Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 1.djvu/4

 PREFACE. copy of that work, will bo made use of, whether they relate to these Baronies or to other matters. The object of the present work being not only to amplify and continue any previous account of the hereditary Peerage of England, bat to insert therewith that of Scotland and Ireland, some difficulty arises in determining, with respect to these last two kingdoms, as to what in them constituted a Peerage, in the same sense as that term (mtit<iti« mutandis) is applied to England.

As to Scotland, the Editor has thought it best to give some account of every Peerage, or reputed Peerage, that is to be found in 1 touglas's well known Peerage of that kingdom. As to Ireland, whore no comprehensive account of the entire Peerage exists, and where one cannot (as in England) be guided by the writ of summons (which in Ireland was merely incidental to, and not creative; of the Peerage), ( il ) the Editor has not attempted to deal with any title of honour in that kingdom, which may have existed as a hereditary Peerage of parliament and have become extinct prior to the reign of Henry VII, other than with such among them as had been created, before that period, hij patent or charter, of which there appear altogether to have been but twelve,( b ) and with the Earldom of Cork, which in all probability was so created. In addition to these, and to such Peerages as were existing in the reign of Henry VII, and (of course) such as thereafter were created, some account will lie given of the few feudal Baronies which had developed before that reign, into the hereditary Peerages then existing, such as those of Slane, Ilowth, &c, as also of The case of the Barony of La Poer (or Power of Ccrraghuiore) is but an apparent contradiction to this statement, for the decision concerning it (in 1707) was grounded on the erroneous report of the Attorney and the Solicitor General for Ireland, that this ancient feudal Barony (of which the Peerage dignity was created by patent, 33 Hen. VIII, to Richard Power, the then feudal Lord, "el lta:redibus masculis de carport exeuntiblts") was a Barony created by writ, and, consequently, one ttt fee. With this anomaly, the entire Irish Baronage is composed exclusively of the male heirs of the Peers recognised in 1489 by Henry VII, and of those since ennobled by tetters patent. So clearly was the fact recognised (even at so lute a time as the end of the 1 7th century) that no writ of summons created a Peerage of Ireland, that when James II, shortly after the revolution, wished to confer a hereditary Irish Peerage, he (being then unwilling, in those troublous times, to rely solely on letters patent) introduced express words to that effect in the writ of summons, which otherwise would have been (like the Irish writs of his predecessors) merely personal. ( h ) These were seven Earldoms (which, with the Earldom of Cork, were apparently, all that ever existed before that date), four Baronies, and one Viscountcy, viz. the Earldoms of Ulster (1205); Carrick (1315); Kildare (1316); Louth (1319); Ormonde (1 328) ; Desmond (1329) and Waterford (1440). The Baronies of Trimleston (146A) ; Portlester (146i) ; Ratowth (1408) and Hathwire (1476) ; also the Viscountcy of Gormaustou (1478).