the Duchy of Lancaster are really Duchies as distinguished from the Dukedoms enjoyed by other people having the designation of Duke. The title of Marquis dates from 1386, when Richard II. created Robert de Vere Marquis of Dublin; and the title of Viscount from 1440, when the Viscounty of Beaumont was created. The first Barony by Letters Patent was created in 1387, but the oldest surviving barony by patent now in existence dates from 1448, when Sir John Stourton was created Baron and Lord Stourton of Stourton, co. Wilts. The present Lord Mowbray, Segrave and Stourton, who has inherited the barony of Stourton, also claims, as Lord Mowbray, to be the premier baron of England although the barony of Mowbray is placed on the roll of precedence after the baronies of Le Despenser and De Ros. Although earldoms were granted by charters from the earliest period, because, attached to the earldom, were also material rights which needed to be conveyed, patents did not come into use for baronies until it was desired to limit the succession of the peerage to the heirs male of the body of the grantee, which is a limitation and a less heirship than is comprised in the enjoyment of an honour in fee simple. Privilege of peerage with all it entails has been a slow growth of accretion; and save for place and precedence and the right of any peer or peeress to be tried in the House of Lords, and the now limited and threatened right of peers to legislate, little of privilege of peerage remains. The peerage of Scotland is very similar to that of England, and, before the Union, the principal difference between the two countries was the persistency with which the Scottish peerage remained attached to the land. Until a late date a patent creating a Scottish peerage erected certain lands into a barony or earldom as the case might be, and entailed those lands with the dignity. The difference arising from this form of procedure was more than counterbalanced by the recognised and constantly-adopted procedure of resigning a Scottish inheritance into the hands of the Crown, and then obtaining what is known as a “Novodamus,” with either the same or different limitations.