Housecleaning

The House of Lords at last decided to face facts and repeal the "Act to enlarge the Trade to Russia." The gesture was not calculated to irritate Joe Stalin. The act was merely one of 766 dusty items in Britain's parliamentary attic too old to include in a new edition of revised statutes. It was passed in 1699 to loosen the monopoly of members of the old "Muscovy Company." Other heirlooms lost in the tidying:

P: "An acte for pavying of the High Waye betwene the Stronde Crosse and Charyng Crosse," a measure of Henry VIII.

P: An act of the same monarch to dissolve "the pretensed mariage with the Lady Anne of Cleves" (Henry's Queen No. 4).

P: An injunction of Edward II "that no one be molested for the death of Piers de Gavaston," an Earl of Cornwall executed on June 19, 1312.

P: "An Act to Attaint James Duke of Monmouth of High Treason."

P: "An Act for vesting in James Watt, Engineer . . . the sole Use and Property of certain Steam Engines ... of his Invention."

Lest their housecleaning inspire some possible Monmouth kin (he was the illegitimate son of Charles II) to new activity against the House of Windsor, or bring Anne of Cleves's Dutch connections flocking to London to claim a place at court, the Lords were careful to add a rider. "This act," they informed anyone nursing an old grudge or claim, "shall not affect the validity, invalidity, effect or consequences of anything done or suffered, or any existing status or capacity, or any right, title, obligation or liability."

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