raise to the ermine

English

Ermine robes were traditionally worn by members of the House of the Lords, and by high-ranking judges in the English courts.

raise to the ermine (third-person singular simple present raises to the ermine, present participle raising to the ermine, simple past and past participle raised to the ermine)

(Commonwealth) To ennoble; to appoint someone to the House of Lords or the judiciary.
- 1879, The Law Journal, page 111:
  THE Times, in a late article on the judicial system, in reference to the objection that, 'by multiplying judicial officers an inferior order of men must be raised to the ermine,' remarked that, if fifty years ago it was easy to select fifteen judges from the mass of practising barristers, it ought to be quite as easy to choose twenty or twenty-five now from a field of selection three or four times as wide.
- 1907, Joshua James Foster, The Stuarts: Being Outlines of the Personal History of the Family:
  Burnet styles him "this vicious drunkard raised to the ermine." Evelyn terms him "most ignorant but most daring cruel and a slave to the Court"
- 1989, Evan Whitton, The Hillbilly Dictator: Australia's Police State:
  The last Australian raised to the ermine was the Rt Hon Richard Gardiner Casey, who became a life peer as Baron Casey of Berwick and the City of Westminster in 1960.
(Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (heraldry) Of a person, to increase in status by adding an ermine fur pattern to a coat of arms.
Coordinate term: raise to the purple