Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/281

 ARUNDEL COMPLETE PEERAGE 231 grants from the Conqueror, about one third of the county of Sussex, including the city of Chichester and the Castle of Arundel. (") By this last grant he may be considered to have become EARL OF ARUNDEL, according to the remarkable admission (**) in 1433 on the claim to that C) This formed the Honour of Arundel^ which consisted of the rapes of Arundel and Chichester, being two out of the six rapes into which Sussex is divided. It con- tained, besides the city of Chichester and the Castle of Arundel (as abovenamed), 84^ knights' fees, ten hundreds (with their forests, woods and chases), three lordships (Halnaker, Petworth and Midhurst), eighteen parks and seventy-seven manors. See Tierney's Hht. of Arundel, p. 12. G.E.C. It is pointed out however to the Editor by J. H. Round that, according to the latest view of archaeologists, the castle may have been erected by Roger of Mont- gomery himself, after obtaining possession of the Honour. V.G. C") The claim to the Earldom as being one by tenure of the Castle of Arundel was made by John Arundel, who had been sum. to Pari, in 1429, the writ being directed " Johanni Arundell' de Arundell' Chivaler. " In 1433 (11 Hen. VI) he petitioned [as Earl of Arundel] to be sum. to Pari, and considered as Earl of Arundel, a dignity or name united and annexed to the Castle and Lordship of Arundel, for time whereof memory of man was not to the contrary — a peculiar and distinct claim (as stated in the First Report on the Dignltf of a Peer, p. 406), " not connected with any general, but asserting a special right, and which being founded on prescription, was to be supported by evidence of constant and immemorial enjoyment of the asserted right, which right if not shown to have been so constantly enjoyed, the title by prescription failed. This claim, though opposed by John (Mowbray), Duke of Norfolk, was admitted by the Crown, notwithstanding that the assertion of the con- stant annexation of the title to the Castle of Arundel could not have been sustained, had it been (which it was not) made the subject of an enquiry. " [Court/wpe, p. 30.) The claim then of 1433 was, as is stated above, " admitted by the Crown, or so far admitted as that the assertion in the petition is made the consideration (with others not connected with the question) for the King's acceding to it, with a saving, nevertheless, of the right of the King, of the Duke of Norfolk (who, being a coh. of the Earls of Arundel, had opposed the Earl's claim) and of every other person ; which saving clause, as is remarked in the First Report on the Dignity of a Peer, ' was that species of saving which is deemed in law illusory, operating nothing. ' " [Courthope, p. xx). See also Tierney's History of Arundel (vol. i, p. 106), where the judgment is set out, reciting " that Richard Fitz Alan was seized of the Castle, Honour and Lordship [of Arundel] in fee ; that, by reason of his possession thereof, he was, without other reason or creation. Earl of Arundel, ^c. " ; and stating also, that " the King, contemplating the person of the present claimant, now Earl of Arundel, ^c, has, with the advice and assent of the Prelates, Dukes, Earls and Barons in this present Pari, assembled, admitted John, now Earl of Arundel, to the place and seat anciently belonging to the Earls of Arundel in Pari, and council. " Almost similar words are used in the Act of Pari, obtained in 1627, which, in form of a petition to the King recites that the Earldom of Arundel had been real and local from the time whereof the memory of man was not to be contrary, and had, from the time aforesaid, been used and enjoyed by the petitioner and such of his ancestors as had possessed the Castle of Arundel, JS'c. Now it is to be noted that the claimant of 1433 alleged that his ancestors, the possessors of Arundel, were Earls of Arundel, both before, as well as after, the Conquest. Fortunately, however, King Harold and his father, Earl Godwin, have not to be included, and still less a long shadowy race of