be a flagrant violation of the constitution of this country.”—­Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, cxl., February 7, 1856.  In the same debate Lord Derby defined “prerogative” as “the power of doing that which is beside the law.”  Hallam, in discussing the prosecution of Sir Edward Hales, fully recognizes the principle contended for by Lord Lyndhurst, saying that “it is by no means evident that the decision of the judges” in that case “was against law,” but proceeding to show that “the unadvised assertion in a court of law” of such an exercise of the prerogative “may be said to have sealed the condemnation of the house of Stuart.”—­ Constitutional History, vol. iii., c. xiv., p. 86.]

[Footnote 291:  In the reign of Richard II. the Earl of Oxford had been made Marquis of Dublin for life, but he already had a seat in the House as Earl.  Henry V. had originally made the peerages of his brothers, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, life peerages; but these were afterward surrendered and regranted “in the usual descendible form,” so that they rather made against the present case than for it.  Henry VIII. had created the Prince of Thomond Earl of Thomond for his life, but he had at the same time granted him the barony of Inchiquin “for himself and his heirs forever.”  It was also alleged that these life peerages had not been conferred by the King alone, but by the King with the authority and consent of Parliament, “these significant words being found in the patents.”]

[Footnote 292:  The division was 153 to 133.  Some years afterward, however, a clause in the act, which created a new appellate jurisdiction, empowered the sovereign to create peerages of this limited character, one of the clauses providing that “every Lord of Appeal in Ordinary should be entitled during his life to rank as a Baron by such style as her Majesty may be pleased to appoint, and shall during the time that he continues in office as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and no longer be entitled to a writ of summons to attend, sit, and vote in the House of Lords.  His dignity as a Lord of Parliament shall not descend to his heirs.”  As this act was passed long after the period at which the present volume closes, it does not belong to the writer to examine how far this act, in providing that every Lord of Appeal shall for the time rank as a Baron (the Lords of Appeal being, of course, appointed by the crown), is entitled to be spoken of as introducing a great constitutional innovation, big with future consequences, as it has been described by some writers.]

[Footnote 293:  In one notorious instance, that of the Earl of Bristol (confer Hallam, i., 518), in the time of Charles I., the House of Lords had interfered and compelled the issue of the writ; their action forming a precedent for their right of interference in such matters, which in the present case the Lord Chancellor denied.]

[Footnote 294:  The grant of a pension of L1000 a year, with a baronetcy, to General Havelock, and more recently to Sir F. Roberts, are, it is believed, the only exceptions to this rule.]