Fines for
non-attend-
ance.
Resignation
of peerage.
Number of
bishops per-
manent.
458 Constitutional History. [chap.
the mission of a proxy, the lords who absented themselves from
parliament were liable to a heavy amercement, such as was
enforced in the parliament of 1454, when archbishops and
dukes were subjected to a fine of £100; earls and bishops
of 100 marks; abbots and barons of £401. The fact of any
formal renunciation of the dignity of peerage, on the ground of
a want of baronial tenure or other, may well be doubted. In
one instance we find a duke, George Neville, of Bedford, de-
graded by act of parliament as not having sufficient property
to maintain his dignity2 ; Lewis of Bruges, created earl of
Winchester by Edward IV, resigned his patent to Henry VII3 :
both these are exceptional cases. Henry de Pinkeni, a baron
of 1299 and 1301, sold his barony in the latter year to the
king, and it was thus extinguished ; the earls of Gloucester,
Norfolk and Hereford likewise made over their estates and
dignities to Edward I in order to obtain a resettlement ; and
in the case of Norfolk the king took the opportunity of ex-
cluding the presumptive heir1. But such resignations and
resettlements do not amount to a resignation of a right which
from the very first was as precious as it was burdensome.
430. The number, degrees and dignities of the spiritual lords
require less notice. The two archbishops and the eighteen
bishops formed the most permanent element in the house of
lords : when a see was vacant, the guardian of the spiritualities
was summoned in the place of .the bishop, and showed by his
compliance with the writ that the seat of the bishop did not
depend on the possession of a temporal barony, as was the case
with that of an abbot or prior5. With respect to this, the
1 Kot. Pari. v. 248.
s Lords’ Fifth Report, p. 409 ; Rot. Parl. vi. 173.
3 Lords’ Fifth Report, p. 392.
1 See above, vol. ii. p. 159.
5 The house of lords in 1692 resolved ‘ that bishops are only lords of parlia-
ment but not peers, for they are not of trial by nobility ; ’ E. May,
Treatise on Parliament, p. 15. Whatever force such a resolution may
legally have, it is of no historical authority ; for it is certain that from the
beginning of the use of the term ‘ peers’ the bishops were recognised as
peers, and that it was by one of them, archbishop Stratford, that the right
of trial was chiefly won ; see above, vol. ii. p. 406. The doctrine of
ennobled blood, by which this theory has been supported, is historically a
mere absurdity ; it is impossible to regard the blood as ennobled by law,
XX.]
Spiritual Lords.
459
second class of lords spiritual, the case was different. The Diminution
abbots and priors, like the smaller boroughs, felt the burden ш of abbots
of attendance to be a severe strain on their resources ; and an pnors'
they were satisfied with their position in the spiritual assem-
blies of their provinces. Hence their attempts, by proving
themselves not to be tenants in barony under the crown, to
relieve themselves from the burden of peerage. Of these deeds
of renunciation many are still extant. In 1318 the abbot of
S. James, Northampton, in 1325 the prior of Bridlington, in
1341 the abbot of S. Augustine’s, Bristol, in 1350 the abbot of
Osney, in 1351 the abbot of Leicester, declared that they held
their estates by no tenure that involved the duty of parlia-
mentary attendance, and they were accordingly relieved. Osney
escaped because it was not a royal foundation, Beaulieu because
it held in frankalmoign, Thornton because it did not hold in
chief or by barony. This process had probably been going on
for some time before it is heard of in record. To take, however, Vaiyiag
_ η „ . . . . ιτι ∏ number of
only the state of affairs from the reign of hdwarα 1 downwards j abbots and
we find summoned to the normal parliament of 1295 sixty- pιlora,
seven abbots and priors, besides the Masters of the Temple, the
Hospital, and the Gilbertines ; in 1300 seventy-two abbots and
priors; in 1301 eighty; in 1302 forty-four; in 1305 seventy-
five ; and in 1307 forty-eight abbots. Under Edward II, down
to 1319, the number varies, between forty and sixty; but from
that year the number rapidly declines. Under Edward III, τiιe Pormal
t7 t 1 j ; number,
with the exception of the year 1332, when fifty-eight were
summoned, the average gradually settles down to twenty-seven,
which thenceforward becomes the normal number1. The year
1341 seems to be the point from which the permanent dimi-
nution dates2. A close examination of the list summoned to
when the nobility of the blood is restricted to the bearer of the title and
does not extend even to his younger children.
ɪ The numbers may be verified by reference to the Appendix of the
Lords’ Report, or to Parry’s Parliaments of England, under the several
dates.
2 Edward III by letters dated Oet. 20, 1341, and again June 7, 1347,
relieved the abbot of Osney, that house being of the foundation of Robert
IPOilli and not of one of the king’s ancestors ; Rawlinson Charters, Bibl.
Bodl. ; Lords’ Report, iv. 554, The petition of the abbot of S. James,
Northampton, in 1319, is in Part Writs, II. ɪ. 199; the licence for