The House of Lords in the Age of George III (1760-1811), by Michael W. McCahill

Abstract

Michael McCahill has been studying the House of Lords and its members for forty years and this work is the culmination of that lengthy scholarship. Published in the Parliamentary History: Texts and Studies series this work is a rich and thorough study which will be valuable to any scholar of the Lords. It extends his previous volume Order and Equipoise: The Peerage and the House of Lords, 1783–1806 (1978; rev. ante, xcv [1980], 916–17) to cover the whole reign of George III—it is certainly a heftier text. Again McCahill focuses on the workings of Parliament and the role of the Lords within it rather than how the Lords were viewed by the rest of society. While he engages briefly with the historiography on the nobility there is no great revisionism here. The text implicitly confirms the findings of historians such as John Cannon, David Cannadine and J.C.D. Clark that the political and social power and prestige of the peerage was not seriously challenged during the period covered here. For the most part, McCahill expands his earlier arguments and the main thrust is still to counter the traditional view he earlier linked to A.S. Turberville and John Brooke that the Lords were the creatures of the Crown. But there is much new evidence here which adds depth and detail.