created Prince of Wales. The others are
simply commoners. See E.A. Freeman's "Growth of the English
Constitution."

The whole number of Peers is about six hundred.[2] They own a very
large part of the land of England[3] and possess all the social and
political influence naturally belonging to such a body. Yet
notwithstanding the exclusive and aristocratic spirit of this long-
established class, it has always been ready to receive recruits from
the ranks of the people. For just as any boy in America feels himself
a possible senator or President, so any one born or naturalized in
England, like Pitt, Disraeli, Churchill, Nelson, Wellesley, Brougham,
Tennyson, Macaulay, Lord Lyndhurst,[4] and many others, may win his
way to a title, and also to a seat in the House of Lords, since brains
and character go to the front in England just as surely as they do
everywhere else.

[2] The full assembly of the House of Lords would consist of five
hundred and sixty-two temporal Peers and twenty-six spiritual Peers
(archbishops and bishops).
[3] So strictly is property entailed that there are proprietors of
large estates who cannot so much as cut down a tree without permission
of the heir. See Badeau's "English Aristocracy."
[4] J.S. Copley (Lord Lyndhurst), son of the famous artist, was born
in Boston in 1772. He became Lord Chancellor. All of the eminent men
named above rose from the ranks of the people and were made Peers of
the realm, either for life or as a hereditary right; and in a number
of cases, as the elder Pitt (Earl of Chatham), Wellesley (Duke of
Wellington), Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield), Copley (Lord Lyndhurst),
they received seats in the House of Lords.

In their legislative action the Lords are, with very rare exceptions,
extremely conservative. It is a "galling fact"[5] that they have
seldom granted their assent to any liberal measure except from
pressure of the most unmistakable kind. They opposed the Habeas
Corpus Act under Charles II, Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the Great
Reform Bill of 1832, the Education Bill of 1834, the repeal of the
Corn Laws in 1846, the admission of the Jews to Parliament in 1858,
and they very reluctantly consented to the necessity of granting later
extensions of the elective franchise.

[5] See A.L. Lowell's "The Government of England," I, 414, 422.

But, on the other hand, it was their influence which compelled John to
sign Magna Carta in 1215; it was one of their numb