INTKODUCTOKY NOTICE. THE Minor Barons lost their right of individual summons to Parliament ^^S^^ in the reign of King John, and the title of Baronet is said to have been ^Mw^m frequently applied to them, but it did not receive its present meaning ^H ■ until the reign of James I. when the creation of a new dignity was ^^^^^^ used as a means of supplying the financial requirements of the Crown. Sir Thomas Shirley, of Wiston, is said to have been the author of "the devise for making of Baronets;" he died Oct. 1612, shortly after the institution of the Order, and on 21 Jan. 1615, his son and namesake made a claim on account of his father's services in this respect. Sir Oliver Lambert having reduced the pro- vince of Ulster in Ireland, the King, desiring to retain it in subjection and to encourage plantations therein by the English, as well as to recruit his treasury, instituted the hereditary dignity of a Baronet 11-22 May, 1611, to be bestowed on knights and esquires, who were to be " Men of quality, state of living, and good reputation worthy of the same, at the least descended of a grandfather by the father's side that bore arms, and (who) had also a certain yearly revenue in lands of inheritance of possession one thousand pounds per annum de claro, or lands of the old rent, as good in account as one thousand pounds per annum of improved rents, or at the least two parts in three to be divided of lands to the said values in possession, and the other third part in reversion, expectant upon one life only, holding by dower or in jointure." Each stipulated to maintain thirty foot-soldiers in Ireland at 8d. per diem for three years, and to pay the first year's wages into the exchequer at one payment upon passing their patents. The original documents and form of patent are given in the second part of Selden's Titles of Honour. The precedence assigned to Baronets was before all Knights Bannerets,* except those made by the King himself or the Prince of Wales under the Eoyal banner on the field of battle, and next after the younger sons of viscounts and barons. The badge (arg. a sinister hand erect open and couped at the wrist gu., being the arms of the province of Ulster) was granted by royal decree 28 May, 1612, to be borne in a canton or escutcheon on their coats of arms ; and in the same year King James knighted the heirs apparent of all existing baronets, and ordained that their eldest sons should be knighted upon attaining their majority; but this clause is now omitted from the patents.
- Col. John Smith, who recovered the Koyal Standard at Edge Hill, 23 Oct. 1642, seems to have
been the last English knight banneret. a
