In old times, the Lords of Manors formed an upper class of the gentry of this country; and although, when compared with their great number, but few of them had been summoned to Parliament, yet they were liable to be summoned. It was from among them that the barons were selected; and even now, on account of their obsolete privileges, they may, in some manner, claim a superiority over the other gentry, or untitled nobility.

The English manor derives its origin from a very early time; for it would appear that, since the enactment of certain statutes in the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century, the process of subinfeudation, or granting land to be held in vassalage by knights service ceased. The lord of a manor is invested with high privileges. A court baron is inseparably incident to a manor, where the lord presides either in his own person or by his steward; and the jurisdiction of this Court extends over certain actions connected both with personal and real property. A Manor, in the original meaning of the term, consisted of lands upon which the lord had a mansion, and to which lands and mansion there belonged a seigniory over freeholders qualified in respect of quantity of estate, and sufficient, in point of number, to constitute a Court Baron, and these freeholders were called Vavassors. When we consider the importance of the station and privileges of Lords of Manors, and when we know that many families of the untitled English gentry have held that distinguished position from father to son, counting from the Norman conquest down to the present time, we cannot conceive how any doubt should ever have arisen as to the true nobility of the class to which they belong.

In Scotland the possession of a barony gave the holder a higher rank than that of gentlemen equally well descended who were not Barons. The Barons held their lands directly of the Crown. It was the barons only who witnessed the King's charters, and who are noted in the great historical instruments of the kingdom, such as the Decree at Brigham, in 1289, by which the Scottish nobles agreed to the marriage of Margaret, of Norway, with Edward, Prince of England; or the acknowledgment of Robert, the Lord High Steward, as inheritor of the Scottish Crown in 1371. Until the reign of JAMES I. of Scotland, the Barons, whatever might be their varying degree of power, were all peers, and, together with the Earls, formed the great council of the kingdom. During, and after, the reign of JAMES I., many barons appear more exclusively as lords of Parliament, and stand, like the earls, apart from, and above, the other barons. But still it may be doubted whether all the barons did not continue to possess a right to attend Parliament, and to be ranked as peers of the lords of Parliament, until 1587, in the reign of JAMES VI., when a new rule was instituted, according to which they were required to send representatives of their order from each sheriffdom, instead of personally attending. Thus the barons who were not lords of Parliament came to be the "Lesser Barons;" but although they had no longer the character of peers of the higher nobility, they still continued superior in rank to those of the gentry who were not lords of baronies; and their rights of barony, derived from the Crown, always included higher feudal privileges than those possessed by the rest of the gentry. It may be considered that the lord of a barony in Scotland holds a far higher rank than the ordinary continental noble; and the landed gentry of Scotland, whether they were lords of baronies, or whether they held their possessions by an inferior feudal tenure, stood exactly on the same footing with the continental nobility. They were all noble; and nothing is more untrue than our ignorant mistake of confining the epithet "noble" to peers, and withholding it from the gentry. The station of a Laird or country gentleman holding the title of "Baron," in Scotland, derived directly from the Crown, is at the very least on an equality with that of baron, count, or marquis, in France, when their titles were lawfully granted by the King, and is infinitely superior to those assumed titles of which the recognition depended on the mere courtesy of society.

We would except from the depreciation of the continental nobility the French dukes and the German princes and counts of the Empire, which last held so high a place among the nobles of Europe as to be admitted pari passu in point of alliances with Royalty. As regards intermarriage with the Royal family, there has always been a greater liberty allowed in this country to the subject to contract such alliances than has been permitted in most continental states. A special law has indeed been, of late, enacted, preventing the Royal family of Great Britain from intermarrying with subjects; or, at least, rendering the issue of such marriages incapable of succeeding to the Crown. But this Act cannot be said to imply the degradation of the subject. It was merely a wise measure of political precaution; and it had no reference to any incapacity on the part of the British noble or gentleman from matching with a princess, as his ancestor had done many centuries ago. Until the passing of this Act, such intermarriages were perfectly lawful in England, although they were not so in Germany. The Duke of Gloucester, brother of King GEORGE III., contracted a lawful marriage when he espoused the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave, who was a natural daughter of Sir Edward Walpole. This marriage was, however, peculiar, and may be considered as a mesalliance in this country, as it would have been in Germany, in consequence of the taint of illegitimacy. Had she been Sir Edward Walpole's lawful daughter, it would have been no mesalliance. A greater social liberty pervades all our genealogical relations, carried even to the highest rank, than is the case in the continental countries. The marriage of the Duke of Sussex with Lady Augusta Murray, the daughter of a great and illustrious House, boasting of much royal blood, was as binding a marriage in the eye of God as that of his uncle with Countess Waldegrave; and socially, in consequence of the more exalted birth of the lady, it ought to be considered as much less a mesalliance than the other. The only difference was, that between the dates of the two marriages, an Act of the Legislature had been passed which rendered such alliances unlawful, and deprived their issue of any right of succession.

In Germany the, rule was different. No prince, member of a reigning House, could contract a marriage, except "á la main gauche," with any lady who did not possess the equality of birth which belongs to Sovereign Houses.

Apart from the Royal Marriage Act, the British peers and gentry would now be just as capable of intermarriage with the family of the King as they previously were. The Sovereign, feudally considered, is only "primus inter pares." The line of demarcation which has thus been formed is quite a novelty. In the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, the intermarriages of the Sovereigns, and their sons and daughters, both in England and in Scotland, with the nobility, was a matter of the most common occurrence; and such alliances were not confined to the highest nobility merely. Lords of Parliament of the rank of Barons, Knights, and Scottish Lords of Baronies, were frequently admitted to this high honour. The monarch often married the daughter of his subject; and the daughter of the monarch, in like manner, espoused a simple noble. This would seem to place a Scottish lesser baron on the same footing, socially and genealogically, with a Count of the German Empire. For to what more royal alliance could one of that august body attain than that of a knight of Swinton, or of Edmonstone, with the daughter of the reigning King?

Those illustrious Scottish families, moreover, who held their lands by Regality, or as Palatinates, seem to have stood much in the same position, as regarded Scotland, with that of the reigning princes and counts as regarded the Germanic Empire. They could not, however, be justly said to be on a footing with these German potentates, insomuch as the German Emperor was at the head of the body of Christian monarchs, and his immediate princely vassal held a different place on the scale of Europe from a princely vassal of the King of Scotland. These Palatines, however, were possessed of sovereign rights which may be regarded as identical with those of the princely vassals of the kingdoms of the Continent. Their power was the same in nature and essence, although the theatre on which that power was exercised was much more circumscribed. The Earl of March, the Earl of Stratherne, of the Earl of Douglas, may be said to have stood on the same footing, as regarded the Scottish monarch, with the great feudal Princes in the ancient French kingdom, who, though vassals of the king, enjoyed sovereign power in their own territories.

About the middle of the 18th century, the heritable jurisdictions in Scotland were abolished. But until then, the Scottish lords of Regality retained their jurisdiction, and may be regarded as holding to their Sovereign, the position which the German Princes and Counts of the Empire held to the German Emperor. The dignity and rank of a Scottish Lord of Regality and a German reigning Prince, however, though similar in essence, was very different according to the way in which their relative positions were modified; for the German counts and princes were the vassals of him who, as the successor of the Roman Emperor, was the head of the Western Empire, and the chief of all the sovereigns of Christendom; whereas the King of Scotland was only one of the members of the great community of sovereigns.

The condition, moreover, of the great vassals of the German Emperor became more and more independent, in consequence of the elective nature of the Imperial dignity; whereas in the hereditary kingdoms of Europe the power of the Crown gradually predominated, and deprived the great vassals of their authority. Thus we see that in France the great feudal nobles and princely vassals who originally stood in the same powerful position with the German princes, were gradually absorbed in the monarchy; whereas the latter became more and more independent, and were at length fully recognised as sovereign and reigning. Thus, both the grandeur and the weakness of the imperial power of Germany favoured the lofty pretensions of the great vassals of the Empire. Hi, to whom they were vassals, was at once so great that kings owned his superiority, and so weak that dukes, princes, and counts would scarcely acknowledge his authority. In the different hereditary monarchies, on the other hand, the King, duri8ng successive generation, became more and more influential, and was aided in this extension of his prerogative by the rising importance of the towns and of the middle class. We cannot here enter upon the subject at length; but it may suffice to say that, while the power of the Crown gradually repressed and curtailed that of the great vassals, those potent feudatories, such as the Earl of Chester and the Bishop of Durham in England, of the Earls of March, Douglas and Stratherne, in Scotland, however supreme they might be in their own domains, or however influential within their respective native countries, could hardly pretend to the position of sovereign princes which was enjoyed by the contemporary great feudal potentates in Germany. The Earl of March, and afterwards the Earl of Douglas, attempted, indeed, to assert something of the kind towards their native sovereigns; but their ambition ended in swift destruction. In England the only Palatine in modern times was the Bishop of Durham, who retained his original rights and dignities until the other day, when they were extinguished. But until then he was as much a Prince Bishop as regarded the realm of England, as an Elector of Mayence, or of Treves, or of Cologne was a Prince Bishop as regarded the Empire of Germany.

In the 17th century we have instances of a simple Scottish baron being regarded as a proper match for a princely German House. Count Leslie, the younger son of the lesser baron of Balquhan, in Aberdeenshire, intermarried with the House of Liebtenstein, in Austria. And there can be no question that in those days there was as little doubt on the continent concerning the nobility of the British untitled gentry as was the case two hundred years before, when they were permitted freely to intermarry with the royal houses of their own country.

To modern ideas, this unqualified assertion of the true nobility of the British gentry may seem very strange; and custom arising, in the first place, from insular isolation and ignorance, has made great changes. Yet no social change can be so great as the utter oblivion into which the right of the gentry of this country to be considered as noble, has within recent generations so strangely fallen.

Read part 4 of 4.