Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/221

 DERBY 203 It appears from the foregoing that the confiscation of this earldom was effected by making the last possessor contract himself out of the Dictum of Kenilworth, the provisions of which may have been unknown to him. No attainder nor corruption of the blood was involved, and the late Earl was in a position to claim — and recover — in the King's Courts any lands which were outside his charter of i May 1269. Moreover, had he at any time, by some miracle, been able to pay the ;^50,ooo simul et semel, he would have regained the estate of his dignity, and with it, presumably, the dignity itself, which must be regarded as having been tacitly attached to the estate. This mere inability to discharge a debt to another subject would not be sufficient to deprive him, according to any modern doctrine, of his peerage dignity, although the existence of an earl, without the estate of an earldom, was not conceivable in the thirteenth century. About the year 1298 John de Ferrers, s. and h. of the last Earl, petitioned the Pope for a dispensation to permit him to borrow money from prelates and other spiritual persons, so that he might redeem his lands by paying the ;^50,ooo to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, s. and h. of Edmund. (") But on 10 Aug. 1301 the King prohibited him, under penalty of forfeiting all that he could forfeit, from prosecuting a plea concerning a lay fief in Court Christian, and ordered him to cause his plea to be revoked, and to be before the King in three weeks from Michaelmas to receive what should be just in the matter, as the cognizance of such a plea pertained to the King's Court.C') On 2 Dec. following he was ordered to be before the King in the octaves of St. Hilary to show cause why he had, against his homage, called on the Earl of Lancaster to answer in Court Christian concerning lay fiefs in the realm. C") On 12 July 1266 the honour of Derby, forfeited by Robert de Ferrers, and the honour of Leicester, forfeited by Simon de Montfort, and on 30 June 1267 the honours of Monmouth and Lancaster, were granted to Edmund, the King's younger son. But this Edmund does not appear to have used any other title than Earl of Lancaster.(') In charters, indeed, he usually styled himself the King's son, or — after the accession of Edward I — the King's brother. The seal of his s. and h., Thomas, attached to the Barons' Letter to the Pope, 12 Feb. 1 300/1, bears (or rather, bore) the legend s' : thome : comitis : lancastrie : leycestrie : et : ferrariis, the last title being equivalent to Earl of Derby.('*) This Earl was beheaded 22 Mar. 132 1/2, when all his honours hecume forfeued. (*) Dugdale, Baronage, p. 265. («>) C/ose Rolls, 29 Edw. I, m. -jA; 30 Edw. I, m. l8d. (') He is styled Earl of Leicester (only) on 12 Jan. 1266/7. (Ducliy of Lan- caster, Royal Charters, no. 1 08). (^) In the De Jntiquis Legibus Liber he is called " Counte de v Countes," the five being given in the Chron. de Lanercost as Lancaster, Lincoln, Salisbury, Leicester, and Ferrers. Another seal of his (Cotton Charter, xvi, no. 7) has the legend siGiLi.vM : THOME : COMITIS : lancastrie : levcestrie : senescalli : anglie.