Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/729

Rh The result of this case is commented on at some length in the Lords' Reports on the Dignity of a Peer:

J. H. Round has answered this question conclusively. He shows that the Judges got their law from Coke, who in his First Institute says:

The use made of the resolution in the Clifton case has carried the doctrine of barony by writ far beyond anything that can be read into the simple resolution of the House of Lords; but the doctrine once launched on the world, there was nothing to stop its being developed to the most extravagant lengths.

The Clifton decision led to a claim for precedence in 1677. In that year John, Lord Frescheville of Staveley, who had been so created in tail male in 1664, petitioned for the place in Parliament of his ancestor, Ralph Frescheville, who was summoned to a Council in 1296/7. See sub Frescheville, post.

Before turning to a consideration of the doctrine of abeyance, which must next engage our attention, a few words must be said on the "sitting" in Parliament, without proof of which the summons creating a barony by writ is deemed to be inoperative.