By W. L. Barker, Esq. 147 



and criminal, with officers for the due execution of justice therein. 

 He, as we are told by Lord Coke, " did upon this occasion gird his 

 son John with a sword, and set on his head a cap of fur, and upon 

 the same a circle of gold and pearls, and named him Duke of 

 Lancaster, and thereof gave to him and his heirs male of his body, 

 and delivered to him a Charter," — a Charter similar to that which 

 had been granted to Henry II., Duke of England, which by the 

 way shows that b}' the very grant itself, the Duke is treated as a 

 subject. And this grant his father in the 36th year of his reign, 

 caused to be confirmed in full Parliament, and again in the 60th 

 year of the same reign, in another full Parliament, the county of 

 Lancaster was erected into a county Palatine, and granted to the 

 said Duke for his natural life. The Palatinate honors and privileges 

 which were so granted were afterwards confirmed to him for his 

 " whole life," by his nephew Pichard II., and made perpetual by 

 an Act of Parliament made and passed in the first year of the reign 

 of the Duke's son, Henry IV., by which the Dutchy of Lancaster 

 was settled upon that King (who was the lineal and right heir- 

 male of the Duke) and his heirs collateral as well as lineal ; by 

 virtue of which settlement they were united with the Dutchy, and 

 are now vested in the person of her present Majesty. Now, j'ou 

 will observe that all these grants expressly refer to the county of 

 Lancaster and Palatinate honors and privileges only, so that the 

 lands which form part of the Dutchy and not the county — take 

 those of the Borough of Hungerford for example — are not of course 

 affected by them. How then could the Duke of Lancaster grant 

 that which he never possessed? But admitting for one moment 

 that the Duke had the same title to the whole Dutchy as to the 

 county Palatine, yet it is manifest that he took nothing more than 

 an estate for his life in it, and that he could not therefore alienate 

 it for a longer time. And even admitting that his title was abso- 

 lutely free, yet it did not invest him with the power of incorporation 

 — a power which has never been vested in any subject. It appears 

 too, by an entry in the oldest Hock-tide Court Book extant, which 

 commences in 24 Eliz., 1571, which you see before you, that Edw. 

 III., the father of John 0. Gaunt was the true donor. The entry 



