Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester. Vol. LXXV

This book is the 75th volume of the “Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester” which was published by Chetham Society in 1869. The abstract of the Earl Marshal's order regarding Funeral Certificates, here printed, precludes the necessity of further observation on the subject; but perhaps it may be remarked that it is questionable whether the certificates were taken on the mere request of the executors or survivors of the deceased, or whether the Kings of arms of each province, respectively, were authorized, nolens volens, to enforce the order of the Earl Marshal in every or any case in which the deceased was of gentilitial rank. The probability seems to be that the practice followed the wish of the family survivors rather than that the officers of arms compelled them to conform to the Earl Marshal's orders. This opinion is strengthened from the comparatively few certificates on record throughout the kingdom. Very few indeed are preserved even of peers, these being exclusively under Garter's jurisdiction, and apparently seldom recorded in the college of arms. There is no doubt, however, that the Kings of arms had, and did exercise, jurisdiction over the armorial ensigns used at funerals, whether the formal attendance at funeral solemnities was observed, or certificates of the state of the family of the defunct were taken, as many instances occur of the exercise of such jurisdiction, and are noticed in the college books. Some important facts and the principal ascertained incidents of the life of each individual, have, for the first time, been brought together. The annotations are restricted to the subject; and private opinions on the conduct and proceedings of the deceased have not, it is hoped, been unnecessarily or offensively obtruded on the reader. Some of the footnotes contain original information that may provide future biographers with material from which to form an accurate judgment of the characters, principles, and habitual habits of some of our most prominent Lancashire worthy people, and it is hoped that this Statement will be received as a summary of the motives of the authors of these notes.