Note 317 — Chapter XVIII

A Scotch Peer cannot be made an English one by the act of Union; this is evaded sometimes, as in Lord Lorne’s case, by the heir-apparent being created an English Peer. Lord Lorne seemed not to care whom he courted or quitted, so he did but obtain his end. [This disability, which the decision of the House of Lords in 1711 attached to the Scotch Peerage, was removed in 1782, when the point was referred to the Judges, and they delivered an unanimous opinion that the Peers of Scotland are not disabled from receiving, subsequently to the Union, a patent of Peerage of Great Britain.] (Journals of the Lords, 6 June, 1782; Burnet’s Own Times, 586; 1 Peere Williams, 582; Somerville’s Queen Anne, 459.)—E.