m, and, further, that the judicial business of the chamber
should be transacted largely by this corps of experts. In 1876 an
Appellate Jurisdiction Act was passed authorizing the appointment of
two (subsequently increased to four) "law lords" with the title of
baron, and by legislation of 1887 the tenure of these members,
hitherto conditioned upon the continued exercise of judicial
functions, was made perpetual for life. At the present day these four
justices, presided over by the Lord Chancellor, comprise in reality
the supreme tribunal of the kingdom. Three of them are sufficient to
constitute a quorum for the transaction of judicial business, and (p. 100)
although other legal-minded members of the chamber may participate,
and technically every member has a right to do so, in most instances
this inner circle discharges the judicial function quite alone.[145]

[Footnote 145: The recognized advisability of
strengthening the judicial element in the Lords
precipitated at one time a serious issue respecting
the power of the crown to create life peerages. In
1856, upon the advice of her ministers, Queen
Victoria conferred upon a distinguished judge, Sir
James Parke, a patent as Baron Wensleydale for
life. The purpose was to introduce into the chamber
desirable legal talent without further augmenting
the peerage. For the creation of life peerages
there was some precedent, but none later than the
reign of Henry VI., and the House of Lords,
maintaining that the right had lapsed and that the
peerage had become entirely hereditary, refused to
admit Baron Wensleydale until his patent was so
modified that his peerage was made hereditary.]

*105. The Lords Spiritual.*--Finally, there are the ecclesiastical
members--not peers, but "lords spiritual." In the fifteenth century
the lords spiritual outnumbered the lords temporal; but upon the
dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII., resulting
in the dropping out of the abbots, the spiritual contingent fell
permanently into the minority. At the present day the quota of
ecclesiastical members is restricted, under statutory regulation, to
26. Scotland, whose established c