ber and elsewhere, all peers, and the treasurer, comptroller, master of the horse, and vice-chamberlain, were to sit above the principal secretaries; but they were to be placed next to the vice-chamberlain, and above all other privy-councillors. Warrant in the State-Paper Office; and see Camden, Annal. Eliz. P. 415. Barons. +Speaker of the house of com mons. By stat. 1 Wm. and M. c. xxi., it is enacted, that the commissioners of the great seal shall have and take place next after the peers of this realm and the speaker of the house of commons, unless any of them shall happen to be a peer, and then to take rank according to his peerage. This act confirms the speaker's rank by implication. +Lords commissioners of the great seal. Stat. 1 Wm. and M. c. xxi. Secretary of state under the degree of a baron. See above, in the degree of secretaries of state. If any one of the lords commissioners of the great seal shall be a peer, he shall take precedence according to his peerage. Stat. 1 Wm. and M. c. xxi. Viscounts' eldest sons. A knight of the Garter being a member of the house of commons, is within the house to sit above all other degrees, next to the treasurer and comptroller of the household, bearing white staves. Stat. of the order, 13. Eliz. Privy councillors. The chancellor of the order of the Garter. He being a layman ranks after knights privy councillors, and before the chancellor of the exchequer, by decree of king Charles I. 23 Apr. 1629. Chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer. Chancellor of the duchy of Lan caster. Chief justice of queen's bench. The chief justices and chief baron sit on the woolsack with the other judges in the parliament-chamber as assistants, unless they be peers, in which case they sit according to their peerage. Master of the rolls. Vice-chancellor. By stat. 52 Geo. III. c. xxiv. Chief justice of common pleas. ||Chief baron of the exchequer. ||Judges and barons of the degree of the coif of the courts of queen's bench, common pleas, and exchequer, according to their seniority. Knights bannerets royal. Viscounts' younger sons. ||Baronets. By decrees 10th and 14th James I. Knights bannerets. Not made by the king in person in the field. Knights of the Thistle. The statutes of the order are silent on the subject of precedency. Grand crosses of the Bath. They have the same rank that the ancient knights of the Bath had. Stat, of the order, article 15. Knights of St. Patrick. By the royal warrant, 1783, they (being commoners) are to rank immediately after barons' sons; which, however, is inconsistent with the decree and letters patent of James I. creating baronets. See Co. Litt. 16, note by lord Hale. Knights grand crosses of St. Mi chael and St. George. Commanders of the Bath. By statute of the order, 2d Jan. 1815. Knights commanders of St. Michael and St. George. Knights bachelors. The eldest sons of the younger sons of peers. In consequence of an address of the house of peers to the king on the subject. Lords' Journ. 6 Apr. 1677. But the younger sons have no rank what ever. [Baronets' eldest sons. By decrees 10th and 14th James I. ||Knights' eldest sons. Baronets' younger sons. By decrees 10th and 14th James I. ||Knights' younger sons. All the subsequent classes, except esquires and companions of the Bath, have no peculiar precedency assigned to them by statute or otherwise, and therefore have no right to the places given to them in this table. Flag and field officers, colonels. They are esquires as holding the queen's commission, and this is the only rank to which they are entitled legally. Sergeants-at-law. At the funerals of Mr. Pitt and lord Nelson, they were preceded by, 1. the judge of the admiralty; 2. the prime sergeant; 3. gentlemen of the privy chamber; 4. the attorney-general; and 5. the solicitor-general. Masters in chancery were placed next after sergeants-at-law, and knights bachelors after them. Note, that sergeants are summoned by the queen's writ. Masters in chancery. They seem to be entitled to precedency as attendants of the house of peers. And note, that the late lord Henley, who died A.D. 1841, held this office though an Irish peer. But it would seem that a peer of Great Britain sitting in parliament could not be a master in chancery, because a master in chancery is an attendant of the house of peers. Deans, chancellors, and doctors. Their precedence among themselves is undetermined, and they have no right to any rank or place whatever. But if an occasion occurred, they would probably be placed thus by the officers of the crown. Doctors rank as follows in the universities:- 1. doctors of divinity; 2. doctors of law; 3. doctors of physic. Companions of the Bath. By a notification in the Gazette of 1815. But it is doubtful whether that notification could deprive esquires of the place to which they were previously entitled, by placing companions of the Bath before them. Companions and cavalieri of St. Michael and St. George. Esquires. It has been held that barristers must be described as esquires in legal proceedings; but it is very doubtful whether this gives them rank as esquires out of court, or entitles them to the style of esquires, otherwise than as a description in proceedings in court, because it has never been conferred on them by the crown. Gentlemen. Note, that gentlemen entitled to bear coat-armour seem entitled to precedency above others; but this order seems too undefined. The right to coat-armour must be, 1. by grant; 2. by prescription; or 3. by inheritance. Yet it is frequently usurped, and therefore subject to irregularity and abuse. And see the case of Thomas lord Cromwell, 4 Inst. 363. +Yeomen. Blackstone adds, that married women and widows are entitled to the same rank among each other as their husbands would respectively have borne between themselves, except such rank is mere professional or official; and unmarried women to the same rank that their eldest brother would bear among men during the life of their fathers. If the daughter of a duke intermarries with an earl or a peer of lower rank, she follows the precedence of her husband; but if she marries a knight or commoner of lower degree, she retains the rank to which she is entitled by birth. The reason of this is, that her rank is only by courtesy, as she is in the eye of the law a commoner, and it therefore merges in the dignity of the peerage when she becomes a peeress by marriage; but if she marries a commoner, her rank remains, because being gained by birth, it cannot be lost by marriage. There seems to be some apparent question as to the precedency of the lord chancellor, lord keeper, lord treasurer, lord president, and lord privy-seal, not being barons. The statute of precedency enacts, that if those great officers be under the degree of a baron of parliament, they shall in parliaments sit in the uppermost part of the sacks, in the midst of the parliament-chamber, the one of them above the other, in order, as it is above rehearsed. But that in the starchamber, and all other assemblies and conferences of council, they shall sit and be placed as is above rehearsed, and in no other place. On these regulations it is to be observed, that strictly speaking, the woolsacks are out of house, (for which reason, when the lord on the woolsack is about to address the house he always removes to some other place, which is usually a place before the lower part of the bench, which fronts the bishops' bench), and that therefore the place assigned to the great officers in question, on the woolsacks, by the act, does not designate their precedence with respect to the lords. But the act assigns a reason for placing them on the woolsacks, in the following words: "if the lord chancellor, &c., be under the degree of barons, by reason whereof they can have no interest to give any assent or dissent in the said house," &c. And accordingly the statute provides, that in the star-chamber and all other conferences of council where they have voices, being privy-councillors, they shall be placed as above rehearsed (4 Inst. 362), that is to say, their places do not, it would seem, vary in the council-chamber, though they be under the degree of barons. And it appears to be the better opinion, that their rank elsewhere, whether they be under the degree of barons or no, is the same, excepting in the parliament-chamber, where they must sit on the woolsacks unless they be barons of parliament. And in the commission for trial of Mary queen of Scots (a record of great authority), Sir Thomas Bromley, knight, lord chancellor, is accordingly named immediately after the archbishop of Canterbury. Vid. Camden, Annal. Eliz. p. 414, which seems to be the authority referred to by Coke, 4 Inst. 363. Coke, in the same place says, "Now he that desireth to know the places and precedency of the nobility and subjects of the realm, as well men as women, and of their children, we, for avoiding of tediousness, will refer them to a record of great authority in the reign of Henry VII. (for we will not vouch Bart. Cassaneus or any foreign author), intituled Series ordinum omnium procerum, magnatum, et nobilium, et aliorum quorumcunque infra hoc regnum tam virorum quam feminarum posita et distincta per nobilissimum Jasparem ducem Bedford et alios nobiles appunctatione domini regis Henrici septimi." Having obtained a copy of that record through the kindness of my learned friend, C. G. Young, Esq., York Herald, (to whom I am greatly indebted for his valuable assistance in compiling the table given above), I here furnish the reader with a translation of it. "which Lord Coke, in referring to this part of the record, says, we have added the rather, for that the contention about precedency between persons of that sex is ever fiery, furious, and sometimes fatal." The domestic experience of the great lawyer probably furnished him with that dictum, unless his biographers are much mistaken. There is some obscurity as to the precise meaning of the words Generosa dominæ reginæ, which I have translated, of the noble lady the queen; but they probably refer to ladies attending on the queen consort. There are many other old tables of precedency at the college of arms, and among the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum. The reader will find a description of the last-mentioned documents in the catalogue of the Cottonian MSS., published by |