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Irish repre

bishops.

Peerages of

At the same time, an addition of four lords spiritual was made to the House of Lords, to represent the episcopal body of Ireland, and to sit by rotation of sentative sessions; of whom an archbishop of the Church in Ireland is always to be one. At the Union there were twenty bishoprics and archbishoprics of the Church in Ireland; but provision was made in 1833, by the Church Tem poralities Act, for the reduction of that number to ten.1 Since the Union, further additions have continually beer made to the peerage of the United Kingdom; and an analysis of the existing peerage presents some the United singular results. In 1860, the House of Lords consisted of four hundred and sixty lords, spiritual and temporal. The number of hereditary peers of the United Kingdom, had risen to three hundred and creations. eighty-five, exclusive of the peers of the blood royal. Of these peerages, one hundred and twenty-eight were created, in the long reign of George III.; 2 forty-two in the reign of George IV.; and one hundred and seventeen since the accession of William IV. Thus two and hundred eighty-seven peerages have been created, or raised to their present rank,

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Kingdom.

Summary of

places in Ireland, as well as Great Britain. In "A Letter to the Earl of Listowel, M. P. for St. Alban's, by a 'Joint of the Tail,'" 1841, the position of his lordship as a peer of Ireland and a member of the House of Commons, was thus adverted to: "A peer, and in your own right — and yet a peer without rights! Possessor of a name, of a dignity having no better reality than in a sound. . . . True, you are at this moment a legislator, but by no right of birth, and only as a commoner; and, again, as representative for an English town, not for one in Ireland. However great your stake in that country, you could not, though fifty places were held open for you, accept one; your marrowless dignity gliding ghost-like in, to forbid the proffered seat."

1 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 37, Schedule B.

2 Viz., two dukes, thirteen marquesses, thirty-eight earls, eight vis counts, and sixty-seven barons.

8 One duke, two marquesses, seven earls, three viscounts, twenty-nine barons.

4 Two dukes, five marquesses, twenty earls, six viscounts, eighty-four

barons

since the accession of George III.; or very nearly three-fourths of the entire number. But this increase is exhibited by the existing peerage alone, notwithstanding the extinction or merger of numerous titles, in the interval. The actual number of creations during the reign of George III. amounted to three hundred and eighty-eight; or more than the entire present number of the peerage.1

No more than ninety-eight of the existing peerages claim Antiquity of an earlier creation than the reign of George III.; the peerage. but this fact is an imperfect criterion of the antiquity of the peerage. When the possessor of an ancient dignity is promoted to a higher grade in the peerage, his lesser dignity becomes merged in the greater, but more recent title. An earl of the fifteenth century, is transformed into a marquess of the nineteenth. Many of the families

from which existing peers are descended, are of great antiquity; and were noble before their admission to the peerage. Nor must the ancient nobility of the Scottish peerage be forgotten in the persons of those high-born men, who now figure on the roll, as peers of the United Kingdom, of comparatively recent creation.

Great as this increase of peerages has been, it has borne no proportion to the demands made upon the favor of the

1 The following Table, prepared by the late Mr. Pulman, Clarencieux King of Arms, was placed at my disposal by the kindness of his son: Statement showing the Number of Peerages created within periods of Twenty Years, from 1700 to 1821.

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Total number of Peerages created, 667; of which 388 were created be tween 1761 and 1821.

peerages.

Crown. We find in Lord Malmesbury's Diary for 1807 this entry: "Lord Whitworth and Mr. Heathcote Numerous (Sir William's son) urged me to apply for peer- claims to ages. I told them truly, there were no less than fifty-three candidates for peerage, and to none of which the king would listen." 1 And every minister since that time, has probably been obliged to resist the solicitations of not less than ten earnest claimants, for every peerage which he has advised the Crown to bestow. When Lord Grey was contemplating the creation of nearly one hundred peers in 1832, there was no lack of candidates, although the occasion was neither flattering to their self-esteem, nor free from offensive imputations. And, more recently, another minister discovered, in a single year, that upwards of thirty of his supporters were ambitious of the peerage, as an acknowledgment of their friendship towards himself, and devotion to his party.

Changes in the composition of the

With this large increase of numbers, the peerage has undergone further changes, no less remarkable, in its character and composition. It is no longer a council of the magnates of the land,- the terri- Peerage. torial aristocracy, the descendants or representatives of the barons of the olden time; but in each successive age, it has assumed a more popular and representative character. Men who have attained the first eminence in war and diplomacy, at the bar or in the senate, men wisest in council, and most eloquent in debate, have taken their place in its distinguished roll; and their historic names represent the glories of the age from which they sprung. Men who have amassed fortunes in commerce, or whose ancestors have enriched themselves by their own industry, have also been admitted to the privileged circle of the peerage. Men of the highest intellects, achievements, and wealth, the peerage has adopted and appropriated to itself: men of secondary pretensions, it has still left to the people.

1 Lord Malm. Diary, iv. 397.

Its represen

ter.

A body so constantly changed, and recruited from all classes of society, loses much of its distinctive tative charac- hereditary character. Peers sitting in Parlia ment by virtue of an hereditary right, share their privilege with so many, who by personal pretensions have recently been placed beside them, that the hereditary principle becomes divested of exclusive power, and invidious distinction.

tative principle.

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At the same time, the principle of representation has been Extension of largely introduced into the constitution of the the represen- House of Lords. The sixteen representative peers of Scotland, elected only for a Parliament; the twenty-eight representative peers of Ireland, elected for life; and the four Irish representative bishops, form a body as numerous as the entire peerage in the time of Henry VIII. And when to these are added the twenty-six English bishops, holding their seats for life, the total number of Lords not sitting by virtue of hereditary right, becomes a considerable element in the constitution of the Upper House.1

Disproportion

reditary and representative peers.

In analyzing these numbers, however, the growing disproportion between the representative lords, and the between he hereditary peers cannot fail to be apparent. If sixteen Scottish peers were deemed an inadequate representation of the ancient peerage of Scotland in the reign of Anne, what are they now, when the peerage of the United Kingdom has been trebled in numbers? But this inequality, - apparently excessive, has been corScottish peers rected by the admission of Scottish peers to he of Great Brit- reditary seats in the British House of Lords. At the present time the total number of Scottish peers amounts to seventy-eight, of whom no less than forty,

created peers

ain.

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11here are seventy-four lords of Parliament not sitting by hereditary right.

2 There are also two peeresses, and the Prince of Wales, who is Duke of Rothesay.

-or more than half,—sit in Parliament by virtue of British peerages, created in their favor since the Union.

sit denied.

Great was the jealousy with which the House of Lords at first regarded the admission of Scottish peers to Their right to the peerage of Great Britain. In 1711, the Duke of Hamilton was created Duke of Brandon, of the peerage of Great Britain: when the lords declared, by a majority of five, that no patent of honor granted to any peer of Great Britain who was a peer of Scotland at the time of the Union, entitled such peer to sit and vote in Parliament, or to sit upon the trial of peers. The undoubted prerogative of the queen was thus boldly set aside for a time, by an adverse determination of the House of Lords.

1

admitted.

At the time of this decision, the Duke of Queensberry was sitting by virtue of a British peerage, created Rights of since the Union. The determination of the Lords Scottish Peers prevented, for many years, the direct admission of any other Scottish peers to the peerage of Great Britain; but this restriction was cleverly evaded by frequent creations of their eldest sons, who, having obtained seats in the House of Lords, succeeded, on the death of their fathers, to their Scottish peerages. At length, in 1782, the question of the disability of Scottish peers to receive patents of peerage in Great Britain, was referred to the judges, who were unanimously of opinion that no such disability had ever been created by the Act of Union. The Lords, therefore, reversed the decision of 1711; and henceforth Scottish peers were freely admitted to the ranks of the British peerage.

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2

In 1787, another important question arose, affecting the rights of the Scottish peerage. It had been the plain intention of the Act of Union, that the peers of Scotland,

1 Lords' Journ. xix. 346; Peere Williams, i. 582; Burnet's Own Time 586; Somerville's Queen Anne, 549.

2 Walpole's Mem. of Geo. III. ii. 412.

8 6th June, 1782; Lords' Journ. xxxvi 517.

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