PEERAGES IN ABEYANCE. (Hansard, 11 August 1859)

§ LORD REDESDALE

called the attention of the House to a Notice given by him on the 30th July last year with respect to the subject of peerages in abeyance, not with the intention of asking their Lordships to adopt those resolutions, but that it might not be supposed that he had given up the subject. The late change in the Government had alone prevented his moving in the matter, which he felt ought not to be brought forward unless Her Ma- 1340 jesty's Ministers were prepared to express an opinion upon it. This year three new petitions had been referred to the House, which proved that he had in no degree exaggerated the extent to which these claims would interfere with the proper discharge of the duties of the House in Appeals. Among these claims were two which so strongly illustrated the objections he had urged against the practice of creating Peers by terminating abeyances that he would state the cases. The baronies of Montagu and Monthermer, after having been united in one line of heirs for 200 years, fell into abeyance in the reign of Henry VIII., and now two gentlemen (cousins he believed) of the name of Lowndes, claimed one Montagu, and the other Monthermer. Both were men of fail-estate, but neither had ever served the public in any capacity, and had no more reason to expect that Her Majesty would create them peers than every other gentleman of similar property and respectability. They however expect that in the first place this House will devote much valuable time that would otherwise be given to appeals to the investigation of their pedigrees, and then that Her Majesty on receiving our report that these peerages are in abeyance, and that they with others are coheirs (though not the eldest) make two peerages in their favour out of those titles which after having been held together under a higher title for two hundred years have been unknown to the House and practically extinct for three hundred more, and thus put two members of a family for the first time ennobled above almost every other baron, neither of them having the slightest right to expect to be made peers except from the infinitesimal and divided portion of noble blood which has descended to them through this long abeyance. That any expectation should exist, that such a thing could be done he considered most unfortunate, and equally unfair to the Crown and to the Peerage, and he trusted that some steps would be taken to put a stop to it. He was well aware of the difficulties attending the subject, but he thought that Her Majesty might be well advised when any such petitions were hereafter presented to her to direct that the receipt of them should be acknowledged, but neither refer them to Her Attorney General, nor to this House for any report. If this practice was adopted it would render further proceedings unnecessary, and settle the question in au unobjectionable manner.