(II.) The House of Lords. Peers. held to be so thoroughly identified that his private estates were merged in the royal demesne and made incapable of alienation by will. After the restoration of the Crown lands to the nation, it was felt to be reasonable 'that a restriction which belonged to a past state of things should be swept away, and that sovereigns who had surrendered an usurped power which they ought never to have held should be restored to the enjoyment of a natural right which ought never to have been taken from them." Accordingly the Sovereign has again been invested with the right of acquir ing and disposing of private property in the same manner as any other member of the nation.2 II. The House of Lords. Since the Revolution, the House of Peers-the lineal representative of the old Great Councils and the older Witenagemots 3-has undergone changes in its numbers, composition, and political weight and influence, greater even than the changes which, during the same period, have so materially affected the practical exercise of the authority of the Crown in government and legislation. In the ParNumber of liament of 1454, the last held before the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses, the number of lay peers who attended was 53. In 1485, only 29 received writs of summons to the first Parliament of Henry VII. The greatest number summoned by Henry VIII. was 51, which had increased at the death of Elizabeth to 59. In the meantime, by the suppression of the monasteries and the consequent removal from the Upper House of about 36 abbots and priors, the spiritual peerage (including 5 of the new sees created by Henry VIII.5) had been reduced to the number of 26, at which it has ever since remained. Rapid increase under the Stuart kings. The four Stuart kings created 193 new peers, but as during their reigns 99 peerages became extinct, the number of the peerage at the Revolution of 1688 actually 1 Freeman, Growth of Eng. Const. p. 136; and see Allen, Royal Prerogative, p. 154. 2 See 39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 88; 4 Geo. IV. c. 18; 25 & 26 Vict. c. 37. 3 Supra, pp. 225, 227. • Supra, p. 370. 1719 and stood at about 150, which was raised by William III. and Queen Anne to 168. The House of Lords was Addition of further increased in 1707, on the passing of the Act of 16 representative peers Union with Scotland, by the addition of 16 representative of Scotland in 1707. peers from that kingdom, elected at the commencement of every Parliament. This rapid augmentation of the peerage, but more especially the realisation of the power of the Crown to swamp the majority in the Upper House (manifested in 1711 by Queen Anne's creation of 12 peers in one batch), excited the jealousy of the Lords: and this feeling-acting in conjunction with the fear lest the Prince of Wales, who was in opposition to his father, should on coming to the throne make use of his prerogative to overthrow the Whig majority in the Upper House by the creation of Tory peers-induced the Whig ministry Attempts to of Sunderland and Stanhope in 1719 and 1720 to support limit the prerogative proposals for the limitation of the royal prerogative of of creating creating peers. With the concurrence of George I., bills peers in were introduced, in the former year by the Duke of 1720. Somerset, and in the latter by the Duke of Buckingham, providing that, with an exception in favour of Princes of the Blood, the Crown should be restrained from augmenting the then existing number of 178 peerages by more than 6, although new peerages might be created in the place of any which should become extinct; and that 25 hereditary peers should be substituted for the 16 elective peers of Scotland. This unconstitutional scheme was strongly opposed in the House of Commons by Sir Robert Walpole and others, and finally rejected by a large majority (269 to 177). Its passing would have transformed the House of Lords into a close aristocratic body, independent alike of the Crown and of the people. It would have eliminated from the complex mechanism of the Constitution what has been termed its 'safetyvalve,' 2—that peer-creative power by which the Sovereign, on the advice of his responsible ministers, is enabled, in 1 Lord Mahon, Hist. of Eng. i. 530-546. 2 Bagehot, Eng. Const. 229. Profuse creation of Pitt and cases of great emergency, to force the peers to bow to the will of the people expressed by their representatives in the House of Commons, and thus to render possible the smooth and continuous working of our present system of Parliamentary government. At the accession of George III. the number of peerages peers under amounted to only 174, but throughout his long reign new George III. creations were multiplied with unprecedented profusion. In the earlier part of his reign the peer-creative power was mainly wielded by the King himself, as one means of carrying out his determination to break up the system of party government; but the younger William Pitt, the peerage. on acceding to office, employed it for another and a far nobler purpose. The consolidation of his own authority as Minister was naturally one of the objects which he had in view, but his great aim was to reform the House of Lords by changing it from a narrow and exclusive caste into a large representation of the intellect, the achievements, and more especially of the wealth of England. He wished, he said in effect, 'to reward eminent merit, to recruit the peerage from the great landowners and other opulent classes, and to render the Crown independent of factious combinations among the existing peers.”1 With this object, while himself disdaining honours, he dispensed them to others with the greatest profusion. In the first five years of his administration he created 48 new peers; at the end of eight years he had created between 60 and 70; and later, in the two years 1796-7, he created no less than 35. In 1801, at the end of his seventeen years' administration, his creations had reached the total of 141. The example set by Pitt was followed by succeeding ministers, and at the end of George III.'s long reign of sixty years the actual number of peerages conferred by that king (including some promotions of existing peers to 1 Speech on the 16th January, 1789, Cobbett's Parl. Hist. xxvii. 942, 943 ; May, Const. Hist. i. 278. a higher rank) amounted to the enormous number of 388. The House of Lords was further augmented on the Union with Ireland in 1801, by the addition of 28 Irish repre- Addition of sentative peers, elected, not for each Parliament like the Scotch representative peers, but for life.1 28 represen. only tative peers At of Ireland, 1801. 1 There were other differences in the mode of treating the Scotch and Irish The Peerages peerages. From the date of the Union with Scotland the Crown has been of Scotland debarred from creating any new Scottish peers, but the then existing peerage and Ireland. of Scotland was perpetuated in its integrity. On the Union with Ireland, however, it was determined to gradually diminish the excessive numbers of the Irish nobility, and it was therefore provided by the Act of Union that only one Irish peerage should be created for every three which should become extinct, until the reduction of the number to 100, at which figure it should be maintained by the creation of one Irish peerage as often as a peerage became extinct, or as often as an Irish peer should become entitled, by descent or creation, to a peerage of the United Kingdom. At the same time the privilege was granted to all Irish peers (except the representative twenty-eight for the time being) of sitting in the House of Commons if elected by any constituency in Great Britain, but not in Ireland. The peerage of both Scotland and Ireland has been undergoing a process of gradual absorption into the peerage of the United Kingdom. The inadequacy of the representation of the Scottish Peerage (which at the date of the Union was only less numerous by 12 than that of England) has since been rectified to a great extent by the admission of Scottish Peers to hereditary seats in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. There are now no less than 45 Peers of Scotland with such hereditary seats, and by this process of absorption, as well as by extinctions and dormancies, the number of Peers of Scotland who have not hereditary seats in the House of Lords has been diminished from 154 in 1707, to 34 in 1875. Out of these 34 Scottish Peers 16 have seats as Representative Peers, leaving only 18 without seats in the House of Lords. Of the 45 absorptions, 39 have taken place since the beginning of the present century. At that rate, and without taking into account possible extinctions, these 18 Peers may be absorbed in about 35 years' time. Whenever that event takes place the 16 remaining Scottish Peers, although still technically not embraced in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, would to all intents and purposes be included therein; and, instead of going through the farce of self-election, would, doubtless, be created hereditary Peers of Parliament. . . . The Peerage of Ireland, which in 1801 numbered 234, has been reduced by extinctions, and notwithstanding the creation of 19 post-Union Peers, to 185. Of these, no less than 81 are now Peers of the United Kingdom. Of the remaining 104, who are solely Peers of Ireland, 28 are Representative Peers, thus leaving 76 without seats in the House of Lords. Since the Union there have been 66 extinctions, in addition to the 81 absorptions into the Peerage of the United Kingdom. If the same average rates of extinction and absorption should continue, the 76 Peerages now without seats may be expected to be extinguished or absorbed in about 39 years. . . . It is as a means of perfecting the National and Representative character of the House of Lords, and of consummating the Parliamentary incorporation of the three United Kingdoms, that a measure for accelerating the gradual absorption of the Scotch and Irish Peerages into the Peerage of the United Kingdom, deserves the support of the National Parliament. But the point of greatest urgency at the present time is to put a stop to the creation of any fresh Irish Peerages, so as to allow the normal operation of extinctions and absorptions to continue to produce its natural effect.' Law Magazine and Review, No. ccxx. May, 1876, art. The Representative Peerage of Scotland and Ireland.' By T. P. Taswell-Langmead. [This question had also engaged Changes in the character House of the same time four Irish Bishops were admitted to seats in the Upper House of the United Kingdom, sitting by rotation of sessions as representatives of the Irish episcopate. But on the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869, the Irish bishops lost their seats in Parliament.1 The vast increase in the Peerage under George III. and compo- affected not merely the numbers but the whole character sition of the of the House of Lords. Up to this time,' observes a recent historian, it had been a small assembly of great nobles, bound together by family or party ties into a distinct power in the State. By pouring into it members Lords. the serious attention of the late Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, who, in 1874, on the occasion of the appointment of a Select Committee of the House of Lords to report upon "the state of the Representative Peerage of Scotland and Ireland and the laws relating thereto," printed a memoir on the subject, which he circulated privately among his brother Peers and others, and of which he kindly gave the present Editor a copy. Both schemes have the defect, as it appears to us, of not taking into account the alteration in numbers which would be effected in the Scottish and Irish Peerages by the revival of dormant titles and the reversal of attainders. The Earl of Crawford, dealing only with actual holders of Scottish and Irish Peerages, expressly excluded dormant titles from his view, and for the purposes of his scheme this included forfeited titles. Taswell-Langmead, it is believed, simply passed them by, without giving a thought to either case, probably as not seeming to him to be within the range of practical politics.' But a claim to a dormant Scottish or Irish peerage may, ex hypothesi, be established at any moment; and it is always possible that an Act may be passed to reverse a particular attainder. It would have been more satisfactory, therefore, to have had these further questions considered by two such specially competent authorities. It seems difficult to justify the continued detention 'in shade' (to adapt a well-known simile used by Lord Crawford) of so many illustrious titles, which the student of history may be excused for wishing to see once more brought out into the glad 'sunshine' of political life.—ED.] 1 Attempts were made in 1834, 1836, and 1837, to exclude the episcopal element altogether from the House of Lords, but unsuccessfully. It was, however, determined by the Legislature in 1847, when a new bishopric was created for Manchester, that no increase in the existing number of twenty-six bishops in the Upper House should take place (10 & 11 Vict., c. 108). The two Archbishops, and the Bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester, have always a right to sit in Parliament, but the bishop last elected to any other see (except Sodor and Man, whose bishop is in no case a lord of Parliament) cannot claim a seat until another vacancy has occurred. May, Const. Hist. i. 301; Stephen, Com. (5th ed.) iii. 10. [The case of the Bishop of Sodor and Man is peculiar, but the statement that he is "in no case a lord of Parliament " is perhaps too strong. There is probably no exact technical language suited to his position, the result, no doubt, of the continued separate identity of the Kingdom of Man, and of its former ecclesiastical relations with Scotland and Norway. The Bishop, we apprehend, was always a Baron of the Kingdom of Man.-ED.] 2 J. R. Green, Short Hist. of Eng. People, p. 792. |