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mentaries on contemporary society. Gin Lane (1751) was an important contribution to the awareness of the problem of excessive gin consumption.

Holinshed, Raphael (1520–1581) chronicler

Probably born in Cheshire, Holinshed worked in LONDON as a translator for a printer, Reginald Wolfe, who was preparing a Universal History. When Wolfe died, Holinshed finished the work, changing the title to Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande (1577). His work was not critical and contained a multitude of fanciful as well as accurate materials. A later and larger edition in 1587 proved a valuable source for playwrights like William SHAKESPEARE.

Holland, Henry Fox, baron (1705–1774) politician

Fox entered PARLIAMENT in 1738; he became secretary for war (1746–54), SECRETARY OF STATE (1755–56), and paymaster general (1757–65). His experience and positions enabled him to become a master of political patronage and a very wealthy man. His cynical manipulation of power was typical of the old WHIGS, despised by GEORGE III and seen as corrupt by the new generation of politicians, which included his son Charles James FOX.

Holles, Denzil, baron (1599–1680) politician

A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT and opponent of

CHARLES I and the duke of BUCKINGHAM, Holles was one of the members who restrained the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE in 1629. He was imprisoned but was elected again in 1640. He was among the five MPs whom Charles tried to arrest in 1642, but after he fell out with the ARMY and radical leaders, he was out of political life until the RESTORATION. He was given a PEER- AGE in 1661, but he drifted into the opposition

again in the 1670s. He wrote tracts on the constitutional questions of his day, including one on

The Grand Question concerning the judicature of the House of Peers (on the case of Thomas Skinner) in 1669. His Memoirs were published in 1699.

Home, Alexander Frederick, 14th earl

of See DOUGLAS-HOME, SIR ALEC.

Home, Henry See KAMES, HENRY HOME, LORD.

Home Office

There were two secretaries of state until 1782, dividing the functions into the Northern and Southern departments. The duties were realigned into a home office and a foreign office in that year. The home secretary is responsible for public order, a portfolio which has grown dramatically since the 19th century. Supervision of POLICE forces, prisons, civil defense, IMMIGRATION, and broadcasting have swollen a department which once had a dozen civil servants into a massive enterprise employing many thousands.

See also SECRETARY OF STATE.

home rule See DEVOLUTION; IRISH HOME RULE.

Hong Kong

The island of Hong Kong offered a valuable deep-water port which GREAT BRITAIN seized during the OPIUM WARS. The possession was ratified by treaty in 1842, and the COLONY was expanded by acquisition of the Kowloon peninsula and the New Territories. The latter were leased for 99 years from the government of China in 1898. By the later 20th century, Hong Kong had become an extremely wealthy commercial and industrial center. When the colony’s lease was due to expire, arrangements were made to return all of the territories to the People’s Republic of China in 1997.

Hood, Samuel (1724–1816)

Admiral

Hood’s father was the rector of a PARISH in Somerset. Both Hood and his brother Alexander were sent to sea in 1741, and both would become admirals. Samuel served in the SEVEN YEARS’ WAR, and in 1767 he was made commander in chief on the North American station. In the 1770s he was stationed at Portsmouth and later had commands in the Battle of the Chesapeake (1781) and at Toulon (1793) and Corsica (1794). He also sat in PARLIAMENT for Westminster and was a lord of the ADMIRALTY (1788).

Hooke, Robert (1635–1703) scientist

Son of a clergyman in the Isle of Wight, Hooke attended Westminster School and OXFORD UNI- VERSITY. In 1665 he published Micrographia, a work on the nature of combustion. He invented marine barometers and was the first to use a spiral spring to regulate watches. He was the curator of the ROYAL SOCIETY, became the Surveyor of LONDON in 1667, and worked with Robert BOYLE on gases and Sir Isaac NEWTON on optics and astronomy.

Hooker, Richard (1554–1600) theologian

Hooker was born in Exeter to a family with modest means. With the help of the BISHOP of Salisbury, he went to Corpus Christi College, OXFORD UNIVERSITY, and he became a fellow of the college in 1577. His great work, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, was composed near the end of his life; the first part was published in 1593. This work was a stout defense of the Episcopal order against the independent claims of PURITANs. Hooker described the Elizabethan state as a joint community in which church and state were under the authority of the monarch, subject to the consent of the people, as embodied in the laws, civil and ecclesiastical. They were derived from the law of God, as interpreted by human reason.

House of Commons

The first parliaments were not divided into “houses.” They were meetings of the king’s great council (see HOUSE OF LORDS) which were from time to time supplemented by members chosen from the communities (i.e., “commons”) of shires (see COUNTY) and then BOROUGHS in the 13th century. The summons to attend a PARLIA- MENT was a burden, for the main task that awaited the members was to approve measures of TAXATION. That function, however, gave the commons their special and increasingly important role. They met separately, at first by reason of their marginal role in matters of state, and increasingly because they found added strength in their representative function. The group elected a SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE from 1376, though he was for several centuries a servant of the Crown, not the legislature. In 1547 they were given St. Stephen’s Chapel in Westminster for their meetings, and the house began to record its proceedings in a continuous Journal. In that same generation, HENRY VIII inadvertently enhanced the power of Parliament by using it to endorse the reform of the church and to adjust (many times) the royal succession. But still the members were not free to resist the power of the Crown. That only came about as a result of the struggles of the 17th century. The STUART monarchs held themselves above Parliament, but they were not able to govern without the fiscal support of the legislature. As a result, after the long parliamentary absence of 1629–40, the CIVIL WAR of 1642–50, and the coup d’etat of 1688–89, Parliament won the right to free speech, free and frequent elections, and control over taxation. The last power fell particularly to the Commons, where it had been de facto for a long time and by 1700 was clearly its province alone.

In the 18th century the Commons played a part in further development of the CABINET system and the place of the PRIME MINISTER, as Robert WALPOLE (in the 1730s and ’40s) and William PITT (in the 1780s and ’90s) sought the support of majorities in the lower chamber as their authority to lead the country. As the turn of the century came, that authority was sullied

Houses of Parliament, London, England (Library of Congress)

by the archaic and corrupt nature of the elec-

toral FRANCHISE. ROTTEN BOROUGHs—those that

sent MPs who had either bought their place or were given it by a patron—had clearly become a political machine from an earlier time. By 1832 the demand for reform was met by creating a uniform borough franchise (one for the counties had existed since 1429). The idea of property ownership still held sway as a basis for the vote, and it was expanded in 1867 and 1884.

Only in 1918 did the vote become a right belonging to all adult citizens. By that time the superior place of the House of Commons in the constitution had been recognized. In 1910 the House of Lords had rejected a BUDGET, an act which had not been attempted since the later 17th century. This violation of convention cre-

ated a crisis, two elections were held, and the governing LIBERAL PARTY emerged with the narrowest of majorities. Now the government advanced a plan to reform the Lords, formally denying them power to veto money bills and limiting them to two vetoes of any other bill. The Parliament Act of 1911 thus gave superior power to the House of Commons. The next major development saw the power of the Commons come more and more under the control of ministers, due to wartime centralization and to political party organization. Individual MPs had once been able to propose and obtain important legislative acts. That ceased to be the case during the 19th century. The nature of business and the complexity of modern industrial society account for some of the change. Other changes stem

from a more centralized, bureaucratic state and the existence of two very powerful centralized political parties.

The size of the House of Commons fluctuated considerably over 700 years, but the ratio of members to the total population fell dramatically. In 1295 there were about 290 members; in 1510 there were 296, but the size swelled to 469 in 1601 and 551 in 1689. Although 45 Scottish members were added in 1707, the total in 1790 was just 558. Union with IRELAND in 1801 added 100 members, and the total in 1900 was 670. At the end of the 20th century it was 630. This number represented a population of 58 million, compared with an estimated 3 million in 1300.

See also ACT OF PARLIAMENT; MEMBER OF PAR-

LIAMENT; REFORM ACTS.

House of Lords

The king’s council and the nobility of the realm were often called to meet with the sovereign. It was out of these meetings that the idea of a PAR- LIAMENT grew, so called when it was enhanced by the attendance of commoners. There was no distinct “house” of lords, and even the phrase was not used until there was a separate meeting place for the HOUSE OF COMMONS. The members of this ephemeral house were those of the PEERAGE who had been summoned individually by the king, including the BISHOPS and ARCHBISHOPS (the spiritual peers). Their numbers were relatively small: as few as 50 in the early TUDOR period, rising to 220 by the end of the 17th century. The House of Lords was briefly abolished, 1649–60. The Lords surrendered the power of TAXATION shortly after they were restored, but they retained the power to influence the election of MPs, to control the PRIVY COUNCIL and the later CABINET, and to manage the legislative agenda. After the RESTORATION, a flood of petitions came to the Lords and triggered the growth of judicial appeals, and the house became the nation’s highest appellate court. Thus, a major share of power remained with the Lords, at least until the 19th century.

Scottish representative peers (16) were added by the Act of UNION of 1707; Irish representative

peers (32) were added in the Act of Union of 1801. Life peerages were introduced for appellate judges (1876) and extended to laymen in 1958. But as the numbers of peers increased (590 in 1900; over 1,000 in 1970; and 1,290 in 1999), their powers diminished. The Parliament Act of 1911 took away any role in money bills and limited the Lords to two “suspensive” vetos (the third successive passage of a bill by the Commons meant it would become law). The latter was changed to a one-year delay in 1949. Consequently, for most of the 20th century the Lords have become a senior advisory and debating chamber. The greatest indignity was perhaps the recognition that the PRIME MINISTER could no longer sit there. The last peer to be prime minister was Lord SALISBURY, who left office in 1902. When Lord CURZON seemed the obvious candidate for the post (1923), he was passed over. When Lord Home (Alec DOUGLAS-HOME) was chosen in 1963, he had to renounce his title before taking office. The final indignity was the proposal to abolish the House of Lords, made by the LABOUR PARTY government of Tony BLAIR in 1997. The process of abolition began by reducing the peers’ numbers in 1999, and the main issue of what might replace the house remained in limbo at the beginning of the new millenium.

JUDICIAL COMMITTEE

Whatever happens to the legislative function of the house, there will undoubtedly be a continuing appellate body which functions in the legal system (see COURTS OF LAW). Originally, the house had several specific legal powers: to adjudge peerage claims, to hear charges against peers for treason or felony, and to sit as a court in IMPEACHMENTs. The house also had become the court for hearing writs of error from COMMON LAW courts. This power broadened in the late 17th century, when the house took appeals from the Court of CHANCERY (1660s) and then from the Scottish Court of SESSION (1709) and from the courts in IRELAND (1720). This appellate power became more cumbersome by the 19th century, due to a large quantity of Scottish appeals. In addition, by the 1840s it was established that lay

peers could not vote on appeals. Only the LORD CHANCELLOR, who presided in the house, and fellow judges who sat there were expected to deliberate. Due to a shortage of qualified peers, there was an attempt to create a life peerage for a judge in 1856. This was rebuffed by the house, but in 1876 an act allowed the creation of two lords of appeal with life peerages. The number of law lords has increased, and the house now divides them into committees to hear civil and criminal appeals. The lords’ decisions were formerly held to bind the lords themselves (stare decisis) but this was overruled in 1966.

Howard, Catherine (1521–1542) queen of England

The niece of Thomas HOWARD, the duke of Norfolk, Catherine Howard was the fifth wife of HENRY VIII. After their marriage in 1540 there were rumors of her adultery, and she confessed to prenuptial unchastity. Those implicated with her were arrested, two were sentenced to death, and she and her cousin, Lady Rochford, were convicted by act of ATTAINDER and beheaded in

the TOWER OF LONDON.

Howard, Charles See NOTTINGHAM,

CHARLES HOWARD, FIRST EARL OF.

Howard, Henry See SURREY, HENRY

HOWARD, EARL OF.

Howard, John (1726–1790) prison reformer

As the high SHERIFF of Bedfordshire, Howard was disturbed by the conditions of confinement and the treatment of prisoners by their jailers. He tried to convince his fellow MAGISTRATES to pay a salary to jailers instead of letting them extort fees from the prisoners, but his idea was too radical. He compiled a report on The State of the Prisons of England and Wales in 1777 which served as a prime mover for prison reform. He

made many journeys and surveyed conditions elsewhere. He died after he was stricken with jail fever on a tour in Russia.

Howard, Thomas See NORFOLK, THOMAS

HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF.

Howard, William, baron (1510–1573) admiral

Howard conducted diplomatic missions to SCOT- LAND and to France in the 1530s. He was convicted of concealing the treason of his niece Catherine HOWARD but was pardoned. As lord high admiral under MARY I, he helped put down Thomas WYATT’s rebellion in 1554. He subsequently served ELIZABETH I as lord chamberlain (1558–72).

Howe, Richard (1726–1799) admiral

The son of an Irish peer, Howe went to sea at 14 and sailed in George ANSON’s circumnavigation. He was a key figure in the American Revolution with his brother William HOWE. He was unable to subdue the American privateers, and when France joined the rebels, British naval superiority was threatened. In addition to his service at sea, he sat as a MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT for Dartmouth (1758–82) and served as first lord of the ADMIRALTY (1783–88). He was the commander at the “Glorious First of June” victory over the French in the English Channel (1794), and he played a major role in ending the SPITHEAD MUTINY in 1797.

Howe, William (1729–1814) general

The brother of Richard HOWE, William Howe served in several military campaigns and was a MEM- BER OF PARLIAMENT for Nottingham (1758–80). He served in the SEVEN YEARS’ WAR, returned to the AMERICAN COLONIES, and took part in the Battle of BUNKER HILL (1775). He was made commander in

1775, and took New York and Philadelphia. He resigned after General BURGOYNE lost the Battle of Saratoga (1778). He and his brother sought and obtained a parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the war.

Hume, David (1711–1776) philosopher

Hume was born in EDINBURGH and attended the university there. Though from a PRESBYTERIAN background, he became noted for his scepticism and his empiricism, which probably kept him from academic appointments. He was librarian for the Faculty of Advocates (1751–63) and he traveled extensively in ENGLAND and France. He wrote Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), which gave him a solid claim as a leader of the Scottish ENLIGHTENMENT. He also wrote History of England (1754–62), the work that gave him the greatest notoriety in his own time.

Hume, David (1757–1838) professor of law

The nephew of the philosopher of the same name, Hume was an advocate and professor of Scots Law at EDINBURGH University (1786–1822). His Commentaries on the Law of Scotland Respecting Crimes (1797–1800) was the first major treatise on that subject since the 17th century. He based it on research in the records of the High Court of JUSTICIARY, and it remains a classic in Scottish criminal law. His Lectures on the laws of SCOTLAND (published by the Stair Society in six volumes, 1939–58) gave a vivid picture of contemporary law and practice. Hume was later a judge of the Scottish Court of Exchequer, and he published a collection of Reports of Decisions, 1781–1822.

Hume, Joseph (1777–1855) radical politician

Hume was very young when his father, a Scottish seaman, died. His mother worked as a shop-

keeper to raise the children, and he was apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary at age 12. Later he went to INDIA as a surgeon with the EAST INDIA COMPANY, and there he earned enough to start a political career. A follower of Jeremy BENTHAM, he sat in PARLIAMENT between 1812 and 1855 and was a tireless advocate of REFORM ACTS. Although he was first elected as a TORY, he supported a broad array of reform ideas: extension of the vote, repeal of the COMBINATION ACTS,

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION, FREE TRADE, and reduc-

tion of government spending were all very high on his list. When he shifted his allegiance to the radicals (ca. 1818) he represented various Scottish BURGHS in Parliament.

Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453)

The term is applied to the intermittent warfare between ENGLAND and France from 1337 to 1453. The expression was first used in the later 19th century, and it has become the conventional, if inaccurate, label for periodic invasions by which English rulers from EDWARD III on sought to assert a claim to the throne of France.

The main line of succession to the French throne was broken in 1328, but it was only in 1340 that Edward asserted his modest claim through his mother Isabel of France. He was prompted to do so by the confiscation of Gascony and French threats to his interests in Flanders. The first phase of fighting saw notable English victories at Sluys (1340) and Crécy (1346), and the crushing defeat at Poitiers (1356), where the French king was captured and held for ransom.

French revival began by 1370, with victories over RICHARD II leading to a treaty and two decades of peace after 1396. In the new century, France experienced a civil war, and the conditions invited the aggressive campaign of HENRY V, who won the Battle of Agincourt (1415) and went on to secure the Treaty of TROYES (1420), which recognized him as the heir to the French throne. Henry’s death in 1422 passed the claim to his infant son, and HENRY VI was crowned in Paris in 1431. But the final French recovery had