Note c — Chapter VIII · (continued 3)

The lords' committee do not like, apparently, to admit that bannerets were summoned to the house of lords as a distinct class of peers. "It is observable," they say, "that this statute (5 Ric. II. c. 4) speaks of bannerets as well as of dukes, earls, and barons, as persons bound to attend the parliament; but it does not follow that banneret was then considered as a name of dignity distinct from that honourable knighthood under the king's banner in the field of battle, to which precedence of all other knights was attributed." p. 342. But did the committee really believe that all the bannerets of whom we read in the reigns of Richard II. and afterwards had been knighted at Crecy and Poictiers? The name is only found in parliamentary proceedings during comparatively pacific times.