Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 1.djvu/344

 322 BERKELEY. death) was (Oct. 1121) sum. to Pari, .is a Baron. William, Marquess of Berkeley, B. .ni(l b. of this James, (/. Sop. 1492, having settled the said estate on King Henry VII and the heirs jnole of his body. Maurice. Berkeley, by. and h. to the Marquess (and h. to any Barony in fee er. by the writ of 1421, tlm' not to that of 129,5) was never sum. to Pari, as a Baron, but Maurice, his s. and h. is said (*) to have been so sum. 1 1 Hen. VI II, but it. s.p. a few months afterwards, (Sep, 1533), when his I'eerage, if cr. (de novo) by the writ (of 152:3) to himself, would have become extinct. This supposition, however, is Ettode unlikely by the issuing of a writ of summons as a Baron, at the rery next Pari. (1529) 21 Hen. V I II, to Thomas Berkeley, his br. and h., which writ, unless an ancient Barony was vested by descent iii him, would have acted as a new creation of that date. Now tho' the precedency of this Lord cannot be ascertained ( b ) that of Thomas, his s. and h. is on record. This Thomas, who was sum. as u Baron (1534) 25 Hen. VIH, was placed between Lord Zouehe (1807 /) and bad Morley (1209 /) being the third Baron ( c ) on the Roll. It must be borne in mind tint since 1492 none of these Lords ahuvcmi'mioiied weie in possession of the estate of Berke- ley, but, in 1553, Henry, Lord Berkeley, s. and b. i,i the last Baron, sue. thereto, whereby, according to Dugdale and others, he acquired the original Barony of the family, yet this Baron's position in the house, of Lords, (excepting as to sumo varying and unimportant alterations) was in no way advanced ( u ) thereby. In May 16(51, George, Lord Berkeley, great grandson and h. of the abovc-naniud Henry, petitioned for a higher place in Pari, than that which had been assigned to him, claiming precedence (firstly) of the Lord Detowairp) "ud (secondly) of the Lords Aberga- venny and Audley, and founding his claim on his Barony being one bg tenure. In this claim he asserted as a /act (that which, as above-mentioned, is certainly not proved to be so) that Maurice Berkeley, said to have sum, as a Barou in 1522 sat, fit tM h t gWH t of his not posscssituf the Castle. Sic., "no otherwise than as a Puisne Baron." In this petition, if correctly given in " Cruise," the whole of the controversy, temp. Henry V, between the h. gen. (the Karl of Warwick) and the h. male is omitted, as also is did not own the Castle, Sec), as the thin! Huron on the roll, in (15:54) 23 Henry VIII ; these are dishonest suppressions of facts that considerably militate against the justice of the claim." Altho' this claim was before the house till 1 (57:!" s»ys Mr. C'oiirthope, no decision was come to upon it, and it must be concluded that he (the Petitioner) did not establish his pretensions to sit in the precedence of the original writ." M See infra, page 332 note " h." ( b ) "Antecedent to 1 Hen. VIII, there are no means of ascertaining correctly the precedency given to Peers ; and, as the Journals between 7 and 25 Hen. VIII, are not now extant, and, as between 1 and 7 Hen. VIII, no Baron Berkeley was sum. to Pari, the earliest entry of a Baron Berkeley in the Journals is in 25 Hen. VIII." — See " Nicolas " p. xxviii, note. ( c ) "With the exception" writes Sir N. H. Nicolas, "of Lord Zouehe being impro- perly placed above him it is certain that he sat in the place of the ancient Barony, for, on no other grounds, could he have been placed above Lord Morley." See "Nicolas'' pp. 3 to 12, being a very elaborate treatise on "Baronies by tenure." It should he remarked however that the "ranking" of these early Barons was, apparently very anomalous — See«n(c, under "Abergavenny" at page 21, note "b." P) So far from any secession of dignity, he was " in 4 and 5 Ph. and Mary, and even after bis controversy with the Lord Willoughby, 30 Kliz, assigned a (oarer precedency than had been allowed to his father, who was not possessed of the Castle." — -See " Courthope 11 p. 50, note " c." (°) "The precedency of the Barony of Berkeley under the writ of (1295), 23 Ed. 1, is certainly above that of Lawarr, which was cr. by the writ of 6 Feb. (1299), 27 Ed. I. [but] the claim was not grounded on that circumstance, probably because, if it was admitted to be a Barony by tcinirc it would give its possessor a precedency over every Baron, who was not then seized of such lands as constituted his ancestors Bahoss of the Heai.m before the reign of Henry I." — Sec "Nicolas" p. xxix. It seeniB however not impossible that the then impression was that tho Barony of Delawarr was cr. 8 June, 1291, by a summons which is not (now) considered as a rccular writ.
 * the very important point, ri:.) the "ranking" of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, (who