CURRENT LITERATURE
HISTORY OF PARLIAMENT • Register of the Ministers and Members, 1439-1509
If Colonel Wedgwood had issued this second volume, a " Register," before the first devoted to " Biographies," the launching of the great Parliamentary History which he is editing for a Committee of Both Houses (H.M. Stationery Office, £2 a volume) would have been more propitious. For this " Register " is both interesting and informing. We have a compact account of 3o Parliaments, with the membership of each so far as it can be discovered : this fills 600 pages. Then there is a list of the constituencies, with all the members that represented them at various dates. And the general editor prefixes a long and able introduction, touching on the peerage, the methods of election to the Lower House, the composition of that House and the growing influx of officials and " carpet-baggers " and the sheriff's part in elections. He takes special care to show that fifteenth-century practice in the summoning of men to the Upper House contradicts— as indeed Round proved long ago—the peerage lawyer's doctrine that once a man has had a writ of summons his male heirs are ever after to share the privilege. Apparently a third volume of " Conclusions " will deal more fully with the growth of Parliament in this troubled period of civil war and dynastic change. But this " Register," which contains much new detail and is most intelligently arranged, will be welcome to students and promises well for the sections to come which - will have a wider interest.
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