Mum's 700th

In 1265, after defeating King Henry III at the battle of Lewes, Simon de Montfort, the ambitious French-born Earl of Leicester, summoned the barons, bishops and warrior knights of England to a national colloquy in London. To muster popular support for his cause among the new commercial classes, Montfort also took the unprecedented step of inviting each of the young nation's townships to send "two of their more discreet, lawful and trustworthy citizens or burgesses." By thus giving commoners a voice in government for the first time, Montfort, as Winston Churchill wrote, "lighted a fire never to be quenched in English history." Parliamentary democracy became England's rule of law, and today a dozen nations around the world have parliamentary governments on the Westminster model, while many more emulate its trappings.

The Prime Ministers of many of those nations were present last week to help the mother of parliaments celebrate her 700th birthday in Westminster Hall. Led by House Speaker Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, in full-bottomed wig, black court gown trimmed in white lace and silver-buckled shoes, speakers from 41 Commonwealth legislatures entered the cavernous, 11th century hall to a flourish of trumpets from the scarlet-clad Grenadier Guards. Then came Britain's Lord Chancellor, his robe brocaded in gold, at the head of a procession of Commonwealth legislators, lace jabots at their throats. Next came the plumed platoon of Her Majesty's Body Guard followed by the Queen's Bodyguard in scarlet Tudor tunics. To a final blast from the silver trumpets, Queen Elizabeth herself entered in gold coat and matching feathered toque.

"No one would claim," said the Queen from her cherry-pink and gold armchair at the head of the flower-festooned hall, "that Parliament has maintained an unblemished record in its evolution." Nonetheless, Elizabeth pointed out, "its importance to us today is that it stumbled upon and gave expression to ideas and principles which have been recognized and maintained with growing conviction ever since." All the same, the mother of parliaments has brought forth some odd offspring. Among the 21 Commonwealth ministers present, nearly a third came from countries such as Tanzania, Ghana and Malawi, where democracy is about as real as it was in pre-Montfort England.

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