The Leading Facts of English History

by D. H. Montgomery

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).