Page:The English Reports v3 1901.pdf/417

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VOLUME VIII.



APPENDIX I.

consisting of

MODERN CASES;

Viz. Such as are subsequent to the year 1778, (the Period when the first Edition of Mr. Brown's Parliament Cases concluded,) and which did not reach the Hand of the Editor in Time to be inserted in the Order prescribed by Mr. Brown's Arrangement of the Cases for the present Edition.—They are inserted in this Appendix in Chronological Order.



Case 1.—The Honourable Basil William Douglas, commonly called Lord Daer, eldest Son of Dunbar Earl of Selkirk,—Appellant; The Honourable Keith Stewart, and Others, Freeholders of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright,—Respondents [26th March 1793].

[Disability referred to in this case removed by 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 65. s. 37.]

[The eldest son of a peer of Scotland is not eligible to represent a Scotch county in the commons house of parliament.]

[Interlocutor of the Court of Session affirmed.]

The case on which this appeal arose was stated by the respondents to be exceedingly important, as it involved a question affecting the constitution of parliament, namely, "Whether the eldest son of a peer of Scotland can represent a Scotch county in the British house of commons?"—In support of the negative of this proposition the respondents entered into the following historical deduction.

The first authentic record from which the constituent members of the king's great council or parliament can be traced [2] with any degree of certainty, are the statutes of William I. commonly called William the Lion, who began to reign in 1165; they are thus titled: "Statuta sive assissæ regis Willielmi regis Scotiæ factæ apud Perth coram episcopis, abbatibus, baronibus et aliis probis hominibus terræ suæ;" and the first chapter begins with these remarkable words, "Placuit regi et consilio suo." The episcopi, the abbates, and the barones, are well known. The term alii probi homines terræ suæ, which is likewise to be found in the 2d chapter of the statutes of Alexander II. is indeed both comprehensive and vague. It appears, however, to have been applicable to the liberi tenentes, or smaller barons, who held of the Crown; for, in the 32d chapter of the Statuta Willielmi, there is an enumera-

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