Page:The Complete Peerage (Edition 1, Volume 8).djvu/261

 CORRIGENDA, BTC, TO VOL. I. 251 rule of law, a presumption id favour of heirs male in ibedescentof Irish digniUes. Betham, in spite of his official position [Ulster King of Arms, 1820-68] was so poor an advocate (in his Dignitiet Feudal and PaHiamentary, 1880) of the opposite view, that we cannot wonder at G.B.O. following Lynch throughout. . . • The native tribal principle, invincibly in favour of Agnates, strove here, as else- where, against the principles of English law. We imagine that at first the latter prevailed especially within the Pale, but with the ebb of the English rule the native principle revived, and even the Anglo-Normans (Htbemis Hibemiores) sdopted,in the wilder parts, the old tribal system, or at least elaborately entailed their estates upon heirs male. Thus there arose, in practise, a system of male succession, altho', in our opinion, it had not prevsiled at f}ist. It is largely due to this development that the houses of the Oantpiisiadorei present so long and illustrious a descent in the male line, instead of merging in heiresses, as in England would have been their fate.' {Quan'terijf Beview, for Oct. 1893. Vol. 177, p. 410, in an able article bended The Peerage)" dde lines 2 and 8 /nom the word *' while " to the end ; inaeri ae under- ** The early dates (1 181, etc.) assigned to some cif the Irish Baronies have always been a great difficulty, one, it is feared, that Iimm not been very adequately dealt with in this work, but (since its issue) the solution thereof has been thus ably indicated. (") ' The origin of the difficulty is, we would suggest, that whereas in England the creation of a Barony [if not by letters patent] is reckoned to date from the first proved writ of summons ; in Ireland the writ of summons has been comparatively ignored, and dignities traced to the earliest period at which their possessors were Barons by tenure. This principle, tho* pressed upon them, has alwsys been rejected by our own House or Lords, so that the apparent superior antiquity of Irish over English Baronies has no foundation in fact.' llie anomalous precedency accorded to the Barony of Abergavenny seems, however, a case (prr»bably the only case) in which the English Peers have in modem times recognised some such right. As TO Ekglavd, Courthope's work (above mentioned) is an almost infallible guide as far as it extends ; some matters, however, have been changed since (1857) the date of its issue. The validity of the writ of (1264) 49 Hen. III. (to Montfort's pari.) which had been accepted in the cases of Le Despencer (1604) and of De Ro« (1806) has been disallowed (^) in 1877 (in the decision on Mowbray) ' and has thereby raised a question of precedence as yet insoluble. '(*) The theorv that the next valid writ to 1264 was that of 24 June (1295) 28 Ed. I. (tho* the late Dep. Keeper of the Records, the well known Sir Thomas DuflVis Hardy, expressly stated in 1841, in the Hastings case, that he had made search for any intermediate writs of summons and found none) has also been ujiset by their Lordships* decision in 1877 (in the Mowbray and Segrave case) who allowed the validity of the writ of summons to Shrewsbury, 28 June (1288) 11 Ed. I., 'apparently without the slightest conception that they were establishing a pi^ecedent of the most momentous consequence. When it is added that the contested writs of 1294 and 1297 were slso allowed to be put into evidence without question(<') and that the writ of 1288 affects a hundred [I] Baronies it will be seen that the Mowbray decision (1877) unconsciously worked a revolution, and that the histories of baronies by writ must now be undertaken. rfe novo.*{^) The decision in 1841 in the Hastings case (ignoring the writ of 1264) recognised (') Article headed *' The Peerage *' in tht iluarteriy Review for Oct., 1898. (^) The writ of 1264 had, however, been previously (1841) ignored in the Hastings t«Mse. (") These writs, however, were very possiblv not questioned, as nothing turned upon them. The number of writs (already held to be valid) under which (^7 the decision of 1678), a peerage desoendible to heirs general is now held to have been created, is great, and the persons summoned in such writs are "legion." It is curious, too, that these (now deemed) hereditary neemges should have been created in batches of 100 or so, and that, too, bv the early Plantagenet kings, generally supposed to have been more chary of such creations than the House of Stuart. {^) Article headed " The Peerage '* in lie Quartedy Rivicvc fur Oct 1893.