The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-04-09
Uuper House of Parliament Thrown Out Bill Authorizing wfdower To Wed Deceased Sister by Large
 Majority.

Engiand's lords have again, for about the dozenth time, thrown out by . large vote the bill passed by an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons authorizing marriage with a deceased wife's sister. This bill has again and again been enacted by the House of Commons and as of- ten defeated by the House of Lords, nor is there any prospect of its ever becoming law as long as the upper chamber of the national legislature remains as now constituted. This Is all the more awkward. as matrimonial alliances of widowers with the sisters of their dead wives are perfectly legal wedding everywhere in the British Empire save in the United Kingdom.
 The action of the House of Lords in this matter has been ascribed to the influence of the archbishops and bishops occupying seats in the gilded chamber, not as spiritual peers, but as lords of Parliament, who naturally consider it to be their duty to cham pion the cause of the canonical law of the Established Church. But this is misleading. There is another and much more important reason for the animosity of the Upper House to the bill--an animosity which the infu- ence of the feigning house has been powerless to allay. Queen Victoria made no secret of her wish to have the bill passed. For it would have permitted the marriage of her widow ed son In law, the late Grand Duke or Hesse, to her youngest daughter. Princess Beatrice. a match supon which her heart was set. and which would have provided his motherIess girls with a suitable guardian in the place of her dead daughter, the Grand Duchess Alice. Aware of her views, the present King when Prince of Wales, his brothers, namely, the late Duke of Edinburgh and Cobvrg, also the late Duke of Albany. and the Duke of Connaught, as we'll as the present Prince of Wales. the late Duke of Clarence and the late Duke of Cambridge. have all cast their votes as peers of the realm in favor of the bill. and. what is more, have vigor- ously championed its cause, and en- deavored to canvass support for 1t among the hereditary legislators. but without avail.
 It would Affect Succession.
 The true reason for the objection of the House of Lords to the bill Is that 1t would affect the succession to a number of peerages and would raise all sorts of troublesome questions as to the validity of titles. In fact there is no end to the disturbance which it would create in the peerage. Until the early part of the last century marriages with deceased wives sis ters were voidable. though not ab fnitio void. That, at any rate, was the construction placed By the House of Lords Siftfn0 of peal. upon the canonica1 prohibition of matrimonial alliances of this nature-- that is to say, the marriages were valid until declared void by the ecclesiastical court, which took no ac- tion unless any one went to the trouble of setting the tribunal in mo- tion. Now, to put a court such as that In motion was a very expensive process, and only those invoked this action who were anxious to prevent titles of nobility and estates from passing into other hands.
 It was Lord Lyndhurst who, when Lord High Chancellor. secured the passage of an act, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, decreeing marriages with deceased wives sis ters as invalid and void without any recourse to the tribunals, Aecclesiasti- cal or civil and this was known as the Lyndhurst act.
 The Barnard BarOny in Question.
 Tn order to appreciate how this mat affects the succession of peerages, may mention that for a time the claims of Henry de We're Vane to the barony of Barnard and to Raby cas- tie and the valuable estates which go herewith were placed in dorbt owing to the fact that he was descended from the second Lord Barnards grand