Robert Geoffrey Ellis

“ When a trial takes place in full parliament a lord high steward is also appointed, but his powers there are confined to the presidency of the court, all the peers sitting as judges of law as well as of fact. Should the lord high steward be sitting as a court out of parliament he summons a number of peers to attend as a jury, but rules alone on all points of law and practice, the peers present being judges of fact only. ”

“ A man may be a peer and yet not a member of the House of Lords, a member of the House of Lords and yet not strictly a peer, though all peers (as the term is now understood) are members of the House of Lords either in esse or in posse. In the United Kingdom the rights, duties and privileges of peerage are centred in an individual; to the monarchical nations of the Continent nobility conveys the idea of family, as opposed to personal, privilege. ”

“ On the father’s death the peerage remains vested in the son. Should the son die without heir the peerage revests in the father. The invariable method of creation in all ordinary cases is by patent. The letters patent describe the name of the dignity, the person upon whom it is conferred, and specify its course of descent.
Claims to peerages are of two kinds (1) of right, (2) of grace. In theory the Crown, as the fountain of honour, might settle any claim without reference to the House of Lords and issue a writ of summons to its petitioner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The names of such peers are added to the voting-roll of the peerage, and when voting papers are distributed—the Irish peers do not meet for election purposes as do those of Scotland—they are sent only to those peers who have proved their right to vote. If any claim to the right to vote is rejected by the lord chancellor the claimant must prove his case before the Committee for Privileges (barony of Graves, 1907) . When an Irish peer has been elected a representative peer he receives, as a matter of course, a writ of summons at the beginning of each parliament. ”

“ The application of the doctrine of corruption of blood to peerages arises out of their close connexion with the tenure of land, peerage dignities never having been regarded as personal until well on into the 14th century. Conviction for any kind of felony—and treason originally was a form of felony—was always followed Attainder and Corruption of Blood. by attainder. This resulted in the immediate corruption of the blood of the offender, and its capacity for inheritance was lost for ever. Such corruption with all its consequences could be set aside only by act of parliament. ”

“ There is no limitation on the power of the Crown as to the number of United Kingdom peerages which may be created. As to Scotland, the Act of Union with that country operates to prevent any increase in the number of Scottish peerages, and consequently there have been no creations since 1707, with the result that the Scottish peerage, as a separate order, is gradually approaching extinction. The Irish peerage is supposed always to consist of one hundred exclusively Irish peers, and the Crown has power to grant Irish peerages up to the limit. ”

“ Peeresses and non-representative peers of Ireland and Scotland have, with the exception of the right to sit in the House of Lords and its attendant parliamentary privileges, every peerage privilege: a widowed peeress retains her privilege of peerage while unmarried, but loses it if she marries a commoner (Co. Litt. 166, Cowley v. Cowley [1901] A.C. 450) . Dissolution of marriage probably deprives a peeress of all peerage privileges which she acquired by marriage.
The children of peers are commoners. ”

“ A Scottish peer, if non-representative, is in the anomalous position of being disabled from serving his country in either house of parliament, but an Irish peer may sit for any House of Commons constituency out of Ireland, though while a member of the Commons his peerage privileges abate. ”

“ The feudal tenants-in-chief of the Crown were all the peers of each other, whether lords of one manor or of a hundred; so too a bishop had his ecclesiastical peer in a brother bishop, and the tenants of a manor their Origin of Peerage. peers in their fellow-tenants. That even so late as the reign of John the word was still used in this general sense is clear from Magna Carta, for the term “judicium parium” therein must be understood to mean that every man had a right to be tried by his equals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Scottish peerage, like that of England, owes its origin to feudalism. In Angle-Norman days Scotland was a small country, and for some generations after England was settled the Scottish king’s writ ran little beyond the foot of the Highlands, and even the Lord of the Isles reckoned himself an independent sovereign until the Scottish Peerage. beginning of the 15th century The weak and usually ineffective control of the Crown resulted in opportunities for acquiring personal power which the nobles were not slow to take advantage of. Seldom accustomed to act in concert. ”

“ As feudal dignities were in their origin inseparable from the tenure of land it is not surprising that they too followed a similar course of descent, although as the idea of a dignity being exclusively personal Peerage becomes a Personal Dignity gradually emerged, some necessary deviations from the rules of law relating to the descent of land inevitably resulted. In the eleventh year of his reign Richard II. created by letters patent John Beauchamp “Lord de Beauchamp and baron of Kyddermynster, to hold to him and the heirs of his body.” ”

“ Formerly all peers were required to attend parliament, and there are numerous recorded instances of special grants of leave of absence, but nowadays there is no compulsion.
After the right to a summons the principal privilege possessed by a peer is his right to be tried by his peers on a charge of treason or felony. Whatever the origin of this right, and some writers date it back to Saxon times (Trial of Lord Morley, 1678, State Trials vii. 145) , Magna Carta has always been regarded as its confirmatory authority. ”

“ This doctrine is now exploded and cannot be regarded as applying to any case except that of the Crown (Baronies of Fitzwalter, 1660, and De Ros, 1666; Collins's Claims, 168, 261) . Every peerage descends according to the limitations prescribed in its patent of creation or its charter, and where these are non-existent (as in the case of baronies by writ) to heirs-general. (See Abeyance)
In dealing with English dignities it is essential to realize the difference between a mere title of honour and a peerage. ”

“ A good illustration is the popular use of the term “blood royal,” which of course does not mean that an individual of the blood royal necessarily occupies a throne but that he or she is in the line of succession to it. Similarly, persons of “ennobled blood” are not necessarily peers but in the line of descent to peerages, to which they may or may not succeed. ”

“ Conqueror’s system of tenure constituted him the sole owner of the land, attendance at his courts was solely an incident of tenure, the Church having been compelled to accept the same conditions as those imposed on laymen. But, as already pointed out, the change in tenure had not been immediate, and there had been no general forfeiture suffered by ecclesiastical bodies; consequently throughout the early years of William’s reign some of the English bishops and abbots attended his courts as much by virtue of their personal and ecclesiastical importance as by right of tenure. ”

“ If we review the political situation at the beginning of the 14th century a great change is evident. The line between those members of the baronage in parliament and the rest of the people is firmly and clearly drawn. Tenure as the sole qualification for presence in the national assembly has disappeared, and in its place there Writ Supersedes Tenure appears for the baronage a system of royal selection and for the rest of the people one of representation. ”

“ The assembly for several generations neither possessed nor pretended to any legislative powers. Legislative power was a product of later years, and grew out of the custom of the Estates granting supplies only on condition that their grievances were first redressed. The great bulk of the tenants were present for the purpose of assenting to special taxation above and beyond their ordinary feudal dues. When necessary a general summons to attend was sent through the sheriff of every county, who controlled a system of local government which enabled him to reach every tenant. ”

“ At first the dignity was official and certainly not hereditary, and the name of a county of which he is said to have been an officer in the king’s name was not essential to his dignity as an earl. There were also men who, though Scottish and Norman earls, and commonly so addressed and summoned to parliament, were rated in England as barons (Lords Reports, ii. 116, 120; Earldom of Norfolk Peerage Case, Law Reports [1907] , A.C. p. 18) . Earls received individual summonses to parliament by the name of Earl (q.v.) ”

“ The great Peers of France. men known originally as the twelve pairs de France, were the feudal holders of large territories under the nominal sway of the king of France. They were the (archbishop) duke of Rheims, the (bishop) dukes of Langres and Laon, the (bishop) counts of Beauvais, Noyon and Chalons, the dukes of Burgundy, Normandy and Aquitaine, and the counts of Flanders, Toulouse and Champagne. These magnates, nominally feudatories, were tactically independent rulers, and their position can in no way be compared to that of the English baronage. ”

“ It has already been pointed out that the amount of land held direct from the king by individuals varied greatly, and that the extent of his holding must have had something to do with a man’s importance. ”

“ At the desire of the prelates this statement of their rights was duly enrolled in parliament, but their claim to be peers was neither denied nor admitted, and the proceedings went on without them. For themselves Churchmen never claimed the privilege of trial by peers. ”

“ The writ of summons method is not now used except in the case of calling up an eldest son in the barony of his Creation of Peerages. father. This does not create a new peerage but only accelerates the heir’s appearance in the House of Lords. ”