The foregoing transcripts from titular and family history have been somewhat detailed, inasmuch as their features are representative of many other peerages, and also elucidate various matters connected with the peerage not patent to all persons. They show _inter alia_ how titles may not only be extinguished, but may be shifted about from family to family when the limitations of those titles are in fee. They show, also, why it is that a peer who is generally known by one title may yet sit and vote in the House of Lords or Peers by some other; the short explanation being, that he is not a peer of the United Kingdom, or, in other words, a peer of the entire realm, so far as his first title is concerned. In our previous paper ‘What is a Peer?’ this feature of the peerage was alluded to; and we may now add that there is only one peer, who, not being a peer of the realm in regard to his chief title, yet sits and votes in the House of Lords by a title as exalted as the other. This is the Duke of Hamilton, who, though premier Duke of Scotland, yet, as such has no hereditary seat in parliament,[1] while as Duke of Brandon he has; and he would be so described in the Lords’ division lists. Then, again, the Marquis of Huntly, though premier Marquis of Scotland, is yet only Lord Meldrum when sitting in the House of Lords. The Marquis of Sligo is only such in the peerage of Ireland, but sits in parliament as Lord Monteagle; and there is also a Lord Monteagle who is a peer of the realm by that title only. The eighteenth Earl of Erroll is singularly situated. When sitting in parliament he is Lord Kilmarnock, and this is the courtesy title borne by his eldest son, so that there are two Lords Kilmarnock!
The distinctions just referred to between peers of the United Kingdom and those who are not have given rise to some singular features in the peerage which are, at first sight, of an anomalous character. Thus, while the son of a tradesman who becomes a peer of the United Kingdom to-day may die to-morrow, and his son may take his seat in the House of Lords as an hereditary legislator; on the other hand, the thirty-fourth Scotch Earl of Mar—merely as such—and the thirty-first Irish Lord Kingsale have no hereditary right to a seat in the legislature, although the latter is premier Baron of Ireland. It is of course competent to the Crown—the fountain of honour—to promote these and other noblemen similarly situated to the peerage of the United Kingdom; but until this is done, they take rank below the last created baron of the realm. At one time it appears to have been usual to honour a man by first making him an Irish peer, and then to promote him gradually, as in the case of Rawdon, Earl of Moira, and conspicuously so in that of the Fitzwilliam peerage and others. But then we must remember that it was not before January 1, 1801, that the expression ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’ was known; nor before 1707 that the term ‘Great Britain’ was, or could in law have been applied to England and Scotland as a whole.[2] The one was created by the statute 39 and 40 Geo. III. c. 67 (July 2, 1800), the other by 5 and 6 Anne c. 8 (May 1, 1707). To these statutes we refer the reader desirous of more information on this subject. He may also peruse that interesting work of light reading, _The Reports of the Lords’ Committees on the Dignity of a Peer of the Realm_, comprised in four folio volumes (1826).