Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/739

 APPENDIX H 717 meat ot' 1265, and the next earliest so-called parliament in which the root of barony by writ might be sought was this meeting at Shrewsbury in 1283. As we have seen, the assembly of i:8'? has not been again accepted as a true parliament ; but it is surely a reflection on the methods of procedure of the Committee for Privileges that the validity of this meeting should have been debated at great length, over and over again, year after year, in most of the very numerous petitions which have been heard in recent years. This struggle for early precedence has been a leading feature in all the cases; another has been the supposed summonses y«r^ uxoris a third the proof of " sitting " in parliament. To prove the assertion that men were summoned in " right of their wives " reliance is placed on the wording ot the writ directed to the husband of an heiress who is alleged to possess a barony in her own right. In order to throw some light on this matter a number of these supposed jure uxoris summonses have been set out in the Schedule to this Appendix. In the first place it must be borne in mind that it was usual to describe the owner of a great estate by a territorial designation ; and the man who married an heiress, being lord of her estate, was described as was his father- in-law. If the latter was summoned to parliament, in all likelihood the new owner would be summoned also. But before we can admit that the hus- band of the heiress acquired by his marriage the peerage vested in her father, we must be satisfied that her father was a peer, and that his peerage was inheritable by a woman. "When these supposed ywr^ uxofis summonses are examined it becomes quite clear that the additions to the surname of the person summoned were usually made for the purpose of identification. Take the first entry in the Schedule. The addition of fFemme in the writ to Robert de Ferrers was in the nature of a postal address to distinguish him from Ferrers of Groby. The entry dated 1409, relating to John Talbot, affords remarkable evidence of this fact. Before John Talbot was summoned writs had been issued to Gilbert Talbot; therefore, to distinguish him, John was addressed as Dominus de Furnivall, being in possession of the Furnivall estates through his marriage. When Gilbert was no longer summoned, there being now no risk of confusion, John was called Miles or Chivaler only. If it be argued that the use of the name Furnivall, which was not the designation of an estate, indicates a personal title, what of the Bourchier-Berners case in 1455 .' Sir Richard Berners was never summoned to Parliament and had no creation as a Lord or Baron, and when his daughter Margery married John Bourchier there was no peerage for her to convey to her husband. Yet he was summoned variously as Bourchier de Berners, Dominus Berners, and John Berners, to distinguish him from other mem- bers of the Bourchier family summoned at the same time. Again, Eleanor de Moleyns cannot have conveyed a peerage to Robert Hungerford, her husband, for none of her ancestors was ever summoned to parliament or had any creation. Yet Robert was summoned as Dominus de Moleyns (see 1445). If further proof be needed, it is afforded by the marriages of