Perhaps the writer may be permitted to inform your correspondent W. H. M. that the term "subject" is more commonly and correctly applied to a person who owes allegiance to a crowned head, and "citizen" to one who is born and lives under a republican form of government.
W. W.
Malta.
1. Thomas, first Lord Fairfax (descended from a family asserted to have been seated at Towcester, co. Northampton, at the time of the Norman invasion and subsequently of note in Yorkshire), accompanied the Earl of Essex into France, temp. Eliz., and was knighted by him in the camp before Rouen. He was created a peer of Scotland, 4th May, 1627; but why of Scotland, or for what services, I know not.
2. I cannot discover that the family ever possessed lands in Scotland. They were formerly owners of Denton Castle, co. York (which they sold to the family of Ibbetson, Barts.), and afterwards of Leeds Castle, Kent.
3. Precise information on this point is looked for from some transatlantic correspondent.
4. The claim of the Rev. Bryan, eighth Lord Fairfax, was admitted by the House of Lords, 6th May, 1800 (H. L. Journals). He was, I presume, born before the acknowledgment of independence.
5. The title seems to be erroneously retained in the Peerages, as the gentleman now styled Lord Fairfax cannot, it is apprehended, be a natural-born subject of the British Crown, or capable of inheriting the dignity. It seems, therefore, that the peerage, if not extinct, awaits another claimant. As a direct authority, I may refer to the case of the Scottish earldom of Newburgh, in the succession to which the next heir (the Prince Gustiniani), being an alien, was passed over as a legal nonentity. (See Riddell on Scottish Peerages, p. 720.) There is another case not very easily reconcilable with the last, viz. that of the Earl of Athlone, who, though a natural-born subject of the Prince of Orange, was on 10th March, 1795, permitted to take his seat in the House of Lords in Ireland (Journals H. L. I.). Perhaps some correspondent will explain this case.
H. G.