Page:The Irish Parliament; what it was, and what it did.djvu/28

 Speaker of the House of Lords. In Ireland the offices of Lord Chancellor and Speaker of the House of Lords, though in practice generally united, were regarded in theory as distinct. Thus, in the first session of Parliament after the Restoration the Primate, Archbishop Bramhall, and not the Lord Chancellor, was Speaker of the House of Lords. The theoretical severance of the offices is brought prominently before us by the Duke of Rutland, as Viceroy, so late as 1784, wishing to create a Speakership of the House of Lords, with a salary attached, distinct from the Chancellorship.

Speaking of the English House of Lords, Lord Brougham says, that, according to the theory of the Constitution, "Every English peer on attaining twent-yone years, has as much voice on all the great questions which come before the House of Lords, as an ultimate court of appeal, as the Lord High Chancellor himself." Such is the theory of the Constitution, though in practice all is quite different. "The usage," he proceeds to observe, "is, and for a century has been, followed, with a single exception, for all but the law lords to abstain from taking any part, either on questions of appeal from Courts of Equity, or writs of error from Courts of Law, or in cases of peerage claims, which are regarded as questions of