A change equally great was taking place with respect to the Peers, or
Lords.[2] As that body has played a most important part in the
government of England and still retains considerable influence, it may
be well to consider its history and present condition.
[2] Peers (from the Latin pares, equals): The word first occurs in an
act of Parliament, 1321,--"Pares et proceres regni Angliae spirituales
et temporales." The name Peers, referring to the House of Lords, is
here limited, as it has been ever since, to the higher clergy (now
consisting of certain bishops) and to the hereditary nobility.
It will be remembered that the peerage originated with the Norman
Conquest. William rewarded the barons, or chief men, who fought under
him at Hastings[3] with grants of immense estates, which were given on
two conditions: one of military service at the call of the Sovereign
(S150); the other their attendance, when required, at the Great or
Royal Council (S144), an advisory and legislative body which contained
the germ of what later came to be called Parliament.
It will thus be seen that the Conqueror made the possession of landed
property directly dependent on the discharge of public duties. So
that if, on the one hand, the Conquest carried out the principle
"That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can,"[1]
on the other, it insisted on the higher principle that in return for
such *taking* and *keeping* the victors should bind themselves by oath
to help defend the kingdom, and to help govern it.
[1] Wordsworth's "Rob Roy's Grave."
In later reigns the King summoned other influential men to attend
Parliament. To distinguish them from the original barons by land
tenure, they were called "barons by writ" (S263). Subsequently it
became customary for the Sovereign to create barons by letters patent,
as is the method at present (S263).
Edward I, 1295, is generally considered to have been the "Creator of
the House of Lords" in the form in which it has since stood.[2] From
his time the right to sit in the House of Lords was limited to those
whom the King summoned, namely, the hereditary Peers (save in the case
of a very limited number of life Peers), and to the upper clergy.
[2] W. Stubb's "English Constitutional History," II, 184, 203; also
Feilden's "Short Constitutional History of England," pp. 121-122.
The original baronage continued predominant until the Wars of the
Roses (S316) destroyed so many of the ancient nobility that, as Lord
Beaconsfield says, "A Norman baron was almost as rare a being in
England then as a wolf is now." With the coming in of the Tudors a new
nobility was created (S352). Even this has become in great measure
extinct. Perhaps not more than a fourth of those who now sit in the
House of Lords can trace their titles further back than the Georges,
who created great numbers of Peers in return for political services
either rendered or expected.
Politically speaking, the nobility of England, unlike the old nobility
of France, is strictly confined and strictly descends to but one
member of the family,--the eldest son receiving the preference. None
of the children of the most powerful Duke or Lord has, during his
father's life, any civil or legal rights or privileges above that of
the poorest and most obscure native-born day laborer in Great
Britain.[1]
[1] Even the younger children of the Sovereign are no exception to
this rule. The only one born with a title is the eldest, who is Duke
of Cornwall by birth, and is created Prince of Wales. The others are
simply commoners. See E.A. Freeman's "Growth of the English
Constitution."
The whole number of Peers is about six hundred.[2] They own a very
large part of the land of England[3] and possess all the social and
political influence naturally belonging to such a body. Yet
notwithstanding the exclusive and aristocratic spirit of this long-
established class, it has always been ready to receive recruits from
the ranks of the people. For just as any boy in America feels himself
a possible senator or President, so any one born or naturalized in
England, like Pitt, Disraeli, Churchill, Nelson, Wellesley, Brougham,
Tennyson, Macaulay, Lord Lyndhurst,[4] and many others, may win his
way to a title, and also to a seat in the House of Lords, since brains
and character go to the front in England just as surely as they do
everywhere else.
[2] The full assembly of the House of Lords would consist of five
hundred and sixty-two temporal Peers and twenty-six spiritual Peers
(archbishops and bishops).
[3] So strictly is property entailed that there are proprietors of
large estates who cannot so much as cut down a tree without permission
of the heir. See Badeau's "English Aristocracy."
[4] J.S. Copley (Lord Lyndhurst), son of the famous artist, was born
in Boston in 1772. He became Lord Chancellor. All of the eminent men
named above rose from the ranks of the people and were made Peers of
the realm, either for life or as a hereditary right; and in a number
of cases, as the elder Pitt (Earl of Chatham), Wellesley (Duke of
Wellington), Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield), Copley (Lord Lyndhurst),
they received seats in the House of Lords.
In their legislative action the Lords are, with very rare exceptions,
extremely conservative. It is a "galling fact"[5] that they have
seldom granted their assent to any liberal measure except from
pressure of the most unmistakable kind. They opposed the Habeas
Corpus Act under Charles II, Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the Great
Reform Bill of 1832, the Education Bill of 1834, the repeal of the
Corn Laws in 1846, the admission of the Jews to Parliament in 1858,
and they very reluctantly consented to the necessity of granting later
extensions of the elective franchise.
[5] See A.L. Lowell's "The Government of England," I, 414, 422.
But, on the other hand, it was their influence which compelled John to
sign Magna Carta in 1215; it was one of their number--Simon de
Montfort, Earl of Leicester--who called the House of Commons into
being in 1265; and it was the Lords as leaders who inaugurated the
Revolution of 1688, and established constitutional sovereignty under
William and Mary in the place of the despotic self-will of James II.
Again, it was Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, and Mr. Disraeli, later
known as Lord Beaconsfield, who, as leaders of the Tory, or
Conservative, Party, felt obliged to carry the Reform Bill of 1867, by
which the right to vote was greatly extended among the people (S600).
Seven hundred years ago the House of Lords was the only legislative
and executive body in the country; now, nearly all the most important
business of Parliament is done in the House of Commons (consisting of
some six hundred and seventy members), and the Lords cannot vote a
penny of money for any purpose whatever unless Commons first passes a
bill to that effect (S281). Thus taxation, which is generally
regarded as the most important of all measures, has passedf from the
Lords to the direct representatives of the people.
At one time certain impatient Radicals in the House of Commons
denounced the Peers as "titled obstructionists." In fact, late in the
nineteenth century (1894) a resolution to put an end to their
obstructive power was carried in the Commons (when half the members
were absent) by a majority of two. But the vote was not taken
seriously, and the Lords were not called upon to go out of business.
The upper House has continued, on occasion, to exercise its
constitutional righ of vetoing bills sent up to it by the House of
Commons, though since 1860 it has rejected but one "Money Bill"
(1909), and that only temporarily (SS629, 631).[1] Since then the
Liberal Party has demanded more strenuously than ever that the veto
power of the Lords should be either greatly limited or abolished
altogether (SS629, 632).
[1] As far back as 1671, the House of Commons resolved "that in all
aids given to the King by the Commons, the rate or tax ought not to be
altered by the Lords." In 1678 they emphatically repeated this
resolution. In 1860 when the Lords rejected a "Money Bill" (for the
repeal of paper duties) the Commons vigorously protested, declaring
that they regarded the exercise of that power by the upper House with
"particular jealousy." From that time the Commons were careful to
include all the financial measures of the year in one bill, which the
Lords "were forced to accept or reject as a whole." See
H.S. Feilden's "Short Constitutional History of England," pp. 114-115,
and A.L. Lowell's "The Government of England," I, 400-401.
The House of Lords always includes a number of members eminent for
their judicial ability, some of whom have been created Peers for that
reason. This section acts as the National Court of Appeal and sits to
decide the highest questions of constitutional law. In this respect
it corresponds to the Supreme Court of the United States.