A RIDDLE OF THE CONSTITUTION

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 79, 27 December 1928, Page 6

A RIDDLE OF THE CONSTITUTION

LORDS WHO ARE NOT PEERS. I have heard several people, commenting on the announcement of the conferring of a barony on the retiring Archbishop of Canterbury; remark that he "remains a Peer,” says Dermot Morrah, in the “Daily Mail.” This is not so; Dr. Davidson is becoming a Peer for the first time. It seems quite commonly supposed that a bishop is a Peer, just because he sits in the House of Lords. I know that many writers, even skilled constitutional lawyers, sometimes speak of a “spiritual Peer.” Nevertheless, to use such a phrase is a mistake, and a mistake that obscures an interesting piece of history.

There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a spiritual Peer. Look at the preamble of an Act of Parliament, and you will see that it is “enacted by and with the advice and consent,” not of the Peers, but of “The Lords Spiritual and Temporal.” A Peer is by no means the same thing as a Lord of Parliament. An essential privilege of Peerage is the right of being tried by one’s Peers, in effect, by the House of Lords. Now, this privilege is possessed by many persons who are not Lords of Parliament. They are those Scottish and Irish Peers who have not been elected as representatives of their order, and also the wives of Peers. For instance, the famous Duchess of Kingston was tried by the House of Lords for bigamy. On the other hand, there are Lords of Parliament who are not Peers. Among these are the Law Lords, a small and newly-created body. But much more interesting are the bishops, for at one time it was well within their power to become Peers in the full sense. They have sat in the House of Lords from the beginning, though some of the junior bishops are now excluded, but while the lay Peers were consolidating the privileges of their rank, the prelates scorned such things. They refused to be tried by the lay Peerage or by any other laymen; they insisted on their right to be tried for all offences by the Church courts alone. They got that right recognised —and then the immense powers of the “courts Christian” were whittled down to a mere jurisdiction over ecclesiastical offences.

And so, if- a lay Peer is accused of felony, he can claim trial before the whole august assembly of the House of Lords; but a bishop iu the same predicament (if we dare make the supposition) has to go before a common jury, like any poacher. For the right reverend gentleman, though a Lord Spiritual of the High Court of Parliament, is not a Peer.