Below is the celebrated woolsack, the seat of the real President of the assembly. Custom has determined that this must be a sort of sack—a bench without a back.
The apartment for the clerks is separated from the woolsack by two benches, on which two places are reserved for the Masters in Chancery, the official messengers of the chamber.
The covering and drapery of the throne, the hangings of the walls, the carpet, the screens, the benches, cushions and backs, every thing is red in this hall. Red is the aristocratic color. When the Peers, on the occasion of a visit from the King, are seated in state, with their red mantles, the whole appearance of the chamber is more dazzling than imposing. The appearance of the Commons at the bar, in their simple every day dress, presents a striking contrast. One smiles in spite of himself on reflecting that those are not the masters, who are thus sumptuously dressed in garments of purple.
This hall, in which the Lords are temporarily convened, was formerly the bed-chamber of Edward the Confessor. One can well imagine that if the four hundred and thirty nobles should take it into their heads to meet at the same time, that this room would with great difficulty contain them; but this fancy rarely ever seizes them. It is a great occasion which draws together even two hundred. The Peers enjoy a singular privilege which renders personal attendance almost unnecessary. They can vote by proxy. So that, when any one of them desires to travel on the continent, he leaves, if he choose, a power with some Peer of his own party, who exercises this delegated right of voting as often as he pleases, when he pleases, and how he pleases, except in divisions of a committee. Formerly the royal authority alone could render these powers available. Now even this is not required. At the present time, the Duke of Wellington, for instance, has his pocket full of tory votes.
The Peers who are in the habit of attending Parliament, find the present hall very small and uncomfortable. The government, which is building a new Parliament House, has consulted them on its dimensions; and it has been decided that it shall be neither very large nor very small. No one ever thought of building it on the supposition that the whole of the Peers would assemble at one time within its walls. This hypothesis has never even been suggested. The number of Peers present at the same time, has never been greater than on the question of the passage of the principal amendment attempted against parliamentary reform, the 7th of May, 1832. On that occasion there were two hundred and sixty-seven members in the house. That number was taken as the maximum: each member will be allowed three feet square. It is evident that the noble Lords are divided between the desire to be seated comfortably, and the fear of having too large an apartment, in which on some day or other a crowd of intruders may lodge themselves.
One word on the constitution of this chamber. Nothing can be more various than the elements of which it is composed. It has, first, its Peerages hereditary under the law of primogeniture—these are the English Peerages, and are beyond all comparison the most numerous; next, the Scotch and Irish Peerages, which are elective, but on different principles. The Scotch Peers are nominated only for a single Parliament; the Irish are for life. There are besides Ecclesiastical Peers, Archbishops and Bishops, English or Irish, who sit, the former on their own right, and for life, the latter by turns, every year, four by four.
In England the Peerage forms the only nobility possessed of any real title. One who is not a Peer has no legal title. The sons of Peers are not authorized to assume, in their public acts, any title of nobility. Even the eldest sons are only Lords by general consent and courtesy. The official list of the Peerage is the only official list of the nobility. The peerages are of different ranks; and among those of the same class, the most ancient has precedence. Thus there are in the first place, Dukes, then Marquises, Earls, Viscounts, and Barons. The Bishops and Archbishops, known as Lords Spiritual, are ranked according to their respective dignity. The Archbishops of England have the rank of Dukes, and even precede them. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the primate and head of the church, is a sort of English Pope, and follows immediately after the Princes of the blood. He is the first Peer of the House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor (when there is one) is, in virtue of his office, the second; and the Archbishop of York is the third. The Bishops are ranked as Barons, and have precedence of them.
The Barons of Kingsale, like the Grandees of Spain, enjoy the exclusive and hereditary privilege of remaining uncovered in the presence of the King. The Peers have no other privileges, (excepting the peculiar style in which they are addressed, as “his grace,” or the “right honorable,”) which are not common to them all. Their chief privileges are those which prevent the seizure of their goods, their being arrested for debt, or judged by default in any civil action. They cannot be held to answer any criminal process but before their Peers. The reason of the inviolability of their persons in these and many other cases, is to be found in the fiction by which the Peers are all considered as counsellors of the King, and therefore secured in this perfect personal freedom, that they may be always ready to serve the necessities of the crown.
The House of Lords can only exclude a member and deprive him of the privileges of his rank, by convicting him of some capital or infamous crime. However, Blackstone mentions that, during the reign of Edward IV, George Neville, Duke of Bedford, was degraded by act of Parliament, on account of his poverty, which prevented his keeping up a style suited to his rank as a Peer. This fact is the more curious, as it is the only one of the kind, in the whole history of Parliament. Subsequently, a practice the very reverse has prevailed. So that, recently, the Earl of Huntingdon, though reduced to extreme indigence, has succeeded in establishing a contested claim to the Peerage, and the King has endowed him to enable him to sustain his rank as becomes a nobleman.
In England the aristocracy is firmly established. Each Peerage rests, at least fictitiously, on a real title, based on landed property. France and Spain, with a much larger and more ancient and illustrious nobility, have, however, never had a powerful and deeply-rooted aristocracy. If the French noblesse of the States-General had formed a political body strongly seated, properly supported, and distinctively marked, the revolution could not have overthrown them with as much ease as it did. Louis XVIII undertook, in 1814, to construct an upper house; he was too late—the materials were wanting—he built with sand on a foundation of sand.