Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/25

 PREFACE XV settled by the opinions of the small body sitting at the time, who did not as a rule possess expert knowledge, or else by the importance of the claimant. The Mowbray and Segrave Case, in 1877, constituted, or implied, a reversal of the two previous awards in the Cases of Despenser and de Ros (1603 and 16 16). The decision in the Case of the Earldom of Wilts in 1869 constituted a reversal of the extraordinary one in the Case of the Earldom of Devon in 1 83 I, and no one can safely predict what the Lords will do from what the Lords have done. The fact that an account is given of all the men summoned in 1283, and of all those who can be proved to have sat in the Parliament of 1290, forms a new and important feature which alone would differentiate this from any similar work. It is not proposed to deal in this Preface with the large and difficult question of how far any summonses by writ can be held in their origin to have created a peerage dignity ; that matter will be discussed in an Appendix to the last volume if the writer should happily live to complete this work. He may however here say that he is abundantly convinced that there was no such thing as a peer of Parliament (i.e. a man who obtained a higher status because he had received a summons), at any rate in Edwardian times. To dogmatise as to what was, or was not, legally a good summons to Parliament is impossible, having regard to the fact that the Committee for Privileges has never (as J. H. Round has pointed out) laid down what constitutes a Parliament, although it has been regarded as necessary for this purpose that the Lords temporal, the Lords Spiritual, and the Knights of the Shire and Burgesses should be summoned. It is, however, thought that this is as good a place as any other to discuss the doubtful writs, as to the validity of which different opinions have been held from time to time ; this, accordingly, the Editor will proceed to attempt. WRITS OF 1264 The first writs on record of any summons to Parliament are those of 24 December (1264) 49 Henry III, and thereon Court- hope [p. XXV sub " Baronies by Writ "] remarks, " Very little can be gathered from it as it does not contain the names of one third