The lords are peers--that is to say, equals--of whom? Of the king. I do

not commit the mistake of confounding the lords with parliament. The

assembly of the people which the Saxons before the Conquest called

wittenagemote, the Normans, after the Conquest, entitled

parliamentum. By degrees the people were turned out. The king's

letters clause convoking the Commons, addressed formerly ad concilium

impendendum, are now addressed ad consentiendum. To say yes is their

liberty. The peers can say no; and the proof is that they have said it.

The peers can cut off the king's head. The people cannot. The stroke of

the hatchet which decapitated Charles I. is an encroachment, not on the

king, but on the peers, and it was well to place on the gibbet the

carcass of Cromwell. The lords have power. Why? Because they have

riches. Who has turned over the leaves of the Doomsday Book? It is the

proof that the lords possess England. It is the registry of the estates

of subjects, compiled under William the Conqueror; and it is in the

charge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. To copy anything in it you

have to pay twopence a line. It is a proud book. Do you know that I was

domestic doctor to a lord, who was called Marmaduke, and who had

thirty-six thousand a year? Think of that, you hideous idiot! Do you

know that, with rabbits only from the warrens of Earl Lindsay, they

could feed all the riffraff of the Cinque Ports? And the good order

kept! Every poacher is hung. For two long furry ears sticking out of a

game bag I saw the father of six children hanging on the gibbet. Such is

the peerage. The rabbit of a great lord is of more importance than God's

image in a man.

"Lords exist, you trespasser, do you see? and we must think it good that

463

The Man Who Laughs