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.]
[Footnote 295: Bishop Lonsdale, of Lichfield, in reference to Simon
Magus, from whose offer of money to the Apostles the offence derives its
name, denying that there was any similarity between his sin and the act
of purchasing an advowson or presentation, remarked that it might just
as fitly be called magic as simony.
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