Everything about History Of The Peerage totally explained
The
history of the British peerage, a system of
nobility found in the
United Kingdom, stretches over the last thousand years. The origins of the
British peerage are obscure but while the ranks of
baron and
earl perhaps predate the British peerage itself, the ranks of
duke and
marquess were introduced to
England in the
fourteenth century. The rank of
viscount came later, in the mid-
fifteenth century. Peers were summoned to
Parliament, forming the
House of Lords.
The unions of
England and
Scotland to form
Great Britain in 1707, and of Great Britain and
Ireland to form the
United Kingdom in 1801, led successively to the establishment of the
Peerages of Great Britain and later of the
United Kingdom, and the discontinuation of creations in the
Peerages of England and
Scotland. Scottish and
Irish peers didn't have an automatic right to sit in the House of Lords, and instead elected
representative peers from amongst their number.
Peerages were largely hereditary until the regular creation of
life peers began in the second half of the
twentieth century. The last creation of a non-royal
hereditary peer occurred in 1984; even then it was considered unusual. Life peers and 92 hereditary peers still retain the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords, though their power is restricted and further
reform of the House of Lords is under consideration.
Feudal origins
The British Peerage may trace its origins as far back as the
Anglo-Saxon times.
Saxon Kings didn't rule alone, but were aided by a council called the
Witenagemot. The Witan came to include the
archbishops,
bishops and
abbots of the
Roman Catholic Church, the officers of state and the royal household, and the
ealdormen, each of whom was the chief officer of a
shire. In some cases, the office of ealdorman became hereditary and, after the invasion of England by the Danes, ealdormen were called Jarls, from which the word earl derives. The final class of men summoned to the council were thanes, who were freemen who held land and provided military service.
After the Anglo-Saxon monarchs were overthrown by
William of Normandy, England was divided into areas called
Hundreds, replacing the Saxon manors, for the purpose of local government. The King rewarded important military
officers through the grant of one or more Hundreds. William, however, desired to augment the power of the Crown at the expense of his vassals. Thus, large, contiguous territories were rarely granted to vassals. Instead, many different hundreds, scattered across the country, were used to reward the King's vassals. It was therefore impossible for any particular vassal to amass a powerful and unified army, as his forces would be spread out throughout the land.
The owners of the hundreds sometimes granted lands to their own vassals, who were termed
tenants. The vassals of the King, given jurisdiction over entire estates, were called
tenants-in-chief, can be considered equivalent to thanes, and later became known as barons. The barons normally attended the
Curia Regis, or King's Court. Archbishops, bishops and abbots also attended the Court, which was held at
Christmas,
Easter,
Pentecost and at such other times as the King desired.
Barons were sometimes classed into the "greater" and "lesser" barons. The
Domesday Book reveals that several hundred lesser barons held one or two hundreds each, while some of the greater barons controlled over a hundred. A few of the greater barons were called earls, and summoned to the King's Council as such. It seems, however, that their right to be summoned arose not from their dignity as an earl, but rather from their feudal baronies.
Plantagenet and Tudor Monarchs
The manner of summoning barons to the Council was influential in the development of the Peerage. Ecclesiastical dignitaries and the greater barons were summoned by a writ of summons issued directly from the King, while lesser barons were summoned through the local
sheriffs. Such a system existed as early as 1164, when
Henry II withheld a personal summons to
Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, after engaging with him in a conflict with over the rights of the Church, instead subjecting him to a summons through a sheriff. For the rest of the twelfth century, the dividing line between barons summoned by writs personally addressed to them and barons summoned through the sheriffs became well-defined, but the Crown sometimes arbitrarily subjected the greater barons to summons through sheriffs. In the
Magna Carta, King
John declared, "we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, severally by our letters." He also agreed that the lesser barons would be "summoned generally, through our sheriffs and bailiffs."
The greater barons continued to be regularly summoned to the King's Council. In 1254, the lesser barons ceased to attend the Council, instead being represented by knights, two of whom were chosen by each shire. The Council eventually developed into the modern Parliament. In 1295, the "Model Parliament" was called; the greater barons and prelates were summoned individually, while each shire elected two knights and each sufficiently populous city elected two burgesses. The prelates and barons eventually formed the House of Lords, while the knights and burgesses became the House of Commons.
The Peerage, still, wasn't an hereditary body. Kings didn't consider themselves, having once summoned an individual, bound to summon the same individual, much less his heirs, to future Parliaments. Thus, writs were issued at the whim of the King. Over time, however, the arbitrary power of the Crown was fettered by the principles of hereditary right.
Stuart Monarchs
In
1603,
James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. Scotland's Peerage then became subject to many of the same principles as the English Peerage, though many peculiarities of Scottish law continue to apply to it today. Scotland, like England, had lesser and greater barons, as well as earls. There was but one Duke in Scotland: the Duke of Rothesay, the heir-apparent to the Crown. The weak nature of the Scottish Crown had permitted the lesser feudal barons to continue attending the Scottish Estates, or Parliament, until the fifteenth century. Thereafter, only Earls and Lords of Parliament (the greater barons) came to be summoned to the Estates. In Scotland, the peerage remained tied to land until after the Union. Every earldom or lordship of Parliament was accompanied by a grant of land; sometimes, peerages and their associated lands were surrendered in return for other peerages and lands. After the Union of the Crowns, however, the concept of the Peerage as a personal dignity, not a dignity affixed to land, became established in Scotland.
James I'd poor relations with the English Parliament, which had been less submissive than the Scottish Estates that he'd been accustomed to. To raise funds without taxation, James began to sell titles. For instance, individuals paying £1095 could obtain the non-peerage hereditary dignity of
baronet. Even peerage dignities were sold. Thus, James I added sixty-two peers to a body that had included just fifty-nine members at the commencement of his reign. His Stuart successors were no less profuse.
The position of the Peerage was called into question after the
English Revolution that overthrew
Charles I. In 1648, the House of Commons passed an Act abolishing the House of Lords, "finding by too long experience that the House of Lords is useless and dangerous to the people of England." The Peerage wasn't abolished, and peers became entitled to be elected to the sole remaining House of Parliament.
Oliver Cromwell, the
de facto dictator, later found it convenient to re-establish a second chamber to reduce the power of the Commons. About sixty writs of summons, resembling those issued to peers sitting in the House of Lords, were issued. The individuals so summoned were called Lords, but their dignities were not hereditary. But soon after the establishment of this body, Cromwell dissolved Parliament, taking power into his own hands as
Lord Protector.
Soon after Cromwell's death, the monarchy was restored, as was the House of Lords. King
Charles II continued the Stuart tendency of profusely creating peerages, even eclipsing the figures of James I's reign. Several of those dignities went to Charles' many mistresses and illegitimate sons. Charles II's reign was also marked by the persecution of Roman Catholics after
Titus Oates falsely suggested that there was a "Popish Plot" to murder the King. Catholic peers were hindered from the House of Lords because they were forced, before taking their seats, to recite a declaration that denounced some of the Roman Church's doctrines as "superstitious and idolatrous." These provisions wouldn't be repealed until 1829.
The next major event in the history of the Peerage occurred in 1707, when England and Scotland united into Great Britain. There were, at the time, one hundred and sixty-eight English peers and one hundred and fifty-four Scottish ones. English peers didn't wish for their individual significance in the House of Lords to dwindle, so they agreed to permit Scotland to elect just sixteen
representative peers to sit in the House of Lords (see
Parliament and the Peerage). After the Union, creations in both the
Peerage of England and the
Peerage of Scotland ceased and all new peerages were created in the
Peerage of Great Britain.
Lord North and
William Pitt the Younger were especially liberal in dispensing peerage dignities, a device used to obtain majorities in the House of Lords. Only in 1876, twenty years after the Wensleydale case, was the Appellate Jurisdiction Act passed, authorising the appointment of two Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (commonly called Law Lords) to sit in the House of Lords as barons. They were to hold the rank of baron for life, but sit in the Lords only until retiring from judicial office. In 1887, they were permitted to continue to sit in the Lords for life; the number of Lords of Appeal in Ordinary was also increased by further enactments.
Windsor Monarchs
In the twentieth century, peers have almost always been created to reward political merit, and creations became much more common. The Peerage ceased to be associated with wealth or land ownership. At the beginning of the century, however, such associations remained for some time. In 1909, Chancellor of the Exchequer
David Lloyd George proposed the introduction of a land tax, which the landowning peers opposed. The House of Lords rejected the Budget. After the
general election of January 1910, the returned Government introduced the Parliament Bill, which sought to curtail the powers of the Lords. When the Lords attempted to block the bill, the Prime Minister,
Herbert Henry Asquith, threatened to have the King create two hundred and fifty new Liberal peers to neutralise the Conservative majority in the House of Lords. The Lords then passed the Parliament Act, which provides that most bills can only be delayed, not rejected, by the House of Lords.
Later in the same decade, the
Titles Deprivation Act 1917 was passed. Some British peers had fought against the British in
World War I; the Act permitted the suspension of their titles. In 1919, three peers—
Prince Charles Edward, Duke of Albany,
Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and
Henry Taaffe, 12th Viscount Taaffe—had their peerage dignities suspended. The successors to those dignities may petition for their restoration, but none have chosen to do so.
Another issue of the 1920s was the admission of women to the House of Lords. The
Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 provided that "A person shan't be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function." In 1922, the
Viscountess Rhondda, a
suo jure peeress, attempted to take a seat in the House of Lords. Though the Law Lords declared that she was, under the Act, eligible, Lady Rhondda wasn't admitted by a decision of the Committee for Privileges. Many Conservatives were opposed to admitting women to the House of Lords. Liberals, meanwhile, felt that admitting hereditary peeresses would extend the hereditary principle which they so detested.
Women were only admitted to the House of Lords in 1958. The Life Peerages Act passed that year permitted the creation of life baronies for both men and women on a regular basis. Hereditary peeresses were admitted in 1963 under the Peerage Act. The Peerage Act also permitted peers to disclaim hereditary peerages within a year of succeeding to them, or within a year of attaining the age of majority. All eligible Scottish peers were permitted to sit in the House of Lords, and elections for representative peers ceased. Elections for Irish representative peers had already ended in 1922, when most of Ireland left the United Kingdom to become the
Irish Free State.
Hereditary peerages continued to be created after 1958 but when
Harold Wilson, of the Labour Party, became Prime Minister in 1964 he ceased to recommend the creation of hereditary peerages. Neither of his successors,
Edward Heath (of the Conservative Party) and
James Callaghan (of the Labour Party) recommended hereditary peerage creations.
Margaret Thatcher, a Conservative, did revive the practice of creating hereditary peers. While she was Prime Minister,
The Prince Andrew became Duke of York,
Harold Macmillan became Earl of Stockton,
George Thomas became Viscount Tonypandy and
William Whitelaw became Viscount Whitelaw. The peerages of the latter two became extinct upon their deaths; only the Dukedom of York and Earldom of Stockton continue to survive. Thatcher's husband received an hereditary baronetcy, but she herself was created a life baroness by her successor,
John Major. Since Thatcher's tenure, only
The Prince Edward has been created an hereditary peer (he was created Earl of Wessex in 1999).
After the Labour Party came to power in 1997, it began further reform of the House of Lords. Under the
House of Lords Act 1999, hereditary peerages don't entitle individuals to seats in the House of Lords. The Act did provide exemptions for the
Earl Marshal, the
Lord Great Chamberlain and ninety others elected by the peers. Further reform of the Lords is under consideration.
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