PRECED'ENCE, the order in which individuals are entitled to follow one another in a state procession or on other public occasions. We find questions of precedence arising in very early ages both in Europe and in the east. Where such questions have arisen among ambassadors, as the representatives of different countries, great tenacity has often been shown in supporting the claims to rank of the states represented. In England, the order of precedence depends partly on the statute 31 Henry VIII. c. 10, partly on sub sequent statutes, royal letters patent, and ancient usages. Among questions of preced ence depending on usage, there are some which can hardly be considered so settled as to be matter of right, and are in a great degree left to the discretion of the officers of the crown. Formerly, they were adjudicated on by the constable and marshal in the court of chivalry; and since that tribunal has fallen into abeyance, the practice of persons aggrieved in these matters is to petition the crown, which generally refers the, disputed question to the °incurs of arms. In Scotland, the Lyon court has the direct jurisdiction in all questions of precedence.
It is a general rule of precedence, that persons of the same rank follow according to the order of the erection of that rank; and in the precedence of the Enalish peerage, it has been fixed that the younger sons of each preceding rank take place immediately after the eldest son of the next succeeding rank. Married women and widows take the same rank among each other as their husbands, except such rank be professional of official, and it is an invariable rule that no office gives rank to the wife or children of the holder of it. Umnarried women take the same rank with their eldest brother; the wife of the eldest son, of,any however, preceding the sisters of her husband and all other ladies in the same degree with them. Marriage with an inferior does not take away the precedence which a woman enjoys by birth or creation; with this exception, that the wife of a peer always takes her rank from her husband. The following tables exhibit
the precedence of different ranks as recognized by law in England.
At the coronation of Charles I., the rule of precedency'of the nobility of England was introduced in Scotland; and it was arranged that peers of England (or their sons, etc.), of a given degree, should within England take precedence of peers of Scotland of the same degree; and that this precedence should be reversed in Scotland. But by the acts of union of Scotland and Ireland, the precedence in any given degree of the peerage has been established as follows: 1. Peers of England; 2. Peers of Scotland; 3. Peers of Great Britain; 4. Peers of Ireland; 5. Peers of the United Kingdom, and peers of Ire- . land created subsequently to the Irish union. A similar order is understood to obtain in regard to baronets, though in Ireland it seems lately to have become the practice to allow all baronets to rank according to the respective dates of their patents. The rela tive ranking of the great officers of the crown in Scotland was thus settled by statute in 1623 and 1661: The right of the judges of the court of session, in Scotland, to precede baronets has been generally admitted. Lyon king of arms has precedency "before all knights and gentlemen within the kingdom, not being officers of state, or senators of the college of justice." It seems to be held in England that the precedence of Scotch officers of state, judges, etc., as recognized before the union, does not now extend beyond Scotland.
There are rules for precedence for the members of different professions, recognized among themselves, but which do not confer general social precedence: Doctors in the universities rank thus: 1. Of divinity; 2. Of law; 3. Of medicine.