of the daughters, shall possess the dig nity, as would have been the case had there been a single daughter only; and in case of an heir thus entering into possession of the dignity, he shall take that precedence among the barons in the house of peers which belonged to the family of whom he is the representative. A female who is only a coheir of a coheir may also have the abeyance determined in her favour, as was lately the case with Mrs. Russell, now Baroness De Clifford. It is out of this privilege of the crown that the peerage cases arise, of which there are some before the house of lords in almost every session of parliament. A party sees reason to think that the crown may be induced to determine a certain abeyance in his favour, if he can only prove that he is the representative of one of the coheirs. This proof, which is often a troublesome and expensive process, inasmuch as it may be necessary to go back into the four teenth or fifteenth century, is to be made to the satisfaction of a committee of privileges of the house of peers, and on the report of such committee that the claimant has shown himself in a satisfactory manner to be the proper representative of the blood of one of the coheirs of one of these ancient baronies, the crown has of late years often yielded to the reasonable request. In fact, without this, in a country like ours, where lands often descend to female heirs, it would be difficult to maintain a really ancient nobility.

Many of the peers who belong to the higher orders of nobility have baronies in fee inherent in them; so that if A., | one of them, die, leaving a daughter being an only child, and a brother, the brother shall take the superior title, and the barony descend to the daughter and the heirs of her body. An eldest son of a peer enjoying a barony and a superior dignity is sometimes called to the house of peers in his father's barony. When this done, it is by writ of summons without a patent of creation (it not being in fact a creation of a new dignity, but only in anticipation of the son's possession of it), and this is the case also when a barony is taken out of abeyance.

Thus the English portion of the house of peers, or house of lords, for they are terms used in precisely the same sense, are the lords spiritual, that is, the archbishops and bishops, and the lords temporal, who are of one of the five orders (though many of the dukes possess dignities of the four inferior kinds also, and their ancestors may have long had seats in that house in those inferior dignities before the family was raised to the dukedom), and these are either persons who have been created peers by the crown-who have been admitted into the peerage by favour of the crown in virtue of the determination of an abeyance, or who have inherited the dignity from some ancestor on whom it had been conferred.

The fullest information on all points connected with the archæological part of this subject is to be obtained from the Reports of the Committee of the House of Lords before referred to. Biographical accounts of the more eminent of the persons who have possessed these dignities, are to be found in that very valuable book, Dugdale's 'Baronage of England.' In 1708, Arthur Collins, a London bookseller, published in a single volume, an account of the peers then existing and their ancestors, a work of great merit. The demand for it appears to have been great, as it was followed by other editions in quick succession. It assumed a higher character in 1734, when it appeared in four handsome octavo volumes, great additions having been made to every article. From that time there has been a succession of editions, each professing to be improvements on the preceding, and each bringing up the state of the peerage to the time when the work was printed. The best of these, which is in nine bulky octavo volumes, was published under the superintendence of Sir Egerton Brydges. But as titles become extinct, and, consequently, the families bearing them are left out of the peerage-books, those who wish to possess a complete account of those persons, must procure many of the earlier editions of the work, as well as that which, being the latest, will, for the most part, be called the best.

The

PEINE FORTE ET DURE. "strong and hard pain," which is denoted by these words, was a species of torture used by the English law to compel persons to plead, when charged with crimes less than treason, but amounting to felony. It was applicable whenever the accused stood mute on his arraignment, either by his refusal to put himself upon the ordinary trial by jury, or to answer at all, or by his peremptorily challenging more than twenty jurors, which was a contumacy equivalent in construction of law to actually standing mute. This proceeding differed essentially from the torture which generally prevailed in Europe, and which, as connected with the royal prerogative, was also practised in England for several centuries, inasmuch as the object of the peine forte et dure was to force submission to the regular mode of trial prescribed by the law, and not to compel testimony or the confession of a crime.

The origin of this practice is uncertain. It appears from Fleta, and also from Britton (cap. 22), that the punishment in the reign of Edward I., when the first traces of it appear, consisted merely of severe imprisonment, with a diet barely sufficient to prevent starvation, until the offender repented of his contumacy, and consented to put himself upon his trial. Shortly afterwards, however, the practice of loading the sufferer with weights and pressing him to death appears to have become the regular course. In the Year Book,' 8 Henry IV., 1 (1406), the judgment upon persons standing mute, as approved by advice of all the judges, was "that the marshal should put them in low and dark chambers, naked except about their waist; that he should place upon them as much weight of iron as they could bear, and more, so that they should be unable to rise; that they should have nothing to eat but the worst bread that could be found, and nothing to drink but water taken from the nearest place to the gaol, except running water; that the day on which they had bread they should not have water, and e contrà; and that they should lie there till they were dead." There is no trace of any statute

or royal ordinance, or of any authority besides this judicial resolution, to justify a change in the mode of proceeding so material as to affect the life of the party. The term by which it was denoted was also changed from prisone to peine forte et dure; and from this period, for more than three centuries, until it was virtually abolished by the stat. 12 Geo. III. c. 20 (1772), pressing to death continued to be the regular and lawful mode of execution for persons who stood wilfully mute upon their arraignment for felony. The press-yard at Newgate at the present day retains its name as derived from this barbarous practice.

The

Blackstone states that the peine forte et dure was rarely carried into practice (Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 328). It is probable that it was not of frequent occurrence, because, with this fearful punishment for contumacy before their eyes, men would naturally, for the most part (as Hale says), "bethink themselves and plead." It is, however, repeatedly mentioned in the Year Books as an existing proceeding; it is stated as the law by Staundforde, Coke, Hale, and Hawkins, in their several treatises on the Criminal Law, and the number of the recorded instances in which it is directly or incidentally mentioned, seem to show that it was much more prevalent than has been commonly supposed. motive of the prisoner in standing mute and submitting to this heavy punishment was to save his attainder, and prevent the corruption of his blood and consequent forfeiture of his lands in case he was attainted of felony. In the 21st of Henry VI. (1442), Juliana Quicke, who was indicted for high treason, in speaking contemptuous words of the king, had the peine forte et dure because she would not plead (Croke's Charles, 118); in the margin of an inquisitio post mortem of Anthony Arrowsmith, in the 40th of Eliz. (1598), are the words Prest to death' (Surtees's History of Durham, vol. iii. p. 271); and in 1659 Major Strangeways was tried for the murder of John Fussell, before Lord Chief Justice Glynn, and, refusing to plead, was pressed to death in Newgate. In the pamphlet which very minutely narrates

66

the particulars of this execution, it is stated that the prisoner died in about eight minutes, many people in the pressyard humanely casting stones upon him to hasten his death. (Barrington's Antient Statutes, p. 85, note.) In still more recent times, it appears from the Old Bailey Sessions Papers, that at the January Sessions in 1720 one Phillips was pressed for a considerable time, until he begged to stand his trial; and at the December Sessions, 1721, Nathanael Haws continued under the press, with 250 lbs., for seven minutes, and was released upon his submission. Mr. Barrington says that he had been furnished with two instances in the reign of George II., one of which happened at the Sussex assizes before Baron Thompson, and the other at Cambridge, in 1741, when Mr. Baron Carter was the judge. (Barrington's Antient Statutes, p. 86.) In these later instances the press was not inflicted, until by direction of the judges the experiment of a minor torture had been tried, by tying the culprit's thumbs tightly together with strings. It is said in Kelyng's Reports, p. 27, to have been the constant practice at Newgate, in the reign of Charles II., that the two thumbs should be tied together with whipcord, that the pain might compel the culprit to plead. The adoption of this course was no doubt dictated by merciful motives, and was intended by the judges to prevent the necessity of having recourse to the peine forte et dure; but it was wholly unauthorised by law. The practice was finally discontinued in consequence of the statute 12 Geo. III. cap. 20, which provides that every person who shall stand mute when arraigned for felony or piracy shall be convicted of the same, and the same judgment and execution shall be awarded against him as if he had been convicted by verdict

or confession.

PENANCE (in Latin, Penitentia) is a censure or punishment, imposed by the ecclesiastical law, for the purgation or correction of the soul of an offender, in consequence of some crime of spiritual cognizance committed by him. Thus a person convicted of adultery or incest was adjudged to do penance in the church |

or market, bare-legged and bare-headed in a white sheet: and was required to make a public confession of his crime, and to express his contrition in a prescribed form of words. After a judgment of penance has been pronounced, the ecclesiastical courts may, upon application by the party, take off the penance, and exchange the spiritual censures for a sum of money to be paid and applied to pious uses. This exchange is called a commutation for penance; and the money agreed or enjoined to be paid upon such a commutation may be sued for in the ecclesiastical court. The peine forte et dure imposed upon a person who stood mute on his trial at the common law is often inaccurately terined penance. [PEINE FORTE ET DURE.]

PENITENTIARIES. [TRANSPORTA

TION.]

PENSION, a payment, generally made annually or at some other shorter and regular period.

Before the reign of Queen Anne, the kings of England alienated or encumbered their_hereditary possessions at pleasure. By the 1 Anne, c. 7, the power of burthening the revenue of the crown by improvident grants, to the injury of the successors of the throne, was materially abridged. This statute, after reciting that "the necessary expenses of supporting the crown, or the greatest part of them, were formerly defrayed by a land revenue, which hath from time to time been impaired and diminished by the grants of former kings and queens of this realm," enacts that no grant of manors, lands, &c. shall be made by the crown from and after the 25th of March, 1702, beyond the term of thirty-one years, or for three lives, reserving a reasonable rent. As this clause applied only to the land revenue, it was enacted by another clause, that no portion of other branches of revenue, as the excise, post-office, &c., should be alienable by the crown beyond the life of the reigning king. On the accession of George III., in consideration of the surrender of the larger branches of the hereditary revenue, a civil list was settled on his majesty, amounting originally to 800,000l., and afterwards increased to

900,000l., on which the pensions were charged. There were no limits, except the Civil List itself, within which the grant of pensions was confined; and at various times, when debts on this list had accumulated, parliament voted considerable sums (Sir Henry Parnell, in his work on Financial Reform,' says "some millions") for their discharge. In February, 1780, during the administration of Lord North, Mr. Burke introduced his bill for the better security of the independence of parliament, and the economical reformation of the civil and other establishments. In this bill it was recited that the pension lists were excessive, and that a custom prevailed of granting pensions on a private list during his majesty's pleasure, under colour that in some cases it may not be expedient to divulge the names of persons on the said lists, by means of which much secret and dangerous corruption may be hereafter practised. Mr. Burke proposed to reduce the English pension list to a maximum of 60,000l., but the bill, as passed, fixed it at 95,000l. This act (22 Geo. III. c. 82) asserted the principle that distress or desert ought to be considered as regulating the future grants of such pensions, and that parliament had a full right to be informed in respect to this exercise of the prerogative, in order to ensure and enforce the responsibility of the ministers of the crown. Mr. Burke's speech on introducing his bill is in the third volume of his Works,' ed. 1815.

Up to this time the Civil List pensions of Ireland, the pensions charged on the hereditary revenues of Scotland, and the pensions charged on the 4 per cent. duties, had not been regulated by parliament.

In Ireland the hereditary revenue of the crown was used as a means of political corruption, the English act of 1 Anne, already cited, not being applicable to Ireland. In a speech of Mr. Hutchinson, secretary of state, made in the Irish House of Commons, in June, 1793, he stated that the gross annual hereditary revenue of Ireland amounted to 764,6271., reduced by various charges to 275,1027. only: that the disposition of this revenue was in the hands of the

king; that "his letters and seals were the only authority for using it, and the only voucher allowed by the Commissioners of Accounts, and by the House of Commons ;" and that there was no Board of Treasury executing their functions under the authority of parliament. The Irish parliament, in 1757, had come to a unanimous resolution, "That the granting of so much of the public revenue in pensions, is an improvident disposition of the revenue, an injury to the crown, and detrimental to the people.” The Irish pensions then amounted to 40,000l.: in two years after the above resolution was passed, an addition of 26,000l. was made to them; and in 1778 they were nearly double the amount at which they stood in 1757. In 1787 leave was refused to bring in a bill to limit the amount of pensions, and to disable persons holding pensions for a term of years, or during pleasure, from sitting and voting in parliament. Mr. Forbes, who moved this bill, stated that "it was a practice among certain members of the house to whom pensions had been granted, to carry them into the market and expose them for sale." In 1790 Mr. Forbes again moved resolutions, stating "that the Pension List amounted to 101,000l., exclusive of military pensions; that the increase of pensions, civil and military, since February, 1784, had been 29,000l.; and that many of these pensions had been granted to members of parliament during the pleasure of the crown." These resolutions were not adopted. In 1793, when the whole policy of the Irish government was changed, among other beneficial measures introduced and recommended on the authority of the lord-lieutenant, was a bill to limit the amount of pensions and to increase the responsibility of the Treasury, which was passed into a law. By this act (33 Geo. III. c. 34, Irish statutes), the pensions on the Civil List in Ireland were limited to 80,000Z., allowing a sum of 12007. only to be granted in each year, until such reduction was effected. Grants held during the pleasure of the crown, and converted into grauts for life to the same parties and to the same amount, were exempted from the limitations of the

act.

This act effected a surrender of the hereditary revenues for the life of the king, and the principle of appropriating money by parliamentary authority. These restraints on the crown were not, however, equal in efficiency to those contained in the English statute of Anne. At the time of the act 33 Geo. III. being passed, the Irish pensions amounted to 124,000l., and the amount was not reduced to 80,000l. until 1814. By the 1 Geo. IV. c. 1, the Irish Pension List was further reduced to 50,000l., no grants exceeding 1200l. to be made in any one year until the list was so reduced.

The statute of 1 Anne, having been passed prior to the Union, did not affect Scotland; and pensions were accordingly granted by the crown for life, or for lives, in possession or in reversion, without restriction in amount, or in the duration of the grant, other than the amount of the revenues, and the claims and burdens already upon them. By the 50 Geo. III. c. 3, the principle of parliamentary interference was established in reference to the hereditary revenues of Scotland, the amount of the pensions was reduced to 25,000l., and no more than 8001. was to be granted in any one year, until such reduction was effected. At this period, the Civil List pensions of Scotland amounted to 39,3791. By the 1 Geo. IV. c. 1, the hereditary revenues of Scotland were placed to the account of the consolidated fund.

Certain duties, called the four and a half per cent. duties, were not withdrawn from the private control of the crown until 1830, when they were surrendered by William IV. for his life, the pensions then chargeable upon them continuing payable. On the accession of King William IV. there was nothing therefore to prevent the Pension Lists of England, Ireland, and Scotland being consolidated; and this was effected by 1 Wm. IV. c. 25, which also made provision for their reduction, on the expiration of existing interests, from an amount of 145,750l. net, to a future maximum sum of 75,000l. The Pension List for England was at this period 74,2001. net; Scotland, 23,650l.; Ireland, 47,900l.

In 1830 the ministry of the Duke of Wellington was overthrown, on the question of referring the Civil List (which comprises the Pension List) to a select committee, Sir Henry Parnell's motion to that effect being carried by 233 against 204.

In February, 1834, in order to define with greater precision the class of persons to whom the grant of pensions ought to be confined, Lord Althorp, chancellor of the exchequer (afterwards Earl Spencer), moved resolutions to the following effect, which were agreed to by the House of Commons:-"That it is the bounden duty of the responsible advisers of the crown to recommend to his Majesty for grants of pensions on the Civil List, such persons only as have just claims on the royal beneficence, or who, by their personal services to the crown, by the performance of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in science and attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their sovereign and the gratitude of their country."

On the accession of Queen Victoria, in 1837, the subject of pensions was again considered; and a select committee of the House of Commons, appointed to inquire into the Civil List, recommended-" That in place of granting a sum of 75,000l. for Civil List pensions, her majesty should be empowered to grant in every year new pensions on the Civil List to the amount of 1200l., these pensions to be granted in strict conformity with the resolutions of the House of Commons, of February, 1834." These views were adopted by the House, and embodied in the 1 Vict. c. 2, the words of the resolution being introduced into the Act. [CIVIL LIST.] Since the accession of Queen Victoria, still greater force has been given to the spirit of the Act, in consequence of the recommendations of a select committee of the House of Commons, appointed in December, 1837, to inquire how far the pensions charged on the Civil List, as settled on the accession of William IV., ought to be continued, “having due regard to the just claims of the parties, and to economy in the public expenditure." This com