712 APPENDIX H Conyers Darcy In 1641 was a coheir to the Baronies of Conyers and Darcy, both held to be created in fee. In response to a petition to the King, he was declared and confirmed Baron Darcy and Baron Conyers in Aug. 1641, to him and the heirs male of his body. The case Is in many respects remarkable, and deserving of more attention than it has received. Hitherto the Barony of Windsor Is held to have furnished the first clear case of the determina- tion of an abeyance, but the principle Is plainly enunciated in the warrant which Issued for Conyers Darcy's restoration to the Barony of Darcy. The warrant recites that the ancient Barony of Darcy fell into the King's hands and there remains to be granted (if such should be our pleasure) ... to any one of the co-heirs of the aforesaid John Baron Darcy. The particulars of this case are set out sub Darcy in the section on Peerage Cases. A similar disposition of a barony by the Crown was projected in Feb. 1645/6, but not carried through. On this occasion the King proposed to grant to Thomas Windsor, otherwise Hickman, son of Elizabeth, elder daughter and coheir of Thomas, Lord Windsor {d. 1641), the Barony of Windsor to him and the heirs male of his body.C) There Is no reference to the fact that the Barony was In abeyance; the King seems to have deemed it to be In his gift. In 1660, however, when Thomas had a patent of restitution of the Barony to him and his heirs for ever, the state of abeyance was recognised, for the patent recited " that it belongeth to his Majesty to declare which of the said coheirs shall enjoy the dignity of their ancestors. "C") Compare this with the Darcy warrant above; and see post, sub Peerage Cases. The doctrine of abeyance advanced another step a few years later. In 1677 Sir Robert Shirley (grandson of Sir Henry Shirley, who had married Dorothy, sister of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex and Lord Ferrers), one of the coheirs of the Barony of Ferrers, which had descended to coheirs in 1646, had the abeyance terminated in his favour by the issue to him of a writ of summons to Parliament, 14 Dec. 1677. The next petition, relating to the Barony of Clifford, elucidated a new point regarding abeyance. On this account, and because so many problems connected with barony by writ are illustrated by it, the case will repay special attention. There was no doubt about the descent of the Barony of Clifford until George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, died in 1605, leaving as heir general his daughter Anne, who married, istly, Richard, Earl of Dorset, 2ndly, Philip, Earl of Pembroke. The Barony was claimed for Anne In 1 606, (") but the generally accepted view at that time was that it descended to (') This grant, transcribed from the Signet Office Docket Book, 1644-1660, is printed by J. H. Round in Studies in Peerage and Family History, p. 360. C") Pike, Constitutional History of the House of Lords, p. 134, quoting Signet Office Docket Book, June 1660. (') In the case for the Earl of Thanet it is stated that " The case then only had this guarre, as it seems by a brief in the manuscript at Lincolns-inn, concerning this
