• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Forfeiture of Peerage

In common with all the subjects of the realm, Peers can be tried only by their Peers ; thus a Commoner is tried by a jury of Commoners, but a Lord of Parliament, when criminally arraigned - that is, in cases of felony, treason, or misprision of treason - has this especial privilege, that all his Peers are summoned to the trial, and he is acquitted or condemned by the verdict of the majority ; which is given, not upon oath, as in the case of legal juries, but in the form, " Guilty-or, Not guilty- upon my honour ; " pronounced by each Peer in his place, in answer to the question severally put by the Lord Steward, who presides in the Court, beginning with the youngest Baron, and proceeding upwards to the senior Prince of the Blood Royal. A Peer also answers to Bills in Chancery upon his honour, and not upon his oath : but when he is examined as a witness, either in civil or criminal cases, or in the High Court of Parliament, he must be sworn. On all charges of misdemeanor, however, as libels, riots, perjury, conspiracy, &c., a Peer is tried, like a Commoner, by a jury. But he cannot be bound over to keep the peace in any other place than in the Queen's High Courts of Justice. And the honour of Peers is so highly valued by the law, that it is much more penal to spread false reports of them and certain other great officers of the realm, than of other men ; scandal against them being called by the peculiar name of scandalîim maynatum, and subjected to punishment by divers ancient statutes. Peers are exempted from attending on Court Leets or the posse comitatus.

A Peer cannot lose his Nobility but by death or attainder ; if, indeed, he wastes his estate, so that he is not able to support his dignity, it has been said by the old writers that the King may degrade him ; later authorities, however, expressly hold that a Peer cannot be degraded except by Act of Parliament; and there is but one instance of the exercise of this supreme jurisdiction, which was in the case of George Neville, Duke of Bedford, in the reign of Edward IV. George Nevile duke of Bedford was degraded by act of parliament, on account of his poverty, which rendered him unable to support his dignity. But this is a singular instance: which serves at the same time, by having happened, to show the power of parliament; and by having happened but once, to show how tender the parliament has been, in exerting so high a power. It has been said, indeed, that if a baron wastes his estate, so that he is not able to support the degree, the sovereign may degrade him : but it is now settled, that a peer cannot be degraded but by parliament.

In the case of forfeiture by attainder, an important difference exists in the operation of the attainder, according as it may be for high treason or for felony. A person upon whom judgment of high treason is pronounced, or who is outlawed upon an indictment of high treason, is said to be attainted of high treason, and his honours are forfeited to the Crown for ever. Nothing but a reversal of such an Act of attainder by Parliament will restore a peer so attainted, or his posterity, to the dignity thus forfeited ; nor in the event of the issue of the body of the person attainted failing, will the descendants of the person who was first created to the Peerage be admitted to it, without a removal of the attainder by which it was forfeited.

Dignities created either by writ or by patent become thus forfeited by an attainder for high treason ; but by an attainder for felony an entailed dignity is not forfeited, though a dignity created by writ, and descendible to heirs-general, is forfeited by such attainder of the person possessed of it.

There is also a material difference in the effect of an attainder for high treason, between a dignity created by letters-patent, and one which originates in a writ of summons. In event of the eldest son of a Baron, holding his dignity by writ, or other person within the line of inheritance, being attainted of high treason,, if he or his posterity should afterwards become entitled to the honour, by the decease of his father or other predecessors, the title so falling upon an attainted person becomes equally forfeited as if he had possessed it at the time of his attainder, and so would remain as long as any descendants from him were in existence, but would revive on the extinction of his issue, in favour of any heir whose claim to it would not have been derived through the attainted person. But in the case of an heir to a title by letters-patent being attainted of high treason, and dying before those persons whose title to the dignity was prior to his, the attainder would not prevent such dignity from afterwards falling upon the descendants of the person so attainted.