Christendom’s Last Gasp?: The Twilight of the House of Lords

Almighty God, by whom alone Kings reign, and Princes decree justice; and from whom alone cometh all counsel, wisdom, and understanding; we thine unworthy servants, here gathered together in thy Name, do most humbly beseech thee to send down thy Heavenly Wisdom from above, to direct and guide us in all our consultations; and grant that, we having thy fear always before our eyes, and laying aside all private interests, prejudices, and partial affections, the result of all our counsels may be to the glory of thy blessed Name, the maintenance of true Religion and Justice, the safety, honour, and happiness of the Queen, the publick wealth, peace and tranquillity of the Realm, and the uniting and knitting together of the hearts of all persons and estates within the same, in true Christian Love and Charity one towards another, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen. (Daily Prayer, House of Lords)

Sir Keir Starmer, His Majesty’s current Prime Minister for Great Britain (he has others—equally all powerful—in his other realms of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, and the rest), has sponsored legislation on September 5, 2025—the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill—in the House of Commons which would remove all the remaining hereditary peers. While in keeping with the general stupidity of Sir Keir’s reign—abortion and euthanasia for all, tolerance for grooming gangs, two-tier policing, assaults on freedom of speech, and all the rest of his sorry mess—this measure, seemingly minor to the uninformed, will come nigh to completing the shredding of the British Constitutional framework first initiated in 1688. Ironically—given the strict Catholicism of this writer—this long-term and pernicious project will be completed by the ejection of the Anglican bishops one day. To understand these assertions will, as always, require a bit of history.

The first thing to remember is that the current British system is a desiccated remnant of what was once an integrally Catholic form of government. In the Medieval Catholic system—with its innumerable national, provincial, and local variations—the monarch, anointed and crowned for his high office by his country’s primate (or the pope in the case of the Holy Roman Emperor) had little outside his household that we today would recognize as much of a government. What there was, he generally financed out of his own lands. 

But if there were some sort of emergency, and he needed more men and money for the defense of the realm or some other such thing, he would call for a meeting of the Estates—three in most places: high and low clergy; nobility; and commoners; four in others: the first two plus the burghers of the towns and the rural landowners of the countryside. These would then either vote the monarch what he needed or not. From their number, the most prominent would form a semi-permanent advisor council, in order to help the sovereign make informed decisions—always bearing in mind that while His Majesty bore the authority in the realm, his power was limited by custom and circumstance. In any case, both Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas were cited to show that this mixed form of government encompassing monarchy, aristocracy, and polity was best.

In England, the Middle Ages saw four such groupings gather around the king: Lords Spiritual—the archbishops and a selection of bishops and abbots; Lords Temporal—hereditary dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons; Burgesses—who represented the nascent cities and towns that had royal charters; and Knights of the Shire—landowners who represented the gentry of the countryside. The first two coalesced into what became known as the House of Lords and the second pair into the House of Commons. The advisory group became known as the Privy Council. The king also appointed a cleric to oversee his legal affairs, preside over judicial appointments, and act as speaker in the House of Lords; he was called the Lord Chancellor.

After the civil conflict called the Wars of the Roses ended in 1485, Henry Tudor became Henry VII. His son, Henry VIII, not only broke with Rome but, by dissolving the monasteries, he reduced the Lords Spiritual to a minority in the upper house (the archbishops and bishops were now and ever since have been Anglican prelates). Through distributing the abbeys’ properties to various supporters, he unwittingly laid the foundation of an oligarchy who would come in time to challenge the monarchy for supremacy in the realm. He also appointed the first lay Lord Chancellor, St. Thomas More, and later put him to death.

The dramas that accompanied the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I, and finally, with the death of the last-named, the extinction of the House of Tudor, culminated with the accession to the throne of Henry VIII’s great-great-great-nephew, James VI, King of Scots. As James I of England, he was able to coexist with the rising Puritan majority in Parliament. After his death in 1628, his son Charles I found it increasingly difficult to function with Parliament’s ever-increasing attempts to usurp more power. The results were the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the king’s murder for trying to retain bishops on the Church of England, negotiate reunion with Rome, and protect the grazing rights of his poorer subjects.

After ten years under the dread Oliver Cromwell and an unsuccessful attempt over a year by his ineffective son to rule, in 1660 the army brought back Charles II in the Restoration. Although the new monarchy acted as though he retained the supremacy of his father over the State, the truth of which he was well aware was that the land-based oligarchy that had murdered his father still dominated Parliament.  He fought them successfully over keeping his now-Catholic brother, the Duke of York, as his successor. From this conflict emerged the two parties: the king’s supporters were called “Tories” after the Royalist guerrillas in Ireland; his opponents were dubbed “Whigs,” after the Presbyterian sheep stealers of the Scottish Lowlands. 

Since the duke had two Protestant daughters, his opponents were not too upset when he came to the throne in 1685 as James II and VII.  But he married again, to an Italian princess, who bore him a Catholic son. The Whig Oligarchs summoned over from the Netherlands his son-in-law, William of Orange. This was the so-called “Glorious Revolution.”

After James and his allies were defeated in each of the Three Kingdoms, Parliament proclaimed itself supreme, and William III and all of his successors down to the present king had to swear an oath to maintain this. This, in turn, has meant ever since that they have been unable—by sacred obligation—to oppose a majority in their parliaments. This has been the reality ever since, despite retention of all of the beautiful ritual which would seem to imply that the king is the real executive power. 

In 1707, the Scottish Parliament voted to unite itself and the northern realm with England—this was the birth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain; the Scots Lords henceforth elected 16 of their number to sit at Westminster in the House of Lords. But when Queen Anne died in 1714, she was succeeded by her German-speaking cousin, the Elector of Hanover (we shall pass over the glorious but tragic defeats of the Jacobites). Where Queen Anne had chaired meetings of the Cabinet—that committee of the Privy Council which had come to be the effective government and was chosen by whomever commanded a majority in the House of Commons—the new king, George I, and his son, George II, could not do so due to their lack of English. The chairman of the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, took over effective rulership of the Kingdom. 

In 1760, however, the English-speaking George III attempted to return the situation to where it had been under Queen Anne. But both Whig resistance at home and the disastrous American War put paid to his efforts. But his reign also saw the Union of Ireland with the United Kingdom, and so their Parliaments—the Irish Peers would elect 32 of their number to serve at Westminster.

The monarch effectively out of the way, the 19th century saw the gradual transformation of the Commons from the instrument of the agricultural-based oligarchy to the preserve of a nascent political class which claimed to govern in the name of the people. For most of the century, most Prime Ministers were selected by their party from the Commons, some few from the Lords. In the latter case, however, such a Prime Minister would have to select a Lieutenant to run the Commons on his behalf. The last of these was Lord Salisbury, who stepped down in 1905.

Now, at that point, both houses had roughly equal powers save that gradual convention bills no longer originated in the Lords but in the Commons solely and would be examined and accepted or rejected by the Lords. The exception were budget bills, which were essential to governing the country; the Peers had a built-in Conservative majority but generally deferred to the Liberal government in this area, if that party were in power. But in 1909, the Liberals passed a Home Rule for Ireland. 

Not only did the Lords reject it, they also rejected the government’s budget, bringing down the government and precipitating a new election. When that brought about an almost identical result, the returned Liberal Prime Minister, Asquith, was faced with a problem. Home Rule for Ireland was part of his party’s platform; but if he tried to force it, the same result would occur. He asked King Edward VII to create enough Liberal Peers, but the old and experienced monarch, who knew the political classes well, refused. But at this juncture he died.

Asquith confronted the new king, George V, with the same request; he agreed to do it, if the Peers remained recalcitrant. Despite the opposition of Lord Halsbury in the Lords and the redoubtable George Wyndham in the Commons, the Peers acquiesced—not only in those two bills but the so-called House of Lords Reform Act of 1911. This reduced the time the House of Lords could hold up a bill to two years’ time, after which it would become law regardless. A subsequent bill in 1949 reduced this period to one year. The judicial aspect of the House of Lords was retained intact, with its specially appointed “Law Lords” acting as His Majesty’s court in the land.

Now, it might be presumed at this point that the House of Lords had lost all value in its weakened state; but this was simply not true. It continued to function well as a house of review. The thing is that—with the exception of the so-called “back benchers” who tend to enter Parliament primarily in the interest of their constituents—the Members of the House of Commons are primarily political animals. The thing about politicians is that they look at things entirely in terms of power—as athletes look at the world through their sport, or artists through their art. Just as athletes and artist do things for the rest of us that we cannot do, so too with politicians. But they do not “represent” us in any meaningful way, since few of us have their drive or ruthlessness.

But, oddly enough, most of the hereditary peers resemble ordinary people far more than politicians can. This is because, as with most of us, they are where they are because they were born as they were—not because they sacrificed everything, including integrity—to get to it. During the years from 1911 to 1999, the questions the noble lords asked regarding legislation were eerily like those ordinary people might ask, if they were in a position to do so and knew a bit more about how government actually works. In addition to this, there were few topics so completely obscure that one or more lords were not actually experts on them—and this, too, came in handy.

Unfortunately, in 1958, the government of the day attempted to make the Lords more “democratic” by introducing “Life Peerages.” These folk were, as the name indicates, given titles only for the term of their lives, which their children could not inherit. The creation of peerages, as with most knighthoods, although legally done by the sovereign had, for a century or more, been created “on the advice” of the Prime Minister. As might be expected with anything in political hands, this would give rise to “honors for sale” scandals from time to time, with various suggested solutions—save the obvious: withdrawing awarding honors from the political class and returning it solely to the king. 

But in any case, even Prime Ministers thought for a second or two about awarding hereditary peerages because they would have the results around for a long time. But Life Peerages were perfect: a high-sounding title for political cronies with no long-term effect. From 1958, the creation of hereditary peerages virtually ceased.

In 1997, a very great disaster hit the British Constitution—the election of Tony Blair. He wished to “modernize” Britain—that is to say, remake it into the vision of the “Generation of ’68.” He hacked the Lord Chancellor into three pieces—removing him from the judiciary, replacing him with a “Lord Speaker” in the House of Lords, and giving his remaining duties to a new Minister of Justice; in the end, he was forced to leave that last official with the title, if nothing else. The Law Lords were separated from the House and constituted into a new Supreme Court after the American fashion, which is now superior to Parliament, government, and of course the king.

But Tony came in for the kill with the House of Lords Act of 1999. Several hundred hereditary peers lost their seat. But as a compromise, the Act allowed 92 hereditary peers to remain in the House, elected by their…er…peers. Thus, the House shrank from 1,330 in October 1999 to 669 in March 2000. The very reason it existed—as a review of the work of the politicians—was destroyed, as most of its members were now retired members of that tribe. 

Now, Sir Keir intends to banish the remaining 92 from Westminster, leaving only the Lords Spiritual—appointed to their sees in the Church of England by the Prime Minister—as the only non-political element. Doubtless, Sir Keir, as effective head of both Parliament and the Church of England, shall one day put them out as well, if his government lasts long enough. After all, despite the presence of these prelates in Parliament signaling that the United Kingdom is, by law, a Christian country, Sir Keir’s Easter message thanked the “Christian communities” for their contributions to “our country.” One shudders to think of who or what the Prime Minister means by “our.”

Why is all of this important to observers outside the United Kingdom and Commonwealth? Because in every country the most important elements of governance are or ought to be apolitical. The judiciary, military, foreign policy, education, culture, natural conservation, state protocol—all of these things ought to be exercised in any and every country for the common good and not for personal profit or party advantage. The predominance of the political class in every country today not only ensures that they shall be run for just those things but run poorly as well. What is needed for each is an authority in the State above the politicians, with sufficient power at its command to keep them trapped in their proper roles as concrete accomplishers of policies set by wiser and better men.

In 1905, recently retired United States president Theodore Roosevelt asked Austro-Hungarian Emperor-King Franz Joseph what he saw his job as a modern monarch to be. “Protecting my people from their politicians” was the aged sovereign’s pithy response. Thanks to the revolution of 1688, the king is unable to fulfill that function in Britain and the Commonwealth realms; but prior to 1911, the House of Lords could. 

Obviously, no national political establishment of today would ever willingly surrender one iota of its power to any authority, no matter how legitimate its source. But one day a time may come in one country or another when that stranglehold on power is weakened. The people of that time and place would be well advised to consider how to ransom the Common Good from its political captors. If that time should ever come to them, citizens of Catholic countries should carefully reexamine what their ancestors knew about making the temporal order reflect the Kingship of Christ.