Ceremonial mace
The ceremonial function of the mace may have passed to the late Roman Empire from the ancient Near East by way of Persia,[3] and from there to other European cultures.
By the beginning of the Tudor period, however, the blade-like flanges, originally made for offence, degenerated into mere ornaments, while the increased importance of the end with the royal arms (afterwards enriched with a cresting) resulted in the reversal of the position.
[7] The House of Commons can only operate lawfully when the royal mace – dating from the reign of Charles II – is present at the table.
However, in the presence of the governor-general the mace is generally left outside and covered with a green cloth on the understanding that a symbol of royal authority is not needed where the Crown’s actual representative is present.
[11] The current mace is made of gilded silver, and was a gift to the House from King George VI on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Federation in 1951.
[12] In May 1914, Labor MP William Higgs played a practical joke on the House by hiding the mace under one of the opposition frontbenches.
[13] After initially denying his role in the incident,[14] Higgs apologised to his colleagues the following week, stating he had acted in "a spirit of frivolity".
On 27 April 1965, a day known in the Bahamas as "Black Tuesday", Lynden Pindling, then Opposition Leader, threw the 165-year-old Speaker's Mace out of a House of Assembly window to protest against the unfair gerrymandering of constituency boundaries by the then ruling United Bahamian Party (UBP) government.
The Speaker tried to restore order but he was reminded by Labour leader Randol Fawkes that the business of the House could not legally continue without the mace.
[18] On 3 December 2001, Cassius Stuart and Omar Smith, leader and deputy leader of the Bahamas Democratic Movement, a minor political party, charged from the public gallery onto the floor of the House of Assembly and handcuffed themselves to the Mace in protest against "unfair gerrymandering" of constituency boundaries by the Free National Movement (FNM) government.
The ceremonial maces in the Canadian Senate and House of Commons embody the authority each chamber derives from the country's sovereign.
The oldest documented use of a ceremonial mace in a legislature of a British North American colony was at the 1st General Assembly of Nova Scotia, which convened in 1758.
[21] This first mace was a primitive wooden implement, painted red and gilt and surmounted by a crown of thin brass strips.
In 1849, when the Parliament for the United Province of Canada was sitting in Montreal, it was stolen by a riotous mob, apparently intent upon destroying it in a public demonstration.
[17] Being a symbol of the power and authority of a legislative assembly, a precedent was set in 2002 as to the severity of acts of disrespect toward the mace in Canada and, by proxy, the monarch.
Martin was not permitted to resume his seat until he had issued a formal apology from the bar of the house, pursuant to a motion passed in response to the incident.
[21] Through some careful detective work on the part of Legislative Assembly staff, the original cup with Queen Victoria's monogram was recently[when?]
[28] The mace is a gadi, a traditional Fijian club[29]: 85 named for the type of hardwood tree it is made from,[30] and was decorated with silver palm leaves and doves upon Cakobau's conversion to Christianity.
It is carried into parliament by the mace bearer, and is always placed on the central table of the debating chamber with the head pointing toward the government benches.
In March 1991, Isahak Basir, a member of the People's Progressive Party (in opposition at the time), was expelled from parliament for removing the mace from its place on the table, and also for throwing his drinking glass at the Speaker.
[33] Originally gifted to Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, by a delegation of holy men on 14 August 1947, the sceptre was housed in the Allahabad Museum for seven decades.
[34] In 2023, the sceptre was moved to the newly-constructed Parliament House by the government of Narendra Modi, who propagated an ahistorical narrative by claiming the Sengol as a symbol of the transfer of power from the British regime unto Indians.
The present mace is modeled on that of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, differing only in that one of the panels instead depicts the Southern Cross and the initials "NZ".
[44] The mace is 1.498 metres long, made of sterling silver coated with 18 carat gilt gold and weighs 8.164 kilograms.
A mace made in 1765 for the Irish House of Commons is 1.5 m (58 in) long and weighs 8.4 kg (295 oz) and became redundant in 1801 with the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
In 1937, the Bank of Ireland bought the mace from the descendants of John Foster, its last Speaker, the House having ceased to exist upon the Acts of Union 1800.
Parliamentary democracy ceased in 1962, but when the regime of General Ne Win revived a one-party unicameral legislature in 1974, the mace-bearing ceremonial was abandoned.
The current mace is nearly four feet tall and is composed of 13 ebony rods tied together with silver strands criss-crossed over the length of the staff.
This design shows the staff with the appearance of a bundled fasces, sans ax, symbolizing unity, the rods representing the 13 original States.
The Maryland House of Delegates also has a very old ceremonial mace, although it is the plainest of all, having no ornamentation save some carved vegetation designs at its head.
