BARONET, the lowest of the hereditaty dignities in Great Britain and Ireland, origi nally instituted by James I, 22 May 1611. The first person to receive the honor was Sir Nicholas Bacon of Redgrave, whose successors in the title have ever since held the rank of premier baronet of the kingdom. Baronets are created by letters patent under the great seal, and the honor is generally given to the grantee and the heirs male of his body lawfully be gotten. though sometimes it is entailed on col laterals and even to heirs female. The order was created nominally to assist in the planta tion of Ulster —all baronets are thus entitled to bear on their coats of arms the "bloody hand* of Ulster —but really in order to raise money for the king, and each baronet, on his creation, was obliged to pay into the treasury a sum amounting to a little less than $5,500. According to the terms of its foundation the dignity could be conferred only on those who had the right by inheritance from at least a grandfather to wear coat-armor, and whose tncome from lands was not less than $5,000 per annum. In 1622 there were 200 baronets in England, this being the number to which the order was originally limited. Charles I and subsequent sovereigns disregarded altogether the original limitation of the number. Pre
cedence is given to baronets before all knights, except those of the Garter, bannarets created on the field and privy-councillors. An order of Baronets of Ireland was also instituted by James I, for the same purpose and with the same privileges as the baronets of England. Since the union, in 1£301, none have been created otherwise than as baronets of the United King dom. Charles I instituted an order of baronets of Scotland and Nova Scotia in 1625 in ac cordance with the intentions of his father, James I, who had granted (1621) the territory of Acadia to Sir William Alexander, after ward Earl of Stirling, to be held by him as a feudal colony; the number was fixed at 150, and in 10 years 107 were created — 34 baronies in what is now New Brunswick, 15 in Nova Scotia, 15 in Cape Breton and 34 in Anticosti. The colony, theoretically a part of the kingdom of Scotland, was an entire failure, and the ter ritory formally ceded to the French by the Treaty of Breda in 1667. Since the union of the parliaments in 1707 no new baronets spe cially connected with Scotland have been created.