Tea at Trianon: The Abolition of the Hereditary Lords

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

The Abolition of the Hereditary Lords

From The Imaginative Conservative:

Hereditary lords are those House of Lords members who inherit the right to sit in the upper house based on past services their families rendered to the realm. Many storied families have retained this right in their lineage for generations. Over the centuries, they have passed on their experience to their successors.

The House of Lords originated in the eleventh century, as a council of religious and temporal leaders which the king convoked to fulfill the difficult duty of rendering “counsel and aid” to their sovereign. It later developed into a more formal government institution in the thirteenth century.

In the nineteen fifties, Parliament created “life peers,” who are appointed by prime ministers to serve for life. Many have criticized these appointments as party cronies who receive the office as a political favor or because of donations to the party. They do not need to form a legacy that projects into the future.

The House of Lords has no legislative power but exercises an advisory role, correcting legislation from the House of Commons based on its members’ experience. The upper parliamentary chamber can slow down populist passions by delaying passage, proposing amendments or taking other deliberative measures. (Read more.)