Origin Of The House Of Peers.
It is beyond doubt that the immense inequality of wealth and credit,—in a word, of power and social importance, which existed between the great barons and the other political classes of the nation, whether freeholders or burgesses, was in England the sole cause of the institution of the House of Peers. No political combination or idea of public right had anything to do with its formation. The personal importance of a certain number of individuals, in this case, created their right. Political order is necessarily the expression, the reflection, of social order. In this stage of civilisation especially, power is indisputably conveyed from society into the government. There was a House of Peers because there were men who, bearing no comparison with others, could not remain confounded with them, exercising only the same rights, and possessing no greater amount of authority.
To the same cause must be ascribed several of the leading characteristics of the House of Peers; the hereditary transmission of social importance, wealth, and power (the result of the feudal system as regards property), carried with it the inheritance of political importance. This is proved by the fact, that originally the sole hereditary peers were the barons by feudal tenure. Hereditary right did not originally belong to the barons by writ; although individually summoned to the Upper House, they exercised, when sitting there, the same rights. The judicial functions of the House of Peers also had the same source. At first they belonged to the general assembly of the direct vassals of the king. When the greater number of these vassals ceased to attend that assembly, the great barons who alone attended, continued to exercise nearly all its functions, and especially its judicial authority. Of this they continued to hold possession when the knights re-entered Parliament by means of election. Thus, a right, which originally devolved upon the general assembly of the political nation, became concentrated in the new House of Peers, at least in every case unaffected by the new jurisdictions instituted by the king. On examining in all its details the political part now performed in England by the House of Peers, it will be found that a great number of its attributes are only the results of ancient facts, that they are not inherent in the institution itself, but solely derived from the social position of the great barons; and at the same time it will be perceived that all these facts are connected with the general and primitive fact of the great inequality then subsisting between the great barons and the citizens.
Advantages Of A House Of Peers.
As this inequality really existed, and could not fail to re-appear in the government, it was very fortunate for England that it assumed the form of the House of Peers. Inequality is never more oppressive and fatal than when displayed solely for its own advantage, and in an individual interest. This is the invariable result when the upper ranks are dispersed over the country, and are brought into contact with, and into the presence of, their inferiors alone. If, instead of uniting in the House of Peers to exercise, as members of that assembly, the power they possessed over society, the great barons had each remained on his own estates, their superiority and power would have weighed heavily on all their vassals and farmers, and social emancipation would have been very much retarded. Every baron would then have had to do with his inferiors alone. In the House of Peers, on the contrary, he had to deal with his equals; and to obtain influence in that assembly, and effect his will, he was obliged to have recourse to discussion, to the advancement of public reasons, and to constitute himself the exponent of some interest superior to his own personal interest, and of opinions around which it would be possible for men to unite together. Thus men, who, had they remained isolated on their domains, would have acted only upon inferiors and for their own interest, were constrained, when they had met together, to act upon their equals, and for the interests of the masses, whose support alone could increase their power in the frequent struggles which this new situation imposed upon them. Thus by the single fact of its concentration, the high feudal aristocracy insensibly changed its character. Each of its members possessed rights originally derived entirely from his own power, which he came to the House of Peers to exercise solely for his own interest; but when once brought together into each other's presence, all these individual interests experienced the necessity of seeking new means of obtaining credit and authority elsewhere than in themselves. Personal powers were constrained to sink themselves into a public power. An assembly composed of individual superiorities, jealous only to preserve and increase their power, became gradually converted into a national institution, compelled to adapt itself, in many points, to the interest of all.
Results Of Its Establishment.
As I have elsewhere had occasion to say, one of the greatest vices of the feudal system was to localise sovereignty, and to bring it everywhere, so to speak, to the door of those over whom it was exercised. The formation of the House of Peers weakened this evil in England, and thus, at least in a political point of view, struck a deadly blow at feudalism.