Although there is one judgment to the contrary, it is now pretty universally admitted that there is no such thing as an Irish Barony by writ. With the union of England and Scotland, no further peerages of either country were created, and subsequent peerages were either of Great Britain or of Ireland; and it has been already judicially decided by the House of Lords that the power to create a Scottish peerage does not now exist in the Crown. There is no similar judgment in relation to a peerage of England, but the fact is that no attempt has since been made to create one, and though the point up to the present time still has to be decided, it is certainly a matter for argument whether or not such a right remains. Since the union of Great Britain with Ireland no further peerages of Great Britain or of England have been created, but the right to create peers of Ireland was specifically retained under certain conditions and has been constantly taken advantage of. Other peerages since created have, however, been of the United Kingdom. Whether or not we shall ever have peerages of the Empire remains a matter for the future. Since the latter part of the seventeenth century it has been the custom for peers and peeresses in their own right to sign simply by the designation of their peerage. The peeress by marriage prefixes her Christian name or initials to her husband’s title. It is statute law in Scotland, but not in England, that no person may sign his surname without prefixing a Christian name or initials. A peeress by marriage who is also a peeress in her own right signs first her husband’s title, adding her own afterwards; for instance, the signature of the Countess of Yarborough is Marcia Yarborough, Fauconberg and Conyers. One cannot call to mind in recent times any instances in which the peeress in her own right has married a peer of lower rank than her own, and until such a case occurs it is difficult to forecast what the signature should be. A peeress by marriage after re-marriage loses all privilege of peerage and precedence, and all right which she acquired by marriage, but as a matter of courtesy she usually retains her peerage designation if her subsequent marriage is to a commoner. The daughter of a peer if married to another peer takes the precedence of her husband and relinquishes her own, but she retains it if she marries a commoner; and one of the anomalies of the English scale of precedence is to be found in the following circumstances. If the two elder daughters of a Duke were to marry an Earl and a Baron respectively, whilst the youngest daughter were to run away with the footman, she would, nevertheless, rank as the daughter of a Duke above her sisters ranking as wives of an Earl and a Baron. INDEX