114 Fountain of Honours, 8^c. [Ch.VIII. tliese cases the heir has a claim, notwithstanding tlie aliena- tion or surrender. It is laid down that if a Baron, constituted by writ of summons, take a grant by patent of the same barony, this merges or determines his barony by writ [a). But Mr. Hargrave remarks (6), that the doctrine of extinguishing a barony by writ, by acceptance of a patent barony, seems ques- tionable ; for it supposes a right to surrender the barony by writ, which, as we have seen, cannot be legally done. Indeed it was never denied that the barony by writ was not extin- guished by the patent barony, in cases where the old barony by writ was suspended, by the party entitled to it being out of possession or otherwise (c). And in the case of the barony of Lord Willoughby de Broke, it was resolved by the House of Lords, that the grant of a new barony of Willoughby de Broke to Sir F. Greville, by letters patent, to him and his heirs male, (he being in possession of the antient barony by writ) did not destroy such antient barony. But the same continued and descended to his sister and sole heir, and so from her to Sir R. Verney; who was seated in the House of Lords according to the date of the antient barony. It is also settled, that if a person possessed of a barony by writ, which is, consequently, descendible to his heir general, b6 created an earl to him and the heirs male of his body, the earl- dom does not attract the barony, and they are separate and distinct from each other (fi?), and the barony will descend to the heir general, although the earldom become extinct [e). Where a dignity or title of honouf is descendible to heirs general, and the person possessed of it dies, leaving only daughters, or sisters, or coheirs, it falls into abeyance, or ra- ther becomes vested in the Crown, during the continuance of the coheirship; for a dignity is entire and not divisible, and no one coheir can in particular sustain a claim to it, and of course they cannot claim it together {/). But the dignity in abeyance is not in the power and disposal of the King abso- (a) Hal. M. S. Co. Lit. 16, b. note (2). {b) Ibid. (c) Ibid. 12 Rep. 1. Coll. 122, 123. I>ords* Journ. 4 vol. 149. {e) Collins, 286. 3 Cruise Dig. 237. tit. Dignity, sect. 131. (/) Lords' Journ. 3 vol. 535. Collins, 175. 3 Cruise Dig. 245, 248. sect. 149, {d) Collins, 195. 1 Inst. 15, b.not«3. &c. Ibid. 266, 7; per C. J. Eyre. lutely,
