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 above and beyond all other lords of parliament, and before long, arrogated to themselves the exclusive right to be called peers, and as such the only persons entitled to the privileges of peerage.

In early parliamentary days it had been the custom to summon regularly to attend the Lords for deliberative purposes another body of men—the judges. Less important than the prelates, they also owed their summons to official position, and like them were eventually overshadowed by the hereditary principle. The force of hereditary right gave to ennobled blood a position never possessed by either judge or prelate It is true the prelate, in point of antiquity, was senior to both earl and baron, and in many cases superior in extent of possessions, but these attributes belonged to his office, the resignation or deprivation of which would at any time have caused him to lose his writ of summons The writ issued really to the office. The judge’s position was even worse. His judicial office evoked the writ, but at any moment he might be deprived of that office at the arbitrary pleasure of the Crown. It is doubtful whether the judges ever had voice and vote in the same sense as the other lords of parliament, and even if they had they soon came to be regarded merely as counsellors and assessors.

The pretensions of the lay peers were not admitted without a struggle on the part of the prelates, who made the mistake of aiming at the establishment of a privileged position for their own order while endeavouring to retain every right possessed by their lay brethren. They fell between two stools, lost their position as peers, and were beaten back in their fight for ecclesiastical privilege. In the reign of Richard II. the prelates are found clearly defining their position. Neville, archbishop of York, de Vere, duke of Ireland and others, were “appealed” for treason, and the archbishop of Canterbury took the opportunity in parliament of making clear the rights of his order. He said “of right and by the custom of the realm of England it belongeth to the Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being as well as others his suffragans, brethren and fellow bishops, abbots and priors and other prelates whatsoever, holding of our lord the king by barony, to be present in person in all the king’s parliaments whatsoever as Peers of the Realm aforesaid, and there with the other Peers of the Realm, and with other persons having the right to be there present, to advise, treat, ordain, establish and determine as to the affairs of the realm and other matters there wont to be treated and to do all else which there presses to be done.” After this he went on to say that as to the particular matters in question they intended to be present and to take their part in all matters brought before parliament“ save our estate and order and that of each of the prelates in all things. But because in the present parliament there is question of certain matters, in which it is not lawful for us or anyone of the prelates according to the institute of the Holy Canons in any manner, to take part personally” we intend to retire “saving always the rights of our peerage” (Rot. Parl. 11 Rich. II No. 6—printed iii. 236–237). At the desire of the prelates this statement of their rights was duly enrolled in parliament, but their claim to be peers was neither denied nor admitted, and the proceedings went on without them. For themselves Churchmen never claimed the privilege of trial by peers. whenever they were arraigned they claimed to be altogether outside secular jurisdiction, and it was therefore a matter of small concern to them whether they were in the hands of peers or peasants. Such was the attitude of Becket towards Henry II (Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 504), of Archbishop Stratford towards Edward III (Pike, pp. 188 seq), and it was probably with the history of these two cases in his mind that the archbishop of Richard II.’s reign speaks of the saving rights of his order. These rights were never willingly admitted in England, and as the pope’s power for interference waned so the prelates were forced under the ordinary law of the land. Henry VIII. certainly never regarded ecclesiastics as peers, as may be gathered from a grant early in his reign to the then abbot of Tavistock for himself and each succeeding abbot the right to be “one of the spiritual and religious lords of parliament.” As to abbots, the subsequent dissolution of the monasteries put an end to the

discussion. In this reign also Cranmer and Fisher, though the former was archbishop of Canterbury, were tried by a common jury, and they certainly claimed no privilege of peerage The Standing Orders of the House of Lords for 1625 contain the statement that “ Bishops are only Lords of Parliament and not Peers” (Lords Journals, iii. 349). In 1640 the “Lords Spiritual” were altogether excluded from the House of Lords by act of parliament, and were not brought back until the second year of the Restoration From that period there has been no question as to their position. Peers and holders by barony when parliaments first met, by the end of the 15th century they had put themselves outside the pale of the peerage To-day their ancient lands are vested in trustees (Ecclesiastical Commissioners), and office alone constitutes a bishop’s qualification, and that only if he occupies one of the five great sees of Canterbury, York, London, Durham and Winchester, or is of sufficient seniority in appointment to fill one of the remaining twenty-one places on the bench of bishops in the house-for there are now only twenty-six seats for thirty-six prelates.

The reign of Henry VIII. brought about far-reaching changes in the position of the peerage. When that king ascended the throne the hereditary element was in a decided minority, but the balance was gradually redressed until at length a bare hereditary majority was secured and the dissolution of the monasteries made

possible. The peers, many now grown fat on abbey lands, at once began to consolidate their position; precedents were eagerly sought for, and the doctrine of ennobled blood began to find definite and vigorous expression. So long, the peers declared, as there is any ennobled blood, a peerage must exist; and it can be extinguished only by act of parliament, failure of heirs, or upon corruption of blood by attainder. Stubbs writes with some contempt of the doctrine (Const. Hist iii. 458 n.), apparently on the ground that it is absurd to speak of ennobled blood so long as the children of a peer still remain commoners. The doctrine is neither unreasonable nor illogical. By it is meant blood in which there always exists a capacity to inherit a particular peerage, and every person in whose veins the ennobled blood runs is competent to occupy the peerage if the chances of nature should remove those who are senior to him in the line of descent. A good illustration is the popular use of the term “blood royal,” which of course does not mean that an individual of the blood royal necessarily occupies a throne but that he or she is in the line of succession to it. Similarly, persons of “ennobled blood” are not necessarily peers but in the line of descent to peerages, to which they may or may not succeed. (See .)

The English peer is not like the continental noble the member of a caste, but the holder for life of an office clothed with high and exceptional legislative and judicial attributes entirely dependent on his office and exercisable only in conjunction with his fellow peers in parliament assembled. Such privileges as he possesses are due primarily to his office rather than to his blood. His children are commoners, who though accorded courtesy titles by the usage of society have no legal privileges not shared with the humblest of British subjects. It is this peculiar official quality of an English peerage which saved England from the curse of a privileged noble caste such as that which so long barred all progress in France and Germany. As a result there are hundreds of families in the United Kingdom who, commoners there, would yet, from their purity of blood, position and influence, be accounted noble in any continental country.

From the doctrine of nobility of blood is derived the rule of law that no peerage (a Scots peerage is under Scots Law) can be surrendered, extinguished, or in any way got rid of unless the blood be corrupted. The rule is well illustrated by the earldom of Norfolk case (Law Reports [1907], A C. 10) in which its development was

traced, and the principle authoritatively confirmed In 1302 the hereditary earldom of Norfolk (created in 1135) was in the possession of Hugh Bygod, one of the most powerful nobles of 