Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/265

 ARKLow COMPLETE PEERAGE 215 when, in 1791, the Ormonde honours were successfully claimed by the h. male of the family, his claim to the Barony of Butler and the Barony of Arklow was disallowed by the Law officers on the ground that he did not produce " any evidence " in support of it. Moreover (3) when the h. male of the house of Butler was, 23 Feb. 1527/8, cr. Earl of Ossory [I.] " to compensate him for the loss of the Earldom of Ormonde, " he was " duly described " as Sir Piers Butler, and not as Baron Arklow (") which expressly militates against Lynch's statement (as above quoted) that the Barony was continuously enjoyed by the h. male. To this may be added (4) that the solitary instance quoted by Lynch out of " the multipli- city of proofs " as to the right of the h. male to the Barony of Arklow, consists of the very unimportant fact of the 2nd Duke of Ormonde having been enrolled a Bencher of King's Inn, Dublin, in 1702, under the style of (inter alia) " Vicecomes de Thurles et Dingle, Baro de Arklow et Louthinia, " a singularly careless way of recording the titles of Viscount Thurles [L], Baron T) gzvall[S.', Baron of Arklow [1.], and Baron Butler of Llanthony [E.]. It appears, therefore, that nothing whatever was heard of this Barony till the year 1588, when the words " Baro de Arch " appear on the Garter plate of Thomas, xith Earl of Ormonde, who d. s.p.m. in 16 14, in which year also he was called Baron of Arkloe in his funeral entry in Ulster's office. These words again appear in the fun. entry of his nephew, Walter, xiith Earl, who d. 1622/3, ^^ ^'s° 'io^^ *^he title in Latin on the Garter plate, in 1661, of James, xiiith Earl, ist Marquess, and, subsequently, ist Duke. As the Marquess was h. male, though not h. gen. (which, however, his wife was) to the xith Earl, this certainly gives some force to the argument that the Barony of Arklow was a title descending to heirs male. Such recognitions, however (though of more value than the inaccurate record quoted by Lynch) are as nothing in comparison with the recognition contained in the patents of 1642 and 1661, wherein James the xiiith Earl (being cr. Marquess and Duke respectively) is styled (among other titles) Lord Baron of Arklow, as he is also in letters patent 2 Apr. 1662, restoring to him the co. of Tipperary (see Lodge, vol. iv, p. 51, note). (") Yet even this recognition in letters patent of the existence of a Barony of Arklow, can only be held, on the most favourable hypothesis, to constitute a creation of that date, and cannot therefore in any case be appealed to after the extinction of the male issue of the person so recognised, which in this instance took place 17 Dec. 1758, at which date any Barony of Arklow, constituted by the "recognitions" of 1642, 1661 and 1662, must be considered as having become extinct. The decision of the House in 1791 (above referred to), in which the claim of " John Butler, Esq. " to the title of Earl of Ormond and Ossory, Viscount of Thurles, Baron Butler and Baron of Arklow [I.] was allowed (") This is from an article by J. H. Round (in Coll. Gen., pp. 84-91) on "the Earldoms of Ormond [I.]; " see p. 89 thereof. C") J. H. Round has collected evidence, in his paper on the baronies of Mowbray and Segrave, in Studies in Peerage and Family History, showing the worthlessness of such recognitions in Letters Patent. V.G.