Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/39

 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xxix to Greenwich, but the remaining ten of those so summoned (two Viscounts and eight Barons) possessed Peerages, the mode of whose creation is, and probably will ever remain unknown ; (") it certainly was not by writ, ('') and probably, in the earlier cases at all events, not by patent. These ten may be called Prescriptive Peerages^ of which the holders were, in 1489, acknow- ledged as Hereditary Peers of Parliament by Henry VII. As to Scotland and Ireland, the Editor, though he has not in all cases implicitly adopted the views therein contained, is under the greatest obligation to two most valuable works : one entitled " Inquiry into the Law and Practise in Scottish Peerages, o c, " by John Riddell : the other, " Feudal Baronies in Ireland during the Reign of Henry II, " by William Lynch, F.S.A. Q The early dates (1181, i^c.) assigned to some of the Irish Baronies have always been a great difficulty, one, it is feared, that has not been very adequately dealt with in this work, but (since its issue) the Trimleston and Dunsany, of which Trimleston alone had been (in 146 1/2) created by patent. The Earl of Waterford (Earl of Shrewsbury in England) was not summoned, neither was Lord Portlester, who did not die till 1496. The Baronies of Ratowth and of Rathwire * were probably under forfeiture. C) Even with respect to the Baronies of Killeen and Dunsany, two of the most modern prescriptive peerages, nothing can be ascertained as to the mode of their creation. Camden merely states that " Christopher Plunket was advanced ^ruectu5 est'] to the dignity of Baron of Killeen, having inherited Killeen [i.e., the manor) from the family of Cusack. " The Barony so created (though the name and estate were inherited through a.fema/i-) was, according to the established rule of the Irish Baronage, one descendible to the issue male of the grantee, and has, as such, twice passed over the heir General in favour of the heir male. The writ under which Lord Killeen's male ancestor, Richard Plunkett of Rathregan, sat in the Parliament of 48 Edw. Ill did not entitle him (as in England) to any hereditary Peerage. ('') Until the loth year of Henry VIII the power of summoning these Parlia- ments was in the chief Governor of Ireland though he issued his writ in the Royal name and style. No act of any subject, however exalted, can, in any case, create a Peer, and indeed (excepting in the case of the Barony of La Poer) none of the families so summoned ever attempted to advance any such claim. See " Remarks upon the Ancient Baronage of Ireland " [Dublin 1829, 8vo., pp. 158], page 16, 31, b'c, which little work is a very clear account of these dignities, probably written by William Lynch, the Author of " Feudal Baronies in Ireland. " ^) " Lynch is the ablest writer, no doubt, upon the subject, but, we must remem- ber, a partisan. Lynch wrote with the object of establishing, as a rule of law, a presumption in favour of heirs male in the descent of Irish dignities. Betham, in spite of his official position [Ulster King of Arms, 1820-53] ^^ ^° POO"" *" advocate (in his Dignities Feudal and Parliamentary, 1830) of the opposite view, that we cannot wonder at G.E.C. following Lynch throughout. . . . The native tribal principle, invincibly in favour of Agnates, strove here, as elsewhere, against the principles of English law. We imagine that at first the la'ter prevailed especially within the Pale, but with the ebb of the English rule the native principle revived, and even the Anglo-Normans (Hibernis Hiberniores) adopted, in the wilder parts, the old tribal system, or at least elaborately entailed their estates upon heirs male. Thus there arose, in practise, a system of male succession, altho', in our opinion, it had not
 * See note * on previous page.