Life

peerages.

the number of Irish peers is subject to limitation. He Chapter I.
may make promotions in the peerage at all times; but
can only create a new Irish peer as often as three of
the peerages of Ireland, which were in existence at the
time of the union, have become extinct.1 But if it should
happen that the number of Irish peers,-exclusive of those
holding any peerage of the United Kingdom, which entitles
them to an hereditary seat in the House of Lords,-should
be reduced to one hundred, then one new Irish peerage
may be created as often as one of such hundred peerages
becomes extinct, or as often as an Irish peer becomes
entitled, by descent or creation, to an hereditary seat in
Parliament. The object of that article of union was to
keep up the Irish peerage to the number of one hundred,
exclusive of Irish peers who may be entitled, by descent or
creation, to an hereditary seat in the House of Lords of the
United Kingdom.2 The representative peers of Ireland are
entitled to the privileges of Lords of Parliament, and all
the peers of Ireland have privilege of peerage. They may
be elected as members of the House of Commons, for any
place in Great Britain: but while sitting there, they do not
enjoy the privilege of peerage. These, then, are the
component parts of the House of Lords, of whom all peers
and lords of Parliament, whatever may be their title, have
equal voice in Parliament. By standing order No. 12 of
the House of Lords, no peer is permitted to sit in the
house until he is twenty-one years of age; and by the Act
of Union the representative peers of Scotland are required
to be of full age.5

Life peerages were formerly not unknown in our constitu-
tion; and in 1856 Queen Victoria, having been advised to

See Fermoy Peerage case, 1856; 140 H. D. 3 s. 698; 88 L. J. 150. 336.

2 Of late years, vacancies in the Irish peerage have not been filled up. Rep. of Lords' Committee, 1874; 9th July, 1875, and address to Queen Victoria; 225 H. D. 3 s. 1210; Lord Inchiquin's Irish Peerage Bills, 1876 and 1877; Lords' Parl. Return, 1877,

No. 148. Since this Return one
Irish peerage has been created; see
London Gazette, 21st Oct. 1898, p.
6140.

3 See Coates v. Lord Hawarden, 7
Barn. & Cr. 388.

44th Art. of Union.

55 Ann. c. 8, art. xxv. s. 12.

• See cases collected by Committee of Privileges, 1856.

Chapter I. revive the dignity, with a view to improve the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, created Sir James Parke, late one of the barons of the Court of Exchequer, by letterspatent, Baron Wensleydale, "for and during the term of his natural life." But the House of Lords referred these letterspatent to a Committee of Privileges, which, after examining all the precedents of life peerages, reported their opinion, "that neither the said letters-patent, nor the said letterspatent with the usual writ of summons issued in pursuance thereof, can enable the grantee therein named to sit and vote in Parliament." The house concurred in this opinion, and Lord Wensleydale, therefore, did not offer to take the oaths and his seat, but was shortly afterwards created an hereditary baron, in the usual form.1 The expediency of creating life peers, however, continued to be discussed; 2 and, in 1876, provision was made by statute for the constitution of four lords of appeal in ordinary. They enjoy the rank of baron and are entitled to a writ of summons for life, but their dignity does not descend to their heirs.3

ritual and

body.

The two estates of lords spiritual and lords temporal, Lords spithus constituted, may originally have had an equal voice temporal in all matters deliberated upon, and had separate places for form one their discussion: but at a very early period they are found to constitute one assembly; and for many centuries past, though retaining their distinct character and denominations, they have been, practically, but one estate of the realm. Thus the Act of Uniformity, 1st Eliz. c. 2, was passed by the queen, the lords temporal, and the commons, although the whole estate of the lords spiritual dissented. The lords temporal are the hereditary peers of the realm, whose blood is ennobled, and whose dignities can only be

1 Report of Committee of Privileges, 1856, No. 18; 140 H. D. 3 s. 263. 1290; 1 May, Const. Hist. 291299.

2142 H. D. 3 s. 780, &c.; 143 ib. 428, &c.

339 & 40 Vict. c. 59, ss. 6 & 14; 50 & 51 Vict. c. 70, s. 2. The pre

cedence of a baron's wife and child
was granted to the wife and children
respectively of a lord of appeal in
ordinary by the Royal Warrants of
the 22nd Dec. 1876 and 30th March,
1898. London Gazette, 16th August,
1898, p. 4935.

III. The
House of

lost by attainder, or taken away by Act of Parliament: Chapter I.
but the bishops, not being ennobled in blood, are, as declared
by the Lords' standing order No. 73, only lords of Parlia-
ment, and not peers. The votes of the spiritual and
temporal lords are intermixed, and the joint majority of
the members of both estates determine every question:
but they sit apart, on separate benches, the place assigned
to the lords spiritual being the upper part of the house, on
the right hand of the throne.

By constant additions to the peerage the number of
members of the House of Lords, comprising the several
orders, spiritual and temporal, of which it is constituted,
has been raised to nearly 600.2

see p. 586.

III. The third estate is that of the Commons of the realm.3 The House of Commons Commons. The date of their admission to a place in the legislature has and public been a subject of controversy among historians and consti- money, tutional writers; of whom some have traced their claims up to the Saxon period, while others deny them any share in the government until long after the Conquest. Without entering minutely into this subject, a brief statement will serve to unfold the ancient character of the House of Commons, and to render its present constitution the more intelligible.

Saxon institutions.

Shiregemót.

It is agreed by writers of learning and authority, that the Commons formed part of the great synods or councils before the Conquest: but how they were summoned or selected, and what degree of power they possessed, is a matter of doubt and obscurity. Under the Saxon kings, the forms of local government were undoubtedly popular. The shiregemót was a kind of county Parliament, over which the ealdorman, or earl of the shire, presided, with the bishop, the shire-gerieve, or sheriff, and the assessors appointed to

12 Rep. 107; 12 Mod. 56; 3 Rep. Dig. Peerage, 93; 2 Burnet, Own Times, 202.

2 In February, 1906, there were 613.--Roll of Lords Spiritual and Temporal.

3 Until 1872, the ancient terms

of knights, citizens, and burgesses,

barons of the cinque ports and bur-
gesses of the universities, were used
in the writs and returns; but by the
Parliamentary and Municipal Elec-
tions Act, 1872, these distinctions
were discontinued, and all are alike
termed members, in the writs and
returns.

Chapter I. assist their deliberations upon points of law. A shire-gemót was held at least twice a year in every county, when the magistrates, thanes, and abbots, with all the clergy and landowners, were required to be present; and a variety of business was transacted: but the proceedings of these assemblies generally partook more of the character of a court of justice, than of a legislative body.

That the constitution of the witena-gemót, or national Witenagemót. council, was equally popular, cannot be affirmed with confidence. Although the smaller proprietors of land may not have been actually disqualified by law from taking part in the proceedings; yet the distance of the council from their homes must practically have prevented them from attending. It has been conjectured that they were represented by their tithing men, and the inhabitants of towns by their chief magistrates: but no system of election or political representation, properly so called, can be distinctly traced back to that time.

The clergy may have been virtually represented by the bishops and abbots, and the absent laity of each shire by the ealdorman, the sheriff, and such of the rich proprietors of land as may have been able to attend the gemót.1 The people may thus have been held to be present at the making of laws, and their name accordingly introduced into the records. That they were actually present on some occasions, is certain but their right to attend, either by themselves or by elected representatives, is incapable of historical proof.2

:

But whatever may have been the position of the people in The the Saxon government, the Conquest, and the strictly feudal Conquest. character of the Norman institutions, must have brought them completely under the subjection of their feudal superiors; and it is probable that the commonalty, as a class, were not admitted to any share in the national councils,

1 Kemble, Saxons in England, ii. 193-201.

2 See Sir F. Palgrave's English Commonwealth, 314. 631. 364-658, and Proofs, ccxxix. ccclxxxv.; Tur

ner, Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, iii.
180. 184; Thorpe, Leg. Sax. i. 358;
Chron. Sax. An. 1020; Ingulfus, 863;
Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 121.

Knights of the shire.

Citizens and burgesses.

until some time after the Conquest, but were bound by the chapter I.
acts of their feudal lords; and that the Norman councils

were formed of the spiritual lords, and mainly, if not ex-
clusively, of the tenants in chief of the Crown, who held by
military service.1

see p. 586.

Consistently with the feudal character of the Norman Origin of
partia
councils, the first knights of the shire are supposed to have mentiry
been the lesser barons, who, though still summoned to taxation,
Parliament, gradually forebore to attend, and selected some
of the richest and most influential of their body to represent
them. The words of the charter of King John favour this
position; for it is there promised that the greater barons
shall be summoned personally by letters from the king, and
all other tenants in chief under the Crown by the sheriffs
and bailiffs. The summons to the lesser barons being thus
only general, no peculiar obligation of personal attendance
was imposed; and, as their numbers increased, and their
wealth was subdivided, they were naturally reluctant to
incur the charge of distant journeys, and the mortification
of being held in slight esteem by the greater barons. This
position receives confirmation from the ancient law of Scot-
land, in which the small barons and free tenants were
classed together, and jointly required to send representa-
tives. To the tenants in chief by knight's service were
added, from time to time, the representatives of the richer
cities and boroughs; and this addition to the legislature
may be regarded as the origin of the Commons as a distinct
estate of the realm in Parliament.

It is not known at what time these important changes in
the constitution of Parliament occurred, for no mention is
made of the Commons, in any of the early records after the
Conquest. William the Conqueror, in the fourth year of his
reign, summoned, by the advice of his barons, a council of
noble and wise men, learned in the law of England, and
twelve were returned out of every county to show what the
customs of the kingdom were: but this assembly, although,
in the opinion of Lord Hale, it was "as sufficient and
1 Rep. Dignity of Peerage, 34.
2 1427, c. 102.