Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/40

24 DACRE DACRE (of Gilsland) [" If the award in the 13 Edw. IV (1473), be held to have created the Barony of Dacre of Gillesland, a point on which there is much difficulty in giving an opinion,(^) and the dignity was descendible in the manner speci- fied therein {i.e. to the heirs male of the body of Humphrey recte Thomas] Dacre), it became vested in 1569, in Leonard Dacre, the then claimant, and [subsequently] in the heir male of the body of the said Humphrey [Thomas]." {Courthope). The succession would then be as under.] BARONY. 6. Leonard Dacre, of Naworth Castle, Cumber- ^.. , land, and of West Harlsey, co. York, calling himself ■ ^^ 9- Lord Dacre (of Gilsland), uncle and h. male. His claim to the Barony was disallowed in 1 569 by the Commissioners C") acting for the Earl Marshal. Deputy Warden of the West Marches during his father's absence, Aug. to Oct. 1558, and perhaps later, and was thanked in Jan. 1558/9 for his services against the Scots. M.P. for Cumberland 1558-59 and 1563-67. He joined in the conspiracy of the Northern Earls in Nov. 1569, in favour of the Queen of Scots, and was defeated by Lord Hunsdon, with a much inferior force, 20 Feb. 1569/70, near his own castle of Naworth,(') and proclaimed a traitor the next day. He {2) Mary, aged 5 years, 1 1 months, 1 1 days, contracted to m. Thomas Howard, after- wards Earl of Suffolk, but d. before reaching the age of consent. (3) Elizabeth, aged 4 years, 7 months, 3 days, m. Lord William Howard. All three were sons of Thomas, 4th Duke of Norfolk, stepfather to the three sisters. The youngest sister inherited Naworth Castle, her moiety of the Baronies in abeyance being represented by the Earl of Carlisle. The eldest inherited Greystoke, her moiety being represented by (i) the Lord Mowbray, Segrave, and Stourton, and (2) the Lord Petre. (^) " Dignities, unless originating by writ or by Act of Pari., are created by Letters Patent under the Great Seal, and as the award is stated to have been under the King's Privy Seal only, it may with great propriety be argued that it was not a Patent of Creation, and hence that, notwithstanding the express declaration of the intentions of the Crown therein, it cannot be considered to operate, in the absence of a regular patent of creation, against the dignity being deemed to have originated in the earliest writ of summons to Humphrey Dacre extant, that of 15 Nov. 22 Edw. IV, 1482." [Courthope). See, however, ante, p. 8, note " g," at end. C') It is to be observed that the Counsel for the heir male stated the Barony to have had its beginning by writ (15 Hen. Ill, sed quare), and contended that the " Barony so beginning " " ought to descend to him as heir male to his ancestor and not to any heir female." This seems a poor plea and incapable of proof; one, too, that goes in the face of the award of 1473. ("=) " Dacres of the crooked back, so bold in conspiracies was faint-hearted in the field," and " beynge w* hys horsmen was the fyrst man that fled leke a tale gentylman and as I thynke never lookyd behynd hym tyll he was in Lyddysdale." (Hunsdon to the Queen, 20 Feb. 1569/70, in iS.P. Z)ffw., Addit., vol. xvii, no. 107). Queen Eliza- beth, writing to Lord Hunsdon, calls him "that cankred suttil traitor, Leonard Dacres." G.E.C. and V.G.