eighth year of his reign (A.D. 1253), on his younger son Edmund, who afterwards surrendered it to his elder brother Prince Edward. By act 21 Rich. II. cap. 9, the Earldom of Chester was erected into a principality, and, although this act was repealed by act 1 Hen. IV. cap. 3, the Earldom of Chester has, ever since, been granted in conjunction with the Principality of Wales." 28

NOTE C. (PAGE 283.)

The first creation of a Duchy in England was by a charter granted by Edward the Third, dated March 17th, A.D. 1337 (11) Edw. III.), in favour of his son, named Edward the Black Prince, who had been created Duke in Parliament, Monday next after the Feast of St. Matthew preceding, to hold to himself and to the eldest sons of him and his heirs, Kings of England; by virtue of which charter, the eldest son of the King of England is by law acknowledged Duke of Cornwall the instant he is born. The Dukedom, however, reverts to the crown if the King's eldest son dies during his father's lifetime, leaving a son; for the holder of the Dukedom must be the King's eldest son, as well as heir to the throne. It cannot, therefore, descend to the King's second son, in the event of the King's eldest son dying without issue. This explains the reason why Richard the Second and Henry the Fifth were created Dukes of Cornwall, who were not so by birthright.

Richard the Second was not a King's son, but grandson, his father, the Black Prince, having died before the death of Edward the Third; Henry the Fifth was not the heir of the person (the Black Prince) originally created Duke of Cornwall, but of his younger brother, viz., John of Gaunt, the fourth son of Edward the Third, who was the father of Henry the Fourth, the direct line having died out in Richard the Second. Edward the Fifth was created Duke of Cornwall, although the eldest son of the reigning monarch, who was himself the heir of the Black Prince, his father probably considering it the safer means of investing the Duchy in him; inasmuch as he was not born Duke of Cornwall, and only became so by the death of Edward Plantagenet.

SONS OF EDWARD III.

TO ILLUSTRATE THE GENEALOGY OF THE DUKES OF CORNWALL.

In consequence of the interest and importance of this subject at the present moment, I here add the following extract from the "London Review," of February 28th, 1863:

"The Earldom of Cornwall, which preceded the Duchy, may be said to be coeval with the Conquest. Earl Robert of Mortaigne, the half-brother of the King, is returned in Domesday Book as the holder of nearly all the county, the Church lands and a few manors held by the King himself excepted. The rapacious Earl had even stolen some of the Church lands (hanc terram abstulit comes ecclesiæ S. Michaelis, says the record). The Earldom was always in the hands of the King, or of some prince of the blood, down to the time of the creation of the Duchy by Edward III., but its possessions were squandered by the profuse grants of successive holders. In the reign of Henry III., however, the revenue of the Earldom was so large, as to prove formidable to English liberties; in the struggles between the King and De Montfort, the King's brother Richard, the King of the Romans, devoted his wealth to the pay of German mercenaries, and there are manors in Cornwall whose names still show that they were once held by the free-lances who fought at the battles of Lewes and Evesham. Edward III., as is well known, created the Duchy of Cornwall in the person of his son the Black Prince, and upon the true interpretation of the words of the gift, 'Eidem Duci et ipsius et hæredum suorum regum Angliæ filiis primogenitis et dicti loci ducibus in regno Angliæ hereditarie successuris,' depends the controversy between Mr. Gladstone, Mr. A. Smith, and Sir John Trelawny. Luckily we are not called upon to interpret the limitation anew, as its meaning has been settled by several precedents. The first question upon it arose upon the death of the Black Prince in the lifetime of his father, leaving a son afterwards Richard II., and it was decided that Richard did not succeed to the Duchy because he was not the first-born son of a King of England. This precedent would be perhaps out of date, but no similar circumstance occurred till the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales, in the lifetime of George II., when an Act of Parliament (33 Geo. II. cap. 10) was passed, which declared the King to be Duke of Cornwall, and gave him a power of leasing the possessions of the Duchy. Mr. Augustus Smith was, therefore, quite right last week when he said that on the death of a Prince of Wales leaving a son, the Duchy reverted to the crown; and although Mr. Gladstone's statement in reply was correct in its facts, it had no bearing on the argument. Mr. Gladstone's facts were an answer to the second question-whether on the death of a Prince of Wales without issue, but leaving a second brother, the Dukedom would pass to that brother; and it is clear that, according to former decisions, it would. The second son fulfils the condition of being a King's son, which the son of the Prince would not be; and although it might be thought that he was not primogenitus, yet it has been settled that this word is not restricted to the son

actually first-born, but includes the first-born surviving son. This was decided upon the death of Arthur, the eldest brother of Henry VIII, and upon the death of Henry, the eldest brother of Charles I., and was acted upon in the case of the deaths of the infant children of Henry VIII., and the infant eldest brother of Charles II. Coke, indeed, reports differently in the Prince's case; but, his report on this point was declared by the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, who presided at the trial of the case, to be erroneous, and it was disapproved of in the last century by Lord Hardwicke. Sir John Trelawny was, therefore, wrong in denying that a second son of the King would succeed to the Duchy of Cornwall upon the death, in the lifetime of the father, of the first son without issue, and we may perhaps correctly and succinctly describe the qualifications of the Duke of Cornwall, when we say he must be the son and heir-apparent of the reigning Sovereign; and if there be no such person, the Duchy is, pro tempore, merged in the crown.

"It must not be concealed that the ameliorated condition of the Duchy of Cornwall may hereafter be a source of anxiety. The proposal to charge the jointure of the Princess Alexandra upon its revenues, to the principle of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer half assented, could not, it is plain, be entertained without an infringement not only of the private rights of the Queen, but of those of the possible future Dukes, the younger brethren of the Prince. On the other hand, an accumulation, under present circumstances, of the revenues of the Duchy during a minority coexistent with that of the Prince of Wales, would produce two millions of money, and render the heir to the Crown virtually independent of Parliament. The danger may be to us imaginary, but it remains possible, and its existence should be remembered."