The House of Lords, formally The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, is the second chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown dependencies and the British overseas territories. It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and the overseas territories. Parliament is bicameral but has three parts, consisting of the sovereign (Crown-in-Parliament), the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. Both houses of Parliament meet in separate chambers at the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster, one of the inner boroughs of the capital city, London.
Whilst the House of Lords of the United Kingdom is the upper chamber of Parliament and has government ministers, it for many centuries had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers, for impeachments, and as a court of last resort in the United Kingdom and prior, the Kingdom of England.
In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords. Until 1999, all members of the Peerage of England held the right to sit in the House of Lords; they did not elect a limited group of representatives. All peers who were created after 1707 as Peers of Great Britain and after 1801 as Peers of the United Kingdom held the same right to sit in the House of Lords.
The House of Lords Act 1999 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. The Act reformed the House of Lords, one of the chambers of Parliament. For centuries, the House of Lords had included several hundred members who inherited their seats ; the Act removed such a right. However, as part of a compromise, the Act did permit ninety-two hereditary peers to remain in the House on an interim basis. Another ten were created life peers to enable them to remain in the House.
Baron de Clifford is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1299 for Robert de Clifford (c.1274–1314), feudal baron of Clifford in Herefordshire, feudal baron of Skipton in Yorkshire and feudal baron of Appleby in Westmoreland. The title was created by writ, which means that it can descend through both male and female lines. The Norman family which later took the name de Clifford settled in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and was first seated in England at Clifford Castle in Herefordshire. The first Baron served as Earl Marshal of England but was killed at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. His 8th generation descendant the 11th Baron, was created Earl of Cumberland in 1525, whose grandson the 3rd Earl was a noted naval commander. On the latter's death in 1605 the earldom passed to his younger brother, the 4th Earl.
Baron Ampthill, of Ampthill in the County of Bedfordshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 11 March 1881 for the diplomat Lord Odo Russell. He was the third son of Major-General Lord George Russell, second son of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford.
The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of November 2021, there are 809 hereditary peers: 30 dukes, 34 marquesses, 191 earls, 111 viscounts, and 443 barons.
The British Peerage is governed by a body of law that has developed over several centuries.
The privilege of peerage is the body of special privileges belonging to members of the British peerage. It is distinct from parliamentary privilege, which applies only to those peers serving in the House of Lords and the members of the House of Commons, while Parliament is in session and forty days before and after a parliamentary session.
Certain governments in the United Kingdom have, for more than a century, attempted to find a way to reform the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This process was started by the Parliament Act 1911 introduced by the then Liberal Government which stated:
...whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation
A writ in acceleration, commonly called a writ of acceleration, is a type of writ of summons that enabled the eldest son and heir apparent of a peer with more than one peerage to attend the British or Irish House of Lords, using one of his father's subsidiary titles, during his father's lifetime. This procedure could be used to bring younger men into the Lords and increase the number of capable members in a house that drew on a very small pool of talent.
Lieutenant Colonel Edward Southwell Russell, 26th Baron de Clifford,, was the only son of Jack Southwell Russell, 25th Baron de Clifford, and Eva Carrington.
Philip Herbert, 7th Earl of Pembroke, 4th Earl of Montgomery KB was an English nobleman and politician who succeeded to the titles and estates of two earldoms on 8 July 1674 on the death of his brother William Herbert, 6th Earl of Pembroke.
Following the enactment of the House of Lords Act 1999, the number of hereditary peers entitled to sit in the House of Lords was reduced to ninety-two. Ninety of the first ninety-two were elected by all the hereditary peers before the passing of the reform. Since November 2002, by-elections have been held to fill vacancies left by deaths, resignations or disqualifications of those peers. Since the passing of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, by-elections have also been held to fill vacancies left by the retirements of those peers.
Impeachment is a process in which the Parliament of the United Kingdom may prosecute and try individuals, normally holders of public office, for high treason or other crimes and misdemeanours. First used to try William Latimer, 4th Baron Latimer during the English Good Parliament of 1376, it was a rare mechanism whereby Parliament was able to arrest and depose ministers of the Crown. The last impeachment was that of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville in 1806; since then, other forms of democratic scrutiny have been favoured and the process has been considered as an obsolete—but still extant—power of Parliament.
A by-election for a Scottish representative peer took place on 1 October 1958 at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The election was caused by the death of Archibald Murray, 16th Lord Sinclair. It turned out to be the last by-election for representative peers before all holders of titles in the Peerage of Scotland were made eligible to sit in the House of Lords in 1963.
Nicholas Knowles, Knollis or Knollys, 3rd Earl of Banbury, was an English nobleman who sat in the House of Lords but was excluded from the Long Parliament, thus precipitating the famous “Banbury Case” which remains partly unresolved to this day.