345
as a of the clergy's to
the judicial of the Lords.1 They not be
when was Involving loss of life
or limb, for the it; thiy held
from their right to be tried by their peers through their
strict to the principle no lay court
try them,2 the idea gradually took shape
they could not be regarded as peers, while they
certainly lords of Parliament. After the dissolution of
the monasteries in Henry VIII/s reign the bishops,
the only prelates in the House of Lords, in 1692 a
formal declaration by that House that
were not peers, but only of Parliament. The
fifteenth-century of to
patent could have no effect the prelates, for no
patent could create them; their right to attend
always drew Its from their ancient baronies.
In view of later history we are especially interested in
the meetings of barons or peers which
at the time as were the representatives of
and boroughs and we think of lords
as the later recognised "houses" of Parliament,
almost perforce speak of them as such. But a contem-
porary could not think of a "house" of lords when the
lords so often met as a great council by themselves.5
Especially in the fifteenth century when there were
Parliaments than In the century before
councils frequent. They were probably often
as an Increase or affording of the king's ordinary or per-
petual Council'—the difference In not very
great—and In these two the century
nobility sought to control the Mug,4
The number of lay lords the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries from forty to
fifty or a little over; the spiritual lords a
* See above, pp. 231, 232,
a "It is a very doubtful question what would now if a
committed feioiay or treason/*—Maitland, C, H. J£., p. 17*-
a See below* p. 372 and note i. 4 See above, p. 207.