MAKING A VISCOUNT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 283, 30 November 1931, Page 6

MAKING A VISCOUNT.

It seems a pity that none of the Labour peers attended the ceremony when the former Chancellor of the Exchequer took his seat in the House of Lords as Viscount Snowden of Ickornshaw. There is. something in this picturesque ceremony that could not have failed to make an appeal to even the most extreme Labourites. The actual ceremony is an instructive lesson in dignified ceremonial. First of all, the Carter King of Arms, or some Herald, makes his entry bareheaded and attired in his tabard, holding the patent and writ of summons. The new peer himself follows in his robes. These robes consist of a scarlet mantle lined with white taffeta, with three bars of ermine on the right side and two on the left, and the coronet is a chased circlet of gold with sixteen silver balls. He walks between two peers of his own degree, in this case Viscount d'Abernon and Viscount Lee. These peers are similarly robed. The new peer makes his obeisance to the Lord Chancellor, who enjoins that his credentials should be read. The oaths are then administered and the writ handed over for safe keeping to the Clerk of the House. The new viscount is then conducted to his seat, from which he forthwith rises again and returns less formally to the Lord Chancellor to receive his congratulations. In all Royal addresses he is now spoken of as "our right trusty and wellbeloved cousin," this style of address having been originally adopted by Henry IV., who was actually related to every carl in his kingdom. The title of viscount originally meant one who was the deputy or sheriff of an carl, but in 1440 Henry VI. created John Beaumont a viscount in his own right, and ever since it has been regarded as a step ill the peerage independently of any relation to an earldom. Any English Premier can on' retiring claim a viscounty, but it has become the practice to confer an earldom on a retiring Premier and a viscounty on the Speaker of the House of Commons on his retirement. It is tho custom for a new peer to compile his genealogy for tho pages of Burke. Sometimes thie compilation is left to the College of Heralds, who are experts in this branch of work. He has also to prepare a coat of arms with two supporters, which may be mythical animals. Here, again, the College of Heralds is often able to supply suggestions. AN that now remains m the selection of a suitable motto, preferably in Latin or old French. Thus is an erstwhile Labour member transformed and rendered worthy to join the ranks of that "old nobility" which we were (aught to pray might be preserved when all else lay in ruins. —W.M.