person whom the Crown might endeavour to make a life-peer. The government of the day accepted the situation, and soon afterwards a new patent was made out which followed the usual limitation to heirs-male. The precedents in favour of the Crown’s action were not strong. The essential and outstanding attribute of the house was its hereditary character. The whole balance of the constitution worked on the pivot of the independence of the peers. They existed as a moderating force in the counsels of parliament, and the alteration of the hereditary character of the House of Lords might easily have rendered it amenable to whatever pressure the government of the day might see fit to exercise. In such circumstances its position as arbiter between people and government would tend to disappear. A change fraught with so many serious possibilities it was said, to be made by the simple prerogative of the Crown. If so far-reaching an alteration in the law were it was for parliament to make it. Further, it was pointed out, there had been no life-creations for centuries and those that are recorded to have been conferred since the crystallisation of our parliamentary system were of such a nature that the grantees never sat in the house by virtue of their life honours, inasmuch as they were existing peers or women. Soon Judicial Peers. after the Wensleydale debates the government introduced a bill into the House of Lords to authorize the creation of two life-peers, who were to be persons of at least five years’ standing as judges The were to sit as lords of appeal but to be peers for life. Eventually the bill disappeared in the House of Commons. In 1869 Earl Russell introduced another life-peerage bill of far wider scope. Twenty-eight life-peerages might be in existence at any one time, but not more than four were to be created in any one year. The life peers would be lords of parliament for life. They were to be selected by the Crown from the peerages of Scotland and Ireland, persons who had sat for ten years in the Commons, distinguished soldiers, sailors, civil servants and judges or persons distinguished in science, literature or art. The bill received a rough handling in committee of the Lords, and the time was evidently not ripe for change, as the bill failed to pass its third reading.
In 1870 attempts were made in the House of Lords to alter the position of the Scottish and Irish representative peers. In 1876 the need of further judicial strength in the Lords was tardily admitted, and an act was passed authorizing the creation of two lords of appeal in ordinary, and power was reserved to appoint two more Suggested Reforms and Alterations. as certain judicial vacancies occurred. They were to be entitled to the rank of baron during their lives but were to sit and vote in parliament only so long as they held their judicial office. Their dignities lasted for life only. Eleven years later another act enabled all retired lords of appeal to sit and vote as members of the House of Lords for life. To those interested in House of Lords reform the pages of Hansard’s Parliamentary Debater are the best authority. In 1888 reform bills were introduced by Lords Dunraven and Salisbury, and in 1907 by Lord Newton. In December 1908 the publication of a long report with sweeping recommendations for reform ended the labours of a House of Lords committee which had been appointed to consider the question in detail. In the session of 1910, following the general election, long discussions took place in both houses of parliament. Opinion generally was freely expressed that the time had arrived for diminishing the number of lords of parliament and for putting into practice the principle that hereditary right alone should no longer confer lordship of parliament (See Parliament.)
The Scottish peerage, like that of England, owes its origin to feudalism. In Angle-Norman days Scotland was a small country, and for some generations after England was settled the Scottish king’s writ ran little beyond the foot of the Highlands, and even the Lord of the Isles reckoned himself an independent sovereign until the Scottish Peerage. beginning of the 15th century The weak and usually ineffective control of the Crown resulted in opportunities for acquiring personal power which the nobles were not slow to take advantage of. Seldom accustomed to act in concert. they soon developed particularist tendencies which steadily increased the strength of their territorial position. These conditions of existence were entirely unfavourable to the establishment of any system of parliamentary government such as centralization had made possible in England, therefore it is not surprising to find that the lesser barons were not relieved of their attendance at the national assemblies until well on in the 15th century (Burton’s Scotland, iii. 111). Again, when the Scottish earls and barons came to parliament, they did not withdraw themselves from the rest of the people, it being the custom for the estates of Scotland to deliberate together, and this custom persisted until the abolition of their parliament by the Act of Union in 1707. The territorial spirit of the nobles inevitably led them to regard the honour as belonging to, and inseparable from, their land, and until comparatively late in Scottish history there is nowhere any record of the conferment of a personal dignity unattached to land such as that conferred in England on Beauchamp by Richard II. This explains the frequent surrenders and altered grants which are so common in Scottish peerage history, and which, in sharp distinction to the English rule of law, are there regarded as perfectly legal. To-day there exists no Scottish dukedom (except the royal dukedom of Rothesay), marquessate or viscounty created before the reign of James VI. of Scotland (and I. of England). Of the existing Scottish peerages sixty three were created in the period between James’s accession to the English throne and the Act of Union. There are now only eighty-seven in all. Unlike one of the English peerages owing its origin exclusively to a writ of summons, ancient Scottish peerages do not fall into abeyance, and when there are only heirs-general, the eldest heir of line succeeds.
Whenever a new parliament is summoned, proclamation is made in Scotland summoning the peers to meet at Holyrood to elect sixteen of their number to represent them in such parliament. The Scottish peerages are recorded on a roll, and this is called over by the lord clerk register before the assembled peers seated at a long table. Each peer answers to the name of the peerage (it may be one or more) he possesses. The roll is then read again and each peer in turn (but only once) rises and reads out the list of those sixteen peers for whom he votes. Proxies are allowed for absent peers and are handed in after the second roll-call. The votes are counted and the lord clerk register reads out the names of those elected, makes a return, and signs and seals it in the presence of the peers assembled. The return eventually finds its way to the House of Lords. The Scottish representative peer so elected receives no writ of summons to parliament, but attends the House of Lords to take the oath, his right to sit being evidenced by the return made. It might be thought that the rules of election in so important a matter would be more stringent, but the fact remains that it is quite possible for an entirely unqualified person to attend and vote at Holyrood No evidence of identity or of a man's right to be present is required and the lord clerk register is compelled to receive any vote tendered except in respect of peerages for which no vote has been given since 1800, these being struck off the roll (10 & 11 Vict. c. 52). Any person claiming to represent such a peerage must prove his right before the House of Lords, as was done in the case of the barony of Fairfax in 1908. It is true that by the act last cited any two peers may protest against a vote at Holyrood, and the lord clerk register thereupon reports the proceedings to the House of Lords, who will consider the question if application be made for an inquiry, but nothing is done unless an application is made. The right to vote certainly needs better proof than that now accepted. For many years the House of Lords maintained that the Crown could not confer a new peerage of Great Britain on a Scottish peer, the ground being that the Scottish peerage was only entitled to the sixteen representative peers given it by the Act of Union, but eventually in 1782 in the case of the duke of Hamilton this contention was given up.
The Anglo-Norman conquerors of Ireland carried with them the laws and the system of tenure to which they were accustomed
