A YOUTHFUL PEERESS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 18, 22 January 1913, Page 9

A YOUTHFUL PEERESS

ANCIENT TITLE REVIVED. THE PARLIAMENT OF 1295. 1 (From Our Own Correspondent.). LONDON,' 14th December. The Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords' has 'decided in favour of the claim made On behalf of the Hon. Mary Frances Katherine PeWe, aged twelve years, by her mother, Lady Petre, widow of the fourteenth Baron Petre to the dignity of , the Barony of Furnivall, which has" teen in abeyance since 1777. Some members of the Petre family were among < the best known settlers in. the Wellington province in •its early da3 r s. The petitioner's case was that there had been a •summons to Parliament of Thomas, first Baron Jfurnivall, in 1283, and that although there was no direct evidence of a sitting until 1299, follow* ing the precedent of many other claims, the date of the dignity was not the date of the sitting, but related back to the date of the earlier summons. That this >was'so;was *Gfc disputed by the Crown/ but the Crown contended that there was no direct evidence that the first Baron •Purnivall, ,who married a very wealthy heiress, sat in Parliament in his -own right and not merely by the right of his wife. . At the conclusion of Mr. Asquifch's argument for, the Crown, Lord Ashbourne said ; It seems to me that there was an enormdus probability that Thomas Furnivall was summoned to attend as a Peer to the Carlisle Parliament. Mr. Asqtiith said the House could not give that kind of evidence consideration. Lord Mersey : The evidence convinces me in a way 'that he did Bit, but whether I ought to be convinced is another matter. Why was he at Carlisle at al) tlien, unless it was to sit in Parliament? Mr. Asquith replied that he no doubt was at Carlisle on his way to the War, just as other nobles were. Lord Ashbourne delivered the decision of the committee. There was really no controversy, he esid, as to the pedigree of the petitioner, and it was conceded that she was entitled to tie peerage claimed, if His Majesty decided to call the peerage out of abeyance in her favour. Tile Ohly poiflfc was' the date from which that dignity' should be fixed, and that was important on the question of precedence. Hs traced the history of the case and the argument, and sttid that 'while Lord Robert Cecil 'claimed for the petitioner that the title should be from 1283, the Crown said that no sitting had been proved till a century later. This claim was a peerage granted by writ, and therefore, to establish such a peerage, it, was necessary not only to establish a, summons to, attend, but also a sitting in Parliament. He thought there was ample evidence t that Thomas de Furnivall sat at the Carlisle Parliament, for he was- a Norfolk man, and would not have travelled that distance but for a purpose. But life thought there was clear evidence of ah earlier sitting. For the reasons he had given, he thought that the legitimate date to fix would be , from the Parliament of 1295," and he' moved their lordships so to advise His Majesty in the event, of His Majesty determining tbfe abeyance.