Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/764

 742 APPENDIX H the meeting in 1296/7 as a parliament was not questioned, as it would be in the present day. The doubts of the Attorney General as to writs of summons to Parliament in the time of Edward I having conferred a barony in fee probably weighed with the House more than any other argument advanced against the petitioner's claim, for it must be remembered that up to 1677 claims to such baronies had been few, and none had been made to any ancient barony the style of which had not been used for centuries. WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE Sir Richard Verney petitioned for the Barony of Broke 21 Nov. 1694, having the assistance of Gregory King, Lancaster Herald, whose account of the proceedings is given by Collins, p. 321. The Barony was alleged to originate in the summons to Parliament of Sir Robert Willoughby of Broke in 1 49 1. It fell into abeyance between his great-granddaughters, of whom Elizabeth eventually survived as sole heir to the Barony. She married Sir Fulke Greville, and the Barony descended to their grandson Fulke (M.P. for Warwick 1620-21), who was created in 1621 Lord Broke of Beau- champ's Court by patent, with a special remainder to Robert and William Greville, grandsons of Robert Greville, brother of the grantee's father. The grantee died unmarried in 1628, when the ancient barony descended to his sister, wife of Richard Verney, grandfather of the petitioner. From Margaret it descended to her great-great-grandson, William Verney, who died unmarried in 1683, when his great-uncle, Richard Verney, the peti- tioner, became heir to it. Although, as we have seen, in several recent peerage cases doubtful points of law regarding the descent of baronies in fee and the doctrine of abeyance had been settled, the decisions in these cases were practically ignored and each difficulty was again fully discussed. The petitioner's case was handicapped by his claiming the title of Broke, for he aggravated the opposition offered to his claim by Lord Broke of Beauchamp's Court, for whom it was argued that {a) baronies by writ ought to descend to heirs male; {b) that they became extinct by descending to coheirs; {c) that if not extinct by such descent. Sir Fulke Greville's acceptance of a new patent in tail male in 1621 extinguished the ancient barony in fee. On 7 Jan. 1694/5 the Attorney General argued against a writ of summons creating a barony in fee, alleging " that even in the time of King Henry VII, when Sir Robert Willoughby was first summoned, it was not looked upon as an estate in fee," and "that if it descend, it was extin- guished by coheirs," urging the Earl of Oxford's case.C) Three days later the House resolved that the petitioner " hath no Right to a Writ of Sum- mons to Parhament."('') This decision alarmed a number of peers who possessed baronies by writ, and they demanded an investigation into the (*) Collins, p. 322. C") Lards' Journals, vol. xv, p. 458a.