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To: naturalman1975
There are 26 Church of England Bishops who sit in the House of Lords as the Lords Spiritual (other Lords are the Lords Temporal)

I thought there was only one of those left?


16 posted on 07/15/2013 4:00:42 PM PDT by highball ("I never should have switched from scotch to martinis." -- the last words of Humphrey Bogart)
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To: highball
Lord Temporal is the term used in British law to refer to the secular members of the House of Lords.

There are approximately 730 Lords Temporal at the moment. This includes about 640 Life Peers (people created Barons for the term of their own life, who will not pass on any title to their children) and 92 Hereditary Peers of varying rank from Baron to Duke, out of the approximately 800 Hereditary Peers remaining. Most Hereditary Peers were expelled from the House of Lords in 1999 under the reforms of the Blair government, but the terms of those reforms allowed the Hereditary Peers to elect 90 of their number to remain, pending further reforms that may occur in the future. Two Hereditary Peers, the Earl Marshal (Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk) and the Lord Great Chamberlain (David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley) retain their positions because of the Hereditary Offices they hold (the Duke of Norfolk has always been the Earl Marshal since 1672, and even before that all the way back until 1397, the Duke of Norfolk most often held the position), the position of Lord Great Chamberlain is a lot more complicated but is normally the Marquess of Cholmondeley) which are considered necessary to the administration of the Monarchy and have ceremonial duties to carry out in the House of Lords.

There are 26 Lords Spiritual (actually 25 right at the moment as the office of Bishop of Durham is temporarily vacant) who are Church of England Bishops and Archbishops. By convention, in many cases, only one of them votes on an issue (by a roster system), but they are all permitted to vote and on 'moral issues' multiple Lords Spiritual may vote at once (often on different sides).

18 posted on 07/15/2013 5:52:58 PM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: highball

Your picture didn’t load for me the first time, so I didn’t realise you were making a joke.

The Doctor is not a Lord Temporal, but he was, of course, knighted by Queen Victoria, as Sir Doctor of Tardis - the ‘of Tardis’ would actually imply he might be a Baronet.


19 posted on 07/15/2013 5:57:30 PM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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