letters patent from the London Gazette of 10 Sept. 1839 (p. 1,740).1 Whitehall, Sept. 7, 1839. The Queen has been pleased to direct Letters Patent to be passed under the Great Seal, declaring Sarah Otway Cave Baroness Braye, she being one of the co-heirs of John the last Lord Braye, and as such one of the co-heirs of the Barony of Braye originating by writ of summons granted to Sir Edmund Bray in the reign of King Henry the Eighth; and that she, the said Sarah Otway Cave, shall be Baroness Braye, and have, hold, and enjoy the said Barony of Braye, together with all the rights, titles, privileges, pre-eminences, immunities and advantages, and the precedency thereunto belonging, to hold to her and the heirs of her body, in as full and ample manner as John the last Lord Braye held and enjoyed the same. The barony was ranked, quite properly, after that of Wentworth, as, we have seen, it was from its earliest days. The relative precedence of Windsor was not then in question, that barony having been, since 1682, merged in the earldom of Plymouth, and being, moreover, actually in abeyance since 10 July 1833. When that abeyance was terminated (1855), the Braye precedent ought to have been strictly followed, the evidence for the origin of the two dignities being absolutely the same. But, instead of that, it will be seen, the proof of sitting in 25 Hen. VIII. was now treated as the earliest evidence for the existence of the dignity. 1 The precedent here followed, as to date, seems to have been that of Vaux, in which the House (following the committee) resolved, 2 March 1837, "That the Barony of Vaux of Harrowden was a Barony created by writ in the reign of King Henry the Eighth and therefore descendible to Heirs General." (The italics are mine.) Whitehall, October 15, 1855. The Queen has been pleased to direct letters patent to be passed under the Great Seal declaring Harriet Clive (commonly called Lady Harriet Clive), Widow, Baroness Windsor, she being one of the coheirs of Other Archer, last Baron Windsor (sixth Earl of Plymouth), deceased, and as such one of the coheirs of the Barony of Windsor, originating by writ of summons to Parliament, granted to Sir Andrew Windsor, in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, and that she shall be Baroness Windsor, and have, hold, and enjoy the said Barony of Windsor, together with all the rights, titles, privileges, pre-eminences, immunities, and advantages, and with the precedency belonging, to hold to her and the heirs of her body in as full and ample manner as Other Archer . . . or any of his ancestors, Barons Windsor held and enjoyed the same." The importance of this action by the Crown is that it virtually ignores the evidence of H. 13, although, as I have now shown, that evidence is strikingly confirmed by what has elsewhere been brought to light. The But in abandoning H. 13 as evidence for the creation of the dignity in 1529, the Crown has only increased the confusion. For the alleged writ of summons granted "in the twenty-fifth year " is wholly imaginary! It is actually found only in Dugdale's deliberate concoction." result of the whole muddle is that no one can tell what is really held by the Committee for Privileges, the House, or the Crown. What, for instance, is the origin to be assigned to Vaux of Harrowden ? It is historically certain that its creation belongs to 1523; but there is no legal evidence that the first The italics are mine. 2 London Gazette, 16 Oct. 1855 (p. 3,797). peer either received a writ of summons or ever sat in the House, and Mr. Hartopp's elaborate claim seemed to treat the general summons in 1536 as the origin desired (in order to reject a creation by patent).' In the Windsor case, the letters patent (1855) deduce, we have seen, the issue of a writ from the fact of a proved sitting; in the Braye case, and apparently in that of Wentworth, no legal proof for either writ or sitting was produced as evidence of creation, for which H. 13 seems to have been deemed sufficient by the Committee for Privileges and the House. It is one of my objects in this paper to call attention to the unsatisfactory, because unsystematic, practice of the Committee for Privileges and the House of Lords. In the Mowbray case, (1877), as I have elsewhere shown,' the modern doctrine of abeyance was carried back centuries per saltum. But even more important, though apparently overlooked, was the startling acceptance without question of writs of summons to the "parliaments of 1283, 1294, and 1297. For the validity of the writs to the meeting at Shrewsbury in 1283 affects of itself a hundred hundred baronies, and the 1 The Lords, we have seen, evaded the difficulty by resolving that the barony had been created "in the reign of Henry VIII." The Complete Peerage holds, somewhat strangely, that this indicates "the date 1529, being that in which there is the first notice of a sitting in this Barony" (VIII. 18). But there is no such notice in 1529, or indeed till 1534, though H. 13 places the young lord's entry into the House in Jan. 1531. The Determination of the Mowbray Abeyance" (Law Quarterly Review, X. 68-77) and in this work below. Mowbray decision, as I have observed, thus effects a revolution in peerage law.' The position, at present, of the Tudor baronies specially discussed in this paper is somewhat analogous to that which has been caused by conflicting decisions on Simon de Montfort's Parliament. De Ros and Despencer are ranked as dating from that Parliament, while its summons has not been deemed valid in the case of other baronies. It is, in any case, quite clear that the present ranking of these baronies-Wentworth, Braye, Windsor-is altogether wrong. In the Parliament beginning June 1536, the precedence found both in the enrolment of summonses and in the Lords' Journals is precisely that which we have found in H. 13 and elsewhere: (1) Hussey, (2) Vaulx, (3) Windsor, (4) Wentworth, (5) Burgh, (6) Braye, (7) Mordaunt. This being so, Lord Windsor is certainly entitled to claim a higher precedence; and the closing words of the letters patent of 15 Oct. 1855 undoubtedly enable him to do so. 3 1 See p. 10 above; and cf. Stubbs' Constitutional History (1875), II. 116, 131, 184, 223, 225. * Vaux is not one of the baronies in question. Its ranking here seems anomalous (see p. 365 note 1). In H. 13 (fo. 3986) it is ranked with Sandys above Hussey in the Parliament of 1529– 1536; and it is so ranked in the Lords' Journals where they recommence in Jan. 1534. This would seem to be the right ranking. 3 Journals, 12 June 1536 (28 Hen. VIII.). IX Charles I. and Lord Glamorgan PART I GLAMORGAN'S DUKEDOM FOR some two hundred and fifty years-indeed, ever since their creation or alleged creation—the dukedom of Somerset and earldom of Glamorgan, bestowed on Lord Herbert, the son of the marquis of Worcester, have been surrounded by a baffling haze of mystery and doubt. But while the dukedom has long been so forgotten that it is not even mentioned by modern writers on the Peerage, the earldom has continued to vex the souls not only of antiquaries, but of historians. For on the authenticity of these dignities and of the documents affecting them there hangs, to some extent, the solution of a great problem. This problem is that of Glamorgan's secret treaty (1645), of which his biographer observes that— The genuineness of the commissions and of the patents on the authority of which he acted-a question involving the character of Charles I., has since been one of the most intricate and fiercely debated points in English history.1 1 Dictionary of National Biography, LIII. 233. It may be as |