Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/743

 APPENDIX H 721 the accuracy of which they are there to determine — all the statements contained in the " Case " lodged by the petitioner. The Furnivall pedigree presented by the petitioner naturally attributed peerage rank to every member of the Furnivall family, and the Committee, apparently hypnotised by this array of titles, straightway treated all the Furnivalls as peers. The fact that counsel for the Crown denied peerage iure uxoris to Thomas Nevill called forth a protest from a noble Lord: There must have been some frightful confusion in the mind of somebody, because you say he did not sit in right of his wife, but it is st.ited here that he did sit as F.ord Furnivall Jure uxoris. The " frightful confusion " was caused by his Lordship blindly accepting the statement in the petitioner's pedigree, a statement which, as counsel pointed out, was to be found there and nowhere else. The following quotations from the Minutes of Proceedings (') are typical of the Committee's methods: 1st Noble Lord. You have the proved fact that the man wlio was summoned as Lord Furnivall and not as Lord Nevill was son-in-law of the previous Lord Furnivall. 2nd Noble Lord. It is conceded that there were one, two, three Lords Furnivall ? st Noble Lord. If through his wife he had a title to sit — he was son-in-law of the last peer as a matter of fact — 2nd Noble Lord. I am impressed by the fact that there were three Lords Furnivall and that the heiress of the last of them married a man who, on the spot, became Lord Furnivall. Counsel for the Crown. The difficulty of it is that your Lordship is assuming. . . that there were three Lords Furnivall. 2nd Noble Lord. I am. . . . Three, father, son, and grandson. What would be said if similar methods obtained in the Criminal Courts? Is there a Judge on the Bench who, having before him John Smith, charged on wholly insufficient evidence with burglary, would argue that John must be guilty because it was alleged — without any proof — that his father and his grandfather had been burglars .-* Would he, without a shred of evidence to support his assertions, say to the jury, " I am impressed by the fact that we have here a case of hereditary burglary; the father a burglar, the son a burglar, and the grandson a burglar" .-' When we turn to the judgments delivered we find the same laxity. The facts apparently did not matter. We find a reference to " the early people who called themselves Lords Furnivall," whereas nowhere did they so call themselves or were they so called by others. Again, there was no proof, such as is required in these cases, that any one of the Furnivalls ever {•) The writer is indebted to the officers of the House of Lords for the use of the transcript of the shorthand notes of this case. 91