The arrangement traces its roots to a 1624 Commons resolution treating parliamentary service as an obligation.
Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth of Leicester De Montfort Law School traces how later statutory restrictions on holding Crown offices created a route around the resignation ban. The Chiltern Hundreds was first used for that purpose in 1750, and the two offices have served exclusively as the departure mechanism since 1865. Appointments are now routinely granted by the chancellor, although earlier chancellors sometimes exercised discretion for political ends.
The fiction has occasionally caused friction. In 2011 Gerry Adams denied seeking or accepting the Manor of Northstead, despite the chancellor treating his resignation letter as an application. As Arthur Balfour put it, the device remains ‘the most curious’ of constitutional survivals.
