power.

It is true, too, that at present some of the cleverest peers are not
so ready as some others to agree with the Commons. But it is not
unnatural that persons of high rank and of great ability should be
unwilling to bend to persons of lower rank, and of certainly not
greater ability. A few of such peers (for they are very few) might
say, "We had rather not have our peerage if we are to buy it at the
price of yielding". But a life peer who had fought his way up to the
peers, would never think so. Young men who are born to rank may risk
it, not middle-aged or old men who have earned their rank. A
moderate number of life peers would almost always counsel moderation
to the Lords, and would almost always be right in counselling it.

Recent discussions have also brought into curious prominence another
part of the Constitution. I said in this book that it would very
much surprise people if they were only told how many things the
Queen could do without consulting Parliament, and it certainly has
so proved, for when the Queen abolished Purchase in the Army by an
act of prerogative (after the Lords had rejected the bill for doing
so), there was a great and general astonishment.

But this is nothing to what the Queen can by law do without
consulting Parliament. Not to mention other things, she could
disband the army (by law she cannot engage more than a certain
number of men, but she is not obliged to engage any men); she could
dismiss all the officers, from the General Commanding-in-Chief
downwards; she could dismiss all the sailors too; she could sell off
all our ships of war and all our naval stores; she could make a
peace by the sacrifice of Cornwall, and begin a war for the conquest