Baronies by writ

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John Parsons

Baronies by writ

Legg inn av John Parsons » 04 okt 2004 17:19:05

Thank you, Adrian. I imagine I must have had "1911" in mind for other,
obvious, reasons.

John P.

From: ADRIANCHANNING@aol.com
To: GEN-MEDIEVAL-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: Emma, England's first queen
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 08:44:53 EDT

A couple of comments below

Adrian

The emergence of the doctrine of "abeyance" &its ramifiications for the
English peerage are well discussed in Antony Wagner's *English
Genealogy*
(either edition).

Of course those who came to be regarded as Barons purely as a result of
the
doctrine that receipt of an individual writ of summons, followed by an
attested sitting in parliament, created a barony descendable to heirs
general would (as Wagner says) have been stunned to learn that they had
ever

become barons. Neither they nor their contemporaries, &particularly not
the kings who had such writs of summons issued, ever imagined the
possibility. This doctrine did not crystallize until (roughly) the last
quarter of the 14th century.

The heyday of peerage lawyers' expertise in getting such baronies
"called
out of abeyance" came in the 1830s &1840s. Such claims before the House
of
Lords never stopped, however, &to bring order to the situation, the
Committee on Privileges of the House of Lords recommended in 1911 (I
think
that's the right year) that the Sovereign should not call out of
abeyance
peerages that had been in abeyance above 50 years.


1927 and 100 years (and not allowed "where the petitioner, not being the
child of the last holder of the dignity or a descendant of a parent of the
last
holder, represents less than one third of the entire dignity"). It is
interesting to note that Lord Grey of Codnor succeeded to his title not
used by his
family, being in abeyance since 1496, obtained his title in 1989. He
succeeded
because his ancestor (father I think) case was originally raised in 1926,
they
were a little slow in granting the title.


Now that the House of Lords no longer exists upon an hereditary basis,
it
is
difficult to guess the fate of such baronies as fall into abeyance
henceforth. There may still be a Committee on Privileges for the House,
but

as hereditary peers no longer sit in the House, the Committee has no
call to

rule on the inheritance of such peerages. I suppose that as time passes
many will disappear as they fall into abeyance &are not called out.
Some
few might re-appear as abeyances can always terminate naturally if, say,
one

of two sisters and coheirs dies w/o issue so that the other sister
becomes
the only surviving heir. (Of course this is all academic anyway as the
peerages no longer have any legal standing &are of purely social
significance.)



The are still around 90 hereditary peers in the house. They were allowed
to
choose this number from amongst themselves. There is suppose to be further
reforms to remove these 90 odd members, but I am not sure it will happen.
I
expect they will just be left to die out. The position was similar to when
the
Irish Parliament was ended in 1801 - Of the Irish peers, 25 were allowed to
sit
in the H of L, although I have a feeling that these places remained
hereditary. The bishops retain their places in the H of L's

This doctrine affects English baronies by writ only b/c Scots baronies &
earldoms descend to the eldest daughter, whereas English baronies by
writ
were [retroactively construed as somehow being] divided among all
daughters
(sisters, female cousins, aunts) or their representative heirs. Thus CP
is
found describing some ladies as "coheir (in her issue) to a moiety of
the
barony of...." &so on.

The lawyers had to make a living too.

John P.



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