For this week’s quiz, I thought I would pose questions that are a little different to the type posted in previous weeks.
Question 1
What is the relationship between a late distinguished member of the House of Lords and the phrase ‘Bob’s your uncle’?
Question 2
When the two Houses of Parliament acquired a settled meeting place, the Commons sat in the St Stephen’s Chapel. But where, until 1801, did the Lords sit?
Question 3
When was the title ‘the House of Lords’ first used? (1) 1482, (2) 1501, (3) 1544?
1) At the risk of setting off the QI style alarms – Lord Salisbury is the answer you may be after in appointing his nephew the future Earl of Balfour as minister in Ireland and assisting him to succeed as PM in 1902. Though I believe that the phrase is dated long before this time so the attribution is incorrect though pretty universal and the preserving of the phrase if not he origin may be due to Salisbury.
2)The Lords used at one point meet in the White Chamber.
3)1544. Although I’m not sure how much commons or lords was used? Seems much longer and more flowery forms were widely used in many sources.
Question 1: The White Chamber
Question 2: The phrase ‘Bob’s your uncle’ is thought derive from Robert Lord Salisbury’s act of nepotism in appointing his nephew to the post of Chief Security for Ireland.
woops that should have read *Chief Secretary for Ireland
Question 1 :
“It’s a catch phrase dating back to 1887, when British Prime Minister Lord (Robert) Salisbury decided to appoint a certain Arthur Balfour to the prestigious and sensitive post of Chief Secretary for Ireland. Not lost on the British public was the fact that Lord Salisbury just happened to be better known to Arthur Balfour as “Uncle Bob.” In the resulting furor over what was seen as an act of blatant nepotism, “Bob’s your uncle” became a popular sarcastic comment applied to any situation where the outcome was preordained by favoritism.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob's_your_uncle)
Question 2 : The White Chamber at Westminster
Question 3 : 1544
Croft: Well done. You will notice that the first question was phrased in such a way that it did not imply that the phrase originated with the relationship between the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury and his nephew, Arthur J. Balfour, but as you and others recognise it was much used as a consequence of Lord Salisbury’s promotion of his nephew.
The Lords occupied the White Chamber, or White Hall, also known as the Parliament Chamber, until 1801, when – inflated by new peers – they moved to the old Court of Requests.
The title ‘House of Lords’ was indeed first used in 1544.
This week, Croft got in ahead of Steph, so he gets the plaudits.
I noted your careful language but thought I’d pre-empt others getting in with a qualified answer. Out of interest what were the official names of both chambers before 1544 (I can find various forms but it’s not clear which is official)
Was there a reason for the name change or is it just dated on the first time an already established name was used in a formal document/act? Rather as PM was in use for a century before it was first used officially?
Naming of the houses has always seemed to be sidestepped in speech with ‘the other place’ or ‘another place’ used rather than the names.
The word ‘Parliament’ was first used of a court assemly in 1236, when the king adjourned a legal case to the ‘Parliament’ scheduled to meet at Westminster at the beginning of the following year. Though the distinction between lords spiritual and lords temporal was established by the end of the 14th century, it was only in the latter half of the 15th century that the use of the term House was employed. In 1450, there is a reference to ‘the Commons House’. The term appears to confirm the institutional shape that each body was taken. As far as I am aware, the bodies were subsumed by the one formal title of Parliament, though the term ‘estates of the realm’, to cover the component parts, came into use in the first half of the 15th century.
Thanks for that, I’d see a few texts that seemed to use parliament both to mean the lords alone and/or the lords/commons, perhaps reflecting the latters low status at the time.