George Ferrers

George Ferrers (c. 1500 – 1579 [H. R. Woudhuysen, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9360 ‘Ferrers, George (c.1510–1579)’] , "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 7 Sept 2008] ) was a Member of Parliament for Plymouth in the Parliament of 1542 and a minor court official who was a key figure in the formation of parliamentary privilege of freedom from arrest in England.

Ferrers had agreed for a friend to be a surety for one of his debts. Ferrers' friend had defaulted and so Ferrers—whilst on his way to the House of Commons in March 1542—was arrested and taken to a debtor's prison ("the Counter") by the creditor, a Mr. White, in order to get Ferrers to pay the debt. When Ferrers' fellow MPs heard of his arrest they ordered the Serjeant-at-Arms to go to the prison where Ferrers' was incarcerated to release him. The prison officers refused to release Ferrers and Raphael Holinshed's "Chronicle" claims that there:

ensued a fray within the Counter gates between Ferrers and the officers, not without hurt of either part, so that the serjeant was driven to defend himself with his mace of arms, and had the Crown thereof broken off by bearing off a stroke, and his man struck down.

Then two sheriffs of London turned up but when the Serjeant explained to them the situation and demanded Ferrers' release they, according to Holinshed, treated this "contemptuously, with many proud words". When the MPs heard from the serjeant what had happened they adjourned and congregated at the bar of the House of Lords where the Speaker of the House of Commons informed the Lords what had happened. Holinshed records that the Lords and judges "judged the contempt to be very great" and ruled that the Commons could punish the offenders however they saw fit. The Lord Chancellor offered the Commons a writ for Ferrers' release but they refused, according to Holinshed chronicles, "being in a clear opinion that all commandments and other acts of proceeding from the nether house were to be done and executed without writ, only by show of their serjeant's mace, which was his warrant".

When the prison officers heard of this they released Ferrers to the Serjeant-at-Arms, who then told the sheriffs and the prison officers and Mr. White to appear before the Commons at 8am the next morning. When they appeared before the Commons they brought the Recorder of London and prominent lawyers with them as a precaution but these were forbidden to speak on behalf of their clients. The Speaker accused them of contempt and so they were imprisoned in the Tower of London and other gaols where they were released two weeks later just before the prorogation of Parliament. The release of Ferrers meant that White could never recover the money owed to him because he could not have Ferrers arrested twice for the same debt. Therefore the MPs passed a Bill which enabled White his right of recovery for the debt. However White was not popular and it took nine to ten days to debate the Bill and it passed with a slim majority of fourteen.

King Henry VIII had been closely studying the developments of this situation and at the end of it all he assembled the Lord Chancellor, the judges, the Speaker and the "gravest persons of the nether house" in order to tell them of his opinion on the case. Henry started by congratulating the MPs for their struggles for the Commons' privileges which "he would not have to be infringed in any point" and reminded the MPs that they possessed a privilege "not only for your own persons but for your necessary servants even to your cooks and horse-keepers". Therefore, Henry added, "I being head of the Parliament and attending in my own person upon the business thereof ought to have privilege for me and all my servants attending there upon me" and that as Ferrers was also a court official as well as an MP he would have enjoyed the same privilege even if he had not been an MP. Henry believed that the privileges of Parliament derived from his own sovereignty and went on to say:

We be informed by our judges that we at no time stand so highly in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament, wherein we as head and you as members are conjoined and knit together into one body politic, so that whatsoever offence or injury during that time is offered to the meanest members of the House is to be judged as done against our person and the whole court of Parliament.

Therefore it was freedom from arrest from private persons during parliamentary sessions that the MPs and their servants enjoyed because it would inhibit the King's business by one of his subjects. Because of this, there was no freedom from arrest from one of the King's officers. This case was the first time in history when the Commons themselves had punished an offence committed against them. During the reign of Charles I the concept of parliamentary privilege had changed to include freedom from arrest from even the King.

References

* J. E. Powell, "Great Parliamentary Occasions" (The Queen Anne Press, 1966).
* Raphael Holinshed, "Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland: Volume III" (London: 1808), p. 824.
* "Journal of the House of Lords: Volume I, 1509-1577" (1802), p. 196.