Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/413

 Ch. 12. degrees of nobility and honour are derived from the king as their fountain : and he may intitute what new titles he pleaes. Hence it is that all degrees of honour are not of equal antiquity. Thoe now in ue are dukes, marquees, earls, vicounts, and barons.

1. A duke, though it be with us, as a mere title of nobility, inferior in point of antiquity to many others, yet it is uperior to all of them in rank; being the firt title of dignity after the royal family. Among the Saxons the Latin name of dukes, duces, is very frequent, and ignified, as among the Romans, the commanders or leaders of their armies, whom in their own language they called ; and in the laws of Henry I (as tranlated by Lambard) we find them called heretochii. But after the Norman conquet, which changed the military polity of the nation, the kings themelves continuing for many generations dukes of Normandy, they would not honour any ubjects with that title, till the time of Edward III; who, claiming to be king of France, and thereby loing the ducal in the royal dignity, in the eleventh year of his reign created his on, Edward the black prince, duke of Cornwall: and many, of the royal family epecially, were afterwards raied to the ame honour. However, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, A. D. 1572, the whole order became utterly extinct: but it was revived about fifty years afterwards by her ucceor, who was remarkably prodigal of honours, in the peron of George Villiers duke of Buckingham.

2. A marques, marchio, is the next degree of nobility. His office formerly was (for dignity and duty were never eparated by our ancetors) to guard the frontiers and limits of the kingdom; Rh