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by your Majesty, to appertain to the said Lord Willoughby, and his heirs, with a salvo jure nevertheless to your Majesty.

The real fact is, that the questions referred to the consideration of the Judges did not in any degree lead to the consideration of the claim of the Earl and Countess of Derby, but those questions were of necessity confined to the claims of the two other competitors, the Earl of Oxon, as heir male, and the Lord Willoughby, as heir general; by reason that at the time of the reference to the Judges on the 11th March 1625, the petition of the Earl and Countess of Derby was not referred to the house.

Yet, by some inscrutable mistake, or error in the proceedings, respecting this high office, the house was misled and induced to certify to the King, that the greatest number of the Judges did resolve, that the office of Lord Great Chamberlain of England did belong to the Lord Willoughby, as heir general to Henry, Earl of Oxford, who was last seised, and died seised of the said office, notwithstanding the facts are not to be controverted, that the Lord Willoughby was the cousin of the said Earl Henry of the whole-blood, and the Countess of Derby was the eldest sister of the same Earl of the half-blood.

[167] To contend that the half blood is a bar to the claim of a personal dignity, is to controvert a principle in law, an axiom not to be called in question; and it is conceived to be yet more difficult, if not impossible, to prove, that in the claim or title to such personal dignity, the son of an aunt of Henry the last Earl of Oxford, was the heir general preferably to the sister of the said Earl, which sister was not only of the whole-blood to the Earl of Oxford, to whom this high dignity was first granted, but also of the whole-blood to John Vere, the sixteenth Earl of Oxford, and the common ancestor of the said Countess of Derby and Lord Willoughby of Eresby.

The question in this case is, whether the heir general must claim under the first grantee of this high office, as is the law in the case of a peerage, or from the person last seised, according to the rules of law which regulate the descent of lands.

It is admitted, that if the Countess of Derby and Lord Willoughby had been competitors, claiming as heirs any lands or tenements, whereof Henry the last Earl of Oxford died seised, the certificate of the Lords that the Lord Willoughby was the heir general of Earl Henry, who was last seised, and who died seised of those lands or tenements, would have been unquestionably right. But the fact is clearly otherwise (Sir William Jones, 121), and every argument which in 1625 was used to convince, and which actually did convince the house, that the heir male was not entitled to this dignity, is conclusive that it ought not to be considered as land; it was then considered to be so entirely in the nature of a personal dignity, no way to be compared to lands and tenements which are local and real, as to induce the major part of the Judges to deliver their opinions against the title of the Earl of Oxford, by reason that this high dignity was incapable of being intailed or limited to an use.

The words of the first original patent are quare volo quod ipse et hæres ejus cum jure hæreditario teneant cum omnibus dignitatibus, libertatibus et honorificentiis ad eam pertinentibus (Sir William Jones, 123). And it is contended, that the office and the earldom are alike personal dignities, and consequently, the claim or title to this high office ought to be regulated by the rules which prevail in titles of honour. Honours are descendible in the blood of the first grantee, and must descend from the first that was seised of the honour, contrary to other inheritances.

This high office is held of the king by grand serjeanty. It is a personal dignity, the title to which is regulated by rules which vary essentially, and in many instances from those which relate to lands; and among others, 1st, Fines cannot be levied of honours, though it is well known, that by a fine of lands a bar is created in a few years to the titles of those persons who are not under the legal disabilities of infancy, etc. 2dly, There can be no possessio fratris of an honour as there may be of land. 3dly, Coparceners of honours are unknown. 4thly, Length of time is not a bar to the claim of an honour or dignity, as it is of lands.

[168] In the present case, the length of time which may be opposed to the claim of the Duchess Dowager of Atholl, seems to deserve particular attention. The barony of Willoughby, though in abeyance many years, has been very recently confirmed to one of the present competitors for this high office. The journals of the House of Lords are replete with instances of baronies in fee having been claimed, and the claim admitted after they had been several centuries in abeyance. It is an undoubted