16 Constitutional Histori/. [chap.
barons, with the regular number of prelates, composed the
house of lords; the house of commons numbered seventy-four
knights, and one hundred and seventy-six representatives of
boroughs. The clergy had met under Arundel in their pro-
vincial synod on the 6th, and had in preparation the measures
for which they reckoned on the grateful co-operation of the
king.
Changes
among the
earls.
Changes in
the peerage
between
ɪɜoo and
1400.
The earl-
doms, and
baronies.
It is in the house of lords of course that the changes and
chances of the preceding century have made the deepest mark.
Edward I, in 1300, had summoned eleven earls and ninety-
eight barons. Of the eleven earldoms, three were now vested
in the king, who, besides being earl of Lancaster, Lincoln, and
Hereford, was also earl of Derby, Leicester, and Northampton1.
One had become the regular provision for the prince of Wales.
The earldoms of Arundel and Surrey were united in the son of
the murdered earl, who was a minor, and suffering under his
father’s sentence. The heir of the Bigods had just died in
exile2: the heirs of Umframville were no longer called to the
English parliament ; the house of Valence was extinct. Glou-
cester was for the moment held by Thomas le Despenser, the
lineal descendant of the famous favourites. Oxford and War-
wick survived. Of the ninety-eight baronies twenty3 were
represented by the descendants of their former possessors, five
were in the hands of minors, fourteen were altogether extinct,
twenty-one had fallen into what the lawyers have termed
abeyance among coheiresses and their descendants ; thirty-three
had ceased to be regarded as hereditary peerages from the non-
summoning of their holders ; one had been sold to the crown ;
besides extinction and abeyance some had suffered by attaint.
1 So he styles himself in a deed dated 1399, printed by Madox, For-
mulare Angl. p. 327 ; see also Rymer, viii. 90 ; and Rot. Parl. iv. 48. The
earldom of Northampton was afterwards conceded by Henry V to the
Stafiords as coheirs of Bohun.
2 The duke of Norfolk died at Venice Sept. 22, 1399.
3 These numbers are derived from a collation of the wɪits for March 6,
ɪ 300, with the statements in Nicolas’ Historic Peerage, Dugdale's Baronage,
and Banks’ Dormant Peerage. The barony sold to the king was that of
Pinkeni, in 1301. The minors were Latimer, Clifford, (Trey of Wilton,
!’Estrange, and Mortimer.
χvι∏∙]
Changes in the Peerage.
17
Qf the new lords, the four dukes and the marquess represented
younger branches of the royal house; of the earls three repre-
sented the ancient earldoms ; three had been created or revived
],ʃ Edward III, four were creations of Richard II ɪ. Of the New peer-
fourteen newer baronies ten date from the early years of the pre- a°es"
ceding century ; three, the two Seropes and Bourcliier, from the
reign of Edward III ; one, that of Lumley, from 1384. The
chief political results of this attenuation had been to lodge con-
stitutional power in far fewer hands, to accumulate lands and
dignities on men who were strong rather in personal qualifica-
tions and interests than in their coherence as an estate of the
realm, to make deeper and broader the line between lords and
commons, and to concentrate feuds and jealousies in a smaller
circle in which they would become more bitter and cruel than
they had been before. The quarrels of the last reign had
already proved this, and Henry, when he looked round him,
must have seen many places empty which he had once seen filled
with earnest politicians. Of the appellants of 1388, only him- Diminution
self and Warwick survived ; of the counter-appellants of 139l7, age.
Nottingham and Wiltshire were dead ; the rest were waiting
with anxious hearts to know whether Henry would sacrifice
them or save them. Could he have looked forward a few
months only he would have seen four more noble heads from
among them laid low ; a few years further, and he would have
seen the very men who had placed him on the throne perish as
the victims of treason and mistrust.
The strong men of the peerage now were the Percies, who The Геляот.
shared with the house of Arundel the blood of the Karolings1
and had risen by steady accumulations of office and dignity to a
primacy in power and wealth ; the earl of Northumberland was
that Henry Percy who had disappointed the hopes of the Good
Parliament, who had stood by John of Gaunt when he defended
Wycliffe at S. Paul’s, who had been afterwards his bitter enemy,
-ʊ The dukes were York, Aumâle, Surrey and Exeter; the marquess,
ɑrset ; the three ancient earldoms were Gloucester, Warwick and Oxford,
ɪɪɪ had created Devon, Salisbury and Stafford; Ricliard II,
r huιnberland, ΛVestmoreland and Worcester.
γ0b. in.