Inside the House of Lords

by Derry Moore

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 5, 1998

Reviews

[Bhaaswanth Yerramsetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's all about the history of British Parliament dated back to Eleventh century.

[Richard Bartholomew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glossy coffee-table book about the House of Lords, written on the eve of Labour's 1999 reforms. The author is authoritative but also manages a light touch as he overviews the peers ("These are not the septuagenarian baby faces that one sees, for instance, in the United States, from whose tanned surface all evidence of past struggles has been erased"), the staff, the institution's role in British public life, and the building itself.

As regards religion, there's a short interview with the Bishop of London (who points out that in the UK, "membership of the Communist Party has at no time ever exceeded that of the Lord's Day Observance Society") and a discussion of the role of the bishops, who do not vote as a block.

There is also a nice reproduction of a fresco by William Dyce on the "knightly virtue of religion", entitled "Religion: The Vision of Sir Galahad and his Company"; unfortunately, there is no close up of Dyce's fresco above the throne depicting the baptism of King Ethelbert by St Augustine of Canterbury (Ethelbert is sprinkled in the Anglican manner, rather than immersed). Augustus Pugin's religious influences are also noted, as is his book on "The True Principles of [Pointed or:] Christian Architecture"