It is the same with Mediæval Heraldry and Gothic Art. We may apply to our own times, our own uses, our own delight, what the old Heralds and the Gothic Artists have taught us, without even dreaming of wearing armour or re-establishing the feudal system. True Heraldry (for it is with Heraldry that I am now more especially concerned) is a Science, and it also is an Art, for all time--for our times, and for future times, as well as for the times that are past. If we understand and appreciate it, we shall not fail to use and to apply it aright. [Illustration: No. 449.--Seal of Sir WALTER SCOTT, of Branxholm and Kirkurd, A.D. 1529. (Laing).] From the initial-letter of my first Chapter I suspended the Shield borne by that Sir WALTER SCOTT, of Abbotsford, whose name will ever be a household word with every lover of what is chivalrous and knightly. Here I place the Seal, No. 449, of an earlier Sir WALTER SCOTT, of Branxholm and Kirkurd--a Knight of another branch of the same distinguished House, who differenced the Shield of Scott so as to bear--_Or, on a bend azure a mullet and two crescents gold_. CHAPTER XXIII PEERAGE DIGNITIES _The Dignity of Earl-- Of Baron-- The Parliament of 1295-- Landed Qualifications-- Creation of the Title Duke of Cornwall-- The Title of Marquis-- The Premier Baron of England-- The Peerage of Scotland-- Scottish remainders-- Daughter Inherits in her own right-- Determination of an Abeyance-- The Right to Create Peers of Ireland-- Rights and Privileges of a Peeress-- The Daughters of Peers-- Anomalies of the English Scale of Precedence._ Although the name of the dignity of Earl is derived from a Saxon word, the dignity itself, like all others, is more Norman than Saxon in its character. At the period of the Conquest, and whilst the Norman dynasty was on the throne, there were a number of people who bore this title. At that time and for long afterwards, certainly well into the Plantagenet period, an Earl within his earldom was little short of a petty sovereign. Issues of justice and many other rights of regality were in his hands, and he occupied a position very much akin to a viceroy for the King, seeing that what he did he did in his own name and as Earl, or “comes,” of the County. The High Sheriff was the “vice-comes.” Some of the earldoms had more extensive rights of regality than others, some were actual palatinates, and all earldoms originally were honours in fee heritable by the heir-general. Earldoms had a territorial nature, and the Earl took his “third penny” in the issues of the Courts in his earldom.