Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/161

 THE ANCESTOR 113 tenant in chief holding his lands by the tenure called ^ per baroniam/ and it was argued that such a tenure involved the service of attending the Curia Regis or Parliament when sum- moned, in addition to the military attendance due from all those holding by knight service in chief of the Crown. The theory that barons who received writs of summons when the Parliamentary system was settled were usually those previously summoned to the Curia Regis, and as supposed bound to attend, resulted in claims to the dignity of baron founded on tenure and subject to the law of descent incident to land. This theory suffered considerably by the decisions of the House of Lords in the seventeenth century. In the Grey de Ruthyn case, 1640, and in the Fitz Walter case, 1670, it was decided that the law of descent applicable to dignities differed from that applicable to land. In the Fitzwalter case it was thought that peerage by tenure was obsolete, and in the Pur- beck case, 1678, it was decided that no peer could surrender his dignity to the king. But during the same period and down to the union of the kingdoms in 1707 dignities could be and often were surrendered in Scotland, and such surrenders were undoubtedly lawful in England down to the reign of Richard II. In the commencement of the nineteenth century a claim to peerage was made — that of Marmion — on the ground of tenure only, and in consequence a committee was appointed by the House of Lords to report on the nature of the dignity of a peer of the realm. The reports of this committee and its successors were strongly antagonistic to any claim to peerage by tenure. These reports, of which there were six, 1819-25, are written in stately language, and are splendid examples of scientific argument. Their perusal is the first step necessary to the diligent student of peerage law and of the constitutional history of England. In some minor points the conclusions of the committees have been overruled, but the main argument is unanswerable. Nevertheless the question of tenure was again raised by the owner (by devise) of Berkeley Castle, who had failed to estab- lish his right to the earldom of Berkeley as lawful heir to his father, and who now claimed to be baron by tenure of the castle. All the arguments and illustrations from history which the reports had been intended to meet were revived.