164 WILTSHIRB. fcrfmUd.{*) Bu widuw, to whom a iientiun of AlOO wm gimntad, 27 Jan. 1899/400, ffi. ThonuM Di La Kiyibbi, who d. (1405-06) 7 Hen. IV. She m, fonrthly (as one of hit three wifea), Sir Stephen Hattfild, Sheriff of co. Glouoeiter 1428 and 1480, who d, 1465 ; the heniulf d. 1 May 1487. (A) "The Barra attainder waa declared in Pari. ahortlY after the acceeaion of Hen. IV., and, when the act waa introdaoed for that object^ hia aged father [Richard, Lord Scrope de Bolton] raised his feeble voice t«> noknowledge submissiyeljr the justice of the sentence (Rot. Pari. toL iii, p. 458^) " [BelU*s KnigkU of tJU CfarUr] It was not till more than 4} centuries [I] later that a claim was made, 1859-69, to this Barldom, by Mr. Scrope, of Danby, co. York ; (undoubtedly the heur male collateral), on the ground that the words ** de eorpore muo " were not (ezprcMly) set forth in the patent. it was, howcTcr, decided against him, notwithstanding a prepoeteroua dedaion, in 1881, in favour of such collateral heirs in the caae of the Earldom of Devon. Theee conflicting decisons, in 1881 (as to the Barldom of Devon) and in 1869 (as to the Earldom of Wiltshire), are the cause of a suggestion in an article iu the Edinburgh Review for Oct 1890 (on the " New Series of State Trials/' from 1820 downwards), as to whether, in regard to the House of I^ords, ** there ought not to be some/noZify in the decisijns of the committee for privileges,*' and it is pointed out how that, as a rule, that committee is " concerned simply with quettiont of de»e«ni and not vnth pottU< of law." In the catie of the claims of the ICarlduins of Devon and Wiltshire, the purely legal point was argued as to whether the Grown had power to grant a peerage to heirs male general for ever. In the former the deciaion (in 1881), guided by the enthusiastic (but utterly Law-lesa) Lord Ohsncellor Brougham, and supported by Lord Wvnford ('* superficial in legal knowledge," and " nicknamed fhejudge-advocaUf" see Foss's Judga), wss in favour of such power ; while in the latter (in 1869) by a diametrically opposed decision. Lords Chelmsford, Colonsay, and Redesdale held that such power was not within the power of the ()rown. It was, moreover, some 6 and 7 years later, laid down by liord (chancellor Oaims (in the claim to the Barony of Buckhurst) that " a Peerage, partaking [as it does] of the qualities of reai eMkUe, must bo made, in its limitations by the Crown, descendible in a course knovm to the law" — which would be fatal to the interpretation of such a limitation as " lueredibus suis masculis in perpetuum,*' other than by (the generally received one) heirs male of the body in perpetuity. There are, however, many other incidental points raised by these incongruous decisions. The old doctrine (probably the true one) was that when a peerage had once fallen into abeyance it vested in the Crown, in whose power it thenceforth was to withhold it from any coheir and even (after the extinction of all coheirs) from the (sole) heir. This doctrine (being that which was the opinion of the judges, in 1625, with respect to the Baronies, lately held with the Earldom of Oxford) was acted upon in 1694, when, in the firet instance, the committee resolved against the daim of Sir Richard Vemey to the Barony of Willougby de Broke. Soon afterwards, however, "several Peers, as the Earkof Lindsay, Thsnet, Sussex, and Abingdon, the I^ord Deluwarre^ &o., had Baronies by writ in them (some whereof had at that time only daughters), who looking upon themselves as concerned from what was mentioned in the committee in relation to the descent of Baronies by writ" [see Ouise's JHgnitiei] came to a resolution, diametrically opposed to the above, vis., that such heir **ha9 a right to demand a eummom to Pari" and, as a logical consequence, that Vemey wot entitled to the said Barony. Another such reversal of opinion was when the House, in 1711, without any reference from the Crown, resolved, in their wisdom, that by the Union with SootUnd the Crown had been deprived of the right of conferring a peerage of Pari, on a Peer of Scotland, an opinion which they also acted upon, after a reference from the Crown, in 1719, but these two (absunlly tdlra viree) resolutions were rescinded in 1782, and the claim of the great grandson of the peer who had been refused admission to the House on the above groundH, in 1711, was acknowledged. It must also be remembered (ss stated by Lord Chelmsford iu the Wiltee Peerage Claim) that '* the resolutions of the committee were merely for the information and advice of the Crown," and "could not be regarded as final judgments, which, when once pronounced, must not be departed from." In Her. and Oen,, vol. vi, pp. 178-191, the Wiltes peerage claim is well discussed by the well known J. G. Nichols, and the following are the remarks as to how the proceedings in the Pari, of Hen. IV., in which William Le Scrope was treated as a Commoner thronghout, affected that Barldom. "The dignity waa evidently
