HL Deb 11 March 1850 vol 109 cc621-3
LORD BROUGHAM

then presented a petition from two noble Members of their Lordships' House, the Earl of Clancarty and the Earl of Bradford. They stated that they were by hereditary right entitled to the right of sitting and voting in their Lordships' House; but that they were excluded from the exercise of the privileges of sitting and voting in this House, by a conscientious objection to taking the oath called the Oath of Supremacy as at present administered; and praying that the oaths as at present required to be administered to Members of Parliament, may be modified with a view to the relief of such objection. They said that the language of the oath was inconsistent with the fact, and that they could not swear "that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superirity, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm." They did not object to the words, "ought to have," but they did to the word "hath;" for they stated that by an Act passed in a late Session of Parliament, and generally entitled the Charitable Trusts (Ireland) Act, the existence and constitution of the Church of Rome was legally recognised within these islands. They therefore called upon their Lordships for relief. He had no occasion to tell those two noble Lords, for they knew it as well as any of their Lordships, that they could only obtain that relief in one way, and that was not by a Resolution of their Lordships' House, but by an Act of Parliament. They must, by the Act of Parliament now in force, take that oath in some public place before they could take their seats in that House; and if he were to say in any place, save in that House, where he was not amenable elsewhere for any words he might utter—for instance, if be were to say out of doors that their Lordships, by a resolution of their own, had the power to relieve these two noble Lords from the necessity of taking the oath of supremacy, without the assent of the Crown, or without the assent of the other House of Parliament, he should render himself liable to punishment of a highly grave and serious character; and therefore he durst not propose even to their Lordships that those two Peers should be allowed to sit in that assembly without taking the oaths required bylaw. Supposing, for instance, that a Jew were entitled by the bounty of the Crown to take his seat in that House—and he might be allowed to use this argument, for no man, to the extent of his humble abilities, had been more active in seeking to procure for them admission into the Legislature—he should never dream of allowing him to take his seat by means of a resolution declaring that in his case the ordinary oaths should be dispensed with. He had said thus much, because a report had been current for the last forty-eight hours on the subject of the admission of Jews into the other House of Parliament—a report to which he had not hesitated, on behalf of his noble Friend opposite, to give the most flat and positive contradiction. It was so wild and extravagant a report that it was almost absurd to give it a serious contradiction. To say that the Jews, who had been kept out of Parliament by having been refused admission at the front door, would be enabled to be smuggled in by the back door, was a calumny on Her Majesty's Ministers so monstrous that he could not believe a single word of it. If the Jews could get into Parliament by the authority of an Act of Parliament, well; he should not object to such a measure, but should cordially support it; but that they could get in by an alteration of the oath, resting on a Resolution of the other House of Parliament alone, and not on an Act of Parliament, was monstrous, and he took it for granted that Her Majesty's Ministers had never even dreamt of such a thing, and that they would oppose it, if others either dreamt of or proposed a measure of such unquestionable folly.

The EARL of MOUNTCASHELL

was convinced that if the terms of this oath were not altered in the present Session, many other Peers would feel themselves excluded from their seats by the impossibility of subscribing to them. He therefore hoped that Her Majesty's Ministers would give their Lordships a pledge that the terms of this oath should be altered before the close of the present Session.

LORD REDESDALE

stated that he did not place the same construction on the words of the oath of supremacy as had been put on it by the two noble Peers in question; and yet he had, he hoped, as tender a conscience as any other of their Lordships.

The EARL of LANESBOROUGH

said a few words, which were not distinctly heard.

Petition ordered to lie on the table.