Union, become extinct, the King may create one Irish Peer; and when the Peers of Ireland are reduced to 100 by extinction or otherwise, exclusive of those who shall hold any Peerage of Great Britain, subsisting at the time of the Union, or created of the United Kingdom since the Union, the King may then create one Peer of Ireland for every Peerage that becomes extinct; or as often as any one of them is created a Peer of the United Kingdom; so that the King may always keep up the number of 100 Irish Peers, over and above those who have an hereditary seat in the House of Lords." The prerogative as to the number of English Peers does not appear to be thus limited. His Majesty may, by his. prerogative, grant rank and precedence to a foreign Prince who intermarries into the royal family, before the greatest officers of state and Peers of the realm, as was done on the marriage of the late Princess Charlotte of Wales (a).

We have already considered that the King has an interest in his subjects and a right to command their services, and consequently they cannot with impunity refuse to accept from his Majesty even a mere dignity or honour. So nobility when once acquired cannot be lost or transferred by any other power but that of Parliament, except by death or attainder (6). Hence it appears to be now settled, that a Peer cannot be degraded on account of poverty, or for other reasons, even by the King (c): and though formerly held otherwise, it is now settled that a dignity or title of honour can neither be effectually aliened by the person in possession of it, though the King's consent is obtained (d), or be surrendered to his Majesty (e): but in both

(a) Tuesday's Gazette, Whitehall, May 8, 1916. His royal highness the Prince Regent has been pleased in the name and on the behalf of His Majesty, to declare and ordain that his Serene Highness Leopold George Frederick, Duke of Saxe, Margrave of Meissen, Landgrave of Thuringuen, Prince of Cobourg of Saalfield, Consort of her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte Augusta, shall take, hold, and enjoy, during the term of his natural life, in all assemblies or meetings whatsoever, the precedence and rank following; that is to say, before the Lord Archbishop of

Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and all other great officers, and before the Dukes (other than and except the Dukes of the blood royal), and all other Peers of the realm."

(b) 7 Rep. 33. 1 Bla. Com. 402. (c) Ibid. 12 Mod. 56. 12 Co. Rep. 107; see 1 Ld. Raym. 16.

(d) Lords' Journ. vol. 4, page 150. 3 Cruis. Dig. 230. s. 114. to s. 118.

(e) Lords' Journ. 4 vol. 150; 13 vol. 253. Show. Cas. in Parl. 1; Lord Purbeck's Case, Coll. 10. 3 Cruise Dig.

these cases the heir has a claim, notwithstanding the alienation or surrender. It is laid down that if a Baron, constituted by writ of summons, take a grant by patent of the same barony, this merges or determines his barony by writ (a). But Mr. Hargrave remarks (b), that the doctrine of extinguishing a barony by writ, by acceptance of a patent barony, seems questionable; for it supposes a right to surrender the barony by writ, which, as we have seen, cannot be legally done. Indeed it was never denied that the barony by writ was not extinguished by the patent barony, in cases where the old barony by writ was suspended, by the party entitled to it being out of possession or otherwise (c). And in the case of the barony of Lord Willoughby de Broke, it was resolved by the House of Lords, that the grant of a new barony of Willoughby de Broke to Sir F. Greville, by letters patent, to him and his heirs male, (he being in possession of the antient barony by writ) did not destroy such antient barony. But the same continued and descended to his sister and sole heir, and so from her to Sir R. Verney; who was seated in the House of Lords according to the date of the antient barony.

It is also settled, that if a person possessed of a barony by writ, which is, consequently, descendible to his heir general, be created an earl to him and the heirs male of his body, the earldom does not attract the barony, and they are separate and distinct from each other (d), and the barony will descend to the heir general, although the earldom become extinct (e).

Where a dignity or title of honour is descendible to heirs general, and the person possessed of it dies, leaving only daughters, or sisters, or coheirs, it falls into abeyance, or rather becomes vested in the Crown, during the continuance of the coheirship; for a dignity is entire and not divisible, and no one coheir can in particular sustain a claim to it, and of course they cannot claim it together (f). But the dignity in abeyance is not in the power and disposal of the King abso

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lutely, for his Majesty cannot, by law, extinguish or dispose of it to a mere stranger; and therefore, on the termination of the abeyance, where there remains only one heir, such sole heir becomes entitled to the dignity or title, not as a favour, but as a matter of legal right (a). It is, however, in the power of the Crown to terminate the abeyance or suspension of the dignity, by nominating any one of the coheirs to it. Such nomination operates, not as a new creation, but as a revival of the antient dignity, for the nominee becomes entitled to precedence according to the date of the dignity (b). The abeyance terminates, as a matter of course, whenever there remains, by the death of some of the coheirs, but one heir (c), but the attainder of one of two coheirs does not determine the abeyance (d).

Where the King terminates the abeyance of a dignity in favour of a commoner, he issues a summons to him by the name of the barony which was in abeyance; as, in the cases of Lord Le Despencer, and Lord Botetourt. But where the person, in whose favour the abeyance is terminated, is already a peer, and has a higher dignity, there the King makes a declaration, under the great seal, confirming the barony to him; and in the case of a female, the abeyance is also terminated by a declaration. Formerly it was the practice, to confirm the barony to the person, and his or her heirs, but now it is only to the heirs of his or her body (e).

Where an abeyance is terminated by a writ of summons, different opinions have been entertained respecting the extent of the operation of such a writ. Some eminent persons are said to have held, that where a barony is in abeyance between the descendants of two coheirs, and the King issues his writ of summons to one of the heirs of the body of one of the two coheirs, the abeyance is thereby terminated, not only as to the person summoned, and the heirs of his or her body, but also as to all the heirs of the body of such original coheir; but the

(a) 5 Cruise Dig. 254, 5, &c. See Skin. R. 432, 437. Dugd. Bar. 2 vol. 363. Collins, 412; 322. Lords' Journ. 15 vol. 634, 643, 671; 21 vol. 266, 339.

(b) 3 Cruise Dig. 249. Lords' Journ. 30 vol. 403, 561, 572; 2 vol. 347; per 1 2

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C. J. Eyre. 3 Cruise Dig. 267, 8.
(c) 3 Cruise, 254.

(d) Stapleton's Case, Printed Cases, Dom. Proc. 1794, 5; cited 3 Cruise Dig. 261. s. 172; 1 ed.

(e) 3 Cruise Dig. 250, 252.

better

better opinion seems to be, that the effect of a writ of summons in a case of this kind, is only to terminate the abeyance as to the person summoned, and the heirs of his or her body; and that, upon failure of heirs of the body of the person so summoned, the barony will again fall into abeyance, between the remaining heirs of the body of the original coheir, one of whose heirs was so summoned, if any, and the heirs of the body of the other coheir (a).

This latter opinion is founded upon a principle of law, that possession does not affect the descent of a dignity, and that a writ of summons to Parliament by an antient title, (as the summons of the eldest son of a peer in the lifetime of his father, by the name of an antient barony then vested in the father,) will not operate, so as to give any title by descent, collateral or lineal, different from the course of descent of the antient barony, and that he who claims a dignity must make himself heir to the person on whom the dignity was originally conferred, not to the person who last enjoyed it (b).

Dignities are not within the statute of limitations, and may, consequently, be claimed at any distance of time; and there are instances of claims being recognized after the dignities had been dormant for some centuries (c).

If a peer be disturbed in his dignity, the regular course, says Lord Holt (d), is to petition the King, and the King indorses it, and sends it into the Chancery or the House of Peers, for the Lords have no power to judge of peerage, unless it be given to them by the King (e).

Such persons as are not noble, are, by intendment of law, among the Commons (f); but even these latter are, by law, divided into several degrees (g). We have here only to consider such as are constituted by the royal authority. To borrow Sir Wm. Blackstone's observations (h) on this subject, "The first personal dignity after the nobility is a Knight of the Order of

(a) 3 Cruise Dig. 253. (b) Ibid.

(c) Skin. R. 437. Collins, 323. 11 Rep. 1. 4 Inst. 335. 2 Bro. Parl. Cas. 167, 8. 3 Cruise Dig. 274. (d) 1 Ld. Raym. 16.

(e) 11 Co. 1. Delaware's Case. W. Jon. 96.

(f) Co. Lit. 16, b.
(g) 1 Bla. Com. 403.

(A) Ibid. 405, 4.

St.

St. George or of the Garter, first instituted by Edward the Third, A. D. 1344 (a). Next (but not till after certain official dignities, as Privy Counsellors, the Chancellors of the Exchequer and Duchy of Lancaster, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, the Master of the Rolls, and the other English Judges,) follows a Knight Banneret, who indeed, by statutes 5 Rich. 2. st. 2. c. 4. and 14 Rich. 2. c. 11. is ranked next after Barons, and his precedence before the younger sons of Viscounts was confirmed to him by order of James the First, in the tenth year of his reign (b). But, in order to entitle himself to this rank, I he must have been created by the King in person, in the field, under the royal banners in time of war (c), else he ranks after Baronets, who are the next order; which title is a dignity of inheritance, created by letters patent, and usually descendible to the issue male. It was first instituted by James I. A. D. 1611, in order to raise a competent sum for the reduction of the province of Ulster in Ireland (d); for which reason all baronets have the arms of Ulster superadded to their family coat (e). Next follow the Knights of the Bath, an order instituted by Henry 4. and revived by George 1. They are so called from the ceremony of bathing, the night before their creation. The last of these inferior nobility are Knights Bachelors, the most antient, though the lowest order of knighthood, amongst us; for we have an instance (ƒ) of King Alfred's conferring this order on his son Athelstan. The custom of the antient Germans was to give their young men a shield and a lance in the great council; this was equivalent to the toga virilis of the Romans. Before this they were not permitted to bear arms, but were accounted as part of the father's household; after it, as part of the community. Hence some derive the usage of knighting, which has prevailed all over the western world, since its reduction by colonies from those northern heroes. Knights are called in Latin equites aurati: aurati, from the gilt spurs they wore; and equites, because they always served on horseback; for it is observable

(a) Seld. tit. of Hon. 2, 5, 41.
(b) Ibid. 2, 11, 3.

(c) 4 Inst. 6.

(d) One hundred gentlemen advanced each one thousand pounds for which this

title was conferred upon them, 2 Rep. 185

(e) The arms of Ulster are, a hand gules, or a bloody hand in a field argent.

(f) Will. Malmsb. lib. 2.

that