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Let us linger awhile in the Upper Chamber to note what happens when, on the second day of the opening of a new Parliament, the Commons return to their own House, having at their head no longer a mere “Speaker-Elect,” but a fully-fledged “Mr. Speaker,” who has been completely evolved from the chrysalis state by the magic influence of the Royal approbation. As the noise of the retreating feet of the exultant Commons irreverently breaks for a minute or so the solemn stillness of the House of Lords, the five Lords Commissioners rise from their bench, and with slow, toilsome footsteps, as if the weight of their ample scarlet robes trailing on the ground behind them impede their progress, disappear behind the Throne. After a brief interval the Lord Chancellor reappears, attired in his customary robes—which, like the Speaker’s, consist of a full-bottomed wig and a flowing black gown worn over levee dress—and takes his seat on the Woolsack. The junior bishop among the Lords Spiritual present reads the prayers, while the peers stand with bowed and reverent heads. Then the process of swearing-in begins. The Lord Chancellor is the first to come to the table; and, with a copy of the New Testament in his right hand, and a large paste-board card containing the words of the oath, in his left, he repeats, after the Clerk of the Parliaments, the declaration that he will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty; after which he kisses the book, and writes his name on the Roll of Parliament. It is the first signature on the virgin sheet. The roll is of a different kind in each House. In the Upper Chamber it is really a roll. It consists of one long sheet of paper, about 16 inches in width, which winds round a roller. The peers simply write their ordinary signatures, such as “Birkenhead,” “Morley,” “Rosebery,” “Salisbury,” or “Lansdowne.”
As the Lord Chancellor returns to the Woolsack, Garter King of Arms (the head of The Heralds’ College), appears, in his gorgeous tabard, emblazoned back and front with the Royal Arms and many quaint devices, and delivers to the Clerk the Roll of the Lords. The Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, wearing wig and gown, also enters and presents a certificate of the return of the sixteen representative Scottish peers, who are elected for every new Parliament by the peerage of Scotland. Then the peers come to the table without any order or precedence being observed, and each, having first handed over his writ of summons, a small piece of limp parchment, to the Clerk, takes the oath, and subscribes the Roll.
“Once a peer, a peer for life,” it is said, truly enough, and yet every Lord of Parliament must receive, at the dissolution, a fresh summons from the Crown, and must take a fresh oath of allegiance, before he can resume his legislative duties in the new Parliament. The writs are issued from the Crown Office at Westminster to “the Lords spiritual and temporal” individually. The mediæval quaintness of the summons—it has been in use for over six centuries—is shown in its principal passage:
We strictly enjoining, command you upon the faith and allegiance by which you are bound to Us, that the weightiness of the said affairs and imminent perils considered (waiving all excuses), you be at the said day and place personally present with Us, and with the said Prelates, Great Men, and Peers, to treat and give your council upon the affairs aforesaid. And this, as you regard Us and Our honour and the safety and defence of the said United Kingdom and Church and dispatch of the said affairs, in no wise do you omit.
The writ sent to the spiritual peers is the same, save that they are commanded to attend upon their “faith and love” instead of their “faith and allegiance,” as in the case of the peers temporal. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester, become Lords of Parliament immediately on their consecration, but the other prelates of the Church Establishment must await, in the order of seniority of consecration, writs of summons to the House of Lords, according as vacancies arise by death or resignation in the estate of the Lords spiritual. The number of spiritual peers is limited to twenty-six, and as there are thirty-six dioceses in the Established Church, ten of the prelates are therefore not Lords of Parliament, but all of them—save the Bishop of Sodor and Man—may hope, in time, to have seats in the House of Lords by succession. It is an interesting fact that the making of an affirmation instead of taking the oath—a not infrequent occurrence in the Commons—is rarely to be seen in the Lords. The only time I have witnessed it was when Viscount Morley of Blackburn (better known in literature and politics as John Morley) came to the table on his first introduction to the House of Lords in May 1908, and the Clerk produced, in the usual course, the New Testament and the copy of the oath. Lord Morley refused to be sworn, and insisted on making affirmation instead. As there was no precedent for such a demand in the House of Lords, no form of affirmation was available; but after a hurried consultation between the Lord Chancellor and the Clerk, the terms of the oath, with the appeal to the Almighty, “So help me, God” omitted, were made to serve the purpose.