Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/36

 28 THE END OF THE NORMAN January death of her brother, the earl of Chester, though she only sur- vived him a short time, dying about Epiphany 1233. They had at least five children, of whom later ; the son and heir, John (the Scot), had succeeded his father as earl of Huntingdon. 2. Mabel, the second sister, had married William, eari of Arundel or Sussex (d. 1221), and their representative in October 1232 was their second, but eldest then surviving, son, Hugh d'Aubigny, earl of Arundel, then a minor. 3. Alice, the third sister of the earl, and her husband William de Ferrers, earl of Derby, were both alive in October 1232. 4. Hawise, the fourth sister (to whom her brother the earl had shortly before his death resigned his earldom of Lincoln), married Robert de Quincy, and their daughter and heir Margaret was the wife of John de Lacy, the constable of Chester. In October 1232 H^awise, her daughter, and her son- in-law were all living. As Ranulph died without issue the earldom of Chester has been taken, technically, to have lapsed to the Crown, though it was stated in some of the proceedings ^ which took place after the death of Earl John that, during Ranulph's life, John had been put in seisin of the comitatus, and had taken the homage and fealty of the men of the county. But, as the male heir of the eldest sister of Ranulph, John's right to the title of earl of Chester would be undisputed, and would require merely the formal recognition of the king. That this is what happened is reasonably clear, and that there was no abeyance of the title (in the modern sense) such as would require the grace and favour of the Crown to call it out. John represented his mother, who held the aesnecia^ the preferential right or prerogative attached, by the then law of inheritance among coparceners, to the eldest sister. This privilege carried with it the right, without partition (otherwise the earldom would be brought to nought), to the capvi honoris, the capital messuage, of the earldom,^ to the holder of which the king would look for the services due from the earldom, and upon whose son or husband therefore devolved the title. Thus, the earldom of Chester cannot have been regarded as at the disposal of the king, but as in a similar position, for example, to the earldom of Pembroke, formally granted in 1339 to Laurence de Hastings, * sibi debetur prerogativam nominis et honoris. . . ex seniori sorore causam habens '.* > Poet, p. 42. caput comitatus, propter ius gladii, quod dividi non potest. p. 676, speaking of the Chester case, says that ' the eldest daughter had a preferential elaim to the esnecia, that integral part of the tenure. . . .' It was no part of the tenure, and it was the preferential right itself.
 * Bracton (1579 edition), S. 76 and 76 6 : . . . nisi capilale meaiuigium illud 8it
 * Bep. on Dignity oj a Peer, m. 180. The Compkie Peerage (ed. Gibbs), iv, app. H,