Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/453

 BANBURY COMPLETE PEERAGE 403 in the House of Lords from June to Nov. 1660, in the " Convention Pari. " and was twice appointed a member of a Committee, though on 13 July of that year it was moved " that there being a person who, as is conceived, hath no title to be a Peer, viz. the Earl of Banbury, it is ordered that this business shall be heard at the bar " on the 23rd. No proceedings, however, appear to have taken place. On 21 Nov. 1660 he obtained leave of absence, a permission frequently granted to other Lords, and one which was certainly a tacit admission of his rig^t to be present. On 29 Dec. following, the Convention Pari, was prorogued. Although the Earl had thus sat in Pari, and exercised all the functions of a Peer for six months, yet, when the next Pari, was sum. in May 1 66 1, no writ was issued to him. On this he presented a petition to the King, which was referred to the Committee for Privileges, who reported thereon on i July 1661, " that Nicholas, Earl of Banbury, is a legitimate person. " The Lords, however, not adopting this report, it was referred to the Committee, as also was the matter of " the Right of Precedence^ between the said Earl of Banbury and several Peers ot this Realm. " On this the Report, 19 July 1661, was, that the Earl was "in the eye of the lawe, sonne of the late William Earle of Banbury, " and that "the house of Peeres should therefore advise the King to send him a writ to come to Pari. ; " but that, as to the question of his precedency, they were of opinion that he "ought to have place in the House of Peeres according to the date of his patent. " The House resolved to take this report into consideration, but never, apparently, did so, and on 9 Dec. following a bill was read for the first time entitled " An act for declaring Nicholas, called Earl of Banbury, to be illegitimate, " inasmuch as "the illegitimation of children born in wedlock can noeway be declared but by Act. of Pari. " This attempt to obtain an ex post facto law to divest a man of rights (publicly acknowledged and long enjoyed) was abandoned after the first reading of the Bill, and the Earl was left in possession of his former status, viz. legal legitimac for, as was said in the " Purbeck " case in 1678, " By bringing in a bill to bar him, his right to the title is confessed, for he cannot be barred of anything which he hath not right to. " On 26 Oct. 1669 it was again referred to the Committee for Privileges to examine why the Earl's name was omitted from " the list by which the Lords were called, " " he having formerly sat as a Peer in this House. " The report thereon, 25 Nov. 1669, recited all the pro- ceedings against the Earl, as also the statement of Garter King of Arms, that in the two Parliaments of 1640 no mention (") is made of an Earl of Banbury, and left "the business to the consideration of the House. " On the 23 Feb. 1670, the Earl presented a petition (not to the King (') This is accounted for by his having been then a minor, " it not being usual to insert the names of Peers who were under age in such h'sts. The Earls of Oxford their names axe likewise omitted. " — See Nicolas' Treatise, fs'c, p. 395-
 * ind VVinchelsea, Lords Delawarr, Chandos, Petre and Teynham were also minors and