Analogia honorum, or, A treatise of honour and nobility, according to the laws and customes of England collected out of the most authentick authors, both ancient and modern : in two parts : the first containing honour military, and relateth to war, the second, honour civil, and relateth

The second Argument.

Secondly, If the Infamy of the Father be a blot to the Posterity, as the Wiseman Solo∣mon affirmeth, The Children complain for an ungodly Father, they are reproved for his sake; and for that also the Law of the Realm doth corrupt the blood of the Posterity by and upon the Offence of the Ancestor; Reason would also be, that the Honour of the Ance∣stor should be likewise Honour to the Posteri∣ty; for contraries do also carry their contrary Reason. For the determination whereof 'tis to be noted, that diversity of Reason hath bred diversity of Opinion. Some there are that do speak, That the Dignity of a Baron by Writ is not discendable from the Ancestor unto the Heir, unless the Heir be likewise called by Writ to Parliament, and that then it becometh an Inheritance, and not before. But this Asser∣tion is repugnant to the nature of Descent, which for the most part doth carry a Patrimony descendable by act of Law presently upon the death of the Ancestor unto the Heir not at all. Wherefore the Custom of the Country, and the manifest Presidents do prove, that this kind of Baronies doth descend from the Ancestor to the Heir, and there needeth not any word of Heir in the Writ of Summons; only one President there is in a special Writ sometime directed to Sir Henry Bromfleet in the 27th of Henry the Sixth, wherein he was styled Lord Veysey, and wherein there are these words in∣serted, Volumus tamen vos & haeredes vestros de corpore vestro ligitime enatos Barones de Veysey existentes. Wherefore it is very true, that when the Heir of any such Baron by Writ is called to the Parliament, that his Descent of Honour is thereby established and approved of by the gracious Judgment of our Sacred So∣vereign: So it is also true, that if it shall stand with his Majesties pleasure, that such an Heir shall not be summoned at all, then that Nobility is much impaired, and in a manner extinguished in the censure of all men; for that it hath no other original but by a Writ of Summons, from the which by the Judgment of the Su∣pream Sovereign he is excluded.

As to the second principal point, Whether the Barony by Writ may descend to the Heir Female, it shall not be amiss likewise to shew the Reasons on either part, that by conflict of Argument the truth may the better be disco∣vered.

Those that maintain the Affirmative part, do say, That in reason the Sex of the Heir Fe∣male ought no more to barr her Dignity, than the Nonage of the Heir Male ought to barr him, though during his Nonage he be unable to do the Service. But as the Service of the one is for time forborn, so the Sex of the other

may at all times be supplied by the maturity of her Husbands Offices of Honour, which do much import the Commonweal, being passed by Inheritance, do descend to the Heir Female, as the Office of the High Constableship of Eng∣land, which descended unto the Daughter of Hum. de Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex. Also the Office of the Lord Steward descend∣ed to Blanch, Daughter of Henry Earl of Lan∣caster. The like may be said of the Office of Earl-Marshal, which descended by an Heir Fe∣male to the House of Norfolk. All which Of∣fices are as unsit to be exercised by a woman, as for a Woman to be summoned by Writ to the Parli••ment as a Baroness, &c.

Many Noble Houses also in England do sup∣port and lawfully bear the Dignity of a Ba∣ronage unto them descended by a Woman.