The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, is considering legislation to remove Peter Mandelson’s peerage, an action which has not been taken in the UK since the enactment of the Titles Deprivation Act (TDA) in November 1917. An examination of the background to that legislation reveals the significant role of prominent Irish political personalities of the day and key events in Irish history in bringing it about.
The outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 led to an upsurge of anti-German feeling in the UK, which was particularly awkward for the royal family because of its German origins. Concerns about the royals’ familial associations with German and Austrian royalty forced the resignation in October 1914 of the Austrian-born Prince Louis of Battenberg from the post of First Sea Lord. The action pitted Asquith’s Liberal government against the monarch, King George V, who opposed the move against his relative but was powerless to prevent it. Prince Louis’s grandson, Philip, would later marry Princess Elizabeth in 1947.
The sacrifice of the Sea Lord seemed to satisfy demands for a purge of those in high places who had connections to the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires and no similar action was taken for a further three years. The lone voice urging stronger action against adherents of enemy powers was the veteran Irish Parliamentary Party (Home Rule) M.P., John Gordon (J.G.) Swift MacNeill, who had represented South Donegal in the House of Commons since the days of Charles Stewart Parnell in 1887. MacNeill first raised the issue in Parliament in November 1914 and returned to the question on more than twenty occasions before the enactment of the TDA in 1917.
The particular focus of MacNeill’s campaign were the Dukes of Cumberland & Teviotdale and Albany. The former, more commonly known as Prince Ernest Augustus, whose primary position was that of Crown Prince of Hanover where he was born and spent most of his life, also held titles in the British (Duke of Cumberland & Teviotdale) and Irish (Earl of Armagh) peerages. Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in the German monarchy until its abolition in 1918, was Duke of Albany in the British Peerage and Baron Arklow in the Irish peerage. In Britain he was styled as His Royal Highness Prince Charles Edward through his descent from his grandmother Queen Victoria. This made him a first cousin of King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Russian Tsarina, Alexandra. He was the grandfather of the current King of Sweden, Carl Gustav XVI.
Both men held positions in the German armed forces during the war which prompted MacNeill’s efforts to have their British and Irish peerages revoked. Even though the King removed both men from the Order of the Garter in May 1915 there was little political enthusiasm for this further step. A number of different excuses were furnished in answer to MacNeill’s demands. Initially it was seen as something best left till after the war, which was not expected to be of a long duration. As the realisation dawned that this would not be the case, it was not deemed a worthwhile use of parliamentary time to pass legislation to remove peerages from two men who had never taken up their seats in the House of Lords. All of these responses appear to hide the real reason, which was the reluctance to avoid embarrassing the King.
In her 2000 study of the TDA, Ann Lyon could not identify any obvious reason for the intensity of MacNeill’s feelings on the subject. Possibly the answer lies in his extra-parliamentary career as a constitutional lawyer with a particular interest in fraud. In a long legal career, he was appointed QC in 1893 and Professor of Constitutional Law at University College Dublin in 1909. Among his better-known works are Titled corruption: the sordid origin of some Irish peerages (1894) and How the union was carried (1887), which examined the corrupt practices deployed to secure the passage of the Irish Act of Union in 1800.
When MacNeill asked his question for the tenth time on 27 July 1916 he must have been surprised to get a different answer. Rather than postponing action till after the war, or relegating the significance of such a move, the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, responded that ‘His Majesty will be advised to take the necessary steps both as regards titles and orders’. This sudden reversal of policy took place in the context of the fallout from the Easter Rising three months previously and the recent conviction of one of its leaders, Roger Casement, for high treason.
The announcement of the government’s change of direction coincided with the trial, unsuccessful appeal (during June and July) and execution (on 3 August 1916) of Casement based on his conspiring with Germany to import arms to Ireland for the Rising. Following his conviction, Casement’s knighthood was also removed. In the wake of such a controversial treason trial at a crucial phase of the war, the government could no longer been seen to tolerate the existence, even if nominal, of German military officers within the highest echelons of society.
Following the enactment of the TDA in November 1917, King George V subsequently issued letters patent in 1919 which removed Cumberland and Albany from the peerage, along with the former prince’s son, Ernest Augustus as Duke of Brunswick. A fourth individual affected was a more obscure Austrian landowner, Heinrich (Henry), Viscount Taaffe, whose title belonged to the Irish peerage.
The TDA remains on the statute book but is not a suitable mechanism under which to challenge Lord Mandelson’s status as it was targeted specifically at those ‘who have, during the present war, borne arms against His Majesty’.
The present parliament appears to have no shortage of Swift MacNeills who will likely support amended or new legislation and perhaps the time has come for a more flexible policy rather than requiring individual acts of parliament that react to specific circumstances.
About the Author
Professor Marie Coleman is Professor of Twentieth Century Irish History in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. Her principal research interests are in twentieth-century Irish history, especially the Irish revolution.
Image Courtesy of Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.