History of the Peerage
Encyclopedia
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 14th century. The rank of viscount
came later, in the mid-15th 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
did not have an automatic right to sit in the House of Lords, and instead elected representative peer
s from amongst their number.
Peerages were largely hereditary until the regular creation of life peer
s began in the second half of the 20th 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.
English Earl
s are an Anglo-Saxon institution. Around 1014, England was divided into shire
s or counties, largely to defend against the Danes; each shire was led by a local great man, called an earl; the same man could be earl of several shires. When the Normans conquered England, they continued to appoint earls, but not for all counties; the administrative head of the county became the sheriff
. Earldoms began as offices, with a perquisite of a share of the legal fees in the county; they gradually became honours, with a stipend of £20 a year; like most feudal offices, they were inherited, but the kings frequently asked earls to resign or exchange earldoms. Usually there were few Earls in England, and they were men of great wealth in the shire from which they held title, or an adjacent one, but it depended on circumstances: during the civil war between Stephen
and the Empress Matilda
, nine Earls were created in three years.
William the Conqueror or Henry II
did not make Dukes; they were themselves only Dukes of Normandy or Acquitane. But when Edward III of England
declared himself King of France, he made his sons Dukes, to distinguish them from other noblemen, much as Royal Dukes are now distinguished from other Dukes. Later Kings created Marquess
es and Viscount
s to make finer gradations of honour: a rank something more than an Earl and something less than an Earl, respectively.
When Henry III or Edward I wanted money or advice from his subjects, he would order great churchmen, earls, and other great men to come to his Great Council; he would generally order the lesser men from towns and counties to gather and pick some men to represent them. For the evolution of this into a system of government, see Parliament
; the English Order of Baron
s has evolved those men who were individually ordered to attend Parliament, but held no other title; the chosen representatives, on the other hand, became the House of Commons
. This order, called a writ
, was not originally hereditary, or even a privilege; the recipient had to come to the Great Council at his own expense, vote on taxes on himself and his neighbors, acknowledge that he was the king's tenant-in-chief (which might cost him special taxes), and risked involvement in royal politics - or the king requesting a personal loan, or benevolence
. Which men were ordered to Council varied from Council to Council; a man might be so ordered once, and never again - or all his life, but his son and heir might never go.
Under Henry VI of England
, in the fifteenth century, just before the Wars of the Roses
, attendance at Parliament became more valuable. The first claim of hereditary right to a writ comes from this reign; so does the first patent
, or charter declaring a man to be a Baron; and the five orders began to be called Peers; holders of older peerages also began receive greater honor than Peers of the same rank just created.
If a man held a peerage, his son would succeed to it; if he had no children, his brother would succeed. If he had a single daughter, his son-in-law would inherit the family lands, and usually the same Peerage; more complex cases were decided depending on circumstances. Customs changed with time; Earls were the first to be hereditary, and three different rules can be traced for the case of an Earl who left no sons and several married daughters. In the thirteenth century, the husband of the eldest daughter inherited the Earldom automatically; in the fifteenth century, the Earldom reverted to the Crown, who might regrant it (often to the eldest son-in-law); in the seventeenth century, it wouldn't be inherited by anybody unless all but one of the daughters died and left no descendants, in which case the remaining daughter (or her heir) would inherit.
After Henry II became the Lord of Ireland, he and his successors began to imitate the English system as it was in their time. Irish Earls were first created in the thirteenth century, and Irish Parliaments began in the fifteenth century, complete with seven Barons of Parliament. The Irish peers were in a peculiar political position; because they were subjects of the King of England, but peers in a different kingdom, they could sit in the English House of Commons, and many did. In the eighteenth century, Irish peerages became rewards for English politicians, limited only by the concern that they might go to Dublin and interfere with the Irish Government.
s, of immemorial antiquity; they were named Earls by Queen Margaret. The Parliament of Scotland
is as old as the English; the Scottish equivalent of baronies are called lordships of Parliament.
The Act of Union 1707, between England and Scotland, provided that future peerages should be peers of Great Britain
, and the rules covering the peers should follow the English model; because there were proportionately many more Scottish peers, they chose a number of representatives to sit in the British House of Lords. The Acts of Union 1800 changed this to peers of the United Kingdom
, but provided that Irish peerages could still be created; but the Irish peers were concerned that their honours would be diluted as cheap prizes, and insisted that an Irish peerage be created only when three Irish peerages had gone extinct (until there were only 100 Irish peers left). In the early nineteenth century, Irish creations were as frequent as this allowed; but only three have been created since 1863, and none since 1898.
s. Such a system existed as early as 1164, when Henry II
withheld a personal summons to Thomas 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 prelate
s 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, was not an hereditary body. Kings did not 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. At first, the writ of summons was regarded as a burden and interference, but later, when Parliament's power increased, it was seen as a sign of royal favour. Since the Crown was itself an hereditary dignity, it seemed natural for seats in the upper House of Parliament to be so as well. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Peerage had evolved its hereditary characteristics. Since under Norman customs, estates devolved under the principles of primogeniture
, seats in Parliament did so as well.
Barons sat in Parliament by a combination of tenure and writs of summons issued to them. If a woman held a barony, her husband was summoned to Parliament in her right. The concept of a barony as a personal dignity not tied to land arose only when, in about 1388, Richard II
created John Beauchamp a baron by letters patent
. The Lord de Beauchamp was a baron not by tenure but rather by the will of the Crown. Letters patent and writs of summons were both used to create peerage dignities until the reign of Henry VIII
, when the latter method fell into desuetude. Some peerage dignities, however, have since been created by writs of summons since that time. In most cases, such peerage dignities were created when a writ was issued to an individual under the misapprehension that he was entitled to a peerage dignity created by letters patent. The Barony of Strange
is an example of a peerage dignity created due to an error.
Earls appear to have sat in Parliament by virtue of their baronies, and not their earldoms. The separation of the two dignities seems to have arisen after the advent of the usage of letters patent to create peerage dignities. In some cases, a baron who held a dignity created by a writ of summons was created an Earl, and the two dignities later separated, the barony devolving upon the heir-general, and the earldom to an heir-male.
At first, earls and barons were the only ranks in the peerage. The other ranks of the Peerage developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. In 1337, Edward, the Black Prince
was created Duke of Cornwall
, taking precedence
over all earls. Dukedoms were reserved for members of the Royal Family until 1387, when Robert de Vere, 9th Earl of Oxford, the favourite of Richard II, was created Duke of Ireland for life. De Vere had previously been created Marquess of Dublin for life, making him the first person to hold a dignity of such a rank between Dukes and Earls. Subsequent marquessates were created rarely; the Marquess of Winchester
, whose dignity was created in 1551, is the only English marquess without a dukedom. The rank of viscount was introduced from Europe in 1440, when John, Baron Beaumont, was created Viscount Beaumont, with precedence between earls and barons.
During the reign of Henry VIII, peers attempted to consolidate and secure their position. They declared themselves "ennobled in blood," and suggested that no peerage could be extinguished except by an Act of Parliament, upon the extinction of all heirs to it, or upon forfeiture for treason
or felony. The Spiritual Lords had attempted to secure the privileges of the Peerage while maintaining their ecclesiastical privileges, but lost in both attempts. Nonetheless, they were in the majority in the House of Lords until the Dissolution of the Monasteries
, which removed the abbots and priors from the House. Thereafter, the temporal peers formed for the first time a majority in the Lords.
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 had poor relations with the English Parliament, which had been less submissive than the Scottish Estates that he had 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 was not 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 would not 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 did not wish for their individual significance in the House of Lords to dwindle, so they agreed to permit Scotland to elect just sixteen representative peer
s 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
.
The individual power of peers did, however, reduce as more peerages were created. At one point, Anne
created twelve peers in one day to secure a majority for the court party. In response to the increase in creations, the House of Lords proposed a bill to restrict its numbers in 1719, but the bill failed in the House of Commons.
, which devolved the Crown, after Anne's death, upon George, Elector of Hanover
, the Queen's closest Protestant relative, bypassing about 50 others in the line of succession. As the power of the monarch slowly shifted to Parliament, peerage dignities came to be conferred at the behest of ministers, not at the pleasure of the Crown.
King George III's reign is of particular note in the history of the Peerage. Increases to the Peerage during the time were totally unprecedented: almost four hundred peers were created during his reign. 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. It became apparent that the representation of Scottish peers was inadequate: they had continued to elect but sixteen peers, while the number of British peers had increased tremendously. To account for this deficiency in representation, British hereditary peerages were granted to Scottish peers, thereby entitling them to sit in the House of Lords.
In 1801, Ireland united with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom. Ireland became entitled to elect twenty-eight of their number to sit in the House of Lords as representative peers. Unlike the Union of Scotland and England, the Crown retained the right to create one new Irish peerage dignity every time three previous ones became extinct, until the number of Irish peers without British peerages amounted to one hundred, when further creations would be permitted as often as necessary to maintain that number. Since Irish peers were not automatically entitled to representation in the Lords, individuals could be created Irish peers so as to honour them without further swelling the numbers of the House of Lords. There were only 21 creations of new Irish peerages after the Union, all other new peerages since 1801 have been created in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
.
In 1832, the Reform Act was passed, abolishing many of England's "rotten" boroughs, an example of which was Old Sarum
, with an electorate of seven. Such small boroughs were often "owned" by peers, whose nominees were almost always elected. The Reform Act and further Acts reduced the influence of peers in the lower house, and therefore their overall political power.
An important development of the nineteenth century was the Law Lord. In 1856, it was deemed necessary to add a legally qualified peer to the House of Lords: the Lords exercised, and still exercise, certain judicial functions
, but did not necessarily include a sufficient number of peers well-versed in law. So that the number of hereditary peers would not be further increased, Victoria
made Sir James Parke
, a baron of the Exchequer, a life peer as Baron Wensleydale. The Lords refused to admit him, deeming that nothing but an Act of Parliament could change the fundamental hereditary characteristic of the Lords. Bills were later introduced to permit the creation of life peerages, but these failed. 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.
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 shall not 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 was not 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 eventually 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; the Dukedom of York and Earldom of Stockton 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
and Prince William of Wales have been created hereditary peers (they were created Earl of Wessex in 1999 and Duke of Cambridge in 2011 respectively, both on the occasion of their marriages).
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 do not 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.
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
found in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, stretches over the last thousand years. The origins of the British peerage are obscure but while the ranks of baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
and earl
Earl
An earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...
perhaps predate the British peerage itself, the ranks of duke
Duke
A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...
and marquess
Marquess
A marquess or marquis is a nobleman of hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The term is also used to translate equivalent oriental styles, as in imperial China, Japan, and Vietnam...
were introduced to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the 14th century. The rank of viscount
Viscount
A viscount or viscountess is a member of the European nobility whose comital title ranks usually, as in the British peerage, above a baron, below an earl or a count .-Etymology:...
came later, in the mid-15th century. Peers were summoned to Parliament
Parliament of England
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws...
, forming the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
.
The unions of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
to form Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
in 1707, and of Great Britain and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
to form the United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
in 1801, led successively to the establishment of the Peerages of Great Britain
Peerage of Great Britain
The Peerage of Great Britain comprises all extant peerages created in the Kingdom of Great Britain after the Act of Union 1707 but before the Act of Union 1800...
and later of the United Kingdom
Peerage of the United Kingdom
The Peerage of the United Kingdom comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Act of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great Britain...
, and the discontinuation of creations in the Peerages of England
Peerage of England
The Peerage of England comprises all peerages created in the Kingdom of England before the Act of Union in 1707. In that year, the Peerages of England and Scotland were replaced by one Peerage of Great Britain....
and Scotland
Peerage of Scotland
The Peerage of Scotland is the division of the British Peerage for those peers created in the Kingdom of Scotland before 1707. With that year's Act of Union, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England were combined into the Kingdom of Great Britain, and a new Peerage of Great Britain was...
. Scottish and Irish peers
Peerage of Ireland
The Peerage of Ireland is the term used for those titles of nobility created by the English and later British monarchs of Ireland in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland. The creation of such titles came to an end in the 19th century. The ranks of the Irish peerage are Duke, Marquess, Earl,...
did not have an automatic right to sit in the House of Lords, and instead elected representative peer
Representative peer
In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords...
s from amongst their number.
Peerages were largely hereditary until the regular creation of life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...
s began in the second half of the 20th century. The last creation of a non-royal hereditary peer
Hereditary peer
Hereditary peers form part of the Peerage in the United Kingdom. There are over seven hundred peers who hold titles that may be inherited. Formerly, most of them were entitled to sit in the House of Lords, but since the House of Lords Act 1999 only ninety-two are permitted to do so...
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 hereditary peerage, as it now exists, combines several different English institutions with analogous ones from Scotland and Ireland.English Earl
Earl
An earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...
s are an Anglo-Saxon institution. Around 1014, England was divided into shire
Shire
A shire is a traditional term for a division of land, found in the United Kingdom and in Australia. In parts of Australia, a shire is an administrative unit, but it is not synonymous with "county" there, which is a land registration unit. Individually, or as a suffix in Scotland and in the far...
s or counties, largely to defend against the Danes; each shire was led by a local great man, called an earl; the same man could be earl of several shires. When the Normans conquered England, they continued to appoint earls, but not for all counties; the administrative head of the county became the sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
. Earldoms began as offices, with a perquisite of a share of the legal fees in the county; they gradually became honours, with a stipend of £20 a year; like most feudal offices, they were inherited, but the kings frequently asked earls to resign or exchange earldoms. Usually there were few Earls in England, and they were men of great wealth in the shire from which they held title, or an adjacent one, but it depended on circumstances: during the civil war between Stephen
Stephen of England
Stephen , often referred to as Stephen of Blois , was a grandson of William the Conqueror. He was King of England from 1135 to his death, and also the Count of Boulogne by right of his wife. Stephen's reign was marked by the Anarchy, a civil war with his cousin and rival, the Empress Matilda...
and the Empress Matilda
Empress Matilda
Empress Matilda , also known as Matilda of England or Maude, was the daughter and heir of King Henry I of England. Matilda and her younger brother, William Adelin, were the only legitimate children of King Henry to survive to adulthood...
, nine Earls were created in three years.
William the Conqueror or Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
did not make Dukes; they were themselves only Dukes of Normandy or Acquitane. But when Edward III of England
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
declared himself King of France, he made his sons Dukes, to distinguish them from other noblemen, much as Royal Dukes are now distinguished from other Dukes. Later Kings created Marquess
Marquess
A marquess or marquis is a nobleman of hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The term is also used to translate equivalent oriental styles, as in imperial China, Japan, and Vietnam...
es and Viscount
Viscount
A viscount or viscountess is a member of the European nobility whose comital title ranks usually, as in the British peerage, above a baron, below an earl or a count .-Etymology:...
s to make finer gradations of honour: a rank something more than an Earl and something less than an Earl, respectively.
When Henry III or Edward I wanted money or advice from his subjects, he would order great churchmen, earls, and other great men to come to his Great Council; he would generally order the lesser men from towns and counties to gather and pick some men to represent them. For the evolution of this into a system of government, see Parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
; the English Order of Baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
s has evolved those men who were individually ordered to attend Parliament, but held no other title; the chosen representatives, on the other hand, became the House of Commons
House of Commons of England
The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain...
. This order, called a writ
Writ
In common law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court...
, was not originally hereditary, or even a privilege; the recipient had to come to the Great Council at his own expense, vote on taxes on himself and his neighbors, acknowledge that he was the king's tenant-in-chief (which might cost him special taxes), and risked involvement in royal politics - or the king requesting a personal loan, or benevolence
Benevolence
Benevolence means an act of, or a general inclination towards, charity."Benevolence" may also refer to:* Benevolence , a faculty in the discredited theory of Phrenology* USS Benevolence , a Haven class hospital ship-See also:...
. Which men were ordered to Council varied from Council to Council; a man might be so ordered once, and never again - or all his life, but his son and heir might never go.
Under Henry VI of England
Henry VI of England
Henry VI was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. Until 1437, his realm was governed by regents. Contemporaneous accounts described him as peaceful and pious, not suited for the violent dynastic civil wars, known as the Wars...
, in the fifteenth century, just before the Wars of the Roses
Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses were a series of dynastic civil wars for the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York...
, attendance at Parliament became more valuable. The first claim of hereditary right to a writ comes from this reign; so does the first patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
, or charter declaring a man to be a Baron; and the five orders began to be called Peers; holders of older peerages also began receive greater honor than Peers of the same rank just created.
If a man held a peerage, his son would succeed to it; if he had no children, his brother would succeed. If he had a single daughter, his son-in-law would inherit the family lands, and usually the same Peerage; more complex cases were decided depending on circumstances. Customs changed with time; Earls were the first to be hereditary, and three different rules can be traced for the case of an Earl who left no sons and several married daughters. In the thirteenth century, the husband of the eldest daughter inherited the Earldom automatically; in the fifteenth century, the Earldom reverted to the Crown, who might regrant it (often to the eldest son-in-law); in the seventeenth century, it wouldn't be inherited by anybody unless all but one of the daughters died and left no descendants, in which case the remaining daughter (or her heir) would inherit.
After Henry II became the Lord of Ireland, he and his successors began to imitate the English system as it was in their time. Irish Earls were first created in the thirteenth century, and Irish Parliaments began in the fifteenth century, complete with seven Barons of Parliament. The Irish peers were in a peculiar political position; because they were subjects of the King of England, but peers in a different kingdom, they could sit in the English House of Commons, and many did. In the eighteenth century, Irish peerages became rewards for English politicians, limited only by the concern that they might go to Dublin and interfere with the Irish Government.
Scotland and Ireland
Scotland evolved a similar system, differing in points of detail. The first Scottish Earldoms derive from the seven mormaerMormaer
The title of Mormaer designates a regional or provincial ruler in the medieval Kingdom of the Scots. In theory, although not always in practice, a Mormaer was second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a toisech.-Origin:...
s, of immemorial antiquity; they were named Earls by Queen Margaret. The Parliament of Scotland
Parliament of Scotland
The Parliament of Scotland, officially the Estates of Parliament, was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland. The unicameral parliament of Scotland is first found on record during the early 13th century, with the first meeting for which a primary source survives at...
is as old as the English; the Scottish equivalent of baronies are called lordships of Parliament.
The Act of Union 1707, between England and Scotland, provided that future peerages should be peers of Great Britain
Peerage of Great Britain
The Peerage of Great Britain comprises all extant peerages created in the Kingdom of Great Britain after the Act of Union 1707 but before the Act of Union 1800...
, and the rules covering the peers should follow the English model; because there were proportionately many more Scottish peers, they chose a number of representatives to sit in the British House of Lords. The Acts of Union 1800 changed this to peers of the United Kingdom
Peerage of the United Kingdom
The Peerage of the United Kingdom comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Act of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great Britain...
, but provided that Irish peerages could still be created; but the Irish peers were concerned that their honours would be diluted as cheap prizes, and insisted that an Irish peerage be created only when three Irish peerages had gone extinct (until there were only 100 Irish peers left). In the early nineteenth century, Irish creations were as frequent as this allowed; but only three have been created since 1863, and none since 1898.
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 sheriffSheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
s. Such a system existed as early as 1164, when Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
withheld a personal summons to Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion...
, 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
Magna Carta
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
, King John
John of England
John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...
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
Model Parliament
The Model Parliament is the term, attributed to Frederic William Maitland, used for the 1295 Parliament of England of King Edward I. This assembly included members of the clergy and the aristocracy, as well as representatives from the various counties and boroughs. Each county returned two knights,...
was called; the greater barons and prelate
Prelate
A prelate is a high-ranking member of the clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin prælatus, the past participle of præferre, which means "carry before", "be set above or over" or "prefer"; hence, a prelate is one set over others.-Related...
s 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, was not an hereditary body. Kings did not 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. At first, the writ of summons was regarded as a burden and interference, but later, when Parliament's power increased, it was seen as a sign of royal favour. Since the Crown was itself an hereditary dignity, it seemed natural for seats in the upper House of Parliament to be so as well. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Peerage had evolved its hereditary characteristics. Since under Norman customs, estates devolved under the principles of primogeniture
Primogeniture
Primogeniture is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings . Historically, the term implied male primogeniture, to the exclusion of females...
, seats in Parliament did so as well.
Barons sat in Parliament by a combination of tenure and writs of summons issued to them. If a woman held a barony, her husband was summoned to Parliament in her right. The concept of a barony as a personal dignity not tied to land arose only when, in about 1388, Richard II
Richard II of England
Richard II was King of England, a member of the House of Plantagenet and the last of its main-line kings. He ruled from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard was a son of Edward, the Black Prince, and was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III...
created John Beauchamp a baron by letters patent
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
. The Lord de Beauchamp was a baron not by tenure but rather by the will of the Crown. Letters patent and writs of summons were both used to create peerage dignities until the reign of Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, when the latter method fell into desuetude. Some peerage dignities, however, have since been created by writs of summons since that time. In most cases, such peerage dignities were created when a writ was issued to an individual under the misapprehension that he was entitled to a peerage dignity created by letters patent. The Barony of Strange
Baron Strange
Baron Strange is a title that has been created several times in the Peerage of England. Two creations, one in 1295 and another in 1325, had only one holder each, upon the death of whom they became extinct. Two of the creations are still extant, however...
is an example of a peerage dignity created due to an error.
At first, earls and barons were the only ranks in the peerage. The other ranks of the Peerage developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. In 1337, Edward, the Black Prince
Edward, the Black Prince
Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Aquitaine, KG was the eldest son of King Edward III of England and his wife Philippa of Hainault as well as father to King Richard II of England....
was created Duke of Cornwall
Duke of Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall was the first duchy created in the peerage of England.The present Duke of Cornwall is The Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning British monarch .-History:...
, taking precedence
Order of precedence
An order of precedence is a sequential hierarchy of nominal importance of items. Most often it is used in the context of people by many organizations and governments...
over all earls. Dukedoms were reserved for members of the Royal Family until 1387, when Robert de Vere, 9th Earl of Oxford, the favourite of Richard II, was created Duke of Ireland for life. De Vere had previously been created Marquess of Dublin for life, making him the first person to hold a dignity of such a rank between Dukes and Earls. Subsequent marquessates were created rarely; the Marquess of Winchester
Marquess of Winchester
Marquess of Winchester is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1551 for the prominent statesman William Paulet, 1st Earl of Wiltshire. He had already been created Baron St John in 1539 and Earl of Wiltshire in 1550, also in the Peerage of England...
, whose dignity was created in 1551, is the only English marquess without a dukedom. The rank of viscount was introduced from Europe in 1440, when John, Baron Beaumont, was created Viscount Beaumont, with precedence between earls and barons.
During the reign of Henry VIII, peers attempted to consolidate and secure their position. They declared themselves "ennobled in blood," and suggested that no peerage could be extinguished except by an Act of Parliament, upon the extinction of all heirs to it, or upon forfeiture for treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
or felony. The Spiritual Lords had attempted to secure the privileges of the Peerage while maintaining their ecclesiastical privileges, but lost in both attempts. Nonetheless, they were in the majority in the House of Lords until the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
, which removed the abbots and priors from the House. Thereafter, the temporal peers formed for the first time a majority in the Lords.
Stuart monarchs
In 1603, James VI of ScotlandJames I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
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 had poor relations with the English Parliament, which had been less submissive than the Scottish Estates that he had 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
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
. 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.
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
that overthrew Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
. 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 was not abolished, and peers became entitled to be elected to the sole remaining House of Parliament. Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
, 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
Lord Protector
Lord Protector is a title used in British constitutional law for certain heads of state at different periods of history. It is also a particular title for the British Heads of State in respect to the established church...
.
Soon after Cromwell's death, the monarchy was restored, as was the House of Lords. King Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
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
Titus Oates
Titus Oates was an English perjurer who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II.-Early life:...
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 would not 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 did not wish for their individual significance in the House of Lords to dwindle, so they agreed to permit Scotland to elect just sixteen representative peer
Representative peer
In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords...
s to sit in the House of Lords (see Parliament and the Peerage). After the Union, creations in both the Peerage of England
Peerage of England
The Peerage of England comprises all peerages created in the Kingdom of England before the Act of Union in 1707. In that year, the Peerages of England and Scotland were replaced by one Peerage of Great Britain....
and the Peerage of Scotland
Peerage of Scotland
The Peerage of Scotland is the division of the British Peerage for those peers created in the Kingdom of Scotland before 1707. With that year's Act of Union, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England were combined into the Kingdom of Great Britain, and a new Peerage of Great Britain was...
ceased and all new peerages were created in the Peerage of Great Britain
Peerage of Great Britain
The Peerage of Great Britain comprises all extant peerages created in the Kingdom of Great Britain after the Act of Union 1707 but before the Act of Union 1800...
.
The individual power of peers did, however, reduce as more peerages were created. At one point, Anne
Anne of Great Britain
Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...
created twelve peers in one day to secure a majority for the court party. In response to the increase in creations, the House of Lords proposed a bill to restrict its numbers in 1719, but the bill failed in the House of Commons.
Hanoverian monarchs
Parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701Act of Settlement 1701
The Act of Settlement is an act of the Parliament of England that was passed in 1701 to settle the succession to the English throne on the Electress Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant heirs. The act was later extended to Scotland, as a result of the Treaty of Union , enacted in the Acts of Union...
, which devolved the Crown, after Anne's death, upon George, Elector of Hanover
George I of Great Britain
George I was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 until his death, and ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire from 1698....
, the Queen's closest Protestant relative, bypassing about 50 others in the line of succession. As the power of the monarch slowly shifted to Parliament, peerage dignities came to be conferred at the behest of ministers, not at the pleasure of the Crown.
King George III's reign is of particular note in the history of the Peerage. Increases to the Peerage during the time were totally unprecedented: almost four hundred peers were created during his reign. Lord North and William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
were especially liberal in dispensing peerage dignities, a device used to obtain majorities in the House of Lords. It became apparent that the representation of Scottish peers was inadequate: they had continued to elect but sixteen peers, while the number of British peers had increased tremendously. To account for this deficiency in representation, British hereditary peerages were granted to Scottish peers, thereby entitling them to sit in the House of Lords.
In 1801, Ireland united with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom. Ireland became entitled to elect twenty-eight of their number to sit in the House of Lords as representative peers. Unlike the Union of Scotland and England, the Crown retained the right to create one new Irish peerage dignity every time three previous ones became extinct, until the number of Irish peers without British peerages amounted to one hundred, when further creations would be permitted as often as necessary to maintain that number. Since Irish peers were not automatically entitled to representation in the Lords, individuals could be created Irish peers so as to honour them without further swelling the numbers of the House of Lords. There were only 21 creations of new Irish peerages after the Union, all other new peerages since 1801 have been created in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Peerage of the United Kingdom
The Peerage of the United Kingdom comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Act of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great Britain...
.
In 1832, the Reform Act was passed, abolishing many of England's "rotten" boroughs, an example of which was Old Sarum
Old Sarum
Old Sarum is the site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury, in England. The site contains evidence of human habitation as early as 3000 BC. Old Sarum is mentioned in some of the earliest records in the country...
, with an electorate of seven. Such small boroughs were often "owned" by peers, whose nominees were almost always elected. The Reform Act and further Acts reduced the influence of peers in the lower house, and therefore their overall political power.
An important development of the nineteenth century was the Law Lord. In 1856, it was deemed necessary to add a legally qualified peer to the House of Lords: the Lords exercised, and still exercise, certain judicial functions
Judicial functions of the House of Lords
The House of Lords, in addition to having a legislative function, historically also had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers, for impeachment cases, and as a court of last resort within the United Kingdom. In the latter case the House's...
, but did not necessarily include a sufficient number of peers well-versed in law. So that the number of hereditary peers would not be further increased, Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
made Sir James Parke
James Parke, 1st Baron Wensleydale
James Parke, 1st Baron Wensleydale PC was a British barrister and judge. After an education at The King's School, Macclesfield and Trinity College, Cambridge he studied under a special pleader, before being called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1813...
, a baron of the Exchequer, a life peer as Baron Wensleydale. The Lords refused to admit him, deeming that nothing but an Act of Parliament could change the fundamental hereditary characteristic of the Lords. Bills were later introduced to permit the creation of life peerages, but these failed. 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 were almost always 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 GeorgeDavid Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
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
Titles Deprivation Act 1917
The Titles Deprivation Act 1917 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which authorised enemies of the United Kingdom during the First World War to be deprived of their British peerages and royal titles. -Background:...
was passed. Some British peers had fought against the British in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
; 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
Henry Taaffe, 12th Viscount Taaffe
Heinrich von Taaffe, 12th Viscount Taaffe, also 12th Baron of Ballymote was an Austrian Irish peer until 1919.He was born at Innsbruck, the son of Count Eduard Taaffe, Minister-President of Austria from 1879 to 1893...
—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
Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919
The Sex Disqualification Act 1919 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It became law when it received Royal Assent on 23 December 1919.-Provisions of the Act:...
provided that "A person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function." In 1922, the Viscountess Rhondda
Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda
Margaret Haig Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda was a Welsh peeress and active suffragette.In 1908 she joined the Women's Social and Political Union , and became secretary of the WSPU's Newport branch...
, 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 was not 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 eventually 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
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
.
Hereditary peerages continued to be created after 1958 but when Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
, of the Labour Party, became Prime Minister in 1964 he ceased to recommend the creation of hereditary peerages. Neither of his successors, Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
(of the Conservative Party) and James Callaghan
James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC , was a British Labour politician, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980...
(of the Labour Party), recommended hereditary peerage creations. Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, a Conservative, did revive the practice of creating hereditary peers. While she was Prime Minister, The Prince Andrew
Prince Andrew, Duke of York
Prince Andrew, Duke of York KG GCVO , is the second son, and third child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
became Duke of York, Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
became Earl of Stockton, George Thomas
George Thomas, 1st Viscount Tonypandy
Thomas George Thomas, 1st Viscount Tonypandy PC was a British Labour Party politician and Speaker of the House of Commons. Born in Port Talbot, Wales, he initially worked as a teacher in both London and Cardiff...
became Viscount Tonypandy and William Whitelaw
William Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw
William Stephen Ian Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw, KT, CH, MC, PC, DL , often known as Willie Whitelaw, was a British Conservative Party politician who served in a wide number of Cabinet positions, most notably as Home Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.-Early life:Whitelaw was born in Nairn, in...
became Viscount Whitelaw. The peerages of the latter two became extinct upon their deaths; the Dukedom of York and Earldom of Stockton survive. Thatcher's husband received an hereditary baronetcy, but she herself was created a life baroness by her successor, John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
. Since Thatcher's tenure, only The Prince Edward
Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex
Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex KG GCVO is the third son and fourth child of Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh...
and Prince William of Wales have been created hereditary peers (they were created Earl of Wessex in 1999 and Duke of Cambridge in 2011 respectively, both on the occasion of their marriages).
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
House of Lords Act 1999
The House of Lords Act 1999 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. The Act reformed the House of Lords, one of the chambers of Parliament. For centuries, the House of Lords had included several hundred members who inherited their seats;...
, hereditary peerages do not entitle individuals to seats in the House of Lords. The Act did provide exemptions for the Earl Marshal
Earl Marshal
Earl Marshal is a hereditary royal officeholder and chivalric title under the sovereign of the United Kingdom used in England...
, the Lord Great Chamberlain
Lord Great Chamberlain
The Lord Great Chamberlain of England is the sixth of the Great Officers of State, ranking beneath the Lord Privy Seal and above the Lord High Constable...
and ninety others elected by the peers. Further reform of the Lords is under consideration.
See also
- PeeragePeerageThe Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
- BaronageBaronageThe baronage is the collectively inclusive term denoting all members of the feudal nobility, as observed by the constitutional authority Edward Coke. It was replaced eventually by the term “peerage”-Origin:...
- Hereditary peerHereditary peerHereditary peers form part of the Peerage in the United Kingdom. There are over seven hundred peers who hold titles that may be inherited. Formerly, most of them were entitled to sit in the House of Lords, but since the House of Lords Act 1999 only ninety-two are permitted to do so...
- Life PeerLife peerIn the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...
- Representative peerRepresentative peerIn the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords...
- Privilege of peeragePrivilege of PeerageThe privilege of peerage is the body of special privileges belonging to members of the British peerage. It is distinct from Parliamentary privilege, which applies only to those peers serving in the House of Lords and the members of the House of Commons, while Parliament is in session and forty days...
Further reading
- Adonis, Andrew, 1993. Making aristocracy work: The peerage and the political system in Britain, 1884-1914 Oxford: Clarendon. ISBN 978-0-19-820389-6 ISBN 0-19-820389-6
- Round, John HoraceJohn Horace RoundHorace Round was a historian and genealogist of the English medieval period. He translated the Domesday Book for Essex into contemporary English. As an expert in the history of the British peerage he was appointed Honorary Historical Adviser to the Crown.-Family and early life:Round was born on 22...
, 1901. Studies in peerage and family history Westminster: A. Constable and Co., Ltd.