REFUSED PEERAGES

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 30, Issue 17, 1 March 1918, Page 2

REFUSED PEERAGES

On his resignation, Mr. Asquith is said to have refused a peerage. In doing so the late Prime Minister was only following the example of several other famous men who have refused to accept honours and decorations. Gladstone is, of course, the most notable instance of modern times. Thomas Carlyle refused the G.C.B. with his usual irreverence, remarking that if he accepted people would inevitably describe it as the Grand Cap and Bells. Of Fox the story is told that, on someone bringing btm word that the King was anxious to make him a peer, he remarked, despairingly, “Great heavens ! has it come to that ?’’

One of the most interesting of refusals was that which came from Lord Melbourne when Queen Victoria offered him the Garter, one of the most distinguished orders in the power of the British sovereign to confer. Melboutne was, of course, Queen Victoria’s first Prime Minister, when the Queen was quite a young girl, and between the two there existed a picturesque relationship, somewhat like that of father and daughter.

He was, however, ever respectful and, if frank, none the less precise. So, in declining the Garter, he wrote: “The expfense of the blue ribbon amounts to £I,OOO, and there has been, of late years, no period at which it would not have been seriously inconvenient for me to lay down such a sum.’’