Peerage

Magna Carta and Personal Summons to the Majores Barones.—The sequel is found in Magna Carta, wherein it is provided that the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and greater barons are to be called up to the council by writ directed to each severally; and all who hold of the king in chief, below the rank of greater barons, are to be summoned by a general writ addressed to the sheriff of their shire. Magna Carta thus indicates two definite sections of the king's tenants, a division which had evidently persisted for some time. The "greater barons" are the parents of the peers of later days. As for the rest of the tenants in-chief, poorer in estate and therefore of less consequence, it is sufficient here to note that they fell back into the general mass of manorial owners; and that their representatives, the knights of the shire, after some hesitation, at length joined forces with the city and burgher representatives to form the House of Commons. From 1254 to 1295 in varying numbers there were summoned to the King's Councils representatives of the counties, boroughs and cities. The assembly of 1295, called the Model Parliament, is regarded legally as the first of our freely-elected properly repre sentative assemblies, but recent research now ascribes this charac ter to a Parliament summoned as early as 2275.

To every spiritual and temporal baron accustomed to receive an individual writ, one was issued. Every county elected its knights, and every city or borough of any importance was in structed by the sheriff to elect and to return its allotted number of representatives. It may be taken for granted, however, that any assembly held since 1295, which did not conform substantially to the model of that year, cannot be regarded constitutionally as a full parliament. The point is even of modern importance, as in order to establish the existence of a barony by writ it must be proved that the claimant's ancestor was summoned by indi vidual writ to a full parliament, and that either he himself or one of the heirs of his body was present in a full parliament.

Grades of Peerage.

An examination of the early writs issued to individuals shows that the baronage consisted of archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls and barons. While the archbishops and bishops received their writs with regularity, the summonses to heads of ecclesiastical houses and greater barons were inter mittent. The prelate held an office which lived on regardless of the fate of its temporary holder, and if by reason of death, dep rivation or translation the office became vacant, a writ still issued to the "Guardian of the Spiritualities." The prior or the abbot, on the other hand, often outside the jurisdiction of the English Church, and sometimes even owing allegiance to a foreign order, was but the personal representative of a land-holding com munity. The conclusion, then, may be drawn that in theory the

issue of a writ was at the pleasure of the Crown, and that in practice the moving factor in the case of the prelates was office and personal importance, and in the case of priors, abbots, earls and barons, probably, in the main, extent of possession.

Hereditary Principle.

The next point for consideration is when did the peerage, as the baronage subsequently came to be called, develop into a body definitely hereditary? Here again growth was gradual and somewhat obscure. Throughout the reigns of the first three Edwards summonses were not always issued to the same individual for successive parliaments; and it is quite certain the king never considered that the issue of one writ to an individual bound the Crown to its repetition for the rest of his life, much less to his heirs in perpetuity. Again we must look to tenure for an explanation. The custom of primo geniture tended to secure estates in strict family succession, and if extent of possession had originally extracted the acknowledg ment of a personal summons from the Crown it is more than probable that as successive heirs came into their inheritance they, too, would similarly be acknowledged. In early days the summons was a burden to be suffered of necessity, an unpleasant incident of tenure, in itself undesirable, and probably so regarded by the majority of recipients during at least the two centuries following the Conquest. Gradually the free and indiscriminate choice of the Crown became fettered by the principle that, once a summons had been issued to an individual to sit in parliament and he had obeyed that summons, he thereby acquired a right of summons for the rest of his lifetime ; and in later years, when the doctrine of nobility of blood became established, his heirs were held to have acquired the same privilege by hereditary right.

The earl's position in the baronage needs some explanation. Modern historical opinion inclines to the view that while originally an earldom may have been something of an office, it rapidly be came little more than an added name of dignity conferred on one already a leading member of the baronage. Earls received indi vidual summonses to parliament by the name of Earl (q.v.) ; but there is reason to believe that in early days at any rate they sat by tenure as members of the baronage.

If

we review the political situation at the beginning of the i4th century a great change is evident. The line between those mem bers of the baronage in parliament and the rest of the people is firmly and clearly drawn. Tenure as the sole qualification for presence in the national assembly has disappeared, and in its place there appears for the baronage a system of royal selection and for the rest of the people one of representation.