Letter: Welsh lording it

Sir: The lineage of Viscount Cranborne, Leader of the House of Lords ("A Lordly plot to save their place", 4 December), began with his Welsh ancestor when Henry Tudor established himself in 1485 - ap Seisyllt, the Welsh-speaking Lord Burghley.

Let us hope that another Welshman, Lord Richard, leader of the Labour Peers, will bring to a close this anachronism of hereditary peers and that the last of the ap Seisyllts to vote in the Lords will have the grace "to accept political defeat cordially" - long overdue in this "classless" society.

DAVID TREFOR DAVIES

Kenilworth, Warwickshire