Page:Debrett's Illustrated Peerage and Titles of Courtesy.djvu/69

 TITLES, OKDERS, AND DEGREES OF PRECEDENCE AND DIGNITY. till the year 1770, when their lordships most honourably joined the House of Commons in a bill for abolishing it. (Vide "Debrett's Debates in Parliament," 1770 to 1774, vol. v., p. 192.) Peers are also free from attending courts leet, or sheriffs' turns, or, in cases of riot, the posse comitatus. In criminal causes they are only tried by their peers, who give their verdict, not upon oath, as other jurors, but only upon their honour. A court is fitted up for the purposes of the trial in the middle of Westminster Hall, at the expense of the Crown. To secure the honour of, and to prevent the spreading of any scandal upon, peers or any great officers of the realm, by reports, there is an express law called scandalum magnatum, by which any man convicted of making a scandalous report, though true, against a peer of the realm, is condemned to an arbitrary fine, and to remain in custody till the same be paid. Upon any great trial in a court of justice, a peer may come into the court and sit there covered. No peer can be covered in the royal presence without permission for that purpose, except Barons Kingsale and Forester. The privilege to ihese noblemen was granted, in the first instance, to John de Courcy, Earl of Ulster, by King John, as a mark of appreciation of the prowess be displayed in personal combat with a renowned French champion ; the second instance is more recent, dating only temp. Henry VIII. In case of the poll tax, the peers bear the greater share of the burden, they being taxed every one according to his degree. Each peer may qualify a certain number of chaplains, as follows : An Arch- bishop, eight; a Duke, six ; a Marquess, five; an Earl, five; a Viscount, four; a Bishop, six ; a Baron, three. A Knight of the Garter may qualify three ; a Duchess, Marchioness, Countess, or Baroness, being a widow, two. KNIGHTS BANNERETS AND BARONETS. Of late it has been customary with careless or superficial writers upon subjects of precedence and dignity to confound the meaning of these titles, though they have distinct origins, occupy different positions in order of precedence, and the first is more ancient than the second. As, however, the creation of a knight banneret, according to the formula and exact circumstances under which the dignity was formerly conferred, can no longer take place, we for convenience notice the two dignities under one general head, still preserving the requisite distinction. BANNERETS were so called from the privilege of using a square banner, similar to that borne by barons, being granted them for signal services. This was the/orm, but the title was no doubt devised as a reward for distinguished military actions, and was usually accompanied by a pecuniary provision. " I have seen," says Camden, " a charter of King Edward in., by which he advanced John Coupland to the state of a banneret in the following words, because in a battle fought at Durham he had taken prisoner David the Second, King of Scots : ' Being willing to reward the said John, who took David de Bruis prisoner, and frankly delivered him unto us, for the deserts of his honest and valiant service, in such sort as others may take example by his precedent to do us faithful servi-ce in time to come, we have promoted the said John to the place and degree of a banneret ; and, for the maintenance of the same state, we have granted, for us and our heires, to the same