Page:Debrett's Illustrated Peerage and Titles of Courtesy.djvu/68

 XXX TITLES, ORDERS, AND DEGREES OF PRECEDENCE AND DIGNITY. appeased, did decree and ordaine that all those earls and barons of the realme of England, unto whom the King himselfe vouchsafed to direct his writs of summons, should come unto his Parliament, and none others." The date of this (the first precept) is 4Q Henry III., 1264. The first baron created BY PATENT was John Beauchamp de Holt, created Baron Kidderminster by Richard H. The fact appears to be that the title or dignity of baron, at first vague and uncertain, like other designations and distinctions of disturbed times, was, like those, mellowed and moulded, with the growth of constitutional law and defined right, until it has taken its present intelligible position amongst English orders and degrees of honour. When a baron is called to the House of Peers by writ of summons, the writ is in the Queen's name. The ceremony of the admission of a baron, as well as other orders of the temporal peerage, into the House of Peers, is thus : He is brought into the House between two peers of his own rank, who conduct him up to the Lord Chancellor his patent and writ of summons being carried by Garter King of Arms, who presents it to the Lord Chancellor, who directs the same to be read ; which being done, the oaths are administered, and the peer takes his seat, from which he again rises and returns to the Chancellor, who congratulates him on becoming a member of the House of Peers, or on his elevation, as the case may be. The robes of a baron have but two guards of white fur, with as many rows of gold lace ; in other respects they are the same with those of other peers. King Charles II. granted a coronet to the barons, who till his reign wore only a plain circle of gold. It is formed of six pearls, set at equal distances on a circle of gold bordered with ermine. A baron is styled Right Honourable, and by the Sovereign Right trusty and well beloved. SCOTCH AND IRISH PEERS. Scotch peers take precedence of British peers of the same rank created since the Union with Scotland ; and Irish peers created before the Union with Ireland, in like manner, take place of British peers created since. Irish peers of later creation than the Union, rank, according to the dates of their patents, among the peers of Great Britain and Ireland. Peers holding Scotch or Irish titles do not sit of individual right in the House of Peers, but only as representatives of their fellow- peers. The Irish representative peers are elected by their fellow-peers for life ; the Scotch are elected for each new Parliament, &c. THE PRIVILEGES OF THE PEERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OP GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. The privileges enjoyed by the peers of the kingdom were in former tunes very numerous, and in some instances of such a character as would be considered intolerable in these days. In other cases they have fallen into desuetude from the extinction of the matters and circumstances to which they relate. But some very important ones continue, the principal of which are as follow : They are free from arrest for debt, as being the Queen's hereditary counsellors; therefore a peer cannot be outlawed in any civil action, and no attachment lies against his person. This privilege also extended to their domestics, as well as to those of the Lower House,