Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/731

 APPENDIX H 709 Abeyance will determine without any intervention of" the Crown if the title ot the coheirs by any means becomes united in one person. The peerage then emerges from abeyance and vests solely in that person. (') To the above statement of the law should be added the fact that no one ot two or more coheirs can claim the determination of an abeyance in his favour as of right. The calling out of abeyance of a barony by writ rests entirely in the Sovereign's discretion, and is an act of grace and favour. The principle ot abeyance in baronies by writ, so strangely evolved in the 17th century from a legal opinion on a 13th century dispute about the estates ot an earldom, C") was, as might be expected, slow to develop. It is a principle thoroughly irrational in its application to the only degree of peerage at present deemed susceptible to its operation. The Crown expressed no intention, and had no intention, of bestowing a title of honour on the recipient of a writ of summons. And when we consider that this demand for the personal service of a man led progressively to claims (i) That the summons conferred a Parliamentary barony on him, (2) That it also conferred a Parliamentary barony on his son (3) And on a sole daughter, (4) That the title was not extinguished even though the heirs were two or more daughters, we can understand how little prepared the Crown was to accept a doctrine which was calculated to keep alive indefinitely rights to baronies which might be claimed to exist in the descendants of every man who had ever received a writ of summons to Parliament. In 1597 no one seems to have known that a barony by writ ought to descend to coheirs and rest in abeyance between them when there was also an heir male who succeeded to most of the lands. This appears clearly from the De la Warr case. Thomas, Lord de la Warr and Lord West, d. s.p. 1554, his estates having been entailed on his half-brothers, Sir Owen West {d. 1 551) and Sir George West {d. 1538). At his death William West, son of Sir George West, was his heir male, and the issue of Sir Owen West were his heirs general. For his attempt to poison his uncle Thomas, William was disabled (for his life only) by Act of Pari, from succeeding to his estates and honours. On 5 Feb. 1 569/70 he was created by patent Lord De la Warr,('=) and took his seat 4 Apr. 1571 (13 Eliz.) as last of the barons.('*) (') See Sir Francis Palmer's Peerage Law in England, pp. 1 00, 10 1; the very clear exposition of the law as to abeyance there given is compressed here. (•>) See ante, pp. 675-6. {") J. H. Round {Peerage and Pedigree, vol. i, pp. 64-66) prints an account ot the ceremony of this creation which was supplied to him by Garter (Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty). (^) There has been much confusion of dates regarding the patent and sum- mons. Doddridge (Collins, p. 123) says that West was created by patent in 8 Eliz. Cruise (p. 1 14, apparently following the date in Collins) says he was "called to parliament by writ of summons" in 8 Eliz. The Lords' Reports (Third Report,