hich denies peerage by writ even to those summoned in several
later reigns, must be taken with limitation. "I am informed," it is said
by Mr. Hart, _arguendo_, "that every person whose name appears in the
writ of summons of 5 Ric. II. was again summoned to the following
parliament, and their posterity have sat in parliament as peers." p.
233.

[306] Rot. Parl. vol. ii. p. 147, 309; vol. iii. p. 100, 386, 424; vol.
iv. p. 374. Rymer, t. vii. p. 161.

[307] Selden's Works, vol. iii. p. 764. Selden's opinion that bannerets
in the lords' house were the same as barons may seem to call on me for
some contrary authorities, in order to support my own assertion, besides
the passages above quoted from the rolls, of which he would naturally be
supposed a more competent judge. I refer therefore to Spelman's
Glossary, p. 74; Whitelocke on Parliamentary Writ, vol. i. p. 313; and
Elsynge's Method of holding Parliaments, p. 65.

[308] Puis un fut chalenge purce qu'il fut a banniere, et non allocatur;
car s'il soit a banniere, et ne tient pas par baronie, il sera en
l'assise. Year-book 22 Edw. III. fol. 18 a. apud West's Inquiry, p. 22.

[309] Rot. Parl. vol. iv. p. 201.

[310] Pinkerton's Hist. of Scotland, vol. i. p. 357 and 365.

[311] The lords' committee do not like, apparently, to admit that
bannerets were summoned to the house of lords as a distinct class of
peers. "It is observable," they say, "that this statute (5 Ric. II. c.
4) speaks of bannerets as well as of dukes, earls, and barons, as
persons bound to attend the parliament; but it does not follow that
banneret was then considered as a name of dignity distinct from that
honourable knighthood under the king's banner in the field of battle, to
which precedence of all other knights was attributed." p. 342. But did
the committee really believe that all the bannerets of whom we read in
the reigns of Richard II. and afterwards had been knighted at Crecy and
Poictiers? The name is only found in parliamentary proceedings during
comparatively pacific times.

[312] West, whose business it was to represent the barons by writ as
mere assistants without suffrage, cites the writ to them rather
disingenuously, as if it ran vobiscum et cum prelatis, magnatibus ac
proceribus, omitting the important word caeteris. p. 35. Prynne, however,
from whom West has borrowed a great part of his arguments, does not seem
to go the length of denying the right of suffrage to persons so
summoned.