Wiltshire was revived half a century after the execution of the first Earl, viz. in 1449, by Henry VI. in favor of Sir James Butler, of the house of Ormond, and again, after his execution and attainder, in 1461, was in 1470 conferred by Edward IV. upon a Stafford; again, upon the extinction of that line, by Henry VIII. upon another Stafford in 1509, afterwards by the same monarch upon his father-in-law Sir Thomas Butler; and ultimately was revived for the fifth time, by Edward VI. in the person of Sir William Paulett, ancestor of the present Earl of Wiltshire and Marquis of Winchester.

These five several distinct successive creations of this same title, since the death of Sir W. Scrope, in favor of as many different families, coupled with the fact already mentioned that no claim of inherited right to the Earldom had ever been mooted by any of the "male heirs" of the original grantee up to the present time, would seem to warrant the presumption that the title was really forfeited by attainder in 1399.

But since no lapse of time, nor suspension of exercise, nor a new creation or any number of creations of a title identical in name, is understood to bar the rightful inheritance of a Peerage, Mr. Simon Thomas Scrope of Danby-on-Yore, in the County of York, who represents in the direct male line, in the eighteenth generation, the Sir Roger Scrope above mentioned, next brother, and therefore heir, of the first grantee Sir William Scrope, has under competent advice formally laid his claim before the House of Peers to the Earldom of Wiltes, and trusts to establish the negative of the above assumption as to its forfeiture by attainder in 1399.

"The claimant having presented a Petition to her Majesty, praying her Majesty to be pleased to cause a Writ of Summons to be directed to him by the Title and Dignity aforesaid, Her Majesty was pleased to refer the said Petition with the Attorney-general's Report thereon to the House of Peers on the 7th day of June 1859, who on the same day referred it to the Committee of Privileges to consider and report."

1 Case of Simon T. Serope, of Danby on Yore in the county of York, Esquire, claiming to be Earl of Wiltes.

We have reason to believe that the hearing of the claim will not come on during the present Session of Parliament (1860.)

It may therefore gratify some of our readers if we lay before them, in the meantime, some of the chief points of the case, and the considerations upon which its decision will probably be rested. For this purpose we quote the following passages from Mr. Simon Scrope's case, as printed for the use of the Lords.

"The Earldom of Wiltes was created by Letters Patent bearing date the 27th day of September in the 21st year of the reign of King Richard the Second (1397) in the person of Sir William Scrope, Knight, (eldest son of Sir Richard Scrope, first Lord Scrope of Bolton) to hold to him and HIS HEIRS MALE FOR EVER.

I. The said Earldom was enjoyed only by the said Sir William Scrope, who died without issue in the year 1399; the dignity has never been hitherto claimed by any of his representatives.

II. By virtue of the limitation to "heirs male for ever," the right to the said Earldom descended to the next brother of the said Earl, namely, Sir Roger Scrope, second son of Sir Richard Scrope, first Lord Scrope of Bolton, and who succeeded to his father as second Lord Scrope, and from him descended successively to the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh Lord Scrope of Bolton, when the eleventh Lord (who was created Earl of Sunderland) dying without issue, the heirs male of the body of the seventh Lord became extinct in the year 1630.

III. Upon the failure of the elder line the right to the said Earldom descended to the heir male of the body of John Scrope, of Hameldon, in the county of Buckingham, and Spennithorne in the county of York, the second son of the sixth Lord Scrope of Bolton, namely Francis Scrope, of Spennithorne and Danby upon Yore, in the said county, who died without issue, and was succeeded by his brother, Christopher Scrope.

IV. Simon Thomas Scrope now claims the Earldom of Wiltes as heir male of the body of the said Christopher Scrope, and consequently as nearest heir male of the said Earl and begs leave to lay his case before this most Honourable House, &c.”

To this statement is appended a detailed Pedigree of the claimant and an abstract of the "Proofs " which he is prepared to adduce in support of the different points of his case.1

It may be presumed that the claimant will have little difficulty in proving the three first points of his case viz:

·

I. The creation of the Earldom of Wiltes in the person of Sir William Scrope, "to be held by him and his heirs male for ever."

II. That the said Earl was the eldest son of the first Lord Scrope of Bolton by Isabel his wife, sister of the Earl of Suffolk, and that he died without issue in the life-time of his Father.

III. That Sir Roger Scrope, second son and heir to the said first Lord Scrope of Bolton was next heir to the said Earl of Wiltes.

And further we may assume the correctness of the Pedigree produced by Mr. Simon Thomas Scrope, which makes him to represent in direct and continuous male line the said Sir Roger.

It is evident, however, that the pinching question will remain as the cardinal point of the whole case, whether the "affirmation of the judgment against the Earl of Wiltes by the first Parliament of Henry IV., within two months of his execution, entered upon the Rolls of Parliament (printed copy vol. iii. p. 453) is or is not to be considered an act of attainder, and consequently to have caused a true forfeiture of the title."

"On the part of the claimant it is argued that it is not, as it (the entry) contains no express attainder or forfeiture of this dignity: the law being that in order to forfeit a Peerage in tail, there must either be a valid conviction of high treason, or an act of attainder and deprivation, striking at the dignity by name. In this case, the execution of the Earl at Bristol, by the Duke of Lancaster,

1 It may be noticed here that Mr. S. T. Scrope descends from John Scrope of Hameldon, second son of the sixth Lord Scrope of Bolton, whose eldest son Henry married an heiress of Conyers of Danby on Yore, Yorkshire, where this branch of the Scropes has ever since resided; and that his claim arising from the extinction of all male heirs of the subsequent five Lords Scrope of the elder branch has no affinity to the right to the dormant barony of Scrope of Bolton, which is supposed by Sir Harris Nicolas to be vested in a family of the name of Jones as representing, through females, Sir Henry, ninth Baron Scrope of Bolton.

could not have the force of a legal attainder, and the entry on the Roll makes no mention of his dignity as Earl, and therefore could not deprive his Representatives of it."

[The following paragraphs are those entered on the Roll referred to (I. Hen. IV.) which bear upon the point.

Item le mesquerdy le xix jour de Novembre, en le dit Parlement les ditz communes prierent au Roy, &c., Que la pursyte, l'areste, et les juggementz, et quant q fuist fait envers William le Scrope Henri Grene et John Bussy pourrient estre affermez en cest present Parlement, et tenuz pour bones, &c." "Lesqueulx seignours toutz dune accorde disoient qe mesmes les pursuite, areste, juggementz et quant q fuist fait, come desuis est dit, furent bons et profitables."

..Et puis le Roy declara, qe ne fuist pas son entent dàvoir nulles terres ne tenement es queux les ditz William Henri et Johan furent enfeffez a autri seps, mes q leur droit leur soit save en toutz poyntz, non obstant le conquest avant dit.* Et outre le Roy disoit a dit Richard (Lord Scrope, father of Sir William) quil ne voillait avoir null terre q fuist a luy ni a ses enfauntz a present vivantz, mez luy tenoit pur loial Chivaler, et tout temps pur tiel luy ad tenuz. outre le Roy declara q l'Estatut fait devant ces heures, Qe nully forface apres sa morte, &c. estoit en sa force; et cette ordinance et declaration en mesme le Parlement ne soit prejudiciel a mesme l'Estatut a cause quils furent juggez et conquiz en leur vies. Et sur ceo, &c.]

Et

It will probably be argued, to account for the fact that neither Sir Roger Scrope nor his descendants ever laid claim to the title, that at first, and indeed throughout the reign of the entire House of Lancaster, it might have been imprudent to revive the memory of their Yorkist ancestors' offences; especially as another member of their family, Richard, Archbishop of York, had since been guilty of open rebellion against Henry IV. and suffered execution for his alleged treason. And before the restoration of the House of York the title of Earl of Wiltshire had been bestowed by Henry VI. upon another family in the person of Sir James Butler. Under these circumstances it may be readily understood, why the Lords Scrope of Bolton being constantly summoned to sit in Parliament by that title should have rested satisfied with their Baronial honours, and put forward no pretension to the higher dignity of the Earldom of Wiltes. Moreover the peculiar terms of the original patent may have been ignored or forgotten, or, finally, the

*The King having in an earlier speech in the same sitting grounded his occupation of the throne inter alia, on the right of conquest.

law upon this point may have been obscure or undetermined until a later period. Some of these reasons, or others, in their place, will probably be suggested, to explain the silence of so many generations of the claimant's ancestors as to their right to this high dignity, which by his argument they have all along possessed. This, however, at all events, may be averred, that should the claim of Mr. Scrope be admitted by the High Court to which it has been referred by the Crown, it will afford one of the most remarkable instances on record of the enduring vigour of our aristocratic and Monarchical Institutions, that an honour of this high grade, once conferred upon an individual by the sovereign of this realm, although enjoyed by the original grantee for less than two years, and having remained since that time unclaimed, unheard, unthought of, for more than four centuries and a half, should still enure, and be recognized as the indefeasible right of his descendant in the nineteenth generation. Should the judgment of the court result in the revival of the Earldom of Wiltes, it will take rank as the premier Earldom, superseding the Earldom of Shrewsbury which now holds that station, but the creation of which dates from 1442, nearly half a century later than that of the Earldom of Wiltes. The claimant, Mr. Simon T. Scrope is a Roman Catholic, as have been his progenitors from the earliest times. And there is reason to suppose that the Catholic party who have been greatly mortified by the recent transfer of the Earldom of Shrewsbury, so long held by Catholics, to a Protestant Peer, are very desirous to further the suit of Mr. Scrope, the success of which will replace a Catholic at the head of the roll of English Earls.

It may be noticed as a somewhat remarkable fact that while the branch of the family of the first Earl of Wiltes, which settled in Yorkshire at Bolton and Danby, and represents Sir Roger, his next brother, has never since his time, that is, the close of the fourteenth century, possessed any lands in the county of Wilts, the descendants of his second brother, Sir Stephen Scrope, third son of the first Lord Scrope, at that time owned, and have ever since held and resided upon estates in this county. The late Mr. William Scrope, of Castle Combe, occupied in fact precisely the same