During the 18th century and well into the 19th, class governed Britain.
In the House of Lords sat the Lords Temporal and the Lords Spiritual. The former consisted of hereditary nobility such as dukes and barons; the latter, of bishops and archbishops. Membership in the House of Commons was more diverse: lawyers, military officers, a few wealthy merchants, and most importantly, the landed gentry, which consisted of knights of the shire, men with large estates and an eminent lineage, and country gentlemen, who were one tier down but “of high birth or rank, good social standing, and of wealth, especially the inherited kind.”
