Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/745

APPENDIX H 723 the list of summonses issued in that year does not contain Nevill's name; and that no list of summonses at any time contained the names " Lord Le Strange, Lord le Nevill, Lord Aldeburgh." In his judgment on the Fitzwaryn(*) case, Lord Dunedin, referring to the Furnivall case, said: It was proved that when the husband was called and sat, he was placed as for precedence between exactly the same two peers, i.e. in exactly the same place, as was given as the place of the alleged older Barons, whereas if he sat as a new creation his place would have been far otherwise. (•") What place in Parliament can have been given to " the alleged older Barons " who never sat in Parliament it would probably require a spiritual- istic medium to determine. Or are we to suppose that there was an empty seat in Parliament labelled " For the alleged Baron Furnivall" . A result similar to that in the P'urnivall case was achieved in the Committee's resolution on the Cobham petition. Although they were offered a form of resolution which would have defined the creation of the Barony as by writ and sitting, they adopted the following, which in effect declared that Henry de Cobham — who was not proved to have sat in Parliament — acquired a heritable barony by virtue of the writ alone: That the Barony of Cobham is an ancient Barony in fee. That Henry de Cobham who was summoned to Parliament by writ dated the 8th January 6 Edward II (13 13) was entitled to a Barony by Writ descendible to the heirs general of his body. In the case of Burgh their Lordships based their decision on a docu- ment which all parties were agreed was not in evidence and was not admissible as evidence, and at the same time upset a previous decision in the Windsor case. To crown the confusion, in their resolution on the Strabolgi case they upset, by implication, their own decision on Burgh! A Protest and a Suggestion It is time that a strong protest be entered against the continuance of the practice of calling out of abeyance so-called baronies in fee, most ot which never had any existence. The coheirship possessed by the petitioners usually represents only a small fraction of the alleged barony, and in nearly every case the lands have been alienated for centuries. Their right to an estate of honour which is the most endurable that can be bestowed has no basis in fact; yet most of these parvenus arc given precedence in the House of Lords over the heads of all peers ot like degree whose right to their dignities is unquestioned. W^hen six baronies were called out of abeyance in the course ot three years in the middle of the 19th century there was an outcry, and conse- (') On 5 Mar. 1 9 14. The petitioner's claim was reported on favourably, but the Barony has not yet been called out of abeyance, and therefore has not been de.-ilt with here. C") Minutes of Proaedingi, p. 127.