and to the plain matter of fact as to those times, without considering what political cause there might be to prevent the crown from introducing occasional counsellors into the house of lords.[305] [Sidenote: Bannerets summoned to house of lords.] It is manifest by many passages in these records that bannerets were frequently summoned to the upper house of parliament, constituting a distinct class inferior to barons, though generally named together, and ultimately confounded, with them.[306] Barons are distinguished by the appellation of Sire, bannerets have only that of Monsieur, as le Sire de Berkeley, le Sire de Fitzwalter, Monsieur Richard Scrop, Monsieur Richard Stafford. In the 7th of Richard II. Thomas Camoys having been elected knight of the shire for Surrey, the king addresses a writ to the sheriff, directing him to proceed to a new election, cum hujusmodi banneretti ante hæc tempora in milites comitatus ratione alicujus parliamenti eligi minime consueverunt. Camoys was summoned by writ to the same parliament. It has been inferred from hence by Selden that he was a baron, and that the word banneret is merely synonymous.[307] But this is contradicted by too many passages. Bannerets had so far been considered as commoners some years before that they could not be challenged on juries.[308] But they seem to have been more highly estimated at the date of this writ. The distinction, however, between barons and bannerets died away by degrees. In the 2nd of Henry VI.[309] Scrop of Bolton is called le Sire de Scrop; a proof that he was then reckoned among the barons. The bannerets do not often appear afterwards by that appellation as members of the upper house. Bannerets, or, as they are called, banrents, are enumerated among the orders of Scottish nobility in the year 1428, when the statute directing the common lairds or tenants in capite to send representatives was enacted; and a modern historian justly calls them an intermediate order between the peers and lairds.[310] Perhaps a consideration of these facts, which have frequently been overlooked, may tend in some measure to explain the occasional discontinuance, or sometimes the entire cessation, of writs of summons to an individual or his descendants; since we may conceive that bannerets, being of a dignity much inferior to that of barons, had no such inheritable nobility in their blood as rendered their parliamentary privileges a matter of right. But whether all those who without any baronial tenure received their writs of summons to parliament belonged to the order of bannerets I cannot pretend to affirm; though some passages in the rolls might rather lead to such a supposition.[311]