Those Peers of Sir Keir’s

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June Sarpong, one of Britain’s newest peeresses-to-be. (Photograph by Duk3L1xon, CC-BY-SA-4.0)

After a political saga lasting about two months, we are almost at the official end of Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership. It is expected that Andy Burnham will formally be declared (upon the closing of the nominations deadline with nobody else coming forward) Leader of the Labour Party tomorrow, and then kiss hands at Buckingham Palace on Monday. On what is effectively his last weekday in office, Starmer’s government has published yet another list of new life peers.

This has been styled in the government’s announcement as a list of “Political Peerages”, which has emerged over the past few years as the designation to be used when there is no particular occasion being commemorated with the timing of the announcement. Even so, the exact timing of this particular list has had some commentators wondering if this is not effectively Starmer’s resignation honours list by another name, as he had previously stated he would not issue one. Other sources have speculated that there will be a separate resignation list coming later in addition to this one.

The public have been caught out by this before: A list of political peerages released on 14th October 2022 was initially thought to commemorate the resignation of Boris Johnson, but it was later clarified that these had been drawn up long before the fall of his government, and his actual resignation list arrived the following June.

Properly counting the numbers of peers appointed by each Prime Minister is more difficult than simply counting them by date (as can of course be done through Wikipedia), as the first handful in each premiership are likely to be dissolution and/or resignation honours recommended by the previous leader, and those appointed during the term will include a significant minority recommended by the leaders of the prominent opposition parties as well as the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Perhaps a more meaningful tally would be restricted to those of the Prime Minister’s own party during his term as party leader.

Starmer became Leader of the Labour Party on 4th April 2020 and remained Leader of the Opposition until 5th July 2024. Looking through the lists, it seems the first Labour peer appointed during this time was the Baroness Clark of Kilwinning on 3rd September 2020, as part of the long-delayed Dissolution Honours for 2019. At time of writing Clark has already retired from the Lords. The last to be appointed before the general election was the Baroness Hazarika on 14th March 2024. All in all twenty-two Labour life peers were appointed during Starmer’s time as opposition leader.

The 2024 Dissolution Honours were, as I posted at the time, rather oddly released on polling day itself, though of course the formal created of those peerages did not begin until more than a month after Starmer’s government had taken power. That list contained eight Labour appointees. During that short interval period, Starmer fast-tracked another five peers as direct ministerial appointments. From then until the end of that session I counted another fifty-nine Labour nominations. I won’t count Stansgate and Grantchester because those were essentially retentions of existing members rather than new ones.

Today’s list has a further sixteen. That makes a total of 110 Labour life peers who owed their seat to Starmer’s nomination during the six years and three months he was leader. That works out as about once every twenty-one days. If split by time in and out of government, it comes to one for every fifty-two days as Leader of the Opposition and one for every nine days as Prime Minister. That latter figure will obviously rise further if there is indeed a separate resignation list. Gordon Brown, by contrast, nominated only eleven peers from his own party during his entire premiership, followed by twenty-nine in the subsequent dissolution list. That averages about one for every twenty-six days.

Even as someone who has followed the upper house intently for over a decade, I’m still a little confused about the significance of a peerage, or indeed any other honour, emanating from one type of list rather than another. Torrance’s briefing from two years ago, itself derived from an explainer by the Institute for Government two years prior identifies six different routes to a life peerage, but this still does not provide perfect clarity and there have been many peers appointed who could have fit into more than one of those categories. This also applies to other honours, and this confusion is exemplified when more than one honours list is published simultaneously.

On 29th December 2023, for example, the New Year Honours for 2024 were published alongside Liz Truss’s long-delayed resignation list and a list of “political honours” recommended by Rishi Sunak. Karen Bradley, David Davis, Liam Fox, Sajid Javid, Siobhain McDonagh, Jackie Doyle-Price, Jeremy Quin and Alec Shelbrooke were all appointed various forms of knight or dame. Does anyone now remember or care who came via which process? Once you’ve got your title, the reason for getting it no longer matters. Certainly from the perspective of what Bagehot calls the dignified part of the state it makes no difference what bureaucratic apparatus was used to recommend you for whatever token the Crown bestows upon you; a baron is a baron and a dame is a dame, your patent or warrant, your robes or regalia, your investiture or introduction, your entry in Debrett’s and the Gazette will all be the same irrespective of whether you are getting it in reward for good deeds or ill.

Even so, it would be interesting to discover if, among Parliamentarians themselves, there is a practical difference in social prestige between members with the same accolades depending on who got theirs at which time of year. I would also be interested in a study by Torrance or some other researcher which analysed long-term trends in peers’ Parliamentary activity, stratified according to the type of process by which they were appointed, to see if that makes a practical difference either. In the meantime, however, I look forward to seeing today’s twenty-six take their seats, if only to get a look at James Peill appearing as Garter for the first time.

UPDATE (18th July)

Yesterday the Hansard Society put out this podcast discussing this recent list, and also referencing this speech by the Lord Speaker.

The Heraldic Dark Horse

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A few weeks ago I commented that it was slightly odd for David Vines White, Garter King of Arms, to be made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order at seemingly the halfway point of his tenure. Now it emerges that it wasn’t the midpoint after all.

White in Elizabeth II’s funeral procession, photographed by James Boyce (CC-BY-2.0)

Today the College of Arms website put out a short notice stating that Sir David had retired. This was a little out of the blue, for he is only 64 and the retirement age for heralds is 70. He served exactly five years, whereas all his predecessors in his own lifetime served at least ten (apart from Sir Conrad Swan, who retired after only three years due to a cancer diagnosis). His term, though brief, was obviously highly eventful as it featured Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee followed swiftly by her death and state funeral, then the coronation of Charles III.

Even more surprising is the choice of his successor: I would have thought that one of the other Kings of Arms (Robert Noel, 63, Clarenceux; Clive Cheeseman, 58, Norry; both appointed in 2024) would be the obvious candidates, or perhaps Peter O’Donoghue (55, York Herald since 2012). Instead the job has gone to James van Someren Peill, about whom almost nothing is known. His Wikipedia page is little more than a stub, and it appears that his career at the College is very brief: He was appointed Bluemantle Pursuivant in 2024, then Richmond Herald just five weeks ago. Prior to that he worked as an auctioneer of antique furniture.

I don’t know if a free-licence photograph of him yet exists, nor is his own coat of arms known. There have been examples in the depths of history when Garters have been appointed from outside the College with no prior experience, being appointed to and promoted through the lower ranks in a very short time (sometimes as little as one day) to nominally fulfil the requirement of having been a Herald and Pursuivant before being a King. The story behind Peill’s sudden rise and White’s early departure could be a fascinating one to read, if it ever emerges.

Recent Royal Resources and Revelations

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Now is the time of year that the Royal Household publishes its financial reports detailing the use of the Sovereign Grant and other money sources. It is a chance for the public to look at “The Firm” as a business, and likewise for The Firm to advocate for itself on that basis. Obviously these are aimed at a higher reading level than most of the Palace’s announcements.

Earlier this year there was an additional publication: A report by the National Audit Office on the arrangements for Crown Estate properties which members of the family and their staff occupy. This was prompted mainly by the surrender of the Royal Lodge by the former Prince Andrew.

I have read through the majority of these documents (though the full Sovereign Grant Report, at 161 pages, may not be completed for some time). I will not comment on the majority of their contents as they are dense with financial jargon, but will highlight a couple of interesting revelations.

Working Royals

The definition of “working royal”, meaning one who carries out public duties on behalf of the sovereign, has sometimes been contested. This year’s documents appear to offer a canonical list of who currently counts. Page 35 of the NAO report says

3.10 In addition to The King and Queen, there are nine working members of the Royal family supporting the duties of the Sovereign: The Prince and Princess of Wales, The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, The Duke of Kent, The Princess Royal, The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and Princess Alexandra.

This exact line is repeated in the Palace’s own financial report (page 3). This is obviously a rather smaller list than we would have seen a decade ago, due to several members from that time having died or withdrawn from duties (whether voluntarily or not) without anyone yet arriving to replace them.

The same page in the NAO report, as well as a few other sections, define four people as being outside the firm:

Princess Beatrice Princess Eugenie and The Prince and Princess Michael of Kent

The report repeatedly refers to “The Prince and Princess Michael of Kent”, giving them the definite article (with capital T, no less) normally reserved for royals in the first generation of descent from a monarch.

Sir Timothy Laurence is not mentioned in these documents even though, despite his lack of royal style or title, he definitely is on the duty roster. The status of the Duke of Edinburgh’s children and His Majesty’s grandchildren is also left unresolved.

(At this point I will take the opportunity to plug the work of Canadian journalist Patricia Treble, who has written in detail several times about the looming demographic crisis for the working royals. She noted in a post from April this year that contrary to official reports she considers Alexandra “effectively retired” due to the rarity of her appearances in the last few years.)

Buckingham Palace

Much of the word-count of the recent literature concerns the major refurbishment works on this residence, which had fallen into a dangerous state of disrepair by the early 2010s.

Over the last decade there have been multiple updates in formal documents, as well as the royal YouTube channel, about the work being done to overhaul the palace’s systems, structures and services.

Although it is now a prominent British icon — to the extent that “the Palace” is frequently used as the principal metonym for the entire institution of the monarchy — the physical structure has often been a source of problems. Histories of the late Georgian and early Victorian period will often point out that the construction ran well over budget requiring the replacement of the architect, and that the finished product was riddled with faults including sewer overflow, smoke accumulation and rat infestation. This was a recurrent theme in the first season of ITV’s Victoria series, and also got a sketch on Horrible Histories.

There were several renovations over the next century (including to repair bomb damage after the Second World War) which fixed some problems but not all. By the time of Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee there were news stories about windows losing too much heat, plastic buckets to catch leaks, and blocks of masonry nearly killing people when they fell to the ground.

Even aside from its structural shortcomings, a lot of monarchs simply didn’t like living there: William IV, who reluctantly inherited the unfinished work from his elder brother, preferred to stay at his own custom-built residence at Clarence House (so-called because he was Duke of Clarence at the time). Victoria was initially excited to move in, but later in her reign would leave it abandoned for most of the year in favour of Osborne and Windsor.

Towards the end of George VI’s reign Philip Mountbatten & The Princess Elizabeth made their home at Clarence House as Duke & Duchess of Edinburgh. Following the latter’s accession to the throne they were reluctant to move to Buckingham Palace, only doing so because Sir Winston Churchill insisted it was the only proper place for the reigning monarch to live. It is speculated by historians that the royal couple at the time only gave way because they were relatively young and inexperienced on the throne whereas Churchill was very elderly and had achieved a near-divine status in the public mind, whereas by the end of the reign that dynamic had more than reversed. We can’t know for sure, but it feels a mightily-convenient coincidence that this announcement has been made at a time when the party in government is having a leadership contest, meaning that the incumbent is a caretaker who, in terms of effective political authority, may as well not exist.

Drawing of Clarence House from 1874.

Late in Elizabeth’s reign Clarence House became the official residence for Prince Charles’s own household, and there were reports that both he and his mother wished to shift the emphasis of the monarchy away from Buckingham Palace, perhaps even abandoning it as a residence altogether, and make Windsor Castle the principal royal residence. In Elizabeth II’s last few years events conspired in favour of this: In 2017 Prince Philip formally retired from royal duties and, while his wife continued at Buck House, he moved to Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate (where his middle son now lives). In 2020 when the pandemic hit and lockdown was imposed, they both moved to Windsor and had their “bubble” headquartered there. Over that year and the next the Castle was host to Philip’s funeral and a visit by President Biden after a G7 summit. Trooping the Colour, scaled down due to social distancing requirements, was also relocated there on both years. In early 2022 as the pandemic abated it was announced that Elizabeth would not move back to London, instead keeping Windsor as her main home and merely commuting when necessary.

On Charles’s accession he and Camilla had been living at Clarence House for nearly two decades. Although “Clarence House” as an organisation (a metonym for their separate household as Prince of Wales & Duchess of Cornwall) was formally dissolved at that point and merged with that at Buckingham Palace, the ongoing renovation works gave the couple an excuse not to actually move in. For over three years now Their Majesties have used Buckingham as the workplace for their constitutional and public functions as King & Queen, but kept Clarence House as their main London home. It also continues to be the venue for their private social functions as well as gatherings related to the charities and businesses they established there during the prior reign. At the end of 2024 the building works reached the state rooms, so that the next run of state visits (so far France, United States, Germany and Nigeria) were all redirected to Windsor as well.

Now that the restoration work is nearing completion, a long-term decision needs to be made. This week it was announced to reporters at a press briefing that Their Majesties will continue their current arrangements indefinitely, with no plans ever to move. This effectively makes official what has already quietly been the case for the past six years: Buck House is the monarch’s residence no longer. Prince William seems likely to follow suit here: The Prince & Princess of Wales have long had their official residence at Kensington Palace (which is also the metonym for their household), but where they and their children actually live has varied. Late last year the family moved into Forest Lodge, Windsor, and described it as their “forever home”.

This change may feel momentous, but royal residences have come and gone over the centuries: Westminster, Whitehall, Hampton Court, Richmond, Eltham and St James’s have all at some point been the home of the sovereign, then faded into the background (or, indeed, been destroyed). My suggestion to offer Buck House to Parliament again remains in place.

EXTERNAL LINKS

All The King’s Horses

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A photograph of Their Majesties in the Lords Chamber on 13th May, acquired through the United States embassy and therefore presumed to be public domain.

The May-June period tends to be quite a busy one in terms of grand royal ceremonies with equestrian components: In the past few weeks we’ve had the State Opening of Parliament, the Trooping of the Colour, the installation of Knights of the Garter and the races at Ascot. The first two events have, in recent years, been a good opportunity to get free-licence photographs of the senior royals for Wikimedia Commons. This year, unfortunately, the pickings have been quite slim.

For the state opening, the official House of Lords photographs have been uploaded to Flickr as “All Rights Reserved”. Those from the House of Commons are Non-Commercial No-Derivatives. The only ones I’ve actually been able to find and upload are a quartet from the Instagram account of the United States Embassy. There were also three photographs of the procession along the Mall taken by Alansplodge.

For Trooping the Colour, the Government Flickr accounts which took so many photographs in 2023, -4, and -5 have not taken any this year, so we are reliant on the generosity of digital marketing consultant John Pannell. He also got a lot of snaps at the event in 2022.

Pannell’s shot of the Princess of Wales in a landau with her sons. Princess Charlotte is either obscured or out-of-frame throughout the album.

Neither Garter Day nor Ascot usually get covered by government photographers so free-licence photographs of those events are restricted to the occasional shots by amateurs who release their own work. Of course, in the case of Garter Day it is only the procession which can be photographed at all while the rest takes place inside the castle, though on this occasion we did get a verbal account from the Since Attlee & Churchill podcast.

It is worth mentioning that though the Buckingham Palace Flickr account quietly stopped posting back in 2018, there is a separate feed from Kensington Palace with albums for three of these four events. Of course, these are also All Rights Reserved and thus out of bounds for Wikimedia.

Early Summer Heraldic News

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10th June is International Heraldry Day. It’s not a widely-known occasion, of course, and I don’t have any particular way of celebrating it, but it felt like the occasion to post some updates.

Humphrey Lyttelton

Over the last few months I have been listening obsessively to the archives of the classic panel show I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue (which, incidentally, is back for a new series this week). Among the hundreds of hours of babble and bickering, I picked up on a couple of heraldic references in Humphrey Lyttelton’s introductory monologues:

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, was born in broad street where WH Smith stands, which is evidenced by the Laud family crest of a crossed pen and pencil set Argent topped by readers’ wives rampant.

(S37E1, 28th May 2001)

 

The story of Darlington’s history is neatly encompassed in its coat of arms. The Cross of St Cuthbert represents the town’s resistance to Viking raids, a bull’s head signifies the local breeding of fine cattle, and white chevrons with black lines indicate no overtaking on an urban freeway.

(S41E1, 26th May 2003)

If I manage to find enough of these, I could create a new armorial page called Humph’s Heraldry or I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Crest.

Humph himself would be no stranger to heraldry, coming as he did from the aristocratic Lyttelton family. Humph was the only son of Hon. George William Lyttelton, himself the second son of Charles George Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham. He was too far removed from the peerage to gain any style or honorific from it, but he still would have been an esquire by some of the traditional definitions, and of course that would make him an armiger too.

Lord Cobham’s arms were Argent a chevron between three escallops Sable and his crest was a Moor’s head in profile couped at the shoulders Proper wreathed about the temples Argent and Sable. Humph would have presumably displayed these with a crescent for difference, if following the rules of cadency.

The mention of William Laud prompted me to look for his actual heraldic bearings. The blazon I uncovered for his shield was Sable on a chevron between three estoiles Or three crosses pattee fitchy Gules. I cannot find the blazon for his crest, though as a clergyman he obviously would not have used one. That means I cannot explicitly disprove Humph’s suggestion, though as Laud died over a century before the establishment of the WH Smith company I suspect a direct homage is unlikely.

Anglican Archbishops

I was surprised to find that Laud’s personal arms, and those of several other Anglican bishops, were listed on Heraldry of the World, which normally only carries corporate arms. I then went about adding as many blazons as were available to their owners’ Wikipedia pages. When I got to William Temple I discovered that the arms were already cited, and the link was to the book The Blazon of Episcopacy by William Bedford, 1897. I don’t know how I missed this before. I have long been frustrated by the fact that Burke’s and Debrett’s only list the Lords Spiritual by the corporate arms of their sees instead of the personal arms of the incumbents, so this book was a revelation, if you’ll pardon the pun. This has given the the opportunity to start illustrating arms en masse again, having run low on material in the last few years. It also pushed my edit count past 24000, allowing me to upgrade my user rank to Senior Editor or Labutnum.

I have now set about creating an Armorial of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and after that will probably do so for all the other bishoprics in Bedford’s book too. Five years ago I created one for the Bishops of Chester because there was already a website which collated them, but did not have the necessary resources to go any further.

Articles on Other Sites

Yesterday The Atlantic published an article by British journalist Helen Lewis about the phenomenon of Americans applying to the College of Arms in London for honorary grants. Despite the timing, no mention is made of IHD and the article is clearly intended more as part of the commemorations for the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It includes snippets of interviews from several American armigers, as well as Dominic Ingram (Chester Herald) and an account of Lewis’s own visit to the College’s headquarters. Ingram makes a comment about his heart sinking when a client asks for lions due to their overuse. David White, now Garter, made the same comment a while back.

On 1st April the retired rector Ian Gomersall posted about receiving his letters patent, and even included some photographs of the artistic process. Four days ago Ian Leslie posted a long article which included a paragraph about William Shakespeare’s quest for heraldry, something which I have also discussed before.

Miscellaneous

In less exciting news, it has now been an entire year since the College posted a new edition of its own newsletter. The message in the sidebar still insists that the letter is produced every three months, but that has not been true for quite a while now.

On a quasi-related note, today would also have been the 105th birthday of the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (he was eighteen days younger than Humph). Recently I inherited a copy of H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: A Portrait by his Valet. The book was curiously undated, but Google Books tells me it was published in 1954. That feels remarkably early to be writing a biography like this, given that he would go on to live until 2021. The use of “Prince” in the title is also interesting, given that this book came out after he relinquished his Greek & Danish princely title but before he was granted his British one. Of course, I will have to get around to actually reading the book before I can make further judgement.

UPDATE (13th June)

The King’s Birthday Honours were published late last night. David Vines White, Garter since 2021, has been appointed a KCVO. This is routine for holders of his office, though it is interesting that he got it at what must be about the halfway point of his tenure, whereas his predecessors Woodcock and Gwynne-Jones didn’t get theirs until very near the end.

UPDATE (16th June)

Birkbeck College has published an interview with Timothy Noad, exploring the creative process behind the creation of the new royal cypher.

Reap-peer-ances

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Two weeks after the publication of the list, the life peerages promised to expelled hereditary peers have begun to actually take effect. In line with the resolution I mentioned in my previous post, these peers are simply taking the oath and resuming their seats without the full introduction ceremony.

One downside to this approach is that we do not hear the letters patent being read out, so the only evidence of the member’s new title apart from when they say it themselves upon taking the oath. Life peerages under the 1958 Act are always baronies — the lowest degree — and these ones are obviously later created than the ones their recipients had before, so they are subsidiary to the titles by which these peers were already known. Both Hansard and Parliament.UK refer to a peer only by his highest title even if it is not the one by which he sits, to to know the full spelling of the life peerage, and its territorial designation, one has to wait for the notice to be published in the Gazette. As usual, there is a few days’ delay before this happens.

Those whose full titles have been availed thus far are:

  • Charles Wellesley, 9th Duke of Wellington as Baron Wellington of Stratfield Saye (of Stratfield Saye in the County of Hampshire and of Colomnell in the County of Ayrshire)
  • Godfrey Bewicke-Copley, 7th Baron Cromwell as Baron Cromwell of Tattershall (of Misterton in the County of Leicestershire)
  • Sebastian Grigg, 4th Baron Altrincham as Baron Altrincham of Islington (of Holland Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea)
  • Edward Howard, 8th Earl of Effingham as Baron Effingham of Bookham Commons (of Effingham in the County of Surrey)
  • Stephen Benn, 3rd Viscount Stansgate as Baron Stansgate of Holland Park (of Stansgate in the County of Essex)
  • Thomas Galbraith, 2nd Baron Strathclyde as Baron Strathclyde of Barskimming (of Barskimming in the County of Ayr)
  • Colin Moynihan, 4th Baron Moynihan as Baron Moynihan of Purbeck (of Leeds in the County of York)
  • Nicholas Trench, 9th Earl of Clancarty as Baron Clancarty of the Hangers (of Petersfield in the County of Hampshire)

These titles and their territorial designations are, quite literally, all over the place. In six out of eight cases the peer’s main title is a place name instead of his surname*, and in all six of these cases the life peerage ignores the surname in favour of repeating the main title followed by an unrelated second place name, then having a territorial designation which is different yet again.

Altrincham, for example, is actually a town in Greater Manchester (though originally in Cheshire). It is nowhere near the London Boroughs of Islington or Kensington, and to make matters worse the territorial designation of the hereditary barony is “of Tomarton in the County of Gloucester”, which is wrong again! Purbeck isn’t in Leeds, either, and I’m not sure why the County of Ayr has a “shire” on the end of it for Wellesley’s peerage but not for Galbraith’s.

This doesn’t matter much in practice as the new titles will never actually be used to refer to their holders in everyday practice, but the odd constructions indicate to me that the present Garter King of Arms has a quite idiosyncratic sense of Britain’s geography.

In Cromwell’s case it’s someone else’s surname, as the barony was created by writ and descended to his grandfather through the female line after four centuries’ abeyance.

Notes on the 2026 State Opening

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The State Opening of Parliament took place today. This opens the second session of the fifty-ninth Parliament of the United Kingdom, and the third of the new Carolean era. There was not one in 2025*, but at least Their Majesties got to open the Canadian parliament instead.

Notes on the Ceremonial Elements

  • The King has a new Parliamentary robe (and Dr Allan Barton has already made a video about it). Previously he wore the one made in 1937 for his grandfather.
  • The Queen, having worn something different in 2024, seems to be wearing her coronation gown as she did in 2023, albeit without the gold highlights this time.
  • Ed Davis had his first state opening as Black Rod. He addressed the Commons as “this Noble house” rather than “this Honourable house”. Nobody pulled him up on that, at least publicly.
  • David Lammy attended his first state opening as Lord Chancellor. He revived the tradition of walking backwards down the steps of the throne having handed the speech to the monarch.
  • The Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Carrington and the Lord de Mauley all took part in the royal procession as Earl Marshal, Lord Great Chamberlain and Master of the Horse respectively. They still have access to Parliament for these purposes, but are no longer actually members of the upper house as a legislative body (though de Mauley will shortly be reappointed).
  • The Duke of Norfolk did not wear his Parliamentary robe (with its characteristic four strips of miniver) over his uniform. Having been removed as a legislator he can likely never wear it again. He last wore it in 2022, omitting it in 2023 and 2024.
  • The Princess Anne, as Gold Stick-in-Waiting, did not attend this state opening or that in 2024, but did in 2023.
  • The choreography was a little different this time: In 2022 and 2023 Charles entered the Lords chamber through the door on the government side and departed through the door on the opposition side, Camilla vice-versa. This time they entered as normal but both departed through the opposition side, walking adjacent.
  • One again Charles had four pages holding his train while Camilla only had two, so the end of her robe trailed along the carpet.
  • Dennis Skinner last attended a state opening in October 2019. Since then nobody else has picked up his tradition of jibes at Black Rod. This time somebody (not yet identified) shouted “Not Now, Andy!” as the door was knocked, referring to Andy Burnham’s attempts to get back into the lower house.

Notes on Photography

Both of the Parliamentary Flickr accounts uploaded a good selection of stills from the event. Unfortunately neither set used a Wiki-compatible licence this time, so they can’t be moved across. On the other hand, the government website’s page about the speech decided to illustrate it with not with a photograph from today’s event, but rather what is clearly a crop of one of the post-coronation portraits at Buckingham Palace on 6th May 2023.

Previously the copyright on these portraits was very tightly controlled, but by using it here HM Government may have inadvertently released it under OGL3. It has already been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and will probably stay there until someone clarifies otherwise.

The Political Element

Of course, we must not forget that the event is not pure theatre: The actual speech is the most important part as that lays out the government’s agenda for the next year. This, however, assumes that there will actually be a government.

The fallout from Labour’s poor performance in the local elections is still raging and the night before the state opening four junior ministers had to be replaced because they resigned in protest at Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. So far this is nowhere near the scale of what happened to Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 or Boris Johnson in 2022 but for this to happen at all on a day like this is still very concerning for any government. At time of posting there are rumours circling that Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, may be about to resign from the Cabinet and begin a leadership challenge. If this does occur, it will be interesting to see how much of today’s speech ever actually gets implemented. Watch this space, I suppose.

An Expulsion, and Afterwards an Encore

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At the end of the previous Parliamentary session late last month, those members of the House of Lords sitting by virtue of hereditary peerages lost that membership. Today, on the eve of the new session, the government announced that twenty-six of them will be given life peerages to allow them to be reintroduced. Fifteen of these are Conservatives, nine Crossbenchers and two Labour. There were no Liberal Democrats on the list, though two of their hereditary representatives — the Earl Russell and the Lord Addington — had already received the same gift in a different honours list in December.

The timing of this has some interesting implications: As Addington and Russell received their life peerages before their hereditary tickets were annulled, their membership of the upper house is continuous. The two-dozen reappointed after the event technically have had a break in service, so will need to take the oath again, though a resolution of the House last month spared them the obligation of the full introduction ceremony. Some of the choices are pretty obvious, such as the Conservatives’ former leader Strathclyde and current deputy leader Howe. Others are less obvious. I presume there must have been a lot of backstage haggling between parties over how many life peerages would be awarded, as well as within parties to determine who would get them. In recent years the government has tended to publish “citations” for new life peers, including those who were peers already, but that element was absent from this list.

In 1999 when the bulk of hereditary peers were removed to leave only 92 elected representatives therefrom, a handful of such peers were given life peerages to exempt them from having to seek election. This broadly amounted to those who were former leaders of the house (such as Cranborne and Longford) and those who were the first of their title (such as Snowdon). I cannot work out any specifics that this rump-of-a-rump have in common, so I assume there was an informal ballot among the group or they were chosen at the leader/convener’s discretion.

Notably absent were the Duke of Norfolk and the Lord Carrington, who hold respectively the offices of Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain. The 1999 Act had a special provision for these two to remain ex officio. The Earl Marshal is a hereditary title entailed to the Dukes of Norfolk since 1672 whereas the Lord Great Chamberlain position has, since Edwardian times, rotated at each demise of the crown. During Elizabeth II’s reign it was held by the Marquesses of Cholmondeley. David, 7th Marquess, held the tole from the death of his father in 1990 to the death of Queen Elizabeth in 2022. Parliament.UK makes clear that he lost his membership of the upper house on Charles III’s accession. Carrington assumed the office at that point, but he had already been elected as a Conservative peer in 2018. After 2022 he appears to have been occupying two seats at once as there was not a by-election for his previous position. On a similar note, it’s not clear if Addington and Russell (or, for that matter, Kinnoull) continued to be counted as representative hereditary peers after their life peerages had been conferred. The only meaningful way to test this would have been to call by-elections, but these had all been suspended when the recent legislation was been processed during the 2024-6 session. A handful of hereditary peers died or retired during this time without being replaced, so that the delegation was substantially below strength by the time the session ended.

There is, of course, already a Wikipedia page under construction for this list.

End of Session, End of Service

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The ceremony of prorogation was carried out this afternoon, ending the first session of the fifty-ninth Parliament of the United Kingdom, which has sat for nearly two years since the general election in July 2024.

Prorogation kills any bills which have not yet reached the point of passing. Notably, the highly-controversial Terminally Ill Adults End of Life) Bill ran out of legislative time and therefore will not become law.

This prorogation was authorised by an Order in Council at the start of this month. As is usual for these instruments, one specific date is named for the opening of the new session but a range of a week is offered for the closing of the old one. In practice governments nearly always go for the earliest day in the range. In this case it was widely speculated that the Starmer ministry wanted to close Parliament as swiftly as possible to halt an investigation over Lord Mandelson, which has been causing them humiliation for some weeks now.

Today is also the last day in Parliament for many of those elected hereditary peers, as the Act removing their right to representation was scheduled to take effect at the session’s end (although a handful are expected to receive life peerages in compensation). The significance of this occasion is likely the reason that the upper chamber was packed to the rafters today, in contrast to most prorogations when attendance is usually quite low.

There were quite a few changes among the principal players here, partly because of the long time this session lasted:

  • The Baroness Smith of Basildon, Leader of the House, was naturally the lead among the Lords Commissioners. She has been performing this role for over a decade now.
  • The Lord Forsyth of Drumlean took part as Lord Speaker for the first time, replacing McFall of Alcluith.
  • The Earl Howe, Shadow Deputy Leader of the House, and a member of the Conservative frontbench for a record-breaking thirty-five years, represented his party in lieu of the True. He is the first hereditary peer to take part in a royal commission since Strathclyde in 2012, and the first Earl since Ferrers in 1992.
  • Another earl, Kinnoull, the Convener of the Crossbench Peers, has still not been made a Privy Counsellor so his place was taken by the Baroness Hayman, the original Lord Speaker.
  • The Lord Purvis of Tweed, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Peers, is not a Privy Counsellor either so was represented by Beith.
  • Sarah Mullally was named in the commission as Archbishop of Canterbury for the first time (replacing Justin Welby) though the Archbishop hasn’t actually taken part in this ceremony for centuries and I didn’t see her in the chamber.
  • David Lammy was named in the commission as Lord Chancellor for the first time (replacing Shabana Mahmood), but Lord Chancellors haven’t taken part in prorogations since 2006.
  • Jo Farrar appeared for the first time as Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, reading the short titles of the Acts receiving royal assent, replacing Antonia Romeo.
  • Chloe Mawson appeared for the first time as Clerk of the Parliaments, pronouncing (perhaps mispronouncing) “Le Roy Le Veult”, replacing Simon Burton.
  • Ed Davis summoned the Commons for the first time as Black Rod, replacing Sarah Clarke.

The purpose of the Lords Commissioners is to carry out these Parliamentary ceremonies in the absence of the monarch himself. Today that need is particularly urgent as Charles III is about 3500 miles away visiting New York City. When Lady Smith read out the pro-forma line “My Lords, it not being convenient for His Majesty personally to be present here this day…” there was an eruption of laughter from the chamber and she had to then say “Settle Down!”. At the end of the ceremony, the gracious speech in “The King’s Own Words” was obviously rather less enchanting than those which Charles had actually given in Washington D.C. recently. It mentioned all the inbound state visits since the general election (Qatari, French, American, German and Nigerian) as well as the current outbound one, but curiously not those to Samoa, Italy, or the Vatican.

This prorogation was the only business conducted in the upper house today, but in the lower house there was time for a final round of Prime Minister’s Questions (meaning Starmer didn’t entirely escape further grilling on the Mandelson scandal) and the first reading of a bill regarding banking services. The latter was for a commendable cause but the effort was clearly purely symbolic given the timing.

The state opening will take place on 13th May. It will be interesting to see what roles the Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain can now play.

New Garter Knights for 2026

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There were no new appointments made to the Order of the Garter in 2025, the most recent addition being the off-cycle appointment of the Emperor of Japan as a Stranger Knight on his state visit in 2024.

Today three new Knights Companion were announced, leaving just one vacancy among the ordinary category: Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, Lord O’Donnell and Lord Burnett of Maldon. All three are crossbench life peers. Actually, all of the non-royal recipients of the Garter so far this reign have been life peers. By contrast, the fifteen still-living members added by Elizabeth II comprise seven life peers, four hereditary peers and four commoners. It may be too early to determine if this represents a significant trend.

O’Donnell was Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2011. From lectures and documentaries I get the sense that he was a particularly-revered holder of that office. It is also notable that he was the last in a long string to be simultaneously Head of the Home Civil Service, Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office, after which there was an attempt to split these into three separate roles (though the first two were reunited not long afterwards). His first name is formally Augustine, but in practice is nearly always given as Gus, giving him the initials G.O.D. Ironically, while he is now a Knight of the Garter and has since 2005 been a Knight of the Bath as well, he has not been appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George, which denies him the opportunity to live out this classic joke from Yes, Minister.

Burnett was Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales from 2017 to 2023, his six-year tenure making him the longest-serving LCJ since Geoffrey Lane (1980-1992).

He doesn’t seem to be as famous as O’Donnell, though I note he was part of the divisional court of the Queen’s Bench Division for the Miller 2 case in 2019. After retiring from the English judiciary he became Chief Justice of a commercial court based in Kazakhstan.

Both Burnett and O’Donnell are the sort of people one could expect to receive the Garter based on their offices as the existing membership included Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, though neither office guarantees the award and there are plenty of emeriti from each who have not received it.

Hennessy is the exception here, as although a parliamentarian he does not seem to have held any particular public office, whether governmental, ministerial, diplomatic, judicial or vice-regal. There have been a handful of people like this, like Mary Soames and Edmund Hillary, but they are definitely a rarity. He co-founded the Institute of Contemporary British History in 1986 and has been Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History since 1992 at QMUL since 1992. He has written at least two-dozen books on history and politics, making him the most (first?) prominent academic to receive the nation’s highest order. Norton must be quietly seething.

I illustrated Hennessy’s shield for Wikimedia Commons in 2022. It is about what one would expect for a man who has worked in academia. I suspect that Rs-nouse will be re-illustrating it in his characteristic style fairly shortly. Neither O’Donnell nor Burnett had arms listed in Debrett’s 2019, so the hanging of their banners in St George’s Chapel will be an exciting revelation.

Garter appointments are traditionally announced on 23rd April because it is St George’s Day, St George of Lydda being the patron saint of the Order of the Garter since its inception in 1348 and of England more generally thereafter. In modern times, today is also the eighth birthday of Prince Louis of Wales. I can’t help wondering if the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge quietly kicked themselves for having already given the name George to their July-born first son, thus missing another chance for poetic alignment.

Louis & George in June 2023

On another note, we are approaching the tenth anniversary of the EU Referendum, and with it the tenth anniversary of when Theresa May succeeded David Cameron as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It is also the year that he turns sixty and she seventy. Both have been ennobled relatively recently but neither has received any British order of chivalry. I had thought that this would be a good occasion for one of them to receive the Garter, but evidently that will have to wait for some time yet.