequently descending in this line.
Legacy
In the eighteenth century Somers was hailed as the chief constitutional architect of the Protestant succession. The achievements of Somers and other Whig lawyers defined WhiggismWhiggism
Whiggism, sometimes spelled Whigism, is a historical political philosophy that grew out of the Parliamentarian faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The whigs' key policy positions were the supremacy of Parliament , toleration for Protestant dissenters, and opposition to a Catholic on the...
for those living in the reigns of King George I and George II. William Pitt the Elder
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham PC was a British Whig statesman who led Britain during the Seven Years' War...
stated in 1761 that "he learnt his maxims and principles" from "the greatest lawyers, generals and patriots of King William's days: named Lord Somers". For the later eighteenth century Whig politician, Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, Somers was of the "Old Whigs" whom he admired against the New Whigs who supported the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. Burke wrote that: "I never desire to be thought a better whig than Lord Somers". The Whig historian Thomas Macaulay, writing in the nineteenth century, held Somers in high esteem:
...the greatest man among the members of the Junto, and in some respects, the greatest man of that age, was the Lord Keeper Somers. He was equally eminent as a jurist and as a politician, as an orator, and as a writer. His speeches have perished; but his State papers remain, and are models of terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence. He had left a great reputation in the House of Commons, where he had, for four years, been always heard with delight; and the Whig members still looked up to him as their leader, and still held their meetings under his roof. ... In truth, he united all the qualities of a great judge, an intellect comprehensive, quick and acute, diligence, integrity, patience, suavity. In council, the calm wisdom, which he possessed in a measure rarely found among men of parts so quick and of opinions so decided as his, acquired for him the authority of an oracle. ... From the beginning to the end of his public life he was a steady Whig.
A fire at the law offices of Charles Yorke in Lincoln's Inn Square on 27 January 1752 destroyed a large amount of Somers' surviving private papers.
Further reading
- Richard Cooksey, Essay on the Life and Character of John Lord Somers (1791).
- Maddock, Account of the Life and Writings of Lord-Chancellor Somers (1812).
- John Oldmixon, Memoirs of the Life of John, Lord Somers (1716).
- L. G. Schwoerer, The Declaration of Rights, 1689 (1981).