[5]. Plowden notes on this, that the privilege of voting by proxy is a privilege of the House of Lords. (“Jura Anglorum,” p. 384.)
The husband’s succession to his wife’s titles was in order to grant her a permanent and interested “proxy.” In Dugdale’s “Summons to Parliament,” p. 576, there is “A catalogue of such noble persons as have had their summons to Parliament in right of their wives.”
This proves:—
(1) That a man not entitled to be summoned in his own right could be summoned in his wife’s right, but that in doing so he must take her name and title, whether higher or lower than his own: “George, son and heir to Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, having married Joane, the daughter and heir to John, Lord Strange of Knockin, had summons to the Parliament under the title of Lord Strange” (22 Edward IV., 1 Richard III., 3, 11, 12 Henry VII.).
(2) That a woman held her husband’s titles and possessions till her death by “the courtesy of England,” and could even transfer these while she was alive to another husband. “Ralphe de Monthermer, having married Joane of Acre, daughter of King Edward I. and widow of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, possessing lands of great extent in her right, which belonged to these earldoms, had summons to Parliament from 28 Edward I. to 35 Edward I. by the title of Earl of Gloucester and Hertford. But after her death, which happened in the first year of King Edward the Second, he never had the title of Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, and was summoned to Parliament as a Baron only from the second to the eighteenth of that King’s reign” (Dugdale’s “Summons to Parliament”). There are twenty other cases of nobles summoned in the name of their wives. This, therefore, may be taken to illustrate the representative power in Peers. At the period of Ela of Salisbury the heiress of the Albemarles had conferred her title on three husbands, by the second of whom, William de Fortibus, she had an heir.
“Isobel of Gloucester likewise had two Earls” (Bowle’s “History of Lacock Abbey”).
Margaret de Newburgh, Countess of Warwick, married John Marshall of the Pembroke family, and he became Earl of Warwick, Jure Uxoris. She re-married John de Plessetis, who also bore her title. Her cousin, William Mauduit, succeeded her, and then Isabel, his sister, who married William de Beauchamp, making him Earl of Warwick. Their daughter, Anne de Beauchamp, succeeded as Countess of Warwick. (Burke’s “Extinct Peerages.”)
Dugdale also mentions “the names of such noble persons whose titles are either the names of such heirs female, from whom they be descended, or the names of such places whence these heirs female assumed their titles of dignity: of whose summons to Parliament by these titles the general index will show the respective times.” There are twenty-eight of them. The eldest sons of earls were sometimes summoned to Parliament by their father’s second title in their father’s lifetime, and these titles were often inherited from an ancestress.
That the right of Peeresses to be consulted in relation to aids or subsidies assessed on their property, was acknowledged, can be learned from an interesting document still preserved.
The Commons in 1404 voted a grant to the King (Rot. Parl., iii., 546). “La grante faite au Roy en Parlement. Vos pauvres Commons ... par assent des Seigneurs Spirituelx et Temporels ... grauntont à vous, en cest present parlement deux Quinzismes et deux Dismes pour estre levez des laie gentz, en manere accustume ... Et les Seigneurs Temporelx pur eux, et les Dames Temporelx, et toutz autres persones temporelx pour la depens suis dit grauntont ... Et purtant que cestes subside soit grantez à vous ... lesqueux die soient executy ne mys en œuvre avant la dit Quinzisme de Seint Hiller q’alors ceste graunt entier soit voide et tenue pur null ne levable, ne paiable en null manere ... Protestantz que ceste graunt en temps à venir ne soit pris en ensample de charger les ditz Seigneurs et Communes de Roialme ... sil ne soit par les voluntées des Seigneurs et Communes de vostre Roiaume et ces de nouvell graunt a faire en plein Parlement.”