IV
CHAPTER III
THE HOUSE OF LORDS
The House of Lords consists of three different classes of Peers. (1) Hereditary Peers of England and United Kingdom,
(2) Representative Peers and (3) Peers by virtue of Office.
The first question that must be raised and answered in order to understand the Constitution of the House of Lords is this. What is the title of the Peers to sit in the House of Lords ?
Peers of England and the United Kingdom
The title of the English Peers and the Peers of the United Kingdom is founded on the King’s writ of summons addressed to each Peer individually to come and to attend Parliament. The English Peerage is created by the King by Letters Patent. No difficulty arises, therefore, with regard to persons holding Peerage by Letters Patent. The only question that arises is whether the King could create a Peerage for life. This was at one time a matter of controversy and the controversy was whether a life-Peer created by the King entitles the Peer to sit in the House of Lords. But the issue was decided finally in the Weynesdale Peerage case in 1856 in which two things were decided. (1) That the King had the right to create any class of life-peer or hereditary but (2) the life-Peer cannot sit as a member of the House of the Lords and the King could not send such a Peer a writ of summons. The reason assigned was that the hereditary character of the Peerage was by custom, if not by law, an integral feature of the Peerage and the King while entitled to exercise his right to create a Peerage was not entitled to abrogate the custom.
What about the right of the Peers whose Peerage was not created by Letters Patent ? Their right also was founded upon the King’s writ of summons.
Two questions, however, were long agitated with regard to the writ of summons to such Peers. Could every Peer claim the writ of Summons ? Was the King free to address or not to address