Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/672

 654 APPENDIX H to be partitioned among coheiresses. (") . . . This passed as a whole to the eldest of the sisters, but she accounted for its value in the division of the rest of the inheritance. C") In the feudal system of tenure these rules were highly necessary in order to simplify the relations of lord and vassal. The lands of the magnates were often scattered through many counties, and the King must have some centre to which he could look for the performance of the services due from the whole estate. "We shall find that the rights of the eldest daughter have an important bearing when dignities are in question in addition to the inheritance of lands. This will be very evident when we marshal the facts as to the descent of the earlier earldoms. The rights, in certain circumstances, of the youngest daughter must not be lost sight of, for the passage in Bracton relating to them played an important part in Chief Justice Coke's observations on the famous Earldom of Chester case, with which we deal later on. In 121 8 a litigant pleads that ever since the Conquest of England it has been the king's prerogative right that if any of his barons dies leaving daughters as his heirs, and the elder-born daughters have been married in their father's lifetime, the king may give the youngest daughter to one of his knights with the whole of her father's land to the utter exclusion therefrom of the elder daughters. There is a good deal in the history of the twelfth century to show that the king held himself free to act upon some such rule.^^) Up to the end of Henry I's reign we get no very clear picture of carls and barons. According to J. H. Round, there were only eight earl- doms then in existence. ("*) But Stephen and the Empress Maud, in keen rivalry, created no less than fifteen between them,('') and a remarkable feature is the precise information we have as to the creation of some of these in contrast with the slight knowledge we possess of the earlier eight. Here we have the origin of our peerage, and at this point it will be convenient to pursue the history of earldoms, returning to baronies later. her father-in-law, she and Faukes were assigned as her dower the honour and castle of Plympton and all the lands which the Earl of Devon had held in co. Devon. When Faukes had been in possession six years, i.e. March 1223/4, and it was desired to eject him, the very rule which had been disregarded in his favour was invoked to deprive him of the castle, it being alleged that "castrum illud est capud honoris Comitis Devonie in Devonia et hac ratione non potest nee debet uxor vestra illud in dotem habere." See ante, suh Devon. (^) History of Engliih Law, vol. i, p. 259. ('') Idem, vol. ii, p. 273. i^) Idem. The reference given to Bracton is "Note Book, pi. 12." The authors add: "but this contention seems to be over-ruled, and as a matter of fact a partition seems to have been made." {*■) See Appendix D in this volume.