An English sovereign's real position to-day is that of a person who has much indirect influence and but little direct power,—far less in fact than that of the President of the United States; for the latter can veto a bill, and can remove any or all of his cabinet officers at pleasure.
588. The House of Lords in the Past and To-day.
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).