TH

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.

OF THE CIVIL STATE.

HE lay part of his majefty's fubjects, or fuch of the people as are not comprehended under the denomination of clergy, may be divided into three diftinét states, the civil, the military, and the maritime.

THAT part of the nation which falls under our first and most comprehensive divifion, the civil state, includes all orders of men from the highest nobleman to the meanest peafant, that are not included under either our former divifion, of clergy, or under one of the two latter, the military and maritime states: and it may sometimes include individuals of the other three orders; fince a nobleman, a knight, a gentleman, or a peafant, may become either a divine, a foldier, or a feaman.

THE Civil ftate confifts of the nobility and the commonalty. Of the nobility, the peerage of Great Britain, or lords temporal, as forming (together with the bishops) one of the fupreme branches of the legislature, I have before fufficiently fpoken: we are here to confider them according to their feveral degrees, or titles of honour.

ALL degrees of nobility and honour are derived from the king as their fountain: and he may institute what new titles he pleases. Hence it is that all degrees of nobility are not of equal antiquity. Thofe now in ufe are dukes, marqueffes, earls, viscounts, and barons ".

1. A duke, though he be with us, in refpect of his title of nobility, inferior in point of antiquity, to many others, yet is fuperior to all of them in rank; his being the first title of dignity after the royal family. Among the Saxons the Latin name of dukes, duces, is very frequent, and fignified, as among the Romans, the commanders or leaders of their armies, whom in their own language they called pereroga; and in the laws of Henry I. (as tranflated by Lambard) we find them called heretochii. But after the Norman conqueft, which changed the military polity of the nation, the kings themfelves continuing for many generations dukes of Normandy, they would not honour any fubjects with the title of duke, till the time of Edward III.; who, claiming to be king of France, and thereby lofing the ducal in the royal dignity (1), in the eleventh year of his reign created kis fon, Edward the black prince, duke of Cornwall: and many, of the royal family efpecially, were afterwards raised to the like honour. However, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, A. D. 1572, the whole order became utterly extinct; but it was revived about fifty years afterwards by her fucceffor, who was remarkably prodigal of honours, in the perfon of George Villiers duke of Buckingham.

Camden. Britan. tit. ordines. This is apparently derived from the fame root as the German hertzog, the antient appellation of dukes in that

country. Seld. tit. hon. 2. 1. 12.

⚫ Camden. Britan. tit. ordines. Spelman. Gloff. 191.

(1) This reafon is not very fatisfactory, and, in fact, this order of nobility was created before Edward affumed the title of king of France. Dr. Henry, in his excellent hiftory of England, in forms us, that "about a year before Edward III. affumed the "title of king of France, he introduced a new order of nobility, "to inflame the military ardour and ambition of his earls and barons, by creating his eldest fon prince Edward duke of Corn"wall. This was done with great folemnity in full parliament "at Westminster, March 17, A. D. 1337." Hen. Hift. 8 vol. 135. 8vo. edition. See ante, p. 224, note 10.

2. A marqueft, marchio, is the next degree of nobility. His office formerly was (for dignity and-duty were never separated by our ancestors) to guard the frontiers and limits of the kingdom: which were called the marches, from the teutonic word, marche, a limit : fuch as, in particular, were the marches of Wales and Scotland, while each continued to be an ene my's country. The perfons, who had command there, were called lords marchers, or marqueffes; whose authority was abolished by ftatute 27 Hen. VIII. c. 27: though the title had long before been made a mere enfign of honour; Robert Vere, carl of Oxford, being created marquess of Dublin, by Richard II. in the eighth year of his reign.

[398] 3. AN carl is a title of nobility fo antient, that it's original cannot clearly be traced out. Thus much feems tolerably certain: that among the Saxons they are called caldormen, quafi elder men, fignifying the fame as fenior or fenator among the Romans; and alfo fchiremen, because they had each of them the civil government of a feveral divifion or fhire. On the irruption of the Danes, they changed the name to earles, which, according to Camden, fignified the fame in their language. In Latin they are called comites (a title first used in the empire) from being the king's attendants; " a focietate "nomen fumpferunt, reges enim tales fibi affociant"." After the Norman conqueft they were for fome time called counts or countees, from the French; but they did not long retain that name themselves, though their fhires are from thence called counties to this day. The name of earls or comites is now become a mere title, they having nothing to do with the govern ment of the county; which, as has been more than once obferved, is now entirely devolved on the sheriff, the earl's deputy, or vice-comes. In writs and commiffions, and other formal inftruments, the king, when he mentions any peer of the degree of an earl, usually fliles him, " trusty and well "beloved coufin:" an appellation as antient as the reign of Henry IV.: who being either by his wife, his mother, or

his fifters, actually related or allied to every earl then in the kingdom, artfully and conftantly acknowleged that connection in all his letters and other public acts: from whence the ufage has defcended to his fucceffors, though the reafon has long ago failed.

4. THE name of vice-comes or viscount (2) was afterwards made use of as an arbitrary title of honour, without any fhadow of office pertaining to it, by Henry the fixth; when, in the eighteenth year of his reign, he created John Beaumont a peer, by the name of viscount Beaumont, which was the first inftance of the kind',

5. A baron's is the most general and univerfal title of nobility; for originally every one of the peers of fuperior rank had also a barony annexed to his other titles (3). But it hath 2 Inft. 5, 6.

2 Inft. 5.

(2) Thefe Latin and French words are the fame as sheriff in English. This proves the high refpect that was fhewn to this officer in ancient times, for his name alone was thought an honoure able title of nobility. See note &. p. 346.

(3) At the time of the conqueft, the temporal nobility confifted only of earls and barons; and by whatever right the earls and the mitred clergy before that time might have attended the great council of the nation, it abundantly appears that they afterwards fat in the feudal parliament in the character of barons. It has been truly faid, that, for fome time after the conqueft, wealth was the only nobility, as there was little personal property at that time, and a right to a feat in parliament was entirely territorial, or de pended upon the tenure of landed property. Ever fince the conqueft, it is true, that all land is held either immediately or mediately of the king; that is, either of the king himfelf, or of a te. nant of the king, or it might be after two or more fubinfeudations, And it was also a general principle in the feudal fyftem, that every tenant of land, or land owner, had both a right and obligation to attend the court of his immediate fuperior. Hence every tenant in capite, i. e. the tenant of the king, was at the fame time entitled and bound to attend the king's court or parliament, being the great court baron of the nation.

fometimes happened that, when an antient baron hath been raised to a new degree of peerage, in the courfe of a few ge

It will not be neceffary for me here to enlarge farther upon the original principles of the feudal fyftem, and upon the origin of peerage; but I fhall briefly abridge the account which Selden has given in the fecond part of his Titles of Honour, c. 5. beginning at the 17th fection, being perhaps the clearest and most fatisfactory that can be found. He divides the time from the conqueft into three periods: 1. From the conqueft to the latter end of the reign of king John. 2. From that time to the 11th of Richard that period to the time he is writing, which may now be extended to the prefent time. In the first period, all, who held any quantity of land of the king, had, without distinction, a right to be fummoned to parliament; and this right being confined folely to the king's tenants, of confequence all the peers of parliament during that period fat by virtue of tenure and a writ of fummons.

II.

3.

In the beginning of the fecond period, that is, in the laft year of the reign of King John, a diftinction, very important in it's confequences, (for it eventually produced the lower houfe of parliament,) was introduced, viz. a divifion of these tenants into greater and leffer barons: for king John in his magna charta declares, faciemus fummoneri archiepifcopos, epifcopos, abbates, comites, et majores barones regni figillatim per literas noftras, et præterea faciemus fummoneri ingenerali per vicecomites et ballivos noftros omnes alios, qui in capite tenent de nobis ad certum diem, &c. See Bl. Mag. Ch. Joh. p. 14. It does not appear that it ever was afcertained what conftituted a greater baron, and it probably was left to the king's difcretion to determine; and no great inconvenience could have refulted from it's remaining indefinite, for thofe who had not the honour of the king's letter, would have what in effect was equivalent, a general fummons from the fheriff. But in this fecond period teuure began to be difregarded, and perfons were summoned to the parliament by writ, who held no lands of the king. This continued to be the cafe till the 11th of Rich, II. when the practice of creating peers by letters patent firft commenced. J not to ko

In that year John de Beauchamp, fteward of the household to Rich. II. was created by patent lord Beauchamp baron of Kidders mipfter in tail male; and fince that time peerages have been created both by writ and patent, without any regard to teatre or estate.

The