John Beauchamp “Lord de Beauchamp and baron of Kyddermynster, to hold to him and the heirs of his body.” These letters patent were not founded on any right by tenure of land possessed by Beauchamp, for the king makes him “for his good services and in respect of the place which he had holden at the coronation (i.e. steward of the household) and might in future hold in the king’s councils and parliaments, and for his noble descent, and his abilities and discretion, one of the peers and barons of the kingdom of England; willing that the said John and the heirs-male of his body issuing, should have the state of baron and should be called by the name of Lord de Beauchamp and Baron of Kyddermynster.” The grant rested wholly on the grace and favour of the Crown and was a personal reward for services rendered. Here then is a barony entirely a personal dignity and quite unconnected with land. From Richard’s reign to the present day baronies (and indeed all other peerage honours) have continued to be conferred by patent. The custom of summons by writ was not in any way interfered with, the patent operating merely to declare the dignity and to dehne its devolution. Summons alone still continued side by side for many generations with summons founded on patent; but after the reign of Henry VIII. the former method fell into disuse, and during the last two hundred and fifty years there have been no new creations by writ of summons alone.[1] So from the reign of Richard II. barons were of two classes, the older, and more ancient in lineage summoned by writ alone, the honours descending to heirs-general, and the newer created by letters patent, the terms of which governed the issue of the summons and prescribed the devolution of the peerage in the line almost invariably of the direct male descendants of the person first ennobled. The principle of hereditary succession so clearly recognized in the Beauchamp creation is good evidence to show that a prescriptive right of hereditary summons probably existed in those families whose members had long been accustomed to receive individual writs. By the time the House of Lancaster was firmly seated on the throne it may be taken that the peerage had become a body of men possessing well-defined personal privileges and holding personal dignities capable of descending to their heirs.
The early origin of peerages was so closely connected with of land that the idea long prevailed that there were originally peerages by tenure only, i.e. dignities or titles annexed to the possession (and so following on alienation) of certain lands held in chief of the king. The older writers, Glanville (bk. ix. cc. 4, 6) and Bracton Peerages by Tenure. (bk. ii. c. 16), lend some colour to the view. They are followed, but not very definitely, by Coke, Selden and Madox. Blackstone, who discusses the question in his Commentaries (bk. i. c. xii.), seems to believe that such dignities existed in pre-parliamentary days but says further: “When alienation’s grew to be frequent, the dignity of peerage was confined to the lineage of the party ennobled, and instead of territorial became personal.” The Earldom of Arundel case, in 1433, at first sight seems to confirm the theory, but it may be noted that when in later years this descent came to be discussed the high authority of an act of parliament was found necessary to confirm the succession to the dignity. The case is discussed at some length in the Lords Reports (ii. 115), the committee regarding it as an anomaly from which no useful precedent can be drawn. Other cases discussed in the same Report are those of De Lisle, Abergavenny, Fitzwalter and Berkeley. The Berkeley case of 1858–1861 (better reported 8 H.L.C. 21) is essential for the student who wishes to examine the question carefully; and may be regarded as finally putting an end to any idea of bare tenure as an existing means of establishing a peerage right (see also Cruise on Dignities, 2nd ed. pp. 60 et seq.).
The main attribute of a peerage is that hereditary and inalienable quality which ennobles the blood of the holder and his heirs, or, as a great judge put it in 1625 in the Earldom of Oxford case, “he cannot alien or give away this inheritance because it is a personal dignity annexed, to the posterity and fixed in the blood” (Dodridge, Peerage Inalienable. J., at p. 123, Sir W. Jones’s Reports). Were the theory of barony by tenure accepted it would be possible for the temporary holder of such a barony to sell it or even to will it away to a stranger possessing none of the holder’s blood. with the effect that, in the words of Lord Chancellor Campbell (Berkeley case, 8 H.L.C. 77), “there might be various individuals and various lines of peers successively ennobled and created peers of parliament by a subject,” an impossible condition of affairs in a country where the sovereign has always been the fountain of honour. Moreover, while no peerage honour can be extinguished or surrendered, the owner of lands can freely dispose of such rights as he possesses by sale or transfer. Finally we may accept the verdict in the Fitzwalter case of 1669 (Cruise, ibid. p. 66), which was adopted by the House of Lords in the Berkeley case: “and the nature of a barony by tenure being discussed, it was found to have been discontinued for many ages, and not in being, and so not fit to be revived or to admit any pretence or right of succession thereupon.”
Until the reign of Edward III. the peerage consisted only of high ecclesiastics, earls and barons. The earls were barons with their special name of dignity added, and their names always appear on the rolls before those of the barons. In 1337 King Edward created his son, the Black Prince, duke of Cornwall, giving him precedence over the rest Dukes. of the peerage. The letters patent (under which the present heir to the throne now holds the dukedom) limited the dignity in perpetuity to the first-born son of the king of England.[2] Subsequently several members of the royal family were created dukes, but no subject received such an honour until fifty years later, when Richard II. created his favourite Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, duke of Ireland (for life). The original intention may have been to confine the dignity to the blood royal, as with the exception of de Vere it was some years before a dukedom was again conferred on a subject.
In 1385 Richard II. had created Robert de Vere marquess of Dublin, thus importing an entirely new and unknown title into the peerage. The grant was, however, only for life, and was in fact resumed by the Crown in 1387, when its recipient was created duke of Ireland. It was not until 1397 that another creation was made, this time in favour of one of Marquess. the blood royal, John de Beaufort, eldest legitimated son of John of Gaunt, who became marquess of Dorset. His title was shortly afterwards taken away by Henry IV’s first parliament. Subsequently creations were made only at long intervals, that of Winchester (1551) being the only one (of old date) under which an English marquess at present sits in the House of Lords (see Marquess).
Under the name of viscount (q.v.) Henry VI. added yet another order, and the last in point of time, to the peerage, creating in 1440, John, Baron Beaumont, Viscount Beaumont and giving him precedence next above the barons. The name of this dignity was also borrowed from the Continent, having been in use for some time as a title of honour in the king’s Viscounts. French possessions. None of the new titles above mentioned ever carried with them any official position; they were conferred originally as additional honours on men who were already members of the peerage.
The application of the hereditary principle to temporal peerages early differentiated their holders from the spiritual peers. Both spiritual and temporal peers were equally lords of parliament, but hereditary pretensions on the one side and ecclesiastical exclusiveness on the other soon drew a sharp line of division between the two Spiritual Peers, etc. orders. Gradually the temporal peers, strong in their doctrine of “ennobled” blood, came to consider that theirs was an order
- ↑ Not intentional at any rate. In some cases where it was intended to call a son up to his father’s barony, a mistake in the name has been made with the result that a new peerage by writ of summons has been created. The barony of Buller, of Moore Park (cr. 1663), now in abeyance, is said to be an instance of such a mistake.
- ↑ . . . . principi et ipsius et haeredum suorum Regum Angliae filiis primogenitis (The Prince’s Case, 8 Co. Rep. 27a; 77 E.R. 513).
