ABSTRACT
Not only the composition but also the physical structure of the Elizabethan House of Lords [ Doc. 9 ] were strong reminders of the way in which parliaments had originated and developed as meetings of the monarch, his professional counsel and his great council (see p. 1). So too were the designated names of its venue – the Parliament House – and its chief bureaucrat, the Clerk of the Parliaments. Only the Queen (who did not attend business sessions), the lords spiritual and temporal, the legal assistants and the clerks might proceed beyond the ‘bar’ or rail running across the lower end of the chamber. In contrast, the Commons’ members, who crowded in behind their Speaker to attend the opening and closing ceremonies of Parliament, could not. This symbolised the fact that the knights and burgesses had begun as an afforcement, not an integral part, of parliaments.
