only be reversed by act of parliament. The procedure in reversing an attainder and recovering a dignity is as follows. The Crown signifies its pleasure that a bill of restoration shall be prepared and signs it. The bill is then brought in to the House of Lords, passed there, and sent to the Commons for assent. The last bills of the kind became law in 1876, when Earl Cowper procured the removal of the attainder on one of his Ormond ancestors and so by purging the blood of corruption became entitled to, and was allowed, the barony of Butler of Moore Park (created in 1663). There should also be noted the Earldom of Mar Restitution Act 1885, which, while mainly confirmatory of a disputed succession, at the same time reversed any attainders that existed.
The House of Lords grew steadily throughout the Tudor period, and during the reign of the first two Stuarts underwent a still greater increase. In the Great Rebellion the majority of the peers were the king’s stoutest supporters and thus inevitably involved themselves in the ruin of the royal cause. Immediately after the execution of Charles I. the Republicans proceeded Commonwealth Abolition of the Lords. to sweep away everything which savoured of monarchy and aristocracy. The House of Commons voted the Lords “useless and dangerous,” got rid of them as a part of parliament by the simple expedient of a resolution (Comms. Journs. 1648-1649, vi. III) and placed the sole executive power in Cromwell’s hands, but there was no direct abolition of the peerage as such. Evidently it took Cromwell but little time to realize the fallacy, in practice, of single-chamber government, as he is found ten years after the “useless and dangerous” resolution busy establishing a second chamber.[1] What to call it aroused much discussion, and eventually the unruly Commons consented to speak of and deal with “the other Cromwell’s House of Lords house.” It is very difficult to realize what was the constitution of this body, so short was its life and so contemptuous its treatment by the Commons. The members of “the other house” were summoned by writs under the Great Seal, similar in form to those used to summon peers of past days. Some sixty writs were issued, and presumably their recipients were entitled thereby to sit for the duration of the parliament to which they were summoned; but it may be considered as certain that Cromwell’s lords were never regarded as hereditary peers. They were entitled to the courtesy appellation “Lord” and appear to have been in the main substantial men—existing peers, judges, distinguished lawyers and members of well-known county families Judging from Cromwell’s speech at the opening of parliament, and subsequent entries in Whitelock’s diaries, the new house appears to have had revising functions both of a legislative and judicial nature and also the duty of taking cognizance of foreign affairs. Cromwell certainly issued two patents of hereditary peerage-the barony of Burnell and the barony of Gilsland (with which went the viscount of Howard of Morpeth), but neither title was recognized on the Restoration, and it does not appear that the possession of these titles ever conferred on their holders any hereditary right to a writ of summons to sit in “the other house.” Whitelock himself was promised a viscount by Cromwell, but no patent ever appears to have passed the Great Seal. Eventually business between the two houses grew impossible, and Cromwell was compelled to dissolve parliament. Richard’s first parliament also contained Lords as well as Commons, the latter considerately voting “to transact business with the persons sitting in the other house as an House of Parliament, saving the right of the peers who had been faithful to the parliament,” the saving clause evidently a loophole for the future The dissolution of this parliament and the retirement of the protector Richard into private life preceded by only a few months the restoration to the throne of Charles II. With the king the peers returned to their ancient places
From the reign of William of Orange the peerage has been freshened by a steady stream of men who as a rule have served their country as statesmen, lawyers and soldiers. Little of note occurred in the history of the peerage until the reign of Anne. By the Act of Union with Scotland (1707) Scottish Representative Peers. the Scottish parliament was abolished, but the Scottish peerage were given the privilege of electing, for each parliament of Great Britain, sixteen of their number to represent them in the House of Lords. Further creations in the Scottish peerage were no longer to be made. The effect of this act was to leave the great majority of the Scottish peers outside the House of Lords, as only sixteen of their number were to become lords of parliament. Close upon a hundred years later Ireland was united with Great Britain, the Irish parliament being merged in the parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Twenty-eight Irish peers were to be elected for life by their order to represent it in the House of Lords. One archbishop and three bishops were also chosen in Irish Representative Peers. turn to represent the Irish Church in the House of Lords, but when that Church was disestablished in 1867 the spiritual lords lost their seats. The merger of the three kingdoms had an important effect on their peerages. Every peer in his own country had been a lord of parliament by hereditary right. The English peer (and, as the Acts of Union were passed, the peer of Great Britain and the peer of the United Kingdom) continued by hereditary right a lord of parliament. The Scottish and Irish peers lost this right though by the two Acts of Union they retained every other privilege of peerage. Henceforth they were lords of parliament only as and when their fellow peers elected them. Thus though not all were lords of parliament in esse, every one was always so in posse and in any case it was the hereditary quality of the peerage which either actually seated its holder in the House of Lords or made it possible for him to get there by the votes of his fellows.
It now becomes possible to arrive at the modern meaning of the term “a peerage,” and we may define it as a dignity of England, Scotland or Ireland, which, by its hereditary quality, confers on its holder for the time being the right to be or not to be elected a lord of parliament. The term “peerage” Modern Meaning of “Peerage.” is also used in a collective sense.
The reign of Anne is remarkable for an attempt made by the House of Lords to limit its numbers by law. The queen, in order to secure a majority for the court party had created a batch of twelve peers at one time, a considerable number in relation to existing peerages; and it was feared this expedient might be used as a Queen Anne and Peerage Limitations. precedent. A peerage limitation bill was introduced into the House of Lords in 1719. Six new creations were to be allowed, but after these the Crown, except in the case of royal princes, was to create a new peerage only when an old one became extinct. Twenty-five hereditary peerages in Scotland were to take the place of the sixteen representative peers for all time. The bill passed the Lords, but was eventually thrown out in the House of Commons, though not by an overwhelming majority. In 1856 it was desired to strengthen the judicial element in the House of Lords, and the Crown issued letters patent creating Sir James Parke, one of the barons of the exchequer, Baron Wensleydale and a peer “for Wensleydale Case. and during the term of his natural life.” The burden of an hereditary peerage is heavy, and many men thoroughly well qualified in legal attainments have been known to refuse it on the ground of expense alone. This life-peerage was thought to be a way out of the difficulty, and it was on Lord Chancellor Cranworth’s advice that the Crown issued the Wensleydale patent. The House of Lords at once realized that the creation of life-peers, at the will of the ministry of the day, might put the hereditary section into an absolute minority, and possibly in time, by form of law, get rid of it altogether. Eventually it was decided by the house that “neither the said letters patent nor the said letters patent with the usual writ of summons enable the grantee to sit and vote in parliament,” a formal resolution which closed the door in the face of every
- ↑ Whitelock’s Memorials of English Affairs (in the reign of Charles I. and up to the Restoration) (1853 ed. iv. 313).
