will insist on our amendments."

The second group said: "No. They have indeed betrayed the Constitution
and disgraced their position, but why add to this disaster the
destruction of what remains to safeguard the Empire? We protest and
withdraw, washing our hands of the whole business for the moment. But
our time will come."

The third group said: "No. We do not desire the King's Prerogative to
be used. We will prevent any need for its exercise. The Bill shall go
through without it."

And, the second group abstaining, by seventeen votes the last prevailed
against the first. But whether ever before a victory was won by so
divided a host, or ever a measure carried by men who so profoundly
disapproved of it, let those judge who read the scathing Protest,
inscribed in due form in the journals of the House of Lords by one who
went into that lobby, Lord Rosebery, the only living Peer who has been
Prime Minister of England.

It is unnecessary to print here more than the tenth and last paragraph
of this tremendous indictment. It runs--"Because the whole transaction
tends to bring discredit on our country and its institutions."

How under these extraordinary circumstances did the Peerage take sides,
old blood and new blood, the governing families and the so-called
"backwoodsmen," they who were carving their own names, and they who
relied upon the inheritance of names carved by others?

The first group, the "No-Surrender Peers," mustered 114 in the
division. Two Bishops were among them, Bangor and Worcester, and a
distinguished list of peers, first of their line, including Earl
Roberts and Viscount Milner. When the story of our times is written it
will be seen that there are few walks of life in which some one of
these has not borne an honorable part.

Then at a bound we are transported to the Middle Ages. At the
Coronation, when the Abbey Church of Westminster rang to the shouts,
"God Save King George!" five Lords of Parliament knelt on the steps of
the throne, kissed the King's cheek, and did homage, each as the chief
of his rank and representing every noble of it. They are all here:--

The Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal and premier Peer of England, head of
the great house of Howard, a name that for five centuries has held its
own with highest honor.

The Marquis of Winchester, head of the Paulets, representative of the
man who for three long years held Basing House for the King against all
the forces which Cromwell co