Page:The Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of the British Empire Part 1.djvu/20

vii ascending to heights where the mists of antiquity obscure the truth, I have widened the nineteenth centnry area wherever an opportunity has offered, and thus have often been enabled to convert the history of a title into the genealogy of a family.

Those who delight in fiction may still resort to the old sources for it. For myself I cannot but express my conviction that pedigrees which are unaccompanied by dates or any allusion to the evidences which should support them—often vaguely expressed, and in many eases rendered doubtful by the suspicions gaps which occur in them—are so far from adding lustre to an honourable race that they seem rather to throw discredit upon the later and well—authenticated portions of the descent.

My primary object has been to produce a useful and trustworthy book of reference—such a book as will supply, in a condensed form, the genealogical as well as biographical history of the principal personages of the present day, including the near blood relations of every Peer and Baronet. To this end I have worked up to an infinitely greater extent than has hitherto been attempted the very numerous and for the most part uncollected accounts of collateral descents (more especially relating to the Baronets), which here form a very important element of originality.

In addition to this I have been allowed to revise, by the records of the College of Arms, such of the following pedigrees as have been officially entered, and to verify all grants of arms, changes of name, warrants of precedency, and the dates of all patents of creation during the last hundred years. Further, I have not only posted upwards of fifteen thousand proofs of pedigrees for revision to the principal representatives of each family, irrespective of nearly as many primary applications for original information, but I have had recourse to the Probate Office, the Registrar-General's Office, parish registers, the Faculty Office, &c., and the India Office, and by these means I regret to add that I have unexpectedly discovered that in more than one instance false information regarding current facts had been supplied me! In some cases reference has been made to inquisitions post mortem, patent rolls, fines, and other records; in short, none of the hunting-grounds so familiar to the genealogist have been unvisited.

Where there has been long possession of the same property, very little doubt can arise as to the course of descent which that land has followed. Whatever else a proud Baron or haughty Squire might succeed in doing, whatever other lawful duties he might contrive to evade, he could never divest himself of the obligation to contribute both directly and indirectly to the national revenue and the national defence. Hence he figures in subsidy and muster rolls, in aids, reliefs, extents, and inquisitions post mortem, and thus the fact of his individual existence is preserved. It can be proved that he succeeded to the family estate, enjoyed it for so many years, and in turn made room for his heir; while thousands of his fellow citizens have sunk into total oblivion, their very names having perished, because they did not bear that large part of the burdens of taxation which devolves upon all who have what is termed "a stake in the country."

Thanks to the cautious vigilance of the House of Lords, which examines most severely the claims of all candidates for admission by right of birth into that august assembly, the pedigrees of the Peers of the realm will always maintain a high state