Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 2.djvu/303

 302 CLIFTON. V. 16G0. 5. Mary, Countess of Arran [I.], and, (Injure,^) sito jure, Baroness Clifton ok Leioiiton Bromswoiji, only sister and h. She m. us his first wife, Richard (Butler), EARL OF ARRAN [I.], who had been so o: 13 May J 602, and wfcp rf. 25 Jany. 1685/6. She herself (/. s.p., 1 July, and ma bur. 19 Aug. 1667, aged IS, at Kilkenny Cathedral. VI. 1G67. G. Charles (Stuart), Duke of Richmond, &c, and, de jure,(") Loud Clifton of Leighton Bhomswold, cousin and h„ being s. aud h- of Lord George Stuart, Lord of Aubiyny, in France (slain 16-12) the next surv. br. to James, Dukk of Richmond, &c, abovenamed. Ho was b. 7 March 1G40, aud d. s.p.s. 12 Dec. 1672, when all his honours, save this Barony, became extinct. See fuller account under "RICHMOND," Dukedom of, or, loll ; ex. 1672. VII. 1G72. 7. Katharine, ilejure(*), mo jure, Baroness Clifton of Leighton Bromswold, wife of Henry O'Brien, styled Loud O'Brien, only Burv. sister and h., had her right to the Barony of " Clifton of Leighton Bromswokl," recognised by the House of Lords, 7 Feb. 1674. ( b ) She was bap. 5 Dee. 1640, at St. Martin's-in-the-fields, and m. her said husband (1st s. and h. ap. of Henry, 7th EiRI of Thomond [I.j), in or about 1661. He d. v.p., and was bur. 9 Sep. 1678, in Westm. According to the decision of 7 Feb. 1674. ( b ) The doctrine that (without any intervention of the Crown) " dignities, created ly terit, appear to have always been descendible to female heirs, in default of males ; and transmissible by such female heirs to their descendants," which was acted upon in the case of Ros in 1515, and which "appears to have been admitted in the case of the Barony of Grey of Ruthtn " in 1640, "was more fully considered and solemnly established" in the case of Clifton, in 1674. " On this case it was ordered by the House that the Judges should give their opinion " which (as far as the Heads of the three Courts of Common Law and four puisne Judges) was unanimous in favour of the right of Lady Katharine, the heir general. The case of Clifton may therefore be considered as the test case that a writ creates an hereditary Barony descendible to the heir general. Curiously enough, however (tho' in the case of Clifford in 1691 such ruling was again adopted), yet, "notwithstanding tins solemn decision [of 1674] the same point was again argued 21 years after, in the case of Willouohby deBroke " in 1606, where "the House of Lords, altho' tlicy appear to have been ignorant of this case," (as also of the more recent one of Clifford) came, eventually, to a similar conclusion, and " this doctrine appears to have been again admitted "in the case of Wentwohth, (by a resolu- tion, 2 April 1702, confirmed by Queen Anne) and lnis ever since been received. See "Cruise" pp. 177-179. In that work (p. 197) it is stated that Sir Edward Ward, Attorney-General [1693-1695], being " ignorant of the case of the Barony of Clifton," contended before the house of Lords of the rase of Willoughby de Broke " upon the authority of Pryuue and Elsynge, that a writ of summons did not create an hereditary Barony." It is somewhat startling to find that it was close on the beginning of the 18th century before their Lordships held any very fixed views that it did create one. By a strange anomaly it is not, however, generally held that a royal summons to dinner, tho' accompanied by an actual " sitting ' ' thereunder, establishes an hereditary right to such a summons for the heirs general of the dinee ; and it is to be observed that the idea of a writ (in which words of inheritance are entirely absent) constituting an hereditary light to a Barony by writ is peculiar, as to the construction placed thereon by the House of Lords, to English Baronies alone, such writs not being held to have that inexplicable power in Scotland, Ireland, or any other nation. By this (somewhat extraordinary) ruling of the extraordinary evolutionary power of a Writ, the House is, at any time, liable to be adorned with any number of Baronies, taking, at once, precedence over 99 out of every 100 Baronies therein existing. This actually happened in no less than five cases within about three years, towards the middle of the 1 9th century, when four private gentlemen and one old lady (not dejure, as sole heir, like the case of Clifton, but by Royal favour extended to them as being one out of many coheirs) were placed at the top of nearly all the existing Baronies ; the titles of Vaux, Camoys, Braye, Beaumont, and Hastings (all of them unearthed between 1838 and 1841, after centuries of abeyance), thus becoming splendid specimens of the "Peerage Modern Anticpxe." See Vol. i, p. 288, note "b," sub. " Beaumont," and ante p. 293, note "(],"«/& "Clifford."