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[Obs.] 1. THis Act is observable, being E∣nacted as it were by the King's single Authority, yet by the Preamble it seems to be only an Order, or Ordinance at most, and this upon Record in that House, for it doth not concern the Com∣mons.
2. The Lords House is here call'd the High Court of Parliament, i. e. the highest Court of Judicature in Parliament, and so it is an Act by authority of the same, in∣cluding the Kings.
3. It is also (Parag. 2.) call'd the Parliament Chamber; and (Parag. 8.) the said House, not the House of Lords, or House of Peers, as it is now call'd.
4. Though this Act doth contain the Rules for Places, as the several degrees do sit in their distinct degrees, yet it doth not contain the intermixt Precedencies of the several Degrees, both in calling over the House, and at other Solemnities, as will be more exactly shewn in the local part.
5. In the 8th Paragraph the Lord great Chamberlain, Constable, Marshal, Admiral, Steward, and King's Chamberlain are omit∣ted, because it is presum'd, that those Titles were never given to any under the degree of a noble Baron.
6. Here the Seat for the State-Officers (being not Barons) is call'd a Sack, but in all Records, where those Seats are men∣tion'd, they are call'd Wool-Sacks, being stuff'd with Wool, to mind them of the Staple Commodity of the Kingdom.
7. The use which I make of this Act is to shew the several Titles of the Degrees of such as are mention'd therein, 2dly, the ordering of those Degrees, and 3dly, how this Act doth agree or disagree with the Pawns before, and subsequent to it.
First, The Degrees mention'd therein are four, viz. first, Princes of the Blood,
2dly, Lords Spiritual, 3dly, Ministers and Officers of State, 4thly, Lords Tempo∣ral.
1st. The Princes of the Blood are said therein (Parag. 4.) to be, first, the King's Son, 2dly, the King's Brother, 3dly, the King's Uncle, 4thly, the King's Nephew, 5thly, the King's Brother's Son, 6thly, the King's Sister's Son, as in Paragraph the 1st and 4th.
2dly. The Lords Spiritual are said there∣in to be the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and York, the Bishop of London, Duresm, and Winchester, and all the Bishops of both Provinces according to their Ancientries, Paragraph 2, & 3.
3dly. The Ministers and Officers of State Ecclesiastical and Civil, are (in the 2d and 4th Paragraphs) said to be the Vice-Ge∣rent, and eleven more therein mention'd, of which I shall speak distinctly, Paragraphs 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10.
4thly. The Lords Temporal are said to be those five Degrees mention'd in the se∣venth Paragraph, viz. Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts, and Barons, of which I shall also speak more fully, and lower than to these Degrees the Act doth not ex∣tend.
5thly. This Act doth agree with the Method of the Pawns, in the placing of
the Princes of the Blood, as also of the Bishops, but the Pawns do differ from the Act concerning the Ministers and Officers of State, for they meddle with them no otherwise than they are annext to some Spiritual or Temporal Degrees, but if they are under the Degree of those Degrees they have then only particular Writs of As∣sistance, as shall be shewn.
6. The Act doth not take notice of the several Assistants of the Long Robe, viz. the Lords Chief Justices, &c. But the Pawn makes a Record of them also, and of their Writs, and of their Precedencies, in rela∣tion to each other, of whom I shall speak more particularly in the Thirteenth Chap∣ter.
7. This Act was made upon the dissoluti∣on of the Abbots and Priors, and that there might be no more room for them in the House of Lords, whereas the two preceed∣ing Pawns remaining still in the Pettibag, (viz. of the 22 and 31 Hen. 8.) did place them next the Bishops, now (their Abbies, Monasteries, and Priories being dissolved) they in this Act were excluded, as in all future Pawns (only Queen Mary did ven∣ture to summon the Abbot of Westminster, and the Prior of St. John's of Jerusalem) but that being turn'd into a Deanry, and this dissolved, they were as useless, as all
the others, the Ecclesiastical and Civil Estate of this Kingdom being thereby re∣stor'd to its Primitive Constitution, as will be shewn.