Stirling peerage

APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION. cxix
and to the asserting and maintaining of his riglit of voting at
the then ensuing election meeting, for choosing the Peers to
represent the whole Peers of Scotland in Parliament, consider-
ing that the said Alexander, Earl of Stikling, is a Peer of
Scotland, and as such has, by a signed list, named sixteen peers
of Scotland to sit and vote in the House of Peers of the ensuing
Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, upon the calling of the great roll, and the production
of which signed list, the Earl of Rosebery stated, he should
not oppose the reception of the list signed by the gentleman
who had assumed the title of Earl of Stirling, particularly
as his vote had been admitted on a former occasion ; but at
the same time, he was desirous of expressing an opinion that
it would be far more consistent with regularity and propriety,
were those individuals who conceived they were entitled to
dormant Peerages, to make good their claims to them before
the House of Lords, previous to taking the titles, and exer-
cising the privileges attached to them : and considering that
the said statement, while it admitted the right of the said
Alexander, Earl of Stirling, to have his signed list
received, and give his vote thereby, contained matter irregu-
larly expressive of the opinion of an individual Peer, and
although received by the deputies of the Lord Clerk Register,
oflSciating at the election meeting, was nevertheless invidious
towards the person to whose case it referred, as well as dero-
gatory to the dignity of the Peers of Scotland generally, in
assuming to dictate to them that they ought to submit the jus
sanguinis for their honorial successions, to previous determi-
nation before a tribunal which is invested with no original
right of jurisdiction either by the law or by the constitution :
— Wherefore, I, the said Ephraim Lockhart, specially autho-
rized as aforesaid, do hereby protest against the opinion of the
said Earl of Rosebery, expressed in the said statement, and
maintain that the said Alexander, Earl of Stirling,
ought not to make good his claim of Peerage before the House
of Lords, which to do, would be to confess a doubt of his own
character, do what in him lay to surrender the rights of the
Peers of Scotland, and concede a jurisdiction, which, in any
case of Scottish Peerage, is not recognized by the Act of
Union, or made imperative by any other statute of the Legis-
lature : — Whereupon I, specially authorized as aforesaid,
take instruments in the hands of Mr George Robertson,
Deputy Keeper of the Records of Scotland, at Holyrood