Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/772

 758 V. BENCH AND BAR ment of its privileges. The same meagreness characterizes other reporters of the eighteenth century: Colles (1697- 1713) and Brown (continued by Tomhns, 1702-1800). Hall states that in his day judgment was regularly given by the majority of voices. In 1689 the judgment in the case of Titus Gates was affirmed by a vote of thirty-five to twenty-three, in opposition to the unanimous opinion of the assembled judges. The judgment of the Queen's Bench in the celebrated case of Ashby v. White, 1 Bro. P. C, 62, in 1703, was reversed in the House by a general vote of fifty to sixteen.^ As late as 1806 lay peers voted in the case of Lord Hertford's guardianship of Lord Seymour's daughter. But the theory of final decision by a combination of lay and legal minds gradually broke down. Lay peers were, as a rule, little disposed to attend the hearing of purely private and technical cases ; and they soon practically lost their right to sit even in cases of quasi-political and general public interest. The matter came to an issue in O'Connell's case, 11 CI. F. 155, in 1844, when the lay peers, in deference to the Duke of Wellington, finally waived their right to vote. The last occasion on which a lay peer voted was the case of Bradlaugh v. Clarke, 8 App. Cas. 354, when Lord Denman, son of Lord Chief Justice Denman, voted. Lord Denman had been educated for the bar, but he did not come within the recognized definition of a " law lord," i. e., one who had held high judicial office; yet the law officers of the government were of opinion that the vote was lawful. The other component part of the composition of the an- cient tribunal, the assembled judges, has also practically disappeared. The right of the House of Lords to summon the judges at the beginning of each Parliament to be present for the purpose of assisting the House, when required, in the determination of legal questions, is of great antiquity. But, although the judges still receive this summons, they no longer attend unless specially summoned for a particular Douglas V. St. John (Lord's Journal, XXXII, 264), in 1769; Alexan- der V. Montgomery (Lord's Journal, XXXIII, 519), in 1773; Hill v. St. John (Lord's Journal, XXXIV, 443), in 1775; Bishop of London V. Fytche (Lord's Journal, XXXVI, 687), in 1783.
 * Some of the other cases in which the lay peers participated were