INTRODUCTION. The Barons of Kingsale enjoy, exclusively, the hcreclitary privilege of being covered in the royal presence. Peers have the privilcge in parliament of wearing parliamentary robes of scarlet cloth, difibrenced from each other by bars of ermine, Dnkes having four, Marquesses four on the right side and thrce on the lcft, Earls three, and Viscounts and Barons two rows of plain white fur only. By the cur/allies reqni, the eldest son in each degree of created dignity is as of the degree next to his father ; and such eldest sons of Peers as enjoy a plurality of titles, take and use the secondary one by courtesy. All Peers carry supporters to their arms, as incidental to their hereditary dignity, and otherwise adorn them exteriorly with their respective coronets and mantles. Selden states that a coronet is first mentioned in the investiture of Earls in the time of EnwARD VI. but that they were much more ancient appears from the will of Richnrd, Earl of Arundel, dated 5 December, 1375, in which lie beqneatlies his i/wee corcneis to his son and histwo eldest daughters, a circumstance which proves that coronets were carried as ensigns of high nobility in the fourteenth century, but not according to any rule or restriction as to their descent. iVbte.—Some peers of Ireland, created since the Union, have taken their titles from places in Eogland but by a sort of fiction, the i,aine of an English county is never introduced into the patent. Lord Rendlesham is of ]?esdlreious, without any county. Lord Macdonald is of Slate, in the esnety of Aatriss, whereas Slste is in the Hebrides. Lord Newborongh is ef Ii’cliuul. TIlE BARONETAGE. THE hereditary dignity of Baronet was erected by patent in England by King JAMES I. in 1611, and extended to Ireland in 1619. The order was first conferred in Scotland by King CHARLES I. in 1625.* PRIVILEGES OP TIlE BARONETAGE. BY the constitution of the baronetage, it is declared and provided, that Barenets and their heirs male, their wives, sons, daughters. and sons’ wives, respectively, or any of them, at whatsoever time to come, in all questions concerning any place, precedency, privilege, or other matter concerning them, shall be regulated by the use and practice of custom and law, as other hereditary degrees of dignity are ordained and directed, concerning place, prerogative, and I )recedency. The wives of Baronets are Ladies, and enjoy the title of Baronetess, with place and precedency, both during the lives, and after the decease of their husbands, according to the manner and usage of other hereditary degrees. The daughters of Baronets have the rank and precedence of their eldest brother. The Baronets of the several creations have assigned to them by the grant of the royal founder, as a perpetual military post of honour, place in the royal armies of the sovereign, near and about the royal standard for its defence. The Baronets of England and Ireland hear, as an honourable augmentation, on a canton in their armorial ensigns, the royal arms of Ulster, viz., arg., a sinister band, erect, gu., these senior branches of the baronetage having been erected to promote the plantation of that province. The Bacenets of Scotland are also privileged to charge their coat armour with a similar augmentatson,—vsz., the arms of Nova Scotia,—having been founded to promote the plantation of that province. By a royal warrant of CHARLES I. in 1629, they are also allowed to wear as a personal decoration, an orange riband and badge,—viz., in a scutcheon, nrg., a Saint Andrew’s cross, az., thereon an incscutchcon of the royal arms of Scotland, with an imperial crown ahove the scntchieon, and encircled with the motto, “Paz meaiis /monesiw gloria, being the motto of HENRI’, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of the royal founder of the order. The only instance of this dignity baring been conferred upon a female occurs in that of Dame Mary Bolles, of Osberton, Notts, who, in 1635, was elevated to the Baronetcy of Scotland, with remainder to her berm whatsoever. Nete.—Sinoe rho Legislative Unions between England and Scotland, and Great Britain and Ireland, tIm separate Orders of Baronets have been superseded by one general institution of BAaoNErs OF TUE UaiTED Kmaonon. who also bear on their coat armour the augmentation of the sinister band, go.
