Talk:Privilege of peerage

Material which might be better elsewhere

Some sections of this (lengthy) article might really be in other articles, e.g. Precedence (although now that I look I see we also have United Kingdom order of precedence, and not much on the generic topic of precedence) and some of the material here (other than an overview of the topic as it related to this article) might be usefully moved/merged there. Noel (talk) 20:19, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Unclear on Access to the Sovereign

I am unclear what this means:

The privilege of access was recommended for formal abolition in 1999, and may be retained, arguably, by peers whether members of the House of Lords or not, but it is no longer exercised.

I think the order of clauses needs to be reversed:

The privilege of access is no longer exercised, and it is unclear whether it is still retained by peers whether members of the House of Lords or not. In 1999 the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege recommended its formal abolition.

However, it is misleading to say the privilege of access was recommended for abolition, since the Committee in fact made a broader recommendation that the Privilege of Peerage be abolished, and thus also merits mention in the "Freedom from arrest" subsection, and indeed in the lede.Paragraph 369 of the Report states:

329. `Privilege of peerage' belongs to all peers, whether or not they are members of the House of Lords, and also to the wives of peers and widows of peers provided they do not marry commoners. The extent of the privilege has long been obscure and ill-defined, and for that reason alone the present situation is unsatisfactory. Three of its features survived into the twentieth century. The first was the right of trial by peers, which was abolished by statute in 1948. The second is the right of access to the sovereign at any time. The third is freedom from arrest; but the application of this aspect of the privilege appears to have arisen in only two cases in the courts since 1945. In view of our recommendation that the privilege of freedom from arrest be abolished, privilege of peerage should also be abolished. We so recommend.

BTW the List of committees of the United Kingdom Parliament does not include the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege jnestorius^(talk) 11:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

"temporal peers"

Could this technical term be explained the first time it occurs? Thanks, MartinPoulter (talk) 15:34, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The monarch enacts laws "by and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons:" an expression which refers both to the House of Lords and the House of Commons taken together. The Lords Spiritual are those bishops of the Church of England (and earlier also abbots, until Henry VIII threw them out) who have seats in the House of Lords. The Lords Temporal are all the rest. NRPanikker (talk) 01:28, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Right to be hanged by a silk rope

Did it use to be the case that when sentenced to death a peer could choose to be hanged by a sliken rope rather than the normal hemp one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Struman (talk • contribs) 16:26, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Citation for what "Legal Opinion: holds

Placed fact tag on statement that confounds "Legal Opinion" on a broad privilege with a very narrow statement about mentally ill Peers, assuming that it was supported by that cite in the body of the article. The usage "Legal Opinion" in the lede is implictly the consensus of some sort, not a single rendered opinion, and particulary not one on a corner case. Lycurgus (talk) 16:48, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Restating the essential point in a changed form and with hedged language instead of a simplistic assertion but with no further support doesn't change the situation. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 22:14, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Other historic privileges

The phrase "Only three survived into the 20th century" in the intro implies there were other privileges beyond these three, which are not mentioned in the article. -- Beland (talk) 21:19, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Certain boys or men at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin (i.e. Trinity College) used to have academic privileges including obtaining the degree of Master of Arts without examination after two years' residence, without first becoming a Bachelor of Arts (however most people in this category did not stay for long enough). They also had special gowns, were exempt from some rules of discipline and ate apart from the ordinary students. In return they paid four times the normal fee. These privileges were gradually reduced over the 18th century and had more or less gone by the middle of the 19th century: e.g. the two histories of the University of Dublin published in the 1840s say only that nobles could obtain the BA after two years. I have seen no mention of anything similar at the Scottish universities.

I don't know when this started - presumably the nobility was mostly illiterate before the Tudor monarchs - but it was in place in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. :Exactly who had these privileges may have changed over time: at the maximum it included male relatives of the monarch, peers, eldest sons of peers, possibly also younger sons of peers, sons of bishops, and baronets. University documents note when students qualified early for this reason with the Latin annotations "nob." (for nobilis) or "fil. nob." (for the sons).

Presumably the privileges were not withdrawn at the same time for all classes or in all three universities. Other people with connections claimed privilege of nobility to get round other university regulations, such as for doctorates - there was one example of a man who was only the son of a knight - but that is perhaps more a matter of the sort of string-pulling that goes on all the time.

The universities do not publicise this aspect of their histories, for obvious reasons, which may explain why it was not mentioned when the newspapers complained about Prince Charles's special treatment at Cambridge.

This was distinct from the lesser privileges given to commoners who could afford to pay double fees: fellow-commoners or gentleman commoners. They also had (different) special gowns, ate with the fellows and did not have to attend lectures or take the colleges' own examinations (at Oxford and Cambridge). They could collect an ordinary BA after 3 rather than 4 years. NRPanikker (talk) 15:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

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FA criteria

Article has non-cited content, excessively long quotations, a 3-year old cleanup tag on the top of the article. Does it still meet the FA criteria? (t · c) buidhe 20:50, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Torture?

In Ian Mortimer's Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England he says that legally speaking at least, peers could not be tortured, though he says that with Elizabeth on the throne, nothing was certain. I presume they kept this privilege up until legal torture ended in England in 1772. But I could be wrong. LastDodo (talk) 16:58, 17 August 2023 (UTC)