In the centuries-long paring down of its once formidable powers, Britain's House of Lords has suffered many a trauma. But few came as quite such a shock as the Great Trauma of 1922. That year the Viscountess Rhondda, a doughty Welsh suffragette who went to jail once for dropping a crude incendiary bomb inside a post box, had the gall to request a writ of summons that would give her a seat alongside Their Lordships. A few of the noble lords found her petition "irresistible," but not so the grumpy Lord Chancellor, the Earl...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
