Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/34

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xxiv COMPLETE PEERAGE as a ' Parliament' in 1677, when the solitary writ of summons produced in the Frescheville claim (see Frescheville) was to this assembly. But in the Wahull claim (1892), when this was one of the two ' Parliaments ' to which writs of summons were produced, Lord Selborne said, in his Judgment, " it seems to me clear that the Assembly appointed to meet at Salisbury in 1 297, to which Thomas de Wahull was summoned, was not a proper Parliament. " Nevertheless, a writ of summons to it had been accepted as valid (in 1877) in the Mowbray and Segrave Case (see Round's Peerage and Pedigree, vol. i, pp. 255, 260). It should be added that the strange error of Dugdale (followed by Nicolas), who carelessly read Mathie as Mathei, which led him to suppose that the ' Parliament ' was summoned for 2 1 September (instead of 24 February), was first pointed out in 1823. See the Lords' Reports, 2nd edition, vol. i, p. 470, note 55. In N. & Q., 5th Ser., vol. V, p. 103, James Greenstreet gives 94 coats of arms of the magnates there assembled, which he calls " The First Nobility Roll, " being the earliest dated roll of arms known to exist. WRITS OF 1342 The only other doubtful writs about which it is needful to say anything are those of 25 February (1341/2) 16 Edward III, and they do not require detailed examination. For some unknown reason they been have treated as good by peerage writers, but there seems no justification for looking on the assembly summoned by them as other than a council. The matter is of some importance, for though, so far as the Editor is aware, no attempt has ever been made to establish the validity of a writ of this date before the Committee of Privileges, yet of the multitude of men then sum- moned some were never summoned on any other occasion. Stubbs in his Constitutional History remarks that " Edward did not venture to summon a Parliament " in this year. The objections to these Writs, shortly stated by J. H. Round in a letter to the Editor, are as follows : — " The summonses are headed " de consilio summonito " [not " de Parliamento summonito " as is the case in 1341 and 1343] and are addressed only to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, seven bishops, nine Earls and the Earl of Angus, and to a great number of Barons, but to no Knights [of the