4θ6 7HE PEERAGE. [XVI. perished under Richard's own tyranny, some two or three were now represented by minors, and about half-a-dozen seem to have had their summons suspended during either the whole reign or a great part of it. Of these suspended peers, who all reappear either in the later parliaments or in the first parliament of Henry VIII, the chief are the Ogle, Dacre, and Scrope lords, who rule in the north country, and whose absence, which is not necessarily to be accounted for on political grounds, is a point that has not been satisfactorily investigated. In this way, however, not by proscription or execution, the list is diminished. In the later parliaments not only do many of these suspended peerages revive, the empty places being filled by the restoration of the heirs of Richard's victims, but even the attainders of 1485 are cancelled ; the Howards return to favour and power in 1489, Ferrers in 1487, Zouch in 1495 ; Lovel perishes, the viscount himself who fell at Stoke leaving only coheiresses. A proof of what I have been saying is seen also in the fact that during the whole reign only five new peerages were created ; one of these, the earldom of Bath, held by a foreigner, does not seem to have entitled its possessor to a summons ; another is an Irish earldom, Ormond ; the other three are Daubeny, Cheney, and Burgh. Yet notwithstanding this economy and the later attainders of the reign, the subsequent parliaments contain a lay peerage of forty members, which is not below the average of the century and was not increased materially until Henry VIII brought up the number of lay lords to that of the spiritual lords, before he finally reduced the latter to half their tale by getting rid of the abbots. This point, like that of the composition of the House of Commons, on which we have no information, would be more important if we knew anything of the parliamentary history. As we do not, and find that the king in that august assembly