History of The Peerage - Stuart Monarchs

Stuart Monarchs

In 1603, James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. Scotland's Peerage then became subject to many of the same principles as the English Peerage, though many peculiarities of Scottish law continue to apply to it today. Scotland, like England, had lesser and greater barons, as well as earls. There was but one Duke in Scotland: the Duke of Rothesay, the heir-apparent to the Crown. The weak nature of the Scottish Crown had permitted the lesser feudal barons to continue attending the Scottish Estates, or Parliament, until the fifteenth century. Thereafter, only Earls and Lords of Parliament (the greater barons) came to be summoned to the Estates. In Scotland, the peerage remained tied to land until after the Union. Every earldom or lordship of Parliament was accompanied by a grant of land; sometimes, peerages and their associated lands were surrendered in return for other peerages and lands. After the Union of the Crowns, however, the concept of the Peerage as a personal dignity, not a dignity affixed to land, became established in Scotland.

James I had poor relations with the English Parliament, which had been less submissive than the Scottish Estates that he had been accustomed to. To raise funds without taxation, James began to sell titles. For instance, individuals paying £1095 could obtain the non-peerage hereditary dignity of baronet. Even peerage dignities were sold. Thus, James I added sixty-two peers to a body that had included just fifty-nine members at the commencement of his reign. His Stuart successors were no less profuse.

The position of the Peerage was called into question after the English Revolution that overthrew Charles I. In 1648, the House of Commons passed an Act abolishing the House of Lords, "finding by too long experience that the House of Lords is useless and dangerous to the people of England." The Peerage was not abolished, and peers became entitled to be elected to the sole remaining House of Parliament. Oliver Cromwell, the de facto dictator, later found it convenient to re-establish a second chamber to reduce the power of the Commons. About sixty writs of summons, resembling those issued to peers sitting in the House of Lords, were issued. The individuals so summoned were called Lords, but their dignities were not hereditary. But soon after the establishment of this body, Cromwell dissolved Parliament, taking power into his own hands as Lord Protector.

Soon after Cromwell's death, the monarchy was restored, as was the House of Lords. King Charles II continued the Stuart tendency of profusely creating peerages, even eclipsing the figures of James I's reign. Several of those dignities went to Charles' many mistresses and illegitimate sons. Charles II's reign was also marked by the persecution of Roman Catholics after Titus Oates falsely suggested that there was a "Popish Plot" to murder the King. Catholic peers were hindered from the House of Lords because they were forced, before taking their seats, to recite a declaration that denounced some of the Roman Church's doctrines as "superstitious and idolatrous." These provisions would not be repealed until 1829.

The next major event in the history of the Peerage occurred in 1707, when England and Scotland united into Great Britain. There were, at the time, one hundred and sixty-eight English peers and one hundred and fifty-four Scottish ones. English peers did not wish for their individual significance in the House of Lords to dwindle, so they agreed to permit Scotland to elect just sixteen representative peers to sit in the House of Lords (see Parliament and the Peerage). After the Union, creations in both the Peerage of England and the Peerage of Scotland ceased and all new peerages were created in the Peerage of Great Britain.

The individual power of peers did, however, reduce as more peerages were created. At one point, Anne created twelve peers in one day to secure a majority for the court party. In response to the increase in creations, the House of Lords proposed a bill to restrict its numbers in 1719, but the bill failed in the House of Commons.