Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury his nephew, Arthur Balfour. King Edward VII conferred upon him the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO), with the order star set in brilliants, during his resignation audience. Salisbury, due to breathing difficulties caused by his great weight, took to sleeping in a chair at Hatfield House. His death in August 1903 followed a fall from that chair, when by then he had a weak heart condition and blood poisoning caused by an ulcerated leg. Salisbury was buried at St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield, where his predecessor as prime minister, Lord Melbourne, is also interred. When Salisbury died his
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom they were unable to prevent the passage of more comprehensive electoral reforms in 1867, 1884, 1918 and 1928 when universal equal suffrage was established. Ultimately, this erosion of power led to the Parliament Act of 1911, which marginalised the Lords' role in the legislative process and gave further weight to the convention that had developed over the previous century that a Prime Minister cannot sit in the House of Lords. The last to do so was Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, from 1895 to 1902. Throughout the 19th century, governments led from the Lords had often suffered difficulties governing